When U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (Dem., Del.) gave his acceptance speech the other night at the Democratic National Convention, he told a story that elicited several nods of agreement from his mother who was in the audience.When the vice presidential nominee told the story about how his mother would tell him after a bully would harass him, his mother would, of course, comfort him first, but then she would tell him to go back out there and “bloody the nose” of the bully so that he could hold his head up and walk proudly upon the pathways that little boys usually take.
Sen. Biden was giving some good advice to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (Dem., Ill.) as now his widely anticipated address to the convention will be given tonight, closing out the event that will send both of them out to do battle with the hope of winning come November.
Sen. Obama is a gentleman, and he is reluctant to resort to what he calls “usual politics” in this race, so that, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (Dem., N.Y.) and former President Bill Clinton had something of a field day beating up on Sen. Obama and trying bully him.
He, in the end, defeated them both, successfully taking away from them control of the party, and then, essentially, forcing them both to do his bidding during this convention.
The Democratic presidential nominee now needs to show that he has “some fire in his belly” and join with Sen. Biden and “bloody some noses” as the campaign continues.
We were glad to notice that that Sen. Obama has started a sustained and hard-hitting advertising campaign against U.S. Sen. John McCain in states that will be vital this fall, painting Mr. McCain in a series of commercials as disconnected from the economic struggles of the middle-class.
Mr. Obama has begun the drive with little fanfare, often eschewing the modern campaign technique of unveiling new spots for the news media before they run in an effort to win added (free) attention. Mr. Obama, whose candidacy has been built in part on a promise to transcend traditional politics, is running the negative commercials on local stations even as he runs generally positive spots nationally, during prime-time coverage of the Olympics.
The negative spots reflect the sharper tone Mr. Obama has struck in recent days on the stump as he heads into his party’s nominating convention in Denver next week, and seem to address the anxiety among some Democrats that Mr. Obama has not answered a volley of attacks by Mr. McCain with enough force.
“If you can go quietly negative, that’s what he’s done. I think the perception is that he’s still running the positive campaign,” said Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group of TNS Media Intelligence, which monitors political advertising. “It’s a pretty smart, high-low, good cop/bad cop strategy.”
In Philadelphia; East Lansing, Mich.; Green Bay, Wisc.; and at least five other major cities, Mr. Obama is heavily showing an advertisement contrasting a statement by Mr. McCain that “we have had a pretty good, prosperous time with low unemployment,” with appearances by people making statements like, “The prices of gas are up; the prices of milk are up.”
Mr. McCain’s statement was from a debate in January, before the economy took several turns for the worse, and did not include the senator’s acknowledgment of “a rough patch.” Mr. McCain has since run an advertisement going so far as to say, “We’re worse off than we were four years ago.”
In Des Moines; Tampa, Fla.; Paducah, Ky., and at least 10 other cities, Mr. Obama is running a spot for a mock book, “Economics” by John McCain: “Support George Bush 95 percent of the time; keep spending $10 billion a month for the war in Iraq.”
On Sunday alone, Mr. Obama’s campaign spent nearly $400,000 to run those two spots more than 600 times, accounting for roughly two thirds of the commercials he ran that day, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group.
Nearly 85 percent of Mr. McCain’s 650 spots that day featured attacks against Mr. Obama, according to the service, which reports that Mr. Obama has spent $48 million on advertisements in the last two months and that Mr. McCain has spent $34 million, with the Republican National Committee spending another $3 million.
Until recently Mr. Obama had primarily run positive commercials promoting his vision, and his latest offensive is his first major volley of spots against Mr. McCain that was not in response to an attack from him or the Republican Party.
All told, Mr. Obama’s campaign has released at least six television commercials and two radio spots against Mr. McCain in the past two weeks, all of them with an overwhelmingly economic message and some tailored to issues in specific states.
The strategy is in keeping with predictions from strategists in both parties this summer that Mr. Obama would eventually press his financial advantage over Mr. McCain by running a more positive set of commercials on national broadcast television and a concurrent, harder-hitting set of spots in the states.
“It’s ‘game on, the money’s in the bank, we’re going to have a huge financial advantage, let the McCain campaign chase us around the country, if they can find us,’ ” said Steve McMahon, a Democratic advertising strategist.
Mr. Obama has complemented his advertising this week with a newly aggressive tone on the stump. Campaigning in California and Florida in the last few days, he has criticized Mr. McCain as challenging his patriotism, for saying Iraqis would greet Americans as “liberators” in 2003, and as embracing a negative brand of politics in general.
It’s time (long past time) to start fighting back…..for bloodying some noses of the bully boys of the extreme far right.
