Turn Loose The Surrogates, Senator Obama

by Steve Soto

It should be clear to all that John McCain and his hatchetmen, including Joe Lieberman, plan to attack Obama's inexperience and alleged softness on national security every day between now and November. They would not be able to do this had Hillary been the presumptive nominee, but that's another discussion.

Even though Obama wants to control his message, his campaign needs to allow a Tier Two operation to get underway that can attack McCain and his flunkies on national security in a strong pushback campaign. It is helpful to see that Joe Biden among others is ready to serve in this capacity, even if he wants something out of it. I would go farther however, and have several esteemed surrogates on foreign policy unleashed to attack McCain and his cabal on their record and continuing foolishness. For example, why shouldn't Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and perhaps even Wesley Clark or Tony Zinni be brought into the campaign immediately to develop a consistent Tier Two effort on national security, and then turn them loose to begin the punches?

It's not like we don't know what the McCain/Lieberman talking points will be. Aside from the attacks on Obama's alleged softness, McCain said on the Ellen DeGeneres show last week that we need to bring our troops home from Iraq victorious, without defining what that is. He called for a larger military, to fit the existing Bush policy, not a change in that policy. I suspect that a team of solid surrogates can pick apart that agenda every day between now and November, and the sooner Obama sets up such an effort, the better. McCain already has his surrogates at work against Obama; the time for return fire is now.