the strategy

If you’re one of those people who are deeply disappointed in John McCain “going negative,” Steve Kornacki understands your pain, but he also wants you to know that (unsurprisingly) going negative on your opponent works!

What can win him the election, as sad as it is to say, is the kind of campaign he is now resorting to. McCain’s aides have privately told the press that they see the fall race as a referendum on Obama. They are right. This campaign is not about hordes of undecided voters weighing the pros and cons of McCain and Obama; it is about hordes of undecided voters who are inclined — both because of his party label and his personality — to vote for Obama, but who still have trouble imagining him as America’s commander in chief. If Obama can remove their doubts, he will win going away — just as Ronald Reagan did in 1980, when he won the masses over in a debate a week before Election Day. If he can’t, then those voters will default to McCain, the “safe” old warrior. And it will have little to do with whether they approved of the tone of his advertising.

And one of the commenters at the NY Observer explains exactly how the McCainiacs hope to turn Obama’s superstardom against him [e.a.]:

But the newest ad, which uses Mr. Obama’s enormous celebrity status against him, appears to be a major achilles heel for Obama and is, therefore, terrifying both the Obama campaign and its media fans (which is to say most of the media).

The idea is simple and effective. Take those huge cheering throngs for Obama and get voters to see them in a negative rather than a positive light.

The story line is that Mr. Obama may be an international superstar of the first magnitude, but that doesn’t mean he has any substance (this is where the Paris Hilton/Britney Spears reference kicks in). It asks “can he lead?” and then suggests that Mr. Obama’s gas and tax policy are wrong for the country.

The structure of the ad is brilliant. Why? Because what is seeks to accomplish (and, in my opinion, does very effectively) is turn what should be a positive for Mr. Obama into a negative. It creates a situation in which every time footage is aired of Obama exciting large crowds and blathering out slogans about “change” (whatever that means), millions of voters will look at it less as inspirational and more as meaningless and ridiculous.

Fun stuff! Too bad Obama’s Narrator didn’t think of this chink in the Obama Messiah’s armor—that a political campaign isn’t about posing as president.