broken promises

The thing that annoys me most about Barack Obama’s blatantly broken promise this week is that it’s very difficult to use against him.  The mainstream media doesn’t seem to care much (shocker, I know), it’s far too abstract and complicated an issue to use effectively in paid media and frankly, the public has a long record of ignoring process issues short of real corruption.  But, there’s one forum the McCain campaign can deploy it in – a debate.   

John McCain should directly confront Obama with his broken promise during one of their debates.  Forget the heavily structured format Obama’s staff will insist on, McCain gets to break the format once or twice and address Obama directly.  One caveat.  A little righteous indignation is fine, but he can’t sound too angry because it plays into a preexisting negative meme. 

Why does this work?  Because McCain is highlighting his core strengths and creates the opportunity for an Obama gaffe.  McCain’s narrative is about honor, service and sacrifice.  He is everything Obama claims to be and he’s extremely comfortable in an unstructured town hall style format.  The issue simultaneously reinforces his narrative and undercuts Obama’s strengths.

More important is the psy-ops aspect.  Obama has run his campaign from a cocoon and his isolation makes him vulnerable.  He has a history of poor debate performances in unstructured, high pressure situations and although he’ll have likely have prepped for the issue, he has the potential to make a major gaffe. 

McCain is capable of pulling this off, and he’s ballsy enough to go for it.  At worst Obama won’t screw up and no harm done but at best, it’s a great potential “You’re no Jack Kennedy” moment.

Yes, that is right...Barack Obama is back recycling the broken political promises of 1992!!!

http://www.gop.com/media/PDFs/100907Research.pdf

Obama says he would cut taxes for middle class

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080614/ap_on_el_pr/obama_economy

Maybe this sort of plagiaristic pandering is what passes these days for creating party unity