One thing that many networks were wagging about after the first debate was how many times Obama said "John is right" or statements to that effect. The concern was that if he agreed with John too many times then it would appear that he and John McCain agree on almost everything and that John McCain has the right agenda for the election (or whatever was the concern..please feel free to leave a comment about your concerns). They said a debate is to show the differences between the two candidates and how you try to punch holes in the other side's policies and stands.

 I think it was another brilliant move by Obama (actually might not have been pre-planned for that matter), and one that I suggested earlier in my original 'master strategy article'  it is a big mistake to criticize Bush and McCain for everything under the sun. The democratic campaign strategy and public speeches for the past few years were limited to one line "This problem was caused due to the policies of  Bush (and later McCain too)". It had become so repetitive and stale that "the dog ate my homework" became "I did not do my homework due to the wrong policies of Bush and McCain". If you repeat the same lines and the same attack strategy over and over again you tend to lose credibility (which the democrats did as they were perceived not to have any new ideas and all they did was criticize Bush) and the attack rationale tends to wear off and might even boomerang back at you.

The only way you can make your attacks effective is by agreeing with your opponent a few times. After agreeing on a few minor points you gain credibility and the voters' conviction when you disagree strongly on other policies and they will believe you a lot more. Especially when you are smart and agree on statements whic buttress your own policy (like Obama did when he agreed with the torture of prisoners policy of McCain). It will also make you look like an objective, fair and magnanimous person in the voters' eyes and not like typical politician who blindly criticizes everything his opponent says.

For example, going back to the master strategy article I mentioned that one of the things Obama can appreciate Bush and company for is to say they have done a good job of preparing for Gustav and I'm glad they did not repeat the management disaster of Katrina. This makes him look genuine and at the same time reminds people of Katrina. Now, two days later if he turns around and blasts Bush for the economy or for being weak on terrorism (yup, try hitting them from the right) by not catching Bin Laden yet, people will give more credibility to his attacks.

There was one point in Yesterday’s debate (besides others) for which the democratic strategy team and Barack Obama deserve accolades of the highest kind. One area where the democrats always used to bend down in the face of republican shrewdness was in projecting themselves as supporters and true friends of our troops and military, especially when it came to the Iraq war.  The republicans made support for the war synonymous with patriotic sentiment and painting anybody speaking against the Iraq war or calling for withdrawal as unpatriotic, weak, cowardly, defeatist and accused them of murdering the honor of the country and disrespecting the soldiers who laid their lives for the country. Even John Kerry and his campaign team could not come up with a equal response even once and ended up slipping into the republican’s trap whenever they tried to talk sense into people and tell them that it was a mistake to go for this war.

John McCain shamelessly tried using the same tactic again when he talked about getting a bracelet from a fallen soldier’s mother (I’m not disputing that he did) and used that as a emotional hammer to justify support for the war and implying that anybody who called for withdrawal was dishonoring the soldiers who gave up their life in the war. I think it is indeed sad that the parents and relatives of some brave soldiers who gave up their lives for the country, even after facing such a monumental loss in their lives, do not still fathom the enormity of war, the devastation it causes to so many innocent people on both sides and how going to war to is a decision of last resort under extreme circumstances which was not the case for this war. Instead of being be hit with the bitter reality that their loved one laid down their life bravely completing the mission of the commander-in-chief (and his cronies) who deceived them and the nation into this war, which had nothing to do with 9/11 or any immediate threat like they were told. Instead of realizing that despicable minds and horrible judgment were responsible for this tragic loss they get into the mindset trap of  ‘We should complete the mission my loved one was fighting for’ and anybody who calls the war a mistake is insulting my loved one’s sacrifice.

Navigating a political minefield of this kind, that the republicans set up, required great tact and a brilliant mind. You can’t say that you respect the soldiers’ sacrifice but still think this war is a mistake. You can’t say that the brave soldiers were misled into an unnecessary war because you would be implying that soldier was fighting in vain. You can scream till you’re blue in the face that you are actually supporting the troops when you’re calling for a withdrawal, because all the war did was to place Americans outside of our secure borders (after going through all that effort to secure our borders after 9/11!) so that Al-Qaeda could get some easy target practice and not even have to bother think of ways to get into our country, for Bush made it easy for them and brought the targets out but you still will not able to outfox the republicans and make a winning argument of that. Kerry and his team didn’t even come close to figuring out a way out of this political maze (Kerry had the authority to speak on this topic as he was a veteran but he miraculously managed to make being a veteran a liability for him), let along come up with a good counter-argument.

Any ordinary candidate would be fumbling for a response after McCain, following a brilliant Rovian script, came up with the bracelet tale and cleverly turned it into an appeal to American patriotic sentiment to win renewed support for his Iraq stance. To be prepared for such an approach from McCain in itself speaks volumes for the Obama campaign’s preparedness. But what was just sublime about Obama’s response how he started it, though the rest of the response and the delivery was exceptional too. He started off by giving an equal and forceful response to the bracelet example by stating that he received a bracelet too and that soldier’s mother also asked a promise from him that no other mother would have to go through what she’s going through. That took the wind out of McCain’s emotional drama and created an equally emotional and compelling appeal for ending the war. The quality of that response and such a magnificent ‘tit for tat’ back and forth is unique in modern debating history. Obama then followed that with another magnificient truth that would connect with and appeal to every man and woman. He said that ‘no solider’s death is ever in vain’ and the simplicity, beauty and truth in that statement would have to be acknowledged by every person watching the debate. He then made the perfect finish by tying McCain’s example to the very fact that it makes it even more important for the president to have good judgement especially when it comes to going to war because that is such an enormous step.

After that response I could almost feel the body blow that Rove must have felt and the wind coming out of the republican campaign’s most resilient manipulative play, of using bluster and exploiting americans’ patriotic sentiment to generate support for the Iraq war and war measures/laws and denounce everybody speaking against the war or any legislation regarding the war as traitors. Even though the number of people supporting the Iraq war has fallen since the 2004 election it is still a very important topic and it was still crucial for Obama to come up with a compelling argument putting forth his view which he did unimaginably well. Hats off to Obamaand his campaign team.

P.S: Further Kudos to Obama for not getting rattled by McCain’s shockingly rude behaviour on stage. If I was the moderator I would put the debate to a stop after observing such condescending behavior and despicable actions like ignoring a person and looking askance when that person is talking to him as if the person does not exist or does not matter. Again that kind of unspeakably lowly behavior is unparalleled in the US debate history.

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The Democrats should not be afraid of hitting back against Sarah Palin. Inspite of the dissapointing experience with the Clinton die-hards I believe women will see through the Republican party's deception and their opportunistic conversion as the party for women. But they have to display some smarts in hitting back which they have rarely shown in the recent past. Here are a few tips for that ad.

1) Make it a joint attack on both Sarah and McCain as that will be less easy to counter as sexist and take both names in the same breath. Use women as far as possible to in these ads to talk about Palin. Yup, believe me, the Republicans will try to hit  back hard on the attack and paint it as sexist and disrespectful for women and unfortunately some women in the category of the Clinton die-hards will fall for it. But the damage can be minimized and reversed with an effective counter counter-attack which shows their deception and manipulation by displaying the attack as a sexist one. The campaign can still come out positive for the dems as if done right it will diminish the GOP pair's image in more eyes that the ad/GOP counter-attack will do the reverse. It will also cut their wings and stop the rocketing rise in their popularity due to the Palin effect.

2) Brand both of them as flip floppers and clueless on the economy (boy, that will be sweet revenge for 2004). As my friend Maureen Dowd mentioned in her article there are a few examples to showcase that. Examples - "Sarah Palin was for the bridge to nowwhere before she was against. She was for earmarks before she was against. For McCain, on Monday he says that the Economy is good and on Wednesay he says it is in a crisis, on Monday he opposes AIG bailout and on Wednesday he supports it. In fact it makes us think that McCain and Palin still don't understand what's wrong with the economy and how to fix it. They seem to be deperately clutching at straws and trying to figure out what to say and do next. In contrast, Senator Obama has been prescient about the economic problems and has long said that more effective regulation is need to fix this problem. The Bush administration is now following Senator's Obama's advise."

3) Brand both of them as unscrupulous manipulators who are running a campaing a deception and will say and do anything to get elected. Sarah Palin said on the 7th anniversary of 9/11 that "the troops are there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced from the death of thousands of Americans" trying to play the same innuendo tricks of the Bush administration to link Iraq and 9/11 again. After all these years of unnecessary destruction in Iraq and home she is still trying to continue the misinformation campaign of the Bush adminsitration and she is speaking equally callously about wars with Iran and Russia. McCain still hasn't ever admitted that the Iraq war was based on manipulated intelligence and horrible judgement, instead he continues to manipulate the reason the for going to Iraq (hello, for your kind info we did not find any weapons) while the criminals who destrroyed on 9/11 still run loose.

The main idea is to diminish the image of the two before the advent of Palin creates a permanent sheen for their ticket. The Republicans are deftly doing that and are making Obama look weak, clueless and inconsistent. The other main point is that the Obama campaign should never treat the Iraq war as a non-issue at this stage and should continue aggressive talks on democrats being able to secure the nation better, the the right judgements and go after the real terrorists who are still loose. They got to raise the hubris levels on national security and attack the McCain camp as not being serious about terminating the terrorists who dare to hit the USofA. Tell the voters that I (Obama) will make it the highest priority to hunt down the animals who will be made to realize the consequences of hitting America (in short, say words that the battleground voters love to hear and snatch the hubris card from the republicans).

Obama finally popped his head out of the sand a week ago and said that he will adopt a 'sharper tone' but then they hit back with this stale old rehash of 'McCain will be third term of Bush' campaign. I hope the dems realize that hitting back hard and counter-attacking/defending the republican attacks is not an option and will make the difference this time too. As I mentioned before it does not help if they counter-attack on a unrelated topic. It is extremeley important to hit back on each one of their attacks and shred the credibility of their attacks, if they want to prevent some of the mud from sticking on to Obama's image each time.

Going through the article in this link - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/us/politics/12obama.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=sharper%20tone&st=cse&oref=slogin - a couple of points come to my mind.

1) Plouffe thinks that starting to attack too early is not a good approach. He thinks it is best to start attacking a bit later in the game going into the debates. That strategy is sounding a little like Rudy's startegy to me, where he though he can start later in the game and start from Florida. Plouffe has done a great job in the primaries but he didn't have to deal with such a mean unscupulous attack machine as the republicans have. What he doesn't realize is that once Obama's image has been distorted by these attacks and a negative perception is created in the voters' mind it will be too late if the Obama tries to attack back at that stage. That appears like a loser hitting back.

2) The Obama campaign is too struck with the 'big picture' (like many ultra-cerebral democratic campaigns) of the campaign strategy and and things like forming a coherent message or attack campaign highlighting the top-level aspects of the campaign like 'Change' and 'Economy'. This leads it to ignore the very important tactical moves like hitting back hard at unjustified and untrue attacks from republicans which cause immense damage to Senator Obama's image.

3) The Obama campaign seems to think that it should bother responding to some attacks from the McCain campaign if they think it hasn't received widespread coverage in the interior/local papers in the competitive states. what it doesn't realize is that even if a handful of voters (well, a few thousand maybe) buy into every attack in the key states then it might prove to be pretty costly and also the beating will wear the sheen off the candidate and the sum of the attacks may add up to be a lot more than the individual parts.

The solution for all the three weaknesses pointed above is the same. Every small attack should be countered with the same gigantic force ,especially if it is one of the fabricated and falsified attack as that makes it easier to hit back on the other campaign's character. The reverse attack should come immediately after the commencement of the republican attack and should be very forceful. It should highlight the intentional deceptions/manipulations in the attack (there always is some from the republican side so that should be easy) and should be made out to reflect negatively on the character of the candidates behind the attacks. A strong forceful counter-attack ensures that the allegations don't stick to the candidate for long and wont create a permamnt stain on the candidate's image.

Read the other posts in the blog to get specific details on the counter-attacks.

Along the lines of my previous posts, the Obama campaign probably has the easiest of tasks ever, because the Republican campaign is exposing itself more and more clearly as a complete deception machine with absolutely rock-bottom standards and no ethics. All the Obama campaign needs to do is start pulling a thread from their shirt and let it roll. It makes it all the more important that the Obama campaign not waste any time in hitting back because a good portion of the American population actually buys all the muck that the McCain campaign dishes out (as they did with the Bush campaign in 2004).

Another missed opportunity to highlight the above fact is not exposing the constant effort by the republican campaign to appeal to the 'woman vote' by conjuring up imaginary attacks on the poor VP and using every low trick possible to appeal to the sentiments. See this related article in the New York Times. 

Now, we have to credit the american woman voter with some sense (even the Hillary Die-Hards who frankly should be sued by the Obama campaign for accusing him of being sexist, without any basis whatsoever) and that they will see through the McCain deceptions if they are forecefully made aware of it. The Obama campaign should run an ad campaign which tells the women

1) That it has always been the democratic party that's been the true friend of women and even in this election are fighting for equal pay and expanded health insurance for women.

2) Both Obama and Biden both have a record of caring deeply for women's issues, and have passed laws like the equal pay legislation that Obama co-sponsored and the dometic violence act that Biden authored. They are fighting for expanded health insurance for women and to expand children's coverage benefits.

3) McCain/Palin have never cared for women's issues and they are using deception and blatant lies to portray Obama/Biden as anti-women. They are twisting even innocent comments by Obama on McCain's economic policies as 'sexist' comments. They are misrepresenting words used by Obama and Biden in different contexts as words used against Palin. They are evem misrepresenting Obama's vote to prevent our children from the horrors of sexual abuse as 'Obama voted to teach children sex before they read'

I'm sure the campaign folks can fill in the rest. These ads have to be shown reapeatedly immediately after any such move by the McCain cmapaign, AND in all startegic places where we have 'impressionable' minds that have a history of falling for republican deceptions (read battleground states).

I can't believe that the Obama campaign's comeback after Palin's Peak and some nasty attacks by Republicans consisted of the same recycled stale news that McCain is out of touch and is a Bush redux. Common guys, if you can't do better than that then admit it and resign and let somebody else do a capable job for the first time in a democratic campaign after JFK (and I certainly don't mean Kerry). I'll give you a quick rundown of what you should be doing.

Whenever the McCain campaign comes out with an attack ad (or verbal attack) HIT BACK with a HUGE RESPONSE which should just floor them. For example, I've outlined in my previous post how you should have responded to the 'Lipstick Ad' (Post link - http://www.hitbackharder.com/blogengine.net/post/2008/09/10/Why-isnt-the-Obama-campaign-hitting-back-harder-on-the-Lipstick-on-a-pig-comment.aspx). The response to the 'Sex Education' attack should have been equally forceful with the idea that the tables should be turned on their intention to use the attack to create a negative image of Obama as a person, make him lose his credibility and attack his very character to show him as person who is no way eligible to be president. These attacks are god's gifts to to the democrats and provide an effortless way to undermine the credibility of McCain and show their campaign (and their candidate by association) as scheming, immoral and knowingly manipulating the American voter's minds to get elected.

As I wrote in the lipstick post the monstrous response to every attack should include words like 'The McCain campaign has knowingly twisted Senator's Obama's words (and/or votes) and has adopted a lowly road to this campaign of trying blatantly cheap and dirty tricks to get elected.' The same approach can be used for the Sex education attack.  It is completely obvious from the law that Senator Obama voted for that this law can by no means be called sex education and is a very well-intentioned measure to prevent our children from getting abused and make our children aware of the predators that are around'. There is no room for doubt for any person who has read this law, so this clearly shows that once more the McCain campaign has adopted the disgusting tactic of spreading blantant lies about Senator Obama to malign him and create a nagative image of him amongst the voters. They have compromised their principles so far thay they don't even think twice about knocking down laws that protect our children fr0om the horrors of abuse.' ... I'm sure you get the idea and can take it up from here.

It is extremely critical that the response is given back immediately after an attack and should be so huge that it should flood every communications medium and should not only drown their attack but should show them in extremely poor light for adopting such underhanded and lowly campaign tactics. Any delay in responding or more importantly (which is what is happening) NOT RESPONDING seriously endangers the image of the candidate under attack (Senator Obama) which is very difficult to reverse once it sticks (like it happenned with John Kerry .. .very difficult to shake off the image of a waffling weak french poodle). Also, I'm surprised that the All American campaign teams cannot be insightful enough to figure out how an ordinary american average joe from the mainlands (the 'battlegrounds' which the Obama campaign is supposed to be focusing on) thinks. They respect a guy who stands up for himself and defends himself from unjustified attacks and would likely think of a guy to who keeps quiet under attacks as weak (or guilty as charged). That is one image you cannot afford to have for your candidate especially in a time of war when national security is always in the background of voters' minds. I haven;t spent all my time in America but it's amazing that I can feel the pulse of a regular American much more easily that the Obama campaign folks. There's very little time for you guys to change tack and I implore not to reject any advice outright and come up with a forceful campaign which gives due importance to the importance of image building in a campaign.

 More to follow .. there's so much so add on the winning campaign strategy. 

 I am glad that all our effort of like-minded people who want Obama to hit back harder is paying off. This article gives us hope - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26667449.

Way to go Obama. Show that you are not a scaredy cat, that you can stand straight and defend yourself strongly against blatantly false and demeaning allegations.

I saw Obama respond pretty well but it still seemed like he was being too polite and nice about it. The Obama campaign still has it's face buried in sand and is playing right into the hands of the republicans with it's 'Let's copy Kerry's campaign strategy to the T' campaign strategy. Hit back HARD for god's sake and use this as an opportunity to show how the McCain campaign is knowingly mischaracterizing his comments and show clearly to the American public how low a road the candiates and the McCain campaign are taking to get elected. How about this as a rebuttal "There was no room for doubt from Mr. Obama's statements that he was very obviously talking about the economic policies of McCain in the same sentence that he talks about applying "lipstick to a pig" which referred of course to applying "lipstick" to Mr. McCain's economic policies. The fact that there is absolutely no way the sentence can be attributed as a remark against Gov Palin or a sexist remark under any stretch of imagination makes it obvious that the McCain campaign is knowingly mischaracterizing Senator Obama's statement and is taking a shockingly low road for the campaign. We credit the American people with a lot more sense than the McCain campaign does and we request that the American public and the media speak out strongly against using such lowly and cheap tricks as part of an election campaigns"

You get the idea. There's a lot more you can build up on that text above. This was their golden opportunity to turn the tables faster than they can say 'Lipstick on a pig'. Every attack from the feared GOP can be turned back just as easily and in fact can be used as ammuntion against themselves, if only the democratic startegists were a wee bit more brighter than the Mooses from Gov Palin's state.  Repeat after me "Hit back harder than you get"!! If any of the readers agree or have any inputs for the Obama campaign please write down your thoughts as they might help them (they certainly need all the help they can).

The chorus is growing and I hope Obama is listening. Schumer said it on Aug 7, 2008 (quoted in politico.com - http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/Schumer_Hit_back_harder.html) when the McCain campaign came out with the 'Paris and Britney Ad'. This was the Obama campaigns response - "Obama's campaign responded to McCain's barrage by accusing him in television ads and press releases of taking the "low road," while casting Obama as above such attacks on his opponent's character." Oh my bama, how many times will we do a Kerry-redux? Kerry took the high road while they were gleefully chucking muck at him and he kept bowing and all but saying 'I'm too hoity toity to respond to such un-gentlemanly behaviour'. What was going through the key voter's mind though was "how can any veteran of honor take such allegations against his service without strongly hitting back and defending his sefless and heroic contributions to the nation. What is wrong with the man?" The idea here is that a candidate should act and react like any normal person should.

First of all, we are fighting an election in USA where straight talk is still revered and a man who can hold his ground and fight for himself is respected. Secondly this is (and was in Kerry's time) a time of war. People definitely don't want to see any shades of wimpiness in their candidate and a man who can't defend himself against baseless attacks certainly is not fit to defend the country. There is only one way to win this election and that is HIT BACK HARDER than you get.

Tomorrow I will expand further on how the Obama campaign can hit back harder. 

If they haven't realized till now that their messed-up minds were the reason for their baseless phobia and paranoia about the imagined sexist bias against Clinton, then it's time to hammer the message into their brains. Nobody really cared whether Clinton is a woman or a man (after so many years of seeing her in politics thoughts about gender don't occur to most people when they see her), it's her policies and actions (hint hint... Iraq War) and scheming duplicity about her actions on the war which made most people hate her. She deserved to lose for that alone .. and please don't keep bashing Obama for trying to innocently lighten up the atmosphere in that debate by saying 'You're likeable enough' (may not be excellent choice of words but very very innocuos and if you can't see it that way then please go for a brain scan). I'll be fair and say it was equally wrong for Obama's supporters to call the Clintons racist but again the Clintons did try to raise pointless parallels between black people running for presidents.

So it all comes down to this and nothing else ... when it mattered the most, Hillary showed awful judgement and she did not accept it even when it was clear that her decision was wrong, just for the sake of her personal political benefit.  If she can be so small-minded as to think of her personal political gain when lives are being lost by the thousands then there is no further explanation required as to why she does not deserve to be president (so just stop it already).

P.S: On this topic and on almost everything, you are the best Maureen Dowd.