Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A Few Notes To The Obama Campaign


Dear David Plouffe -

Since I know you read my blog religiously and can't wait to hear what my opinion is about how to run BO's campaign, I thought I better get to it and give you my invaluable insight about what you should have on your to-do list between now and the end of the Convention.

- Announce the VP candidate on Thursday afternoon, say around 2 or 3 Eeastern time. You'll dominate the news cycle through Friday night and into Saturday when all the media is going to be congratulating themselves on how wonderful they are at the media kick-off in Denver at Elitch's. After that it's "All Convention All The Time" mode, and all together you'd end up with about 7 days of free national media.

- And about the VP. No sitting Senators, please. Biden, Bayh and Clinton all need to be right where they are in the Senate. You need all the Dem senators and more to be able to actually execute any actual governing. And if you're still really about change, dump the white dudes and I still think you should pick a woman, and there are two pretty good ones available.

- People have mentioned Sibelius, but how about Janet Napolitano? The fact that since she used to be a US Attorney General and was the lawyer for Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas SCOTUS nomination farce, she would be perfect in the OVP to help clean up whatever land mines Cheney has left, not to mention a very good overseer to help clean up the Department of Justice. She has the added benefit of acting like a dagger through McCain's Arizona heart; he'd lose his home state if you picked her.

-Speaking of political daggers through hearts; enough of this bi-partisan/post-partisan talk. Are you frikking DUMB? Listen to me, at a time when 75-80% of people are saying "country going in wrong direction" you need to forcefully REPUDIATE these jerks who have lead us to where we are. All you've got to do is articulate what the people are thinking. It goes kinda like this:

"Damn, things suck, particularly my finances. The Bush administration and it's cronies have damn near wrecked the country by spending all this money on that dumb war, which they lied about to get us over there. And they want MORE of it with Iran? They're probably lying about THAT too.

They need to GO! Their policies stink and have gotten us in this fucking debt-hole with the Chinese and not to mention the shitty Oil Countries. Might as well buy milk to drive your car; same goddamn price per gallon and it's hard to afford either."


So David, understanding what every day people are thinking, do you think that people REALLY want to hear about BI-FUCKING-PARTISANSHIP? No way. People don't want these Republican clowns anywhere near their lives. You don't need to get all nuance-y and professor-ish with the people. To get the people totally on your side just call it what it is. For instance:
  • When McCain/Media throws out that "Obama ain't quite 'Merkan" business, you respond with "McCain is a grumpy old man, who doesn't mind killing the children YOU send to Iraq to protect his oil buddies. He doesn't mind doing it at all, and that makes me sick."
  • When McCain/Media freaks out because you picked somebody who is not a sitting senator and they start throwing around "inexperience," you respond with "Yeah, look where Bush and your so-called experience got us - in the toilet, buddy, and everybody knows it."
All in all David, I'm just saying why don't you START the fights? Given McCain, Rove and the Media conditions, you're gonna end up fighting anyway, whether Obama likes it or not, so you may as well control the turf. And every fight needs to contain the element "McCain = Bush." It makes McCain so mad, he'll eventually lose his cool in public and everyone will go "Yep - grumpy old war pig. No Way."

So get busy and get with it.