Monday, August 18th, 2008
“Elections are not about candidates, they’re about the voters.”
When I interned for Mark Strama’s campaign for state representative back in 2004, the quote in the title was the one thing that was consistently drilled into our heads. If your candidate doesn’t excite people, or doesn’t hit back when attacked — especially when smeared — it tends to damage the morale of the candidate’s voting base. And that can cost you elections.
Sen. Obama quite obviously has no problem with the former. It’s the latter that his campaign seems to have trouble grasping. I know he’s painted himself into a bit of a corner with his talk of a new kind of politics, but if the last eight years of Republican electioneering has taught us anything, the candidate himself doesn’t have to do the heavy hitting. His surrogates and the network of progressive bloggers can take that load and the responsibility that goes with it quite well, thank you very much. And yet, Obama remains hesitant to unleash his greatest weapon — his supporters.
If I could dispense some advice, Senator, it would be this: take the gloves off your surrogates. Let them get their hands dirty defending you and attacking McRove. Even Evan Bayh knows that to defeat McRove you’re going to need to play serious hardball. Maybe you can afford to keep up the high-minded, issues-focused campaign, but the rest of us cannot. If you want to win this thing, show us you can deliver a knockout blow. Because that is what it is going to take to retake 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. from the forces occupying it.
