Saturday, September 13, 2008

Hubris coupled with poor execution is not a recipe for success.

Glen Reynolds has some thoughts on the "email" thing.

Consider: In a single not-very-compelling ad calling McCain a clueless geezer who can't even send email, the Obama campaign managed to draw attention to his war injuries again, to show that it doesn't even know that the 2000 McCain campaign actually pioneered the insurgent Web tactics that Obama used in the 2008 primary, and to produce an ad that seems tailor-made to alienate voters more than a few years older than Obama, all without providing any actual reason to, you know, vote for Obama. That's a combination of cluelessness, sloppiness, and narcissism -- it's clear they can't conceive that McCain could have pioneered anything on the Web, and they're probably too young to actually remember the 2000 election -- that seems emblematic of where that campaign has been lately. Hubris coupled with poor execution is not a recipe for success.

Bold added.
There's more information on the link.

Meanwhile Roger Kimbal wonders Who is the mole in the Obama campaign? He gives examples of the Obama camp's missteps and jokingly wonders who is behind it all.

As Rand Simberg notes: "Hey, as I say in comments, the guy has problems finding good help. Just who we want for president." How come Obama has such poor judgement in picking and organizing his staff? And yet... he keeps insisting that running this campagin should count as his main experience.

And Victor Davis Hanson comes in with some thoughts.

What we are seeing now, unfortunately for Obama if it doesn't cease, is a weird sort of puerile panic and hysteria on the part of Democrats. They are losing it with wild and rather vicious talk about Palin's various supposed misdemeanors, Obama's campaign itself that is suddenly shrilly whining and screaming about lies and liars, when Obama himself is not gaffing like Biden with silly lipstick riffs and arrogant dismissals of small town mayorships (and after his Pennsylvania clingers speech no less!)—all while liberal bloggers, the MSM columnists, the talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, etc are losing their sanity seeing Karl Roves everywhere stealing their hope and change dreams.

Watching some of this hysterical outpouring of anger is surreal, as grown-ups sound like children whose mothers did not buy them a snack or failed to take them to the zoo as promised.

Unless Obama's team can get a handle on this self-induced and paranoid madness, they risk turning a small, natural, and probably temporary 2-3 point bump—quite normal in such a tight see-saw race—into a permanent and insurmountable 5-6 point McCain lead, as the quiet swing voters shrug and say to themselves, "Hmmm, liked that Obama, but if he and his supporters panic and go wild and vicious like this, what in the world would they do when elected?"


This shows how their panic and anger is making a mildly worrying situation (a post convention bump) even worse.

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