Obama Campaign Explains Its Mystifying "Don't Attack McCain" Strategy (With Update)

Camp Obama explains why it refuses to launch attacks against McCain (from the Washington Post):

Obama spokesman Burton said the campaign sees no reason to shift strategy.

"This is a classic Washington story, anonymous quotes from armchair quarterbacks with no sense of our strategy, data or plan," he said.

The Post article further elaborated on the Obama strategy: "Because Obama opted out of public financing and the spending limits that come with it, he will be free to swamp McCain with television spots in the fall. If he needs to become more negative at that point, he can -- knowing that McCain would be hard pressed to reply."

OK, I freely admit that I don't know shit about how to run a campaign, but I do remember what happened when John Kerry failed to immediately respond to the Swift Boat attacks in 2004 -- we got four more years of BushCo ineptitude.

I agree with this unnamed Democratic strategist (also quoted in the Post article):

"If somebody attacks you, you have to frame the attack: 'This is the same old politics, or better yet, the Bush-Rove politics,' * * * At the same time you do that, you have to counterattack. You don't want to look like a whiner. You want to look tough."

In fact, as noted by Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org's executive director, the best response to McCain's ad comparing Obama to celebrities like Paris Hilton has come from . . . Paris Hilton, who released an ad calling McCain "the oldest celebrity in the world, like super old."

You know a campaign is in trouble when it has to rely on Paris Hilton to implement the correct strategy.

UPDATE: Sen. Schumer chimes in:

One of the Democratic Party's leading electoral street fighters, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, said that Barack Obama should respond to John McCain's personal attacks with an equally personal slap.

"I would not be afraid to attack back," said Schumer, who chairs the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, in an interview with Politico. "When they say, 'He's not one of us,' you don't say, 'Here's our plan on health care,"' he said.

"I thought the Britney Spears commercial was powerful," Schumer said, referring to McCain's television ad casting Obama as a vapid "celebrity."

Currently promoting the paperback edition of his book "Positively American," which argues for a Democratic agenda pitched around a new set of bread-and-butter issues and government activism on behalf of middle class voters, Schumer didn't directly criticize Obama's strategy. Rather, he argued for a higher-velocity response.

"I would answer back hard. What do you mean he's not one of us? It's John McCain who wears $500 shoes, has six houses, and comes from one of the richest families in his state," Schumer said. "It's Barack Obama who climbed up the hard way, and that's why he wants middle-class tax cuts and better schools for our kids." * * *

F*cking-A.