It's Tough Being Above the Fray When The Fray Consumes You

So Obama's finally going McCain on McCain. The time is right.

Senator Barack Obama has started a sustained and hard-hitting advertising campaign against Senator John McCain in states that will be vital this fall, painting Mr. McCain in a series of commercials as disconnected from the economic struggles of the middle class.

Mr. Obama has begun the drive with little fanfare, often eschewing the modern campaign technique of unveiling new spots for the news media before they run in an effort to win added (free) attention. Mr. Obama, whose candidacy has been built in part on a promise to transcend traditional politics, is running the negative commercials on local stations even as he runs generally positive spots nationally, during prime-time coverage of the Olympics.

“If you can go quietly negative, that’s what he’s done; I think the perception is that he’s still running the positive campaign,” said Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group of TNS Media Intelligence, which monitors political advertising. “It’s a pretty smart, high-low, good cop/bad cop strategy.”

Since McCain destroyed the high road, he has taken the lead in the GWU and the Reuters/Zogby polls. The Obama campaign is now forced to take a detour. They've been there before. Let's rumble.

Comments

[Edgewater Joe, Chicago, IL]

He's actually been running ads like that in swing states (Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada) for a couple of weeks. We just don't hear about it because of how much the media still loves McSameAsBush and his celebritard ads.

[donna]

This is good -- test marketing the messages, then give national time to the ones that hit.

Hope Pfouffe's got his great polling people working for the campaign to see what works...