{"id":3018,"date":"2008-10-06T11:13:38","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T11:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/10\/06\/obama-disappoints-me\/"},"modified":"2008-10-06T11:13:38","modified_gmt":"2008-10-06T11:13:38","slug":"obama-disappoints-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/10\/06\/obama-disappoints-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Disappoints Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got email this morning from the Obama campaign, bearing news that will no doubt have the more rabidly partisan Democrats of blogdom dancing with glee: The Obama campaign as prepared a video about the Keating Five<\/a> scandal (Wikipedia link, not the campaign video), and John McCain’s role in it. The video will be released at noon today.<\/p>\n

Some bloggers have been demanding this for weeks, now, but I can’t say it makes me happy. I don’t like seeing the Obama campaign go there, and it’s particularly disappointing because I don’t think they need<\/strong> to go there.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Yeah, fine, the McCain campaign has announced their intention to make the remaining month of the campaign all about “character,” which translates to “smearing Obama with every dubious association they can find.” This is merely a response in kind, with the added bonus factor of being halfway relevant to the current financial crisis.<\/p>\n

Still, I don’t think there’s any need for it, particularly not from the Obama campaign directly. The McCain campaign is floundering and flailing. Palin is a laughingstock, the cratering financial system has forced the spotlight onto McCain’s very weakest area, and everything seems to be unraveling. Going negative is the only thing they have left, but they’ve already botched that play by telling the media that they’re trying to change the subject<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Obama has the rarest of chances to run a high-road political campaign and actually win. The “turn the page” remark is all the inoculation he needs against the scandalous claim that he shares with William Ayers a commitment to helping poor school children<\/a>. All he really needs to do at this point is stand aside, talk about the economy, and watch the McCain campaign implode.<\/p>\n

Instead, they’re going with the Keating video. Which, again, is remarkably relevant, as dredged-up past scandal attacks go. Still, I’d really prefer to see the election turn on things that have happened within this decade, rather than crap that went on back in the Reagan administration (which, admittedly, is better than McCain’s preference to have the election campaign center on the Vietnam era).<\/p>\n

So, this is not a happy-making development. It doesn’t keep me from hoping that it’s effective– McCain would’ve been a disaster prior to picking Palin, but with her on the ticket, a Republican win would be an utter catastrophe– but I’m disappointed to see the Obama campaign taking this route.<\/p>\n

(Yeah, I know, this is hardly a shocker. “Politician disappoints! Also: Sun Rises in East!” Still.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got email this morning from the Obama campaign, bearing news that will no doubt have the more rabidly partisan Democrats of blogdom dancing with glee: The Obama campaign as prepared a video about the Keating Five scandal (Wikipedia link, not the campaign video), and John McCain’s role in it. The video will be released… Continue reading Obama Disappoints Me<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}