Obama Returns Slap; Calls McCain Out of Touch

[babylonsister]

Obama Returns Slap; Calls McCain Out of Touch

By Jeff Zeleny



WASHINGTON – Senator Barack Obama sought to turn a controversy surrounding his campaign into a head-on debate with Republicans, telling an audience of newspaper executives here today that he would welcome having a conversation over which political party was out-of-step with voters’ concerns.

“If John McCain wants to turn this election into a contest about which party is out of touch with the struggles and the hopes of working America, that’s a debate I’m happy to have,” Mr. Obama said. “In fact, I think that’s a debate we need to have.”

Then, he added in a direct critique of Mr. McCain: “If I had to carry the banner for eight years of George Bush’s failures, I’d be looking for something else to talk about too.”

Still, for the fourth straight day, Mr. Obama found himself spending considerable time explaining a now-infamous remark at a California fund-raiser about how Americans who are bitter about their economic circumstances “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” He dismissed charges – from his Republican and Democratic rivals alike – that his comments were elitist.

“I may have made a mistake last week in the words that I chose,” he said, “but the other party has made a much more damaging mistake in the failed policies they’ve chosen and the bankrupt philosophy they’ve embraced for the last three decades.”

In a speech at the Washington Convention Center, where he spoke before an audience of hundreds of newspaper editors and publishers at a luncheon sponsored by The Associated Press, Mr. Obama also turned his attention to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. With a smile on his face, his tone verged close to mocking, when he was asked whether she should exit the race.

more...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/obama-returns-slap-calls-mccain-out-of-touch/

[Bonn1997]

1. A big part of winning elections is...

managing the sound bytes played on the evening news. I think Obama has handled that aspect over the past 4 days as poorly as possible.

[babylonsister]

2. It's rather difficult to 'manage' soundbites on the m$m when

1) they want McCain to win, thus he gets the positive press (and hardly any negative at all, even when well-earned), and 2) the m$m want Clinton to run against McCain because she'd be easier to beat.

I saw all of them speak today. McCain's was covered in its entirety, Clinton's was covered pretty thoroughly, Obama was cut off mid-stream. Try to manage that. Hell, just watch the m$m and take notes. You'll see what I'm talking about. And I was watching m$nbc. CNN is even worse.

[Bonn1997]

3. Media is always against *your* candidate

Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, a McCain, a Bush, an Obama, or a Clinton supporter, you always think the media is against your candidate. The media just sells whatever the public wants to buy.

[GreenStates]

4. I like it

So True, the media shows you want you want to, or convince yourself you are seeing.

[ptolomeus]

5. It's easy to verify he's out of touch

Just refer to his remarks saying that the Shia were harboring Al Qaeda in Iran.