Disappointment

by Steve Soto

My apologies to all of you, and my fellow editors for being AWOL at times from the blog over the last several weeks. I've come through a pretty rough patch at work, and haven't had the energy and time to hold up my end of the bargain around here. It hasn't been fair to the rest of you and my fellow scribes around here, and the rest of this week isn't any better, as my wife and I confront the emotional downer that our summer is over because we have to take our daughter back to college the rest of this week.

(sigh)

I'll be writing sporadically the rest of this week as time and wireless capabilities allow, but before I hit the road this morning, I would be remiss if I didn't say a couple of things, namely:

I told you so.

Other bloggers over the last several days, many of them stalwart Obama supporters who gleefully trashed Clinton while puffing up Obama as the next RFK are now publicly expressing disappointment over Obama's wimpy and almost toothless campaign. Paul Krugman notes that Obama should be mopping the floor with McCain on just the economy, but isn't. Instead, as Paradox rightfully notes, Obama spends way too much time trying to appease the wingnut base in a mistaken and in my mind gutless effort. rather than confront McCain, his record, his party's failures, and his smears.

I have been saying for weeks that this campaign is not hitting back, is not running a Tier Two and Truth Squad effort, and is letting McCain define himself as anything but a Republican all while smearing and defining Obama as a treasonous black man. Obama supporters around here are rightfully defending and sticking by their man, using any number of reasons, which is to their credit. Yet they fail to confront the reality that this campaign has lost already even before the convention. Again, it isn't that hard to do: you unleash the Tier Two and Truth Squad effort in June and July to define McCain, defang his arguments before he makes them, so that when he spews his drivel his lines fall flat and are viewed as the flailings of a GOP senator who wants you to look away from his own failings. All while you talk about change and why you are a better choice because you are running against Washington, instead of morphing right before our eyes into a Beltway centrist Trojan Horse for Tom Daschle and Democratic lobbyists who want their piece of the pie.

And whatever you do, don't tell the 527's and the rest of the infrastructure that you are not needed, and that all the money should go to the campaign instead, as if you are smarter and more virtuous than everyone else. You kneecap this bastard in June and July before he kneecaps you, assuming the worst about your opponent because he is a Republican running with Rove's playbook with Rove's people.

Kerry at least lost his race in August, after the convention, whereas Obama lost this race in June and July, because he had a Sally Field-esque "You like me" moment over and over again. He believed the hype from his own Stepford cult about a new kind of politics, assumed he didn't need to define his opponent because it was beneath him, and gutted the ability of the Democratic Party and its infrastructure to hold McCain accountable.

And them he took a victory lap tour overseas to get photo ops while McCain began to define him here at home, by trying out attack lines until some of them got traction. And then in typical GOP fashion, McCain found the ones that worked, hammered them over and over again, and turned Obama into a boring and iffy choice against a guy who should be ten points behind by now.

Sorry, but that's how I feel. I'm bored by the Obama hype and see nothing now in his candidacy other than the fact he isn't McCain. The Supreme Court is enough to make us vote for him, but my feeling now is that Obama lost this race already, and it isn't the fault of bloggers (who he disdains and doesn't need), but rather himself and all the fawning Democratic Party lackeys who fell in behind him as he led them over the cliff.