Rovian Politics

So, have any bloggers photoshopped a picture of Karl Rove with lipstick on him, yet?

Today’s top story about "the pig in lipstick" remark has to be the dirtiest politics I’ve seen in a long time. It might be even be lower than the image of Obama with the word sex on his head. And it wasn’t just some dudes on a blog pushing this willful misunderstanding of a phrase. McCain himself was shaking his head about it today. The trouble is that I think it’s working.

Sunday’s Times profiled one of Rove’s proteges who is one of McCain’s top advisers. The Times detailed Schmidt’s strategies.

Mr. Schmidt gave the war room a more central place in Mr. McCain’s
campaign, streamlining its decision making so only a few key aides
decide what is worthy of response and, more important in Mr. Schmidt’s
view, what presents an opportunity to attack Mr. Obama as elite, out of
touch and lacking substance. Junior aides work shifts across 24 hours,
scouring news outlets for tidbits with the potential to embarrass Mr.
Obama through circulation to bloggers, the Drudge Report, cable news
and newspapers.

My e-mail inbox is about to commit suicide. I’m swamped with e-mails at the moment. Some are from my various listservs which are buzzing about political events. Some are from school as the semester kicks into gear. But a whole lot are from the McCain camp, the Republican party, and a whole of lot of interest groups that have gotten my e-mail address from the blog. I get one e-mail a day from the Obama team, but I gave them my e-mail address.

There’s been a lot of buzz about how saavy the Obama team is about taking advantage of new media, but I think that the McCain is doing a better job. Obama’s website is too tasteful and boring. Too much blue and boring graphics. McCain’s website is easier to read and has images that pop. Obama’s website makes you download .pdf files to read their policy proposals. They have too many policy proposals. They need to be feeding bloggers messages daily.

Make it work, people.

8 thoughts on “Rovian Politics

  1. I’m concerned that I’m seeing all these national McCain ads, during the NBC news and a couple of other places, but I’ve seen none on Obama. Is this happening everywhere ? I mean usually I see no ads because we are such a Republican strong hold, that no one wastes their money.

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  2. I was thinking I really want Biden to get up and attack the republican national convention speeches. Not even Palin. Attack Giuliani. Attack attacks on public service. Attack mean spirited hypocrites. just do it. If you have to go down, go down fighting and being awesome, not scared and blubbering.
    Joan Walsh on Salon thinks Obama needs sleep…I think its true. Take a day off, don’t do any fundraising, and come back ANGRY.

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  3. Dirtiest politics you’ve seen in a long time? Obama runs a commercial taking McCain’s $5 millon remark wildly out of context, and McCain’s campaign hammers too hard on an allusion that was probably unintentional. The latter is supposed to strike me as worse than the former?
    Live by the fawning-press-hungry-for-the-successful-outsider-story sword, die by the fawning-press-hungry-for-the-successful-outsider-story sword. The Obama campaign isn’t doing itself any favors by conflating unflattering coverage with unfair coverage.

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  4. I wish McCain had not responded the way he did. I also was unhappy when Obama was distorting McCain’s “100 years” remark.
    Politics can get ugly, especially when a candidate believes the MSM is in the tank for your opponent.
    Seven out of 10 voters (69%) remain convinced that reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and this year by a nearly five-to-one margin voters believe they are trying to help Barack Obama. Rasmussen

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  5. So, I think those of you who are expecting Obama to get angry aren’t going really going to get it — for two reasons. First, it’s a privilege to get angry, a privilege that black men don’t have. Everyone’s complaining about him being too cool right now, but if he got angry, he’d reinforce other biased stereotypes. Second, I think he’s not an angry person. I think that’s part of what his success so far has rested on.
    We’re angry, and we want someone to express that anger for us, but it’s not going to be Obama, not with the kind of sputtering we want to do.
    I do think that the democrats should say what they think, including calling Republicans liars when they lie. And, they shouldn’t hesitate to take things “out of context” to make a point. No need to handicap ourselves playing a game the Republicans aren’t playing.

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  6. Re the web site. I do agree that the McCain web site looks punch right now. Too busy (in particular there are far too many fonts on the page). But, the slide show, the “photos of the week” and the larger fonts are all working visually. I do wonder what it looks like on a smaller screen though — I have a very big monitor.
    On the other hand, I’ve heard of at least 4 people in Ohio who have “accidentally” signed on to go canvassing at the Obama web site, and then gone on to do it, even though they weren’t planning on it, and even though the thought of canvassing makes them cringe with fear. That’s something good about the Obama site (and about Obama).

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  7. Gimme some email addresses for those putzes in the McShame camp. By the time I’m done, they’ll be so far under a snow of Viagra sitse, Nigerian deposit scams, and ads for devices to enhance their Johnsons (and God knows they need that last one) that they won’t be able to send out a birthday greeting to their mothers, assuming they have mothers.

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