In TIME Magazine this week, Joe Klein wrote an article about the, shall we say, less-than-presidential campaign ads that John McCain has put out lately. Klein also lays out a no-brainer response strategy for the Obama campaign.
Obama’s demeanor will show well on the debate stage; McCain’s feistiness may not. And so Obama would be wise to change course now: challenge McCain to town-hall debates on the Sunday nights after each convention–one before a military audience, another with hard-pressed Rust Belt workers. He’d be wise to make this a campaign about issues instead of ads as soon as possible. It is true that debates often turn on one-liners and flubs, but more often they turn on sustained, vivid demonstrations of character.
But with Barack Obama’s new campaign ad, it doesn’t look like the high road is a part of the Obama campaign travel plan. In the aftermath of Parisgate, Barack Obama could have took that high road. He could have stuck to the issues that matter most: energy policy, tax breaks, economy, Iraq, presidential character, you name it.
But instead, with this new attack ad, Obama has decided to join McCain in the idiot bin. This ad makes some good points about policy but quickly slides into lampooning John McCain. The circus music in the background is nothing but sarcastic.
I hoped for better from Barack Obama. I expected more. But mostly, I trusted him to continue to respect voter intelligence. But, instead, we get to watch this for the next 3 months…
