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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Terrorism as campaign strategy

As we sit and watch the "terrorism" attacks by McCain and Giuliani and Obama's responses, let's not forget the campaign strategy.

This was supposed to be an Obama economy tour week, but the McCain campaign decided to use terrorism charges to take them off message.

2 Comments:

  • And yet I think it can be argued that Obama is holding his own on the terrorism issue. The more McCain and the Repubs talk about 9/11 and terrorist, the more the public is made aware of how poorly the Republicans have done on this issue. The media are now "forced" to cover alternate opinions of dealing with security, terrorism, Iraq, Iran, etc. because we're in a campaign, and the public -- now eager for new ideas -- is less persuaded the the GOP tape-loop of "fight 'em there or fight 'em here" "all war, all the time... only answer"

    Yes it knocks Obama off his preferred message this week.... for now. But at the same time, it's not like the Global War on Terrorâ„¢ is a winning issue for the GOP. At least not as it was four years ago.

    By Blogger -epm, at 8:52 AM  

  • Agreed. I really thought the Obama response was good, but the requirement to respond did take him off message.

    But, yeah, I do think that although it's not particularly subtle responding with "where's Bin Laden, why did we go into Iraq" is pretty strong.

    It also has the secondary effect of tying McCain firmly to the Iraq decision.

    And, no, it could definitely be argued that this is not a great issue for McCain, but, sadly, it's the best issue he has. Is he going to argue on the economy, healthcare, whatever else?

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:06 AM  

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