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CAMPAIGN MISCELLANY….Here’s a miscellaneous core dump of campaign stuff. Just some links and random thoughts, none of them especially pressing.

  1. The headline on the Washington Post’s main campaign piece today is “Obama Campaign Vows Aggressive Response to GOP Attacks.” And I have to say: that’s a headline you really don’t want to see. It makes you sound like a 98-pound weakling promising that next time you get bullied you’re going to write a stern letter to the editor about it.

    Unfortunately, the reason for the headline is obvious: it’s because David Plouffe sent an email to reporters this morning vowing an aggressive response to GOP attacks. That’s really dumb. If you’re going to attack, then attack. If you broadcast it beforehand you’re practically hanging a sandwich board over your head announcing that the stuff you’re planning to air next is just a political ploy and you don’t really believe any of it. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

  2. Note the difference between this and the way Republicans act. No matter how dumb or revolting their attacks are, they spray ’em like they mean ’em — and reporters, who are intimidated by this kind of thing, react accordingly. Democrats should take note.

  3. In Slate today, Farhad Manjoo observes that John McCain is lying a lot in this campaign and that it’s working. Then he explains why. So why isn’t Obama lying a lot too? He doesn’t have an answer for that.

  4. Maybe Chris Cilliza has the answer:

    Republicans have always — or at least for as long as the Fix memory lasts — adopted a realpolitik approach to political campaigns.

    That is, they use tactics that work — whether or not they are “fair”. Republicans are, typically, far less concerned about the approval of newspaper editorial boards and the so called “eastern media elite” than their Democratic counterparts, a fact that allows them almost total freedom when it comes to how they conduct their campaigns.

    Democrats, on the other hand, always promise to play as down and dirty as Republicans but when the rubber hits the road tend to back off somewhat.

    That certainly seems to be the case today, anyway. Plouffe promised a more aggressive response and we got….an ad mocking McCain for not knowing how to use email. I bet that has them quaking in their boots over at RNC headquarters.

  5. OK, so what would a Republican-esque attack on McCain look like? Steve Benen half-jokingly suggests that Obama try to tar him as anti-Israel because he’s vowed to end earmarks — and aid to Israel is technically funded as an earmark. But that won’t work. Not because it’s too moronic (I’m not sure we’ve plumbed those depths yet), but because every attack needs to start with a kernel of truth, and this one doesn’t have it. There’s just nothing plausible to hang it on.

  6. So what would work, smart guy? Beats me. Anyone who’d hire me as a campaign consultant would be an idiot. And my mind doesn’t really work this way anyway. But if I had to take a guess, it would be a vicious attack on McCain’s honor. It’s character-based, there’s much more than just a kernel of truth to hang it on, and it would put McCain on the defensive.

    I’d never do it because I’m a wimp. But I’ll bet FDR or Bill Clinton could have figured out a way to make it work. Maybe Obama ought to head back to Harlem and have another chat with the Big Dog this weekend.

  7. Sure, sure, you say, that’s all very clever. But what do I really think? Answer: I think E.J. Dionne has the right take:

    Here’s the problem: Few voters know that Obama would cut the taxes of the vast majority of Americans by far more than McCain would. Few know Obama would guarantee everyone access to health care or that McCain’s health plan might endanger coverage many already have. Few know that Obama has a coherent program to create new jobs through public investment in roads, bridges, transit, and green technologies.

    In short, few Americans know what (or whom) Obama is fighting for, because he isn’t really telling them. And few know that McCain’s economic plan is worse than President Bush’s. As Jonathan Cohn points out in the New Republic, McCain would add $8.5 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years. It’s McCain who should be on the defensive.

    It should not be hard for Obama to use crisp, punchy language to force the media and the voters to pay attention to the basic issue in this election: whether the country will slowly continue down a road to decline, or whether, to invoke a slogan from long ago, we can get the country moving again.

    Bottom line: Democrats aren’t Republicans. Slamming McCain is fine, but I just don’t think Obama can pull off the kind of Lee Atwater gutterball that the GOP specializes in. And if he can’t do it with conviction, then he shouldn’t do it. Instead, he should figure out a way to make his real message resonate with voters. If he does that with conviction, voters will respond just fine.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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