<p>Characterizing Blue State Digital as the company “who runs our server” is a bit disingenuous on the part of the Obama campaign. </p>
<p>Blue State Digital is a political consulting firm founded by four members of the Howard Dean campaign. The “just some geek” who developed the 1984 attack ad was the Internet Communications Director for Sherrod Brown’s 2006 Senate Race.</p>
<p>I don’t think the Obama campaign cut a purchase order for “(1) internet attack ad”. Nor, do I think that the 22 employees of Blue State Digital (oops, sorry, 21 – a founding director is on leave to work as the head of new media communications for Obama) knew nothing of this ad.</p>
<p>Here’s the transcript of Sen. Clinton’s “outrage” at the Obama ad when asked about it by a NY TV station earlier in the week:</p>
<p>Q: What do you think of the video?</p>
<p>"I haven’t seen it but I’m pleased that it seems to be taking attention away from what used to be on YouTube and getting a lot of hits, namely me singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Everybody in the world now knows I can’t carry a tune. I thank heavens for small favors and the attention has shifted, so maybe people won’t have to tune in and hear me screeching about “The Star Spangled Banner.”</p>
<p>Q: Should the video be removed?</p>
<p>“You know, that’s for somebody else to decide. I don’t have an opinion one way of another. I think anything that drives interest in these campaigns and gets people who otherwise are not at all interested in politics, I think that’s pretty good. I might quibble a little bit about the content but if we get more people, especially young people, thinking about politics, I’m happy about that.”</p>
<p>“you should be expected to disapprove of negative attack ads run on your campaign’s behalf.”</p>
<p>Yes, you should either publicly denounce them or accept that people will believe you are condoning them. I don’t think this is anywhere near Swift Boat level, but the principle is the same. I’d like to see Obama say he is disappointed to see these kinds of tactics used on his behalf.</p>
<p>PH: yes, Hillary can take a punch. And throw one. I’m not all warm and fuzzy about her. But I respect her as being formidable, either as a candidate or as an adversary. More so than any other candidate on either side. Not hard, I admit, because I view most of the Republicans with contempt. McCain? Giuliani? Romney? Gingrich? Rice? Pfui.</p>
<p>Selling pardons? Can’t make that case to me. And if I were to stipulate as a hypothetical, it would pale alongside turning the entire Department of Justice into a political arm, desiring prosecution of opponents on trumped up charges and short-circuiting or sabotaging prosecutions of one’s operatives or allies (like the tobacco industry). </p>
<p>In playing this kind of partisan way over the line hardball, I don’t think the Republicans have counted on the reactions they’ve engendered. 2006 may look like a cakewalk for them compared to November 2006. Personally, I’m committed to the destruction of neocons as a political force; cf., Rome vs. Carthage. If they wind up being a Southern-based regional party based upon Christian supremacy, homophobia, and a unilateral jingoistic foreign policy, I guess I can live with that though I’d be sorry for the poor sods who live in places like Mississippi and Alabama.</p>
<p>It clearly never dawned on them that they could lose the House or the Senate and face accountability.</p>
<p>What’s amazing is that they seem to go out of their way to make trouble for themselves. I mean…really…between the mess in Iraq and what they had to know was an impending mess over the illegal FBI phone records, what was really to be gained by firing 8 Republican US Attorneys? For what? Two years?</p>
<p>It is seemingly just a Mafia-like mentality of punishing anyone who dared go against the boss.</p>
<p>“What’s amazing is that they seem to go out of their way to make trouble for themselves.”</p>
<p>My only conclusion from all this is that it’s the result of resolutely ignoring anyone outside of the administration and the deepest reaches of the base. If you don’t watch TV or read newspapers or talk to citizens who haven’t been vetted for loyalty, and you fire any advisors who tell you the ugly truth, how would you even know that your actions are coming off badly? Why would you care about consequences you don’t even know about? The White House has created a world where unfavorable information just doesn’t get in. This is the inevitable result.</p>
<p>I’ve been urging all of you Christian-fundamentalist-theocratic-takover-fearing Democrats to get out more for a long time now. You might be interested in this Time Magazine article:</p>
<p>They don’t need their first choice candidate when they have the whole field falling over themselves to say whacko stuff like they don’t know if the use of condoms helps reduce the spread of HIV.</p>
<p>And if I listed candidates in my own preferred order:</p>
<p>Al Gore (alas, I want our true and rightful President back)
Hillary
Edwards
Obama (or is it Odama? I’ve been watching so much Gallactica that I can’t be sure - and BTW, the Final Five will be revealed Sunday night - oh joy!)</p>
<p>"Except to block an investigation. Which is suspicious at this point.</p>
<p>Furthermore, even assuming that nothing illegal happened, and that no one perjured himself in the earlier testimony, this is a horrible policy precedent."</p>
<p>Actually neither of those statements are true. A president can fire a US Attorney to block an investigation if he wants to take the heat and Jimmy Carter did just that in 1978 to block the indictment of a Democratic Congressman.</p>
<p>“If they wind up being a Southern-based regional party based upon Christian supremacy, homophobia, and a unilateral jingoistic foreign policy, I guess I can live with that though I’d be sorry for the poor sods who live in places like Mississippi and Alabama.”</p>
<p>Before yousodoff all those homophobic Southerners you might want to check out etymolgy use and meaning of the term sod. Since the PC police are destined to rule the land I don’t want you to inadvertenly wind up in prison for a hate crime in the Brave New World.</p>
<p>BTW, on this Obama ad deal. The Chicago Sun-Time now reports that the employee of the Obama consulting firm that created the ad was a roommate of Obama’s press secretary while both were working on the Sherrod Brown Senate race last year. And, that the creator of the ad worked on the Obama website design.</p>
<p>Though I defended the Obama campaign’s decision not to publicly disapprove of this video, I agree that this analogy seems “disingenuous.” Perhaps even more surprisingly, it seems wholly unpersuasive on its face. Given the fact that about 50% of legal education involves reasoning and argument by analogy, I would have expected more from an editor of the Harvard Law Review and a University of Chicago law professor.</p>
<p>I think Obama is simply struggling with the difficulties of living up to his self-imposed “Mr. Clean” status and with some degree of naivete about championship prize fights. He’s never experienced the scale of a presidential campaign staff.</p>
<p>I don’t, for a minute, think that he was personally in loop on this ad. Controlling political operatives is like herding cats. However, it’s something the candidate must have the moxie to do, especially when he puts himself on a pedestal (a dumb thing to do, but it’s done now, he’s stuck with it). </p>
<p>So far, his campaign has not been particularly skillful at deniable surrogate bashing. They’ve been downright hamfisted at times. Geffen should have made his attacks at a point in time well removed from an Obama fundraiser at his house, not the same night! A skilled campaign would have had Geffen make his remarks before he publicly signed on with Obama. But, as Carvelle said, “Geffen’s the kind of guy you want to open his wallet and shut his mouth…”</p>
<p>I think Clinton’s “people” understand that the way to do an arms length attack is to plant stories in the media and let the “pundits” do the dirty work. The articles starting to appear about the YouTube ad connections to Obama in papers like the Chicago Sun-Times and LA Times are, in all likelihood, planted (or at least encouraged) by Clinton surrogates. Those are the punches I referenced in the title of this thread. If Obama had really been on top of his game, he probably should have fired Blue State Digital, making a big show of principle that he won’t tolerate negative attacks.</p>
<p>It’s a fascinating dynamic in the race. Both Obama and Clinton know that there is a fairly high probability of a Clinton/Obama ticket. And, frankly, that would be the best thing that could happen to Obama if his ultimate goal is to get elected President (at age 54). He could then inherit the machine and learn how to operate it (a skillset that is closely related to he skills necessary for success in the Oval Office).</p>
<p>The odd dynamic is producing a race where the two of them are complimentary of each other. That doesn’t work to Obama’s favor in terms of getting the nomination, but how else can he play it? Clinton has the money, a machine she’s been building for more than 20 years, and Bill. She can afford to just smile sweetly and talk about how great it is to have Obama in the race. Things like the Vilsack endorsement are huge. As is the Bill Shaheen endorsement in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>HL, I’m well aware of the etymology. It was an exercise in irony. It’s a rare conservative that has either wit or a sense of humor, though I can think of exceptions, even well known ones.</p>
<p>And it is a rare liberal who is not a self-rigteous more secular than thou prig, but that is why we love them.</p>
<p>Just out of curiousity though what is the difference between your exercise in irony and what Ann Coulter said other than whose ox was being gored? When is it OK to use a crude slang term for the love that dare not speak its name and when isn’t it?</p>
<p>That’s bull. It’s not taken seriously enough. The religious right has tremendous influence over Republican presidents, especially this one.</p>
<p>Even something as secular as the steel tariff had to be run by Ted Haggard for an opinion. I don’t even think Haggard gave much prayerful consideration to the issue or any objective study. Sort of off the top of his head he said: “Cheap steel is good.” Within days, Haggard’s whim was policy.</p>
<p>Me? I’d have rather heard from a metallurgist as to whether the thinner-walled foreign steel would stand up to the same pressures as American steel, and what the consequences would be if it didn’t. Or from an economist as to the risks/benefits to the job market and industry.</p>
<p>But instead we get a policy made by the whim of whatever evangelical Bush phoned up this week.</p>