I’m Damn Tired Of Bill Burton Who Should’ve Been Fired

I read this paragraph today, with a quote from Bill Burton, the Obama spokesman, to Fox News:

“The convention will offer a series of contrasts and comparisions of the McCain record so voters can see how clearly the choice will be in November,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton told FOX News. “The convention will also introduce Senator Obama to the country, but it will make sure to convey strongly the differences and choices Obama’s campaign presents over McCain’s.”

Wow. Mealy-mouthed explanation right there, Burton. That statement written in the passive voice puts me to sleep. How about this instead, Burton?

“The convention will show the truth behind McCain’s so-called “maverick” record, including all the flip-flops he’s given, especially on torture and off-shore drilling. Voters will know who’s the right person to vote for when they’re shown the truth,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton told FOX News. “The convention will tear down this caricature of Senator Obama that’s been painted by the media with the help of the McCain campaign. The differences between Obama’s campaign and McCain’s dishonorable campaign will be made clear to the voters.”

Obama really should rearrange his press shop, fire a couple of his people on his press team, and work on getting their damn messaging straight, from carrying one of Obama’s lines from the townhall throughout the surrogate appearances (whatever surrogate appearances there ARE) on the news shows, and into television ads for the rest of the week. Obama’s finally using the Phil Gramm story, but it’s kind of too late, given they made a single day’s newscycle usage out of it, and then dropped it for the rest of the summer until now.

Don’t trust the media to repeat the soundbite you want heard from Obama’s townhall. Force the surrogates you have on those shows to repeat the soundbite, and have that carried out in a television ad. 

Don’t be nice. Be mean. Bust the Republicans’ balls on this one—and ball-busting works in electoral politics, trust me. Just tear their lies apart by using the truth about McCain’s character and how that lies out into his policies.

New L.A. Times Poll Shows A Drop Of 10 Points In Obama’s Lead

The new L.A. Times poll that just came out at 5 p.m. shows a drastic drop in Obama’s national lead. This reflects the current overall trend of state polls tightening and a shrinking in the electoral vote lead for Senator Obama.

Overall, Obama holds a narrow edge over the Arizona senator, 45% to 43%, which falls within the poll’s margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. In June, Obama was ahead by 12 points. Other polls at that time showed him with a narrower lead.

More striking than the head-to-head matchup, however, is the drop in Obama’s favorable rating in the run-up to his selection of a running mate and the Democratic National Convention next week in Denver.

Obama’s favorable rating has sunk to 48% from 59% since the last Times/Bloomberg poll in June. At the same time, his negative rating has risen to 35% from 27%.

By comparison, McCain’s ratings have hardly budged during the same period: 46% of voters have a positive feeling about him; 38% give him negative ratings.

The attacks by McCain’s campaign worked. The celebrity ads worked. The drilling issue worked. The Georgia-Russia conflict certainly worked to McCain’s favor. Senator McCain worked tirelessly throughout the entire summer to define Senator Obama, while Senator Obama didn’t aggressively do the same, trusting in the “benevolence” of the American people to see past the negative attacks.

Tip 1#: Americans don’t vote on logic-based appeals. They vote emotionally. McCain’s ads appealed to them emotionally while Obama’s were cerebral, mostly about establishing his own image.

Tip 2#: If you don’t respond hard and fast enough with consistent themes that last beyond a day, you’ll look weak.

Tip 3# Stop treating McCain as a honorable veteran–now he’s a dishonorable politician.

Is it too late for Senator Obama to aggressively define Senator McCain? Perhaps.

McCain only gets same level of Vet support as GWB

Gallup is out with a story on McCain’s support among veterans. Of course, McCain is in front among veterans, and the article’s headline makes that clear.

But, when you dig into the details, it’s apparent that McCain is not leading among veterans as much as he should be.

McCain is up 56-34 among military veterans, with 10 percent undecided. Assuming that the undecideds break 50-50, that would be a roughly 60-40 split for McCain.

How does that compare with 2004?

[In] Gallup’s final pre-election poll in 2004, 55% of registered voters who had served in the military backed George W. Bush, compared with 39% who supported John Kerry. It is notable, then, that McCain is doing only about as well among military veterans as Bush did in 2004, despite the two Republican candidates’ varying military backgrounds.

One additional fact Gallup leaves out: in 2004, the Democrats were running a Vietnam veteran. Even with the swiftboat attacks, Kerry had a natural advantage among veterans, which Obama is matching.

Obama Stands Firm on Iraq, Hits McCain Before VFW (w/Video)

Barack Obama is speaking in front of the VFW right now in Orlando, and is hitting McCain very hard on his Achilles heel - the fundamental decision to go to war, and for the first time, brings up the fact that McCain pushed for war with Iraq right after 9/11:

Six years ago, I stood up at a time when it was politically difficult to oppose going to war in Iraq, and argued that our first priority had to be finishing the fight against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Senator McCain was already turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, and he became a leading supporter of an invasion and occupation of a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, and that – as despicable as Saddam Hussein was – posed no imminent threat to the American people.

And he then pivots to the original decision to launch the war in Iraq:

McCain Wants To Announces VP On Anniversary Of Katrina?

(by Slinkerwink) DIGG IT!!!

August 29th was also the day that Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, while John McCain and George W. Bush was laughing it up on the airport tarmac with a huge birthday cake in front of them.

An American city was lost on that day, and the Bush administration was slow in responding to one of the worst natural catastrophes ever. So was John McCain. America needed a strong, decisive leader during this national crisis, and where was John McCain? Eating cake with President George W. Bush.

McShameless’ John Lewis Pander

McCain raised some eyebrows when he rattled off John Lewis as one of the people who he would seek counsel from were he to be president.

Three whose counsel Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would seek: Gen. David Petraeus, “one of great military leaders in American history who took us from defeat to victory in Iraq”; civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, “who can teach us all a lot about the meanings of courage and commitment to causes greater than ourself”; and his economic adviser and eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Like so much else associated with McCain, it was a shameless pander:

A dark horse for Veep?

The conventional wisdom is that Obama will be going with Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, Evan Bayh, or potentially Kathleen Sebelius.

One name that has managed to drop off the radar screen is Jack Reed. Of course, Reed had a Sherman Statement in July following his trip with Obama to the Middle East and Europe. But Joe Biden also said, on MTP, that he was “not interested” in the Vice Presidency.

Jack Reed may be the perfect pick for Obama.

Obama Should Do More Big Rallies, Not Less

No one has been more of a hand-wringer than I have (well, okay, maybe Slinkerwink). My position remains the same: Obama’s campaign is great at the grass-roots level, not good at the media, messaging, or press strategy level. They haven’t developed a consistent line of attack against McCain and indeed, on that level, much of the summer was a lost opportunity.

However, contrary to the NYTimes article with his “allies” giving him advice on how to speak about economics, Obama hasn’t lacked for specifics at all. In fact, Obama’s policy book is “War and Peace” compared to the short story that McCain provides. The notion that “hope” is substance-free and must be backed with specifics is so January/February that it makes me wonder whether these people are caught in a time warp. This really caught my eye:

Gov. Phil Bredesen, Democrat of Tennessee: “Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how he would improve their lives.”

Tea-Leaves: Is McCain Going to Pick Portman?

Remember all the speculation that McCain will pick his VP the day after Obama gives his acceptance speech?

Well, the day after his acceptance speech, McCain will be in Dayton, Ohio, holding what has to be the biggest rally he’s ever had:

I Made a Commitment to Barack Obama

…and so should you. I just signed up to be part of his Grassroots Finance Committee, pledging to raise at least $1,000 for Obama’s campaign this fall. I signed up after receiving this note in the mail from his campaign:

Join the Grassroots Finance Committee (GFC), a core group of dedicated supporters who are setting a personal goal to raise $1,000 each in small-dollar donations.

Barack is relying on ordinary people giving only what they can afford to support this movement. Join the GFC and reach out to your network of friends, family, and neighbors and encourage them to make a donation and own a piece of this campaign.

I immediately knew it was something I had to do. But I decided to make the job a tiniest bit tougher myself, and set another condition on how I raise this money, and I hope you join me in this pledge: