Andrew Malcolm from LA Times' Top of the Ticket asks where Barack Obama's mojo went? The title is his answer, the mojo went where Paris Hilton and Britney Spears' mojo went, where everyones mojo, who is inundated with news coverage, bad and good, goes.
Malcolm points to the polls which remain consistent and
discusses the possible reasons why Obama has not jumped into a wide lead.
Yesterday when I saw
the ad associating Barack Obama with Paris and Britney, after I laughed, I thought....exactly.
This ad does two things, it brings up the point that Obama is against offshore drilling, while the
majority of the American public is for it, and tells of Obama's propensity to think higher taxes is the key to solving everything.
The second thing it does is show something that was reported on yesterday, Obama has bought his own "
rock star, messiah, golden child" hype and even the media has noticed and mentioned it.
McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, sent an email out to supporters, which said,
"As you and I know, simply attracting large crowds of fans with empty rhetoric doesn't prepare a person to lead a country. The more we get to know the real Barack Obama, the more he shows that he is not ready to lead our country."
Character, when trying to obtain the most powerful office in the United states, is just as important as policy issues because that is a person that represents the country to the world and although Obama was largely an unknown entity before this campaign season, thanks to the media fawning all over him, he is not unknown any longer.
The American people now know that he can speak well, but they also know that he changes his mind on the turn of a dime even to the point of angering his most ardent base (think FISA here), he speaks without thinking then claims that he "phrased" things badly and didn't really mean his words they way they came out (think undivided Jerusalem here), his associations (think Wright, Rezko, Meeks, Pfleger, Ayers....etc) have been scrutinized almost as strongly as Britney's
lack of wearing underwear was.
Scrutiny is a good thing and the information obtained from that scrutiny is what has happened to that mojo that Andrew asks about.
Barack Obama has become a prima donna, criticisms and pointing out his character flaws is automatically a "smear" in his and his supporters minds and mentioning his complete inexperience is considered racism because they cannot counter the argument, screaming racism is the best they can do. Yet it is Obama supporters and
Obama himself that brings race into every argument.
He has angered Hill Democrats who have called him "
insufferable, insular, uncooperative and inattentive", and
annoyed the press with his attitude. He has told middle America they
cling to their guns and religion because they are bitter and he has gone back on his word to his own supporters.
His mojo was gone as soon as the media decided to focus on their love child to the exclusion of almost everything else because when you shone a spotlight on a person, their flaws become apparent.
The Politico declares that the "GOP's celeb-Obama message gains traction"...they are right, the Obama celebrity message is resounding with the public, as evidenced by David Letterman's skit of the "
Top Ten Signs Barack Obama is Overconfident".
1. Proposed bill to change Oklahoma to "Oklobama"
2. Offered Bush 20 bucks for the "Mission Accomplished" banner
3. Asked guy at Staples, "Which chair will work best in an oval-shaped office?"
4. The affair with Barbara Walters
5. Having head measured for Mount Rushmore
6. Guy sits around eating soup all day
7. He's voting for Nader
8. Offered McCain a job in gift shop at Obama Presidential Library
9. Announced his running mate will be Andy Dick
10. Been cruising for chicks with John Edwards
The problem with The Politico's headline though is that it wasn't the GOP's message, it was Obama's message, the GOP just pointed it out.
It was Obama that decided to change venues for the last day of the DNC convention to a "larger" stadium for a bigger audience. It was Obama that decided to take a full media entourage on his overseas "fact finding" trip, it was Obama that decided to speak to tens of thousands of non American voters in Berlin, Germany. It was Obama that
declared "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."
Obama and his campaign, with his supporters are the ones that made the "celebrity" message resonate and now they are whining that the McCain campaign noticed it and highlighted it?
Obama is now being laughed at by comedians and audiences across the spectrum, just as Britney was when she was caught without underwear and when she shaved her head, just as Paris was when that pornographic video surfaced.
That is the problem when you try to become a celebrity, it works, it gets noticed and it gets spoken about.
