The Palin Affect
There has been some seriously obsessive talking about the affect Palin has had. To be sure, she has energized the base unlike any other candidate would have, could have. To be sure, to the Republican base she is a breath of fresh air. The biggest thing though was that this is arguably the shrewdest political move the McCain campaign could've possibly made. The fact is that because she is so new the news channels have to vet her, and every day that they air something new, in order to vet her publicly, is another day that McCain-Palin gets talked about and less time for Obama to get coverage. Palin has become an absolute media hog (in terms of amount of discussion and coverage) without even trying. She's certainly given essentially the same exact speech at every campaign stop but every day she is covered is a win for the McCain-Palin campaign. Talking about "when does she finally answer questions?" is a win for them. Palin's coverage could last another two weeks as she gets around to doing more interviews and finally hits the Sunday talk shows. That shrinks the election to basically 40 days. That's essentially a sprint coming off of not only a convention but consistent coverage of a very engaging VP candidate.
Part of this was also an absolute over reaction by the Obama campaign and the media. A couple things come to mind in this regard:
1) Where are the surrogates to help attack the McCain-Palin ticket without focusing on just Palin?
2) Where is Joe Biden and why has he not been the attack dog VP like he's supposed to be?
3) Why hasn't Obama gotten back on message already? The Republican convention was over four days ago.
Obama is getting caught having to fight by himself for himself. Where are the Democrat surrogates? This can't simply be that Congress is out of session so they aren't in Washington to be easily accessed. How does the Obama campaign get caught attacking Palin while Palin attacks Obama? The surrogates should be doing this and helping to get the fight back to McCain. This is a very bad moment for the Obama campaign and to McCain's credit a brilliant moment for him.
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"Obama is getting caught having to fight by himself for himself. Where are the Democrat surrogates? This can't simply be that Congress is out of session so they aren't in Washington to be easily accessed. How does the Obama campaign get caught attacking Palin while Palin attacks Obama? The surrogates should be doing this and helping to get the fight back to McCain. This is a very bad moment for the Obama campaign and to McCain's credit a brilliant moment for him. "
The bottom line problem for the Obama campaign is they never saw her coming. they planned on McCain picking Pawlenty or Romney. She has come completely out of right field. A clear example of this was on Aug 29 when she was announced. His campaign manager attacked her for being a fmr mayor of a tiny town of 7000, but only hours later Obama pulled that statement completely back. And his pals in the MSM did him no good as their obsesive pile on of her pregnant daughter and her qualifications and the nature of the vetting only INCREASED voter intrigue of her resulting in some 40 million Americans watching her acceptence speech that got such positive reaction that according to the polls have seen a dramatic shift of white women and independents going to John McCain. The Obama camp thought because she was so new she'd fall flat on her face ala Dan Quayle in 1988(who ended up becoming VP anyway) and when she emerged more Ronald Reagan in a dress, a new rockstar of the Republican Party.. the Obama camp were basically caught off guard. If Obama doesnt try to diminish her Americans will fall more and more in "love" with her and more comfortable with her as a Vice President (already 50% think she is qualified to be President) but if they go to hard to siminish her it could backfire. and so far it has. Despite every negative thing the Obama camp and the Dems and the MSM have thrown at her, she is getting more and more popular with the American people. And another major problem for the Obama campaign is that she has an actual record of major bipartisanship accomplishments... a natural gas pipeline, tax cuts, major ethics reform.. and a record of taking down corruption in her state and in her party. taking down former GOP Governor and fmr GOP party chairman while taking on Sen Ted Stevens and AK Rep Don Youngs...a record that simply dwarfs the nonexistant record of Sen Obama.
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