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Grasshopper

Ready to snatch the pebble from his hand? Perhaps observing the aging ex-president’s missteps, the wily neophyte has cleverly opted to … act presidential. Kurtz:

GREENVILLE, S.C. — When reporters filed onto Barack Obama’s press plane after his acrimonious debate with Hillary Rodham Clinton last week, one thing was noticeably missing amid the wine and snacks on the Boeing 737.

There was no high-level campaign spinner to argue that Obama had gotten the better of the exchanges or that the verbal fisticuffs were part of some precisely calculated strategy. On the press bus the next day, mid-level aides dealt with travel logistics but made no attempt to shape the coverage.

In an age of all-out political warfare, the Obama campaign is a bit of an odd duck: It is not obsessed with winning each news cycle. The Illinois senator remains a remote figure to those covering him, and his team, while competent and professional, makes only spotty attempts to drive its preferred story lines in the press.

“There is no charm offensive from the candidate toward the press corps,” says Newsweek correspondent Richard Wolffe. “The contact is limited. . . . They see the national media more as a logistical problem than a channel for getting stuff out.”

As Obama’s blowout victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary shows, an aloof attitude toward the media may not be a liability for a candidate with his oratorical gifts.

But master, should a candidate not attempt to appear like one of the guys, mix it up with the press, and spin?

Sometimes, Grasshopper, less can be more. The temptation to add one’s voice to the din when dogs bark and monkeys chatter is great. A candidate may instead attempt a difficult manuever of Campaign Fu we call “Muzzling the Braying Donkey,” in which the powerful energy of a jackass is, with minimal effort, deftly used against him.

Hiiiiiiiii-ya!   … Like that, master?

Yes, like that.

As Obama’s blowout victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary shows, an aloof attitude toward the media may not be a liability for a candidate with his oratorical gifts. Even the pundits’ attempts to minimize his win by focusing on Obama’s capturing a quarter of the white vote — no small achievement in a three-way contest — came after a week in which journalists talked about race far more than he did. But the contrast in his press strategy is striking, not just with Clinton’s campaign — which aggressively lobbies journalists around the clock — but also with the Bush White House and the Clinton White House before that. And that, Obama aides say, is by design.

The Clinton camp, says David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, “is hyperbolic about it. What we don’t do is spend six hours a day trying to persuade you guys that red is green or up is down. . . . Their own spin was ‘We are the biggest, baddest street gang on the block.’

“We can’t be pacifists and cede the battlefield,” Axelrod says, but “what’s powering this campaign is a rejection of tactical politics.”

“That’s the best spin I’ve heard all day,” replies Clinton communications chief Howard Wolfson, inviting Axelrod to “send over some leather jackets.” “My sense is the Obama campaign spends eight hours a day spinning.” Clinton, for her part, abandoned her inaccessible approach after losing Iowa, scheduling far more time each day for interviews and press conferences. “She felt it was the best way to talk to the American people,” Wolfson says.

The no-spin zone is part of the Obama campaign’s identity, with the candidate stealing a phrase from John McCain in telling crowds he wants “a politics that’s not based on PR and spin but is based on straight talk.”

It’s not all talk, spin or image, however, Grasshopper. You must also do your math. LA Times: Super Tuesday Looks Close for Dems.

Meanwhile, don’t trouble yourself with worldly concerns. Continue to speak of hope, change.

Topics: pols

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:52 am on Monday, January 28, 2008

5 Responses to “Grasshopper”

1. Robert Says:
   January 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am

   The Clintons will start a race war, if they think that they need to do so, in order to sew up the nomination.

   Saturday’s events in SC make it almost inevitable.

   The depths will sounded if they are required to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations. The pressures on so-called “super delegates” will become unbearable. How many of them will find the head of a dead horse in their bed, if they do not declare fealty to Billary?

   If Hillary gets the nod, will she have a party behind her? or smoking ruins?

2. RebeccaH Says:
   January 28th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

   It may be that Obama has far more class than either one of the Clintons, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s just a smoother snake oil salesman. I say, if Hillary makes hash out of the Democratic party, that can only be a good thing in the long run. Now if somebody would rip up the Republicans just a little bit.

3. Banjo Says:
   January 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

   The media whores are for Obama. Big surprise. More than 90 percent vote Democratic every election cycle. Can’t tell me that doesn’t shade the coverage. Romney is doing so well because his bank account allows him to the freedom to ignore the press when it suits him.

4. tanstaafl Says:
   January 28th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

   …a phrase from John McCain in telling crowds he wants “a politics that’s not based on PR and spin but is based on straight talk.”

   Speaking of straight talk…will someone please summarize J McCain’s positions from Meet the Depressed yesterday and report back ?

   Merci in advance ;)

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccpVl0T-1gU

5. tanstaafl Says:
   January 28th, 2008 at 4:33 pm

   Continue to speak of hope, change.

   On matters of hope and of change
   Barack wants to claim the whole range
   I’m not being cynical
   And hardly rabbinical
   But I find it all rather strange

   On matters of change and of hope
   Barack says he isn’t a dope
   He says all the others
   Are bad sons and mothers
   And he’ll win the race in a lope

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