The Well-Oiled Obama Machine Gets Some Advice from Concerned Critics

For months, Obama’s netroots supporters gleefully compared their man’s well-oiled political machine, blatantly ginned up by the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, to the messily run Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary. The netroots, composed of mostly youthful white males, not as yet distracted by the necessity to earn a living, aggressively argued that Obama’s calm (no drama), secretive (never a leak to the press), tightly run campaign proved the One was qualified to be president of the United States.

Since the Palin effect first broke a couple of weeks ago and McCain seized the lead from Obama, pundits and former campaign advisors for the first time have criticized the Obama team led by his honor, David Axelrod.

For example, the NY Post’s Kirsten Powers in a piece titled, How Obama Blew It: Pays Price in Polls for Bungled Attacks on Sarah, writes:

“YESTERDAY'S Gallup poll had John McCain ahead of Barack Obama by an astonishing 10 points among likely voters. A Washington Post poll had that lead at only two points, but clearly showed a McCain surge - especially among women. This wasn't what Democrats were expecting when they left Denver - yet they have nobody to blame but themselves.

“Obama's toughest challenge has always been to connect with working-class swing voters. So attacking the poster child for small-town values, Sarah Palin, was a bad strategy.

“No, Obama didn't engage in the mass sneering at Palin - but he did fall into the trap of disrespecting her. When McCain chose her, the Obama campaign's first response was to ridicule the size of her town. Then the candidate himself began referring to her as a ‘former mayor’ when she is in fact a sitting governor.

“When she retaliated (justifiably) by mocking his stint as an organizer, the Obama camp was clearly rattled. Obama himself actually began arguing about the importance of community organizing. His supporters amplified this cry - claiming Palin's attack was a racist slur and passing around e-mails titled ‘Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor.’

“Meanwhile, the rest of the country was probably wondering what being a community organizer has to do with being president.

“Lured by the McCain camp, Obama supporters engaged in an argument about who had more overall experience - the top of the Democratic ticket or the bottom of the GOP ticket. This diminished Obama.

“Meanwhile, the media lit up in all their cultural-elite splendor.”

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