The chattering classes are swarming around the notion of a new Obama campaign strategy to go negative now that Joe Biden is on the ticket. Pundits have already speculated that independents and moderates who've bought into Obama's hope of "change we can believe in" will be deflated if such assumptions turn out to be true. Young voters, perhaps, will then write off 2008 as just another politics as usual campaign.
Not so fast.
Americans don't want to vote for someone who refuses to fight back! Let's not forget who started throwing punches to begin with. We could stomach the Paris and Britney ads, and some of us thought the Moses ad was even humorous.
But when John McCain launched his Rovebomb assertion that Obama would rather lose the war in Iraq than lose the election, the gloves had to come off. John McCain, a so-called maverick, accused a sitting US Senator of putting an election above winning a war, de facto treason. If that's not attacking his patriotism, nothing is.
In another example of going negative first, a McCain television ad accusing Obama of supporting a tax increase on those making $42,000 was nothing short of a lie. It wasn't "misleading." Not a "misrepresentation." Not a "misstatement." It was a lie.
Our federal government is a filthy wreck after eight years of George Bush. And the McCain campaign represents the dirty mess that Washington D.C. is in as a result. The cleanup Washington needs will take a relentless string of hard-hitting punches from Obama and Biden as they counter the smear and lies from the GOP. That's not negative campaigning in my opinion. It's fighting for change we can believe in.
With so much at stake, you can bet your sweet bippy there will indeed be a fight. Republicans brought this one on themselves, all by themselves. We cannot afford one more day, let alone four more years of the same failed policies of George W. Bush. I predict 2008 to be an all-out political war of the ages. With millions of supporters standing firm behind them, Barack Obama and Joe Biden aren't alone as they lead the battle to restore dignity and honor to our broken government.
