One thing you have to admit. The Republicans may not know how to run the country but they sure know how to run an election campaign. Last time when the Democrats picked a war hero the Republicans sizzled him into a French fry. It was a calamitous war verses the images of a guy flip-flopping on his little sail boat thing. We all know what happened; the French fry got toasted.

Four years later we see that the Republicans haven’t lost a step in their ability to moonwalk the American voter away from the issues and into the muzzy-land of Mr. Machiavellian. Immersed in an election season where the eight hundred pound anthropoid should be the economy stupid the right-wingers have found a new driver for the straight talk express; a driver who then promptly detoured the bus from Main Street to the shade trees of Lovers Lane; the entire time offering up a monologue searing her new found opponents while putting on her lipstick to the delight of her adoring passengers. Will the new driver end up in the ditch? Time will tell.

Mr. Obama should understand by now that being the good guy will not get him to the finish line first in what may be the ugliest race in a hundred years. Don’t count on John McCain to act honorably in this thing as he no longer has control of his own campaign. He wanted Joe Lieberman but instead got the lady from Alaska. He stands by and watches as political ads with his approvals at the end spew out lies saying that Mr. Obama has called Mrs. Palin a pig with lipstick and that Mr. Obama wants children in kindergarten to learn sex education. In the first instance Mr. Obama was not calling Mrs. Palin a pig but was using an old saying to describe McCain’s plans, an old saying that McCain had once used when discussing one of Mrs. Clinton’s agendas. The sex education charge was about a program that Mr. Obama had supported to educate children to protect themselves against sex predators. Surely if Mr. McCain was still in charge of his campaign he would not have approved these despicable lies. Who is now in charge? It is obviously the pack of corporate lobbyists (with assists from Karl Rove) that Mr. McCain has selected to run his campaign. And it was this bunch that came up with the brilliant ploy to use Mrs. Palin like a heroine in a Harlequin novel allowing blue collar voters to live vicariously through her in a kind of a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington story. The romance novel will out sell the ‘What I will do for you’ book every time. Please don’t take this as a sexist comment; I’m talking about Mr. McCain’s strategists here and not Mrs. Palin who has proved to be a better campaigner than most of the good old boys.

What should Mr. Obama do between now and the debates? He should let the dogs out. First he should unleash the 527s. These are political organizations that are not regulated by the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Obama had asked these groups to back off thinking that Mr. McCain and he could participate in a civil campaign. These groups have the agility and devious thinkers to compete with the Lobbyists/Rove bunch.

Mr. Obama must also find a way to better defend himself from the McCain attack ads within hours of the attacks; maybe with counter ads showing their hypocrisy. That said Mr. Obama cannot let the McCain camp’s negative campaign distract him from projecting his plans dealing with the real issues. But he needs to know that the American people are indeed distracted by these attacks. After all, who is going to listen to a lecture on the economy with a mud wrestling match going on in the same room? Mr. Obama, you said you were skinny but tough. Let us see some of that toughness and fight back like the election might depend on it as it probably will.

Wayne Nolen

Resource Box: http://billada.blogspot.com