BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Well, that’s what the talk is.  According to some, Democratic candidate Barack Obama should lower the bar on his campaign ads.  Perhaps, he isn’t quite as flexible as John McCain when it comes to the limbo bar of negative political ads.

We all remember the Swift Boating of John Kerry, and the loss that followed.  Some of the polls seem to indicate that John McCain is closing the gap by bending over backwards to slim under his campaigns limbo bar.  For some reason Barack Obama has been hitting back, but most of his strategists are indicating that he is throwing soft punches although timely ones.

Barack Obamareleased a television advertisement Wednesday that questions John McCain’s claims to be a “maverick,” and he charged in a campaign appearance that the Republican displays independence only when it suits him politically.

To counteract some of the McCain campaign ads, Barack Obama has addressed them at various town hall meetings, such as the one in Elkhart, IN.

“The price [McCain] paid for his party’s nomination has been to reverse himself on position after position,” Obama told a crowd of more than 1,000 at a high school gym in Elkhart. “That doesn’t meet my definition of a maverick. You can’t be a maverick when politically it’s important for you but not a maverick when it doesn’t work for you.”

The real question is whether Obama should hit harder, faster and more often.  Some political strategists suggest he should.  Last week the McCain campaign began a series of new ads that went from the ridiculous to almost sacrilegious.  I must admit that had it not been so humorous I would have found the following ad a bit offensive.

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What is Obama to do?  How should he respond to this ad and the “Celeb”?

A liberal advertising consultant said: “There’s frustration there because they’re watching these childish ad campaigns, and they know exactly how to answer it, but they’re powerless to do so.”

Powerless, that is, because most of the independent groups that would have taken the lead in such an independent campaign have been sidelined by Obama’s insistence that Democratic donors channel their money to him, rather than outside groups. Obama’s efforts have succeeded in maintaining message discipline in a campaign predicated on what the senator from Illinois has called a new kind of politics.

So the real question isn’t whether the Obama campaign willnplay down and dirty, but will they do it soon enough.  Most of us would have been pleased with a high road campaign, like the one both candidates insisted they would run.  Obama is still trying to fly above the polical ad fray, but eventually he will get sucked down into it.  That’s sad.

I guess it is the same as usual, play by the rules until you are at a disadvantage, then do what it takes at any cost to win.  That’s what it is really all about, isn’t it?  Winning.  It’s not how you play the game.  It’s whether you win or lose.