Tactics v Strategy

Obama was against FISA. Obama was for FISA. Obama was against offshore drilling. Obama is for offshore drilling. Obama said Ayers was just a neighbor. Ayers was a business colleague. Obama said Reverend Wright was his spiritual mentor. Obama said he never heard Wright da** America when the tapes were on sale in the lobby of his church.
The list is endless.
Spy vs Spy. It must be getting tough to find blog topics, JT.

McCain believes because his family was well-to-do that he is entitled to the presidency. This has been his attitude all his life. He doesn’t care about anything else except himself, that’s why he picked a total idiot as his running mate because it would help him with the base and women voters. Luckily people have finally caught on. The last thing this country needs is another spoiled brat who doesn’t have a clue how to run things as President.

When you can’t win on issues, you have to come up with these bizarre tactics – picking a VP in over her head, “suspending” the campaign – to try to distract Americans.
After Palin bows out due to “family matters,” the next distraction will be picking Lieberman or Ridge. I hope McCain keeps on being erratic – I actually think this is giving Americans more confidence in Obama to handle the eraticism of say, a Putin, because they see him stay so calm and focused against McCain, who sees the world through his fighter-pilot instincts instead of the rational intelligence of a statesman like Obama.

re: Obama flips – If these things are all true (and I don’t admit that at this point) this is still not the same thing as what Wolfson is writing about.
Obama’s statements are in response to specific issues that come up, not the general message of the campaign. They are potential “gotcha” moments that are initiated external to the campaign.
The McCain campaign is creating its own “gotcha” moments by changing its central message back and forth, and hoping the voters won’t notice it. It is initiated by the campaign – proactive vs. reactive – and connotes a lack of consistent strategy.
A white middle-aged woman in Michigan

I supported McCain in 2000. I’m not supporting him this year because I left the party after the invasion of Iraq.
But his behavior this week makes me think he is very unstable. I don’t feel reassured, confident, that I can know what he will do from one minute to the next. It’s frightening.

One would have to guess that this was a McCain move and not a move his campaign advisors recommended.
It doesn’t say much for his judgment, UNLESS, this is all a pre-cursor to coming out against the bailout (as the House Republicans’ ideas seem like non-starters). Imagine 40 days of McCain running against Bush, Obama, Congress and Wall Street. Oh, and there’s the matter of trying to save the taxpayers $700,000,000,000.
Seems like a winning issue to me.

With the press 100% in the bag for Obama, McCain has to do things a bit differently to catch some press.
If the press was doing their job, reporting objectively and fairly, investigating Obama’s past(such as did Bill Ayers & Co. select and groom Obama in the 1980s – get Obama into the Chicago community organizer system, get Obama into Harvard, put him in politics in Chicago in order to use him later politically), then it would be a different race.
McCain is trying to adapt to an election where the media is totally in support of getting Obama elected and against McCain.

Roger, you assume that the market won’t crash in the mean time. If that happens, *everyone* is going to throw McCain under the bus. Republicans who are up for re-election won’t hesitate. Better to lose the presidency for 4 years than have a veto-proof senate.

There is no tactics here or a strategy. McCain is a like a spoiled little boy who believes all the toys are for him. That kind of behaviour is a lack of maturity or the begining of dementia.

I think the bigger problem has been the “gesture too far”.
Last week, he had a big speech where he tried to tell the American people how we had gotten to this point in the economy. He had some strong language about mortgages, Freddie and Fannie, and Obama’s cozy relationship with Freddie and Fannie.
He also had a brief comment about holding SEC Chairman Cox accountable.
The Cox comment made the news, the other language didn’t.
In regards to suspending the campaign, he should not have tied it to the debate. Instead, he should have said he was suspending the campaign, planned on the debate, but that if bail out negotiations required, he would look at postponeing the debate.
Now it looks like he has changed his mind, and his message is, again, mixed.

johnTX,
My assumption is the bailout passes with most Dems and moderate Republican support. Pelosi has the votes already and Reid should be able to get enough Reps to get to 60 if needed.
Could be the best of both worlds for McCain, politically speaking.

This sounds very much like Craig Shirley the GOP consultant. Here is what he said to the Huffington Post.
“In the end, [McCain] blinked and Obama did not. The ‘steady hand in a storm’ argument looks now to more favor Obama, not McCain…My guess is that plasma units are rushing to the McCain campaign as we speak to replace the blood flowing there from the fights among the staff.” – Craig Shirley.
Still I think the McCain campaign is very lucky that almost no one was listening when Sarah Palin was ranting on CBS, repeating talking points without thinking. Otherwise, this would have been the week when they lost this election.

That Wolfson fellow sure seems to know the inside outs of losing campaigns. Where’d he learn all that stuff?

“tough choice for me, I believe the honest, intelligent, disciplined candidate will help lead this country in a better direction while encouraging engagement and committment from the American People.
”
well, that leaves out Obama.

McCain should be flogged for what he has done to Sarah Palin
She may need PTSD therapy after the election

What is ACORN? And please don’t tell me that it is some corrupt organization that supports Obama or vice versa. As if that would ever get passed on this bail out by either party!!! Come on, be realistic. And I am so tired of hearing about Obama’s past, about his associations with Ayers, and how he was able to get so far in politics because he was set up by his nefarious associates to take over this country, etc. etc. Stop the nonsense. If you know something sinister that is going on, then you need to report it to the proper authorities, like the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, some organization with clout, not the main stream media. They are just looking for a story, sometimes whether it is true or not. You mean to tell me that after all this time, these “intelligence” organizations haven’t been able to come up with anything concrete based on these flimsy innuendoes and spurious aspersions? Then, maybe it’s because you’re just full of crap and can’t think of anything else to say to smear Obama than to throw baseless rumors at him. Otherwise, what other conclusion can we reach. These organizations don’t care about the future of this country, is that it? They are unpatriotic? Just why haven’t they come up with anything yet? Because it’s a whole lot of b.s. that’s why.

McCain wants to go into history books that he was one of the US Presidents.
He has nothing in his mind more than this.

They are doing everything possible to keep the story away from Palin.
Her interviews left most of us thinking we would be a better VP than she is.

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, admitting that until recently she was a vocal supporter of Sarah Palin, now says the vice presidential nominee should bow out:
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there.
It’s so bad, Parker says, that Palin should quit the race:
Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
READY FOR MCCAIN’S NEXT MAGIC TRICK?

Conflicting messages…Follow me here people. McCain claims to be country first, okay. He also says Obama isn’t right for the country (the one he puts first). He then says he’s willing to stay in D.C., miss the debate, and if it has political consequences, he’s willing to take that. So he was willing to let Obama win the Presidency, because he puts country first? Letting someone you dont think is qualified to run the country, win the Presidency doesn’t sound like putting country first. So in other words, everything that he did over the past 48 hours, was pure politics. No way America survives with 4 years of this guy…
Obama/Biden

Why wouldn’t they focus on message instead of strategy. American voters and our political representatives have shown time and again that the short term message is a stronger incentive than any long term strategic decision. Just look at the many examples – voting Bush in for a second term, voting to go to war in Iraq, almost passing the 700B bailout in only a few days time and no real understanding of the situation, wanting to drill, drill, drill because gas prices are up….. let’s face it, we’re reactive more often than proactive.

One of the most difficult things to do is confront a liar, and I expect McCain and his people understand this.
I am really surprised how many commenters on this and other articles still believe what McCain says. Like how he was putting country first by running back to Washington to become the insider he is running against, or something like that. How bald faced the lie on 60 Minutes Sunday to say he believes Sarah Palin is ready to be President.
But you (i.e. Obama) can’t directly challenge outright lies like that without looking bad yourself. So McCain and his crowd are going to try to lie themselves into the White House, and, as other commenters have pointed out, blame the Democrats and Obama for everything.
I really hope it is truly the end of the Nixonian approach to politics. I hope the negative ads and scare tactics don’t work any more. And I really hope that the voters will see McCain’s campaign for the pack of lies that it is.

In modeling, a hidden coupler can cause the model to look one way and the results another. (A hidden coupler is a variable not accounted for that affects the outcome strongly.)
What the media polls aren’t accounting for is the role of the media itself. One has to wonder if that disgust factor with the MSM tanking for one candidate will influence the voters much like the Bradley effect.
QUICK!! Run a poll and find out!
I also wonder if the polling is getting into the fatigue noise where people tell the pollster anything just to get off the phone in hopes the circus will be over soon.

I find McCain’s erratic behavior to be scary rather than that of a maverick.
These are not the actions of a President, or someone who will hold the future of our country in his hands.

It’s clear to me that McCain should not and must not be the next president. McCain lacks the judgement, temperament and more significantly the character to lead. The past two weeks has been very telling. He panicked and was totally out of his depth on the economy and I suspect everythng else.
How he runs his campaign is an indication of how he’ll run the country.
Whatever people think of George W. Bush
at least he’s true to what he believes in. Let history judge him on it but with McCain it’s different. The McCain now seems totally different from the McCain of the past. He’ll do anything and say anything just to become president.

Karl Rove and the Republican election machinery are experts at diverting attention from the issues using personality-based stunts and news cycle tactics like what we’ve seen from McCain since the weeks before the convention. Just reading through these posts, there are NO ISSUES being discussed here, just tactics, rumors, and innuendo. Even the left-leaning comments are focused on distractions and not the real platforms of these candidates. What I see in Obama is a candidate who will encourage innovation and technology, get our public schools back into competitive position, and take the money being spent in Iraq now and use it for rebuilding our infrastructure and jump starting the green technology industry. On the other side, there isn’t one long-term economic solution coming from the McCain camp that doesn’t exactly mirror the failed policies of President Bush. No investment in shoring up our economic base, no technology development, no innovation, no teaching our young people the skills needed to be competitive in the global marketplace. Nothin. Tax cuts are great, but they really only help in the short term, and we are officially in a long-term crisis that will need more than the tax-cut band aid.
I’m tired of hearing about the same old recycled divisive non-issues in Washington. This is our LAST CHANCE, people. If we elect another republican administration after the horrific failures of the last 8 years, then we deserve to go down in flames.
Nothing can save an idea whose time has passed. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.
Save America’s Future Vote Obama 08

the move was titan because the Reps now know the exact feelings and direction the new president will be able to work with when McCain takes over in Jan. The Reps had no way to dictate what McCain could deal with unless they sat down and talked with him and only a fool would lag behind elsewhere calling the leaders names.
The Gov also was able to discuss stuff with McCain before he went to Washington to relay his message so she would be in on the ground floor qwhen she takes over in 2012

Hello all Dems,
Every one is in deep do do tonight. Rove is a genius, and I would like to play chess with him sometime. This is how things are going to play out.
1 The setup..
Palin not being able to think of how Mccain changed washington one time.
2. Bush announces that we are in time of crisis. We need to do something now.
3. Paulson say he wants unfettered power to spend 700 bln of taxpayers money.
4. The dems don’t want to look bad by not being bipartisan in a time for crisis but doesn’t want to let one person have so much power again after all that has happened in the pass with the patriot act, war ect… The dems think that they have something to go on and start bashing mccain on his economic lack of prowess.
5 Mccain suspends his campaign to go to Washington to do nothing. Spotlight is on him everyone bashing him. Fox news hannity says I’m even believing that mccain is not worth of presidency.. Hannity says the tax payers should not be on the hook what are they doing… Same thing from Mr O’reilly.
6. The people in the US are in an uproar calling their reps and congress folks demanding a no vote on this media sells it.
7. Bush meets with Mccain and Obamma. and some house repubs I think Paul Ryan of MIN(very smart man) He say I think we can do this without putting the taxpayers at risk. Obamma I like to hear more about this.. media is kicked out.
Mccain says nothing…. More drubbing by the media.
8. campaign/Debate must go on. Tonight Mccain is going to bash the dems with saying that He went to Washington and went against the establishment or status quo to change how things were done for you people.. I’m fighting for the american people.. We stalled this thing to make sure legislation wasn’t passed to put the tax payer on the hook for rushed legislation by the dems and bush..
I think this is genius by them but we have time to change the strategy…. There should be people that look into the collusion of bush Paulson and the repubs… This thing is way out of hand when they start messing with not only the us economy but the world economy…
I feel like Nostradamus’s today… I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think I am!!!! James Beaufore… P.S. Send a copy to Mr Rove.. I really would like to play a game of chess with him….
Best Regards: James Beaufore