The Calendar Requires Urgency

by Steve Soto

Sure, the McCain/Palin team is manufacturing outrage over the "lipstick on a pig" comment, and yes, their whole effort seems to be aimed at smearing (as Erin noted) and lying about Obama without regard to the facts, so much so that even Joe Klein can't stomach it.

But Democrats, and even the Obama campaign have missed what is going on here. With the lateness of the GOP convention and the abundance of early voting states, especially in the new swing states, the GOP planned to take advantage of this shortened season this year by shellshocking the political world and their base. The best way to energize your base, create mischief with Hillary supporters, and avoid talking once again about the issues and the GOP record is to do exactly what they are doing now.

It doesn't matter that Team McCain is lying through their teeth, nor do the debates matter. All the GOP cares about is manufacturing outrage and a culture war built on lies and not the record of the last eight years, fanning the flames and stoutly maintaining the fictional storyline just long enough to get us to mid-October, and then reaping the harvest from those early voters who you've bamboozled to come out for you, before the facts begin to unravel the GOP narrative.

It doesn't matter that many of these women who now support Palin would never have voted for Hillary anyway. What matters is that the McCain campaign is playing the gender card itself to fan the flames and sell the media on it, again as a sales campaign with just long enough of a shelf life to get to mid-October.

Obama should be asking why the GOP hasn't manufactured any outrage over the number of Americans without health coverage these last eight years, or the number of good American jobs that have evaporated over the last eight years, or the $10 billion a month we spend in Iraq. He should continue to focus on the issues and let a late-arriving Tier Two deal with the Truth Squad work on Palin and McCain. And it wouldn't hurt to remind voters where McCain/Palin stand on privatizing Social Security, stacking the Supreme Court, eliminating a woman's right to choose, avoiding aggressive action on climate change and alternative energy development, and elevating disaster capitalism over the needs of Main Street.

But Democrats should get over the notion now that the truth matters to the GOP. All that matters to the GOP is selling a product long enough to get to mid-October before the truth seeps in, to take advantage of early voting. All Obama can do is point this out, focus on the issues and tell the media what is really going on here, and then rely on his later voters and GOTV to offset what the GOP is doing here.