McCain Takes a Page From Clinton’s Playbook

[babylonsister]

McCain Takes a Page From Clinton’s Playbook

By JOHN HARWOOD
Published: August 4, 2008


At times this spring, it appeared that Senator Barack Obama’s fight with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would never end. In important ways, it hasn’t.

Instead, Mr. Obama has watched Senator John McCain pick up central strands of Mrs. Clinton’s approach, and amplify them. In exaggerated form, Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, has adopted her attitude toward Mr. Obama’s emergence (disdain), employed the same core argument against him (unproven and risky) and singled out his lingering electoral vulnerabilities (older voters, Rust Belt whites) in a contest where the Democrat’s race forms the backdrop.

Two months after it began, Round 2 has yielded a similar result as in the Democratic primaries. Mr. Obama retains a lead in public opinion polls, but it has not been very big.

Yet key elements of Mr. McCain’s offensive, and Mr. Obama’s response, may resonate differently than in the Obama-Clinton duel. The general election outcome may turn on which side better adapts to those differences.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/us/politics/p04caucus.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[tekisui]

1. He is making all the same mistakes that Clinton made.

Only he is doing it worse, and more ineffectively. Mocking his popularity, blaming the media, attacking Obama rather than focus on what Mccain has to offer.

Pathetic really, he should have learned from Hillary's mistakes.

[KittyWampus]

2. Clinton didn't make "mistakes". Going negative worked. If Clinton's team hadn't screwed up

so badly early on, there's a strong possibility she'd have won.

I'm sick of DU'ers who try to reinvent history.

[tekisui]

3. Clinton didn't make mistakes?

Going negative didn't work. She won a *few* late state that she probably would have won anyway. She made plenty of mistakes, it's why she lost.

[geek tragedy]

10. Clinton would have won if she went negative three months

earlier.

[babylonsister]

12. Coulda/shoulda/woulda. She went plenty negative, I don't know

who you were watching.

[TexasObserver]

4. and all of it has not gained McCain one point of support

his ceiling is 45%

[babylonsister]

5. According to this, he has gained some support:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=6582087

[TexasObserver]

7. I don't get that channel here.

"You are ignoring the author of this thread"

The polls, even as bad as they are, do not show McCain gaining ground. They show Obama losing points, but not McCain adding them. That is a dead give away to the changed methodologies of pollster. Are they making a distinction between those who lean and those who are absolute? They seem to be shaving from Obama's numbers those voters who may be less than 100% in their support.

[babylonsister]

8. Gotcha. Here's the link to the article, but it IS written by

the AP, and for the most part, they're very partisan, so I'm taking it with a grain of salt. As for polls, I don't believe them either. There's a huge segment of the population they're not polling (cell phone users), so what is the point?


http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iX2arGasws02Vc4yiVCrGG8AHP0gD92B3DI80

[TexasObserver]

9. Thanks. I don't believe there has been any drop for Obama.

We have to ask ourselves what is more likely?

1. That almost ten percent of the electorate, at least 20% of Obama's voters, suddenly in the past week responded to a few commercials and the chit chat among pundits to change their votes, or ...

2. That the polls do not accurately reflect the voters, for whatever combination of reasons.

I submit that it is more likely, more logical, that polls are bad - by design or otherwise - than that ten percent of all voters flip flop so quickly, so easily. The voters that are that soft on either candidate are not watching the news. They don't watch news. They won't be watching news in September. They're not paying any attention to the race right now. They're using their last weeks of the summer break.

Gallup is a corporate tool. I have no doubt that they respond to pressure by their corporate sponsors, the ones who employ them throughout every year, and that the pressures result in polls that are viewed more favorably.

The pollsters, like MSM, are largely bought and paid for by GOP interests. Ain't no Democrats doing the hiring of such pollsters for these globalist corporate giants.

[Alter Ego]

6. And how did that work out for Hillary, eh?

NOTE: The following statements are not meant to incite a flame war. They are merely my two cents and I have neutered them as much as I possibly can to avoid pissing anyone off.

In all honesty, she underestimated him--and that was her downfall. She sneered at him when he campaigned in places like Idaho and Kansas and Wyoming--and yet it was states like those, in a great coalition, that gave him the nomination. She made fun of his rhetorical style, and yet it continued to win over more and more voters. She derided his inexperience, but it only pointed to the fact that she herself, while a good Senator, is a relic of Washington politics--and it was time to get a fresh pair of eyes on the subject.

Incredibly, McCain has looked at all Hillary's mistakes and not learned a damn thing--and Obama will make him pay for it.

[geek tragedy]

11. Hillary did much better when she went full-out negative.

The kitchen sink strategy worked--it was just too late.