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.