The recent attacks on Barack Obama and Sarah Palin show a fundamental ignorance of how America works. The bottom line is that once Americans decide that they like someone, they don’t like to change their mind.
America decided that it liked Ronald Reagan, and no amount of liberal teeth-gnashing could dent Ronnie’s Teflon popularity.
America decided that it liked Bill Clinton, and even an unseemly sex scandal failed to derail his popularity.
America likes Barack Obama. Even the Republicans have a hard time working up too much enthusiasm for attacking him, though they’re getting up a pretty good head of steam.
What’s intriguing is that America seems to like Sarah Palin. It’s only known her a week, but so far, it likes what it sees.
If I were advising the campaigns, I’d avoid personal attacks on either of these two likeable candidates.
Sigh, it’s enough to make a political junkie pine for the Hillary Clinton/Rudy Giuliani race that might have been. Now THAT would have been something to see.
“it is hard to change it is mind”
Does that make sense in your head? No? Good. Learn English.
Agree, but…the obama campaign has the luxury of not attacking Palin. I saw Biden and the media guy this am on tv. So far, that looks like their strategy. Meanhwile, the media is on a feeding frenzy, because it’s the easiest thing to do. Little wonder that their business model is falling apart.
The problem for McCain/Palin is they are caught by “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
Since the dot.com bust, that tactic does not work so well in business. I’m hoping it is finally going to get to manageable levels in the politics business.
Meanwhile, I would be more careful in using words like “Americans”. It’s like business people talking about the “Market”. Or talking about GDP.
Useful rhetorical concepts, sometimes. But at that level of abstraction, those kinds of words are bullshit in the sense that they don’t point to anything in the real world.
Yo, anonymous!
Next time, you try pumping out three posts after midnight without any grammatical errors.
MJ:
As I mentioned in my very first post on Palin, the fundamentals strongly favor McCain. Schmidt is clearly trying to “junk up” the race. He knows that running on the issues and running on facts is a loser, so he’s running on character and hoping that Goebbels’ “big lie” principle still holds.
It probably won’t work (my money is strongly on an Obama victory), but it will make life uncomfortable for the Democrats (who are defeatist and panicky when it comes to presidential elections). Note that I don’t think the Obama campaign is rattled, but the rest of the party lacks their discipline.
Chris-
I missed the first post. I’ll take some time now.
Meanwhile, I’m not convinced that the fundamentals favor McCain. My take is that the Obama victory over the Clintons was the real game changer.
This new crowd – Obama, Inc. does not strike me as either defeatest or panicky. They got a great brand,a working b model and are willing to change lots of “liberal” conventional wisdom. From the outside it feels more like Google than Wal Mart.
Dr. Droock–
My bad on the comment. The fundamentals heavily favor *Obama*. That’s why my money is still on an Obama presidency.
Thanks for posting after midnight, I looked forward to waking up this morning and checking your blog after last nights speech by Palin. As for Mr. Anonymous, he can’t find fault with your incredible insight on Obama vs. McCain so they decided to stoop for just being petty. I agree with what you say, except I changed my mind from Obama and I am now voting for McCain, partly because of Palin. I agree with your “Americans don’t want to change their minds” post. Most of my Obama supporting friends did not watch Palin’s speech because they have already made up their minds… your point exactly! I am a middle class, part time working start-up Software Sales Rep, and pro-choice soccer mom who does not want my taxes raised – (although I did work on a campaign to raise property taxes for our schools – and it passed!!!!)but that is the exception rather than the rule on the tax increase issues. The reason I changed my mind for those who even care, are the issues. I had to really think why I was supporting Obama and it was because he is inspirational, all my friends love him, and he is trendy and popular. Why I am not voting for him now? What is up the the “present” votes? He is wishy washy on issues, I can’t count on where he stands, and he does not have enough experience. For those nay sayers who say big deal on Palin being Mayor of a city of 9,000. I would argue to say that gives her more experience not less. My case in point, I work for a start up where last week I negotitated a license agreement with a large enertainment company – my friend who works for a larger software company has a legal department who does that for her and has never even read her company’s license agreement. Bigger is not better and working for a smaller City has most likely given her more experience, not less. I also have to say the troubles in the Middle East need tough leadership, not let’s get together for a nice little chit chat because I am a nice guy. Maybe that works in Chicago as a Community Manager, but come on, we face dangerous terrorists who want to erase us off the face of the earth! Keep up the great posting Chris, I love it! (I am sure I have grammatical errors or mis spellings, I need to return a prospect’s urgent email, then take my kid to swimming lessons and I am running late – I just don’t have time to be perfect right now!)