McCain-Palin Throw the Obama Camp into Disarray

There’s no question in my mind that Sarah Palin’s powerful effect on the presidential campaign thus far has caught the Obama camp completely off guard. Obama and his cronies cut their teeth in politics as willing cogs in the Daley machine – the One’s claim to transcend the “old politics” notwithstanding. It’s easy to imagine the cunning Axelrod and his protégé watching McCain introduce Palin in Dayton, Ohio the morning after Obama’s well-staged performance at Mile High stadium. The two Chicago pols would have looked at each other, smirked, and doubled over with laughter. “What was McCain thinking?” they might well have asked each other.

Dan Balz at the Washington Post examines this stage of the campaign in more detail beginning with the question, “Has Barack Obama underestimated John McCain?” Balz answers his own question in the following paragraphs:

“His advisers would certainly say no, that they always assumed the presidential race would be close and hard fought. But it's not too much to believe that at Obama's Chicago headquarters and on his campaign plane, the team did not fully appreciate the Republican position.

“It's fair to say they never anticipated that McCain would roll the dice in the way he did when selecting a vice presidential running mate. Who did? The Obama team's first reaction was curt and indifferent, an apparent sign of over-confidence inside the operation that was quickly submerged by the more modulated reactions from the candidate himself. But in its dismissive initial response, the Obama campaign was signaling its belief that McCain had taken a foolish risk.

“Obama's pick of Joe Biden had revealed a campaign in play-safe mode. Even Evan Bayh probably wasn't as safe a choice for Obama as Biden, given stirrings in the blogosphere about his red-state centrism and Biden's combination of foreign policy stature and everyman persona. Picking Tim Kaine or Kathleen Sebelius would have been bolder and riskier. Picking Hillary Clinton would have been the ultimate gamble, a big-league running mate whose selection would have been a very loud statement about Obama.

“So the vice presidential competition is one area where Obama miscalculated his rival's daring. The Palin choice may yet prove to be the mistake that many initially said it would be, but in the short run, McCain has achieved much more than even he might have expected -- more energy, more enthusiasm, more money, more attention.”

It’s when Balz criticizes the Obama camp for underestimating the kind of campaign that McCain’s team would run that I part company. Balz presents the McCain team as a bunch of street brawlers who simply throw everything they’ve got at their opponent. In contrast, he portrays the Obama team as a gentlemanly group who focus on tactics and ground operations.

Granted Obama doesn’t appear very formidable standing at the podium complaining about being roughed up and making feeble sounding protests such as “Enough is enough.” But once he realizes that he’s actually going to have to fight if he hopes to win the election, he’ll marshal all of the old style Chicago political expertise at his command, and he and his supporters will do whatever they think it takes to destroy their enemies. Just ask Alice Palmer, a progressive elder stateswoman, who once made the mistake of getting in Obama’s way in his bid for a seat in the Illinois Senate.

If you’d like to read Dan Balz’ article in its entirety, go here.