OBAMA OFFENSIVE!

New Krugman from the New York Times:

Accentuate the Negative

Over the past month or so many Democrats have had the sick feeling that once again their candidate brought a knife to a gunfight. Barack Obama’s campaign, inexplicably, was unprepared for the inevitable Republican attack on the candidate’s character. By the middle of last week, Mr. Obama’s once formidable lead, both in national polls and in electoral college projections based on state-level polls, had virtually evaporated.

Mr. Obama’s waning advantage brought back bad memories of the 2004 campaign, whose key lesson was that there are no limits to the form G.O.P. character attacks can take.

And

It was predictable, then, that Mr. Obama would find himself on the receiving end of an all-out character attack, much of it nonsensical: he’s un-American because he vacations in Hawaii, where his grandmother lives? It was also predictable that responding by repeating what a great guy the candidate is, or denouncing the attacks as unfair, would be ineffective.

So now the Obama campaign has responded with its own character attack.

Is it fair to attack Mr. McCain for having too many houses?

More here.

Shit yeah, it's fair to attack McCain for having too many houses. It's also fair to attack him for his role in the Keating Five scandal of the 80s. It's also fair to attack him as an out of control war hawk who sees the military as the quickest route between two points. It's fair to attack him for his famous temper. It's fair to attack him for being too old for the job. It's fair to attack him for being an out-of-touch technophobe who doesn't understand or use the internet. It's fair to attack him for dumping his first wife and trading up to a trophy with a bajillion bucks.

Really, it's fair to attack McCain for being a stupid sleazy piece of shit political and personal opportunist who might conceivably be an even worse disaster for our nation than the chimp occupying the Oval Office right now. And when I say "attack," I mean mercilessly, without regard for truth, and constantly.

As Krugman observes in his essay, this is how the game is played today. I don't approve at all, but Democrats taking the high road is a sure path to defeat. The GOP started this shit, but anyone can play, and Obama would be a fool to pretend he's above it all. Because he's not. Republican motherfuckers upended both Gore and Kerry, and almost threw Clinton out of office. There is no "above it all." It's kill or be killed. Obama needs to slash McCain's throat, the sooner the better.

Krugman says that Obama should only go negative enough "so that voters see this as a race between a Democrat and a Republican," which would easily give to contest to the former. I disagree. Recent history has shown us that this is all out mudslinging war. Brand names will not be enough. Obama needs to utterly destroy his opponent.

I say the only limit here is overplaying the asshole hand. Be an asshole, but not too much of one. That ought to do it.

Kill, kill, kill.

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