I think there is another way to look at this which suggests that perhaps the stalemate in the polls is reflective of the moral equivalency in which the Obama campaign has been able to traffic and of which this episode is illustrative. It begins with the proposition articulated by Matthews that both sides have engaged in negative campaigning. After Matthews went over the top, Brokaw, as the soul of reasonableness concedes that he does not agree with Matthews but then he seconds the proposition that the Republicans are also guilty of negative campaigning.
The problem with this is that once moral equivalence is established, the Romney campaign is severely disadvantaged. It means that Obama need pay no price, or at least no price more than Romney must pay, for the negativity which Obama himself has unilaterally generated. Obama gets to spew poison and Romney gets to share equally in the blame for cheapening our discourse. Worse, it opens the door to Obama to make even more extravagant and illegitimate claims. It provides cover for Obama to avoid an accounting. It induces the electorate, as Brokaw observed, to say, "a plague on both your houses."
I have been arguing since before McCain explicitly declined to attack Obama and muzzled Sarah Palin that Obama must be morally destroyed if McCain was to win in 2008. It now appears that Romney is embarking on the same course in which he will not attack Obama for his radicalism but Romney has actually offered that Obama is a good person but inept. Rush Limbaugh spoke about this today.
I have no doubt that Romney has experts who have more to offer by way of advice than merely their opinions. I am sure that these decisions are made not by navel gazing but by very close analysis of polling data and focus group reactions. I have no doubt that these experts have concluded from these data that this is the more prudent course, probably because it will bring in the independents. It is probable that there is data which shows that some of Obama's attacks have boomerang and brought down his heretofore high likability numbers.
On the other hand, we have D'sousa with his documentary movie arguing that Obama can be explained by reference to his anticolonial training. I believe this is a valid explanation but one which should be augmented and modified to demonstrate that he is a socialist, in other words, a Marxist black liberationist.
It is interesting that in this brouhaha Chris Matthews accused the Republicans of calling Obama a socialist. Obama actually joined the New Party-an explicitly socialist party in Chicago. Obama's associations, his appointments, his policies, his writings, his explicit statements, all point to the fact that Obama is a radical leftist, a redistributionist, certainly a Marxist and perhaps a communist. Why, oh why, must Reince Priebus since mute and handcuffed to his chair while he is berated by the likes of Chris Matthews without the option to insist that, yes, Obama is a Marxist and that, sir, explains every policy that is wrecking America!
This is in keeping with my tagline, "attack, repeat, attack! It offers the electorate not just a series of disconnected negative allegations about Barack Obama but a coherent narrative that explains both Obama and his otherwise inexplicable policies. Why do we enter into an argument about whether Obama's policies are prudent or ill advised which we will only partially win and therefore convince only a limited segment of the electorate when we can frame and argument that puts him squarely on the defensive?
I understand that we want to keep our presidential candidate's hands clean but that is why we have surrogates. Can one believe that John Sununu, Newt Gingrich, and D'sousa himself, to name just a few possible surrogates, cannot beat back Chris Matthews and make the reality of Obama was radical character stick? As I recall, when Leo Derosher said, "nice guys finish last," he went on to win the pennant race. Ronald Reagan probably went a long way to winning the nomination when he got publicly angry and said, "I paid for that microphone!" I think our spokesmen have a right to be righteously indignant. I fear that we are more concerned about our image than the substance of the argument. I think that months and months have gone by in which the predicate could have been laid to establish Barack Obama for the radical he is. At what cost have we played Mr. nice guy? What would have been the downside, that we would be called "mean-spirited"? The country is being destroyed and we are worried about how a few hypersensitive, single white females with children react to a healthy exchange between grown men with testosterone.
I certainly hope that these polling data and those focus groups "give good data."
