The Brilliance of the Message and the Messenger

[CatBO]

Obama's team strikes me as quite brilliant today. They know better than to go directly for Sarah Palin, for several reasons:

1. They have deniability - McCain's camp clearly expected that Obama would begin attacking Palin out of the gate. Rick Davis and other McCain representatives are desperately trying to pin the attacks of Palin on Obama, even stooping as low as to say that pages that mention his name are attacking her. They are forced to do this, because they expected Obama to attack Palin and crafted their response to that, and it did not happen.

2. Palin may still drop out - Why bother muddling the message and focusing on Palin when there's a fighting chance she's not going to be on the ticket in November? Why waste money on that?

3. Palin's Achilles heel has not been identified yet - The media has thrown everything up against the wall. Obama's people are just waiting to see what sticks. Again, why waste money on what they perceive might be her most vulnerable spot (AIP, Troopergate, speaking on tongues) when the media can sift out the non-starters and find the weak spot for Obama.

4. Going after Palin makes her important - Palin is not important. Not yet. She's not the red meat here, McCain is. The ticket has McCain at the top. If you've got a Rottweiler and a Chihuahua to deal with, you focus on the Rottweiler and save the Chihuahua for later.

Obama is wisely waiting, and not changing his message. In fact, I think I must live in a swing state now, because here in North Carolina during the evening news and Millionaire last night I saw not one, not two, but three Obama ads - all of them his new "Same" campaign ad.

It's brilliant.

[marylanddem]

1. I hope you're right.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. I wish that were entirely true, but Obama responded to comparisons between himself and Palin today

Not a good move. She's nobody, he's our presidential candidate. I hope it was only a temporary slip and I sure don't think it did much damage, but our side has to find a way to discourage comparisons between a new VP candidate and our presidential candidate. That does us no good at all.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I agree.

I don't think completely ignoring the repuke's childish baiting is required. But essentially noting it, with the focus not on the stunt pick herself, but on the one who pulled the stunt - McCain - who continues to use poor judgement and put stunt politics ahead of country, is prudent.