Obama will arrive in Hawaii later this afternoon for a nine-day vacation. That’s a long vacation. McCain will apparently take a much shorter four or five-day vacation at one of his eight homes…this one in Arizona. I know Obama needs some R & R and it is very important that he see his 85-year old grandmother (he didn’t get the chance last year). But nine-days is too long for my taste.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Just what magic is it that you imagine him performing by his mere presence on the mainland? The people have spoken and they’re sick of hearing about him. What better time to lay low for a while? In the meantime let McCain blubber incoherently on. Can’t hurt.
I just hope Obama’s using this time to come up with a better campaign than he’s been running since the primaries. Maybe he can find some Hawaiian healer to exorcise Kerry’s spirit from his soul.
I’m betting it’s a working vacation. Getting some perspective and coming up with some responses and ads would be a good thing. Plus he has VP strategy and the convention to prepare for.
I think good things will come from this.
to not burn out & really replenish.
I hope we see photos of his entire family, being family & relaxing!
Prediction: Video and photos of Obama frolicking in the surf will draw so much interest that Clinton’s die-hards will be marginalized as their numbers shrink. I’m not saying folks are normally that shallow, but until the campaign gets into the final stages, I think they will be.
Remember how far being ‘sexy’ got Clinton as woman after woman called him a rapist in the run up to various elections. Imagine what it can do for Obama who has yet to have that sort of problem arise.
Steve Soto brings up some of the questions that have been rolling around in my head of late.
With Obama basically bringing all of the media response resources to McCain under his campaign umbrella, why indeed do they not respond in a more visceral and obvious fashion to McCain’s lame attacks? McCain’s techniques are patently silly but with the regular and rhythmic dissemination of these McCain attacks, the media just lap them up and distribute the talking points. Obama, while often times personally responding in a very clever manner, is still perceived as playing a sort of political prevent defense.
Why is the Obama campaign so reluctant to use actual footage of McCain’s daily stumbles? More often than not, McCain becomes a bumbling, incoherent idiot when responding off the cuff to difficult questions. This stuff is served up daily on a silver platter. Yet the only ones who seem to see it and notice are DFH’s and all us “radical, hate-bloggers” who spend all day watching YouTube while sitting around in our pajamas eating donuts.
After all, you wouldn’t have to go making shit up every day like McCain does. All you have to do is show what McCain actually says. Where is the risk? I just don’t get it. As for the town hall style debates, wouldn’t it just seem apparent to anyone that Obama would likely mop the floor with McCain in these events?
It all just seems too ominously familiar a technique he appears to be adopting and it worries me. It worries me a lot.
Spot on. I’d also like to see them hammer McCain as the candidate who is out of touch with ordinary Americans. How hard would it be to do a few spots with the $500 shoes, the houses, the private jet? Where the hell is the Offense?
I’ve got to say, man, that it really floors me. Never, in modern political history, has a major party candidate given his opponent as much fodder as McCain has handed to Obama. It would seem a no-brainer that at least some of this be a part of his arsenal. And yet there it lies, completely unused.
Absolutely incredible to me.
You’ve summed up two things that have been driving me nuts for years. I think the clips thing is simply a matter of political consultants being third-rate marketing types. It was always a holy commandment that you never show the competitor’s product in an ad. Lots of smart agencies broke that commandment with excellent (for them) results, but the consultants are still stuck in 1980s cliches. The best they can do is put up distorted, grainy, washed out pictures of the opponent, as if people never heard of photoshopping. Using real, undoctored footage would make for much more credibility, but that would break the Commandment.
Instead, we get candidate a accusing b of saying such and such, and be denying it, and a repeating it, ad nauseum. Why in hell not just use the video? I have to think it’s because it works both ways, and pols don’t want to let that much reality into campaigns. The big question is, why is Jon Stewart, who is supposed to be a comedian, so much smarter than the overpaid political gurus?
I also just don’t get why Obama wouldn’t welcome every chance he can get, in any format, to go mano a mano with McCain. There’s something going on with his campaign that’s very disappointing. He needs to dump some consultants fast and start showing America just what he means by “change”. The market is there. Why in hell isn’t he speaking to it?
Yes, someone PLEASE find the goddamned keeper of the “Democrat’s Book Of Conventional Wisdom For Campaigning”, drive a stake through their heart or shoot them with a silver bullet or something. Whatever the hell it takes. But kill this son-of-a-bitchin’ figurative bastard FOREVER! And burn that damned book till there’s nothing left but microscopic granules. Then load the small, burned remains of the book and the body of the Keeper of CW onto a freaking deep space rocket aim it toward the sun and let ‘er fly. Cause until they do that Democrats will continue to demonstrate an uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory.
It would be a waste of $$$ to run those types of ads now. It is summer and the voters those ads target aren’t paying attention yet. I would be v v suprised if a whole series of ads like this aren’t in the fall media plan.
I have to say, this reminds me of when ned lamont took that fateful vacation in August a few years back. Good thing McCain is so lame a candidate.
Do you want to rephrase that maybe? It’s Obama’s vacation, not yours. I’d say it’s his call.
I completely disagree.
If he’s elected, he can say goodbye to any real R&R for at least the next four years, and possibly eight. There’s no such thing, once you become President. (Unless you’re an unelected president, but let’s not go there.)
This is the only moment he really has. He still need to prep for the convention, and he needs to campaign nearly 24/7 from the convention to the election.
Nine days really means two full days to sleep and do NOTHING, five days with his girls, and two days of traveling and getting back into the swing of the campaign. And don’t kid yourself. He’ll be thinking nonstop re the campaign, and on the phone with advisors most of every day, no doubt. He’s just not going to have to jump on a platform and give a speech.
I say he needs the rest and rejuvenation. After that, it’s hard work for the next eight years solid.
Let the man have a few days off. It’s not like he’ll get another chance until 2013.
Oops, I meant 2017 of course. Or to have added “at the earliest.” Don’t want to jinx him, y’know.
If it was coordinated to coincide with Edward’ mea culpa then it makes perfect sense: “I’m on vacation with my family – don’t bother me.”
It also makes for a nice contrast, reinforcing Obama as a family man.