Thursday, October 30, 2008

If I was Barack Obama


a million quid
Originally uploaded by just_john
If I was Barack Obama right now I'd not be taking interviews, not varying from my stump speech and not doing anything that could be seen as being a pre-emptive celebration of victory (remember Kinnock and the Labour party?)

He's ahead - there are six days to the election - and still he's making big, bold, KLF burning a million quid style gestures.

Last night saw him buying 30 minutes of airtime across 7 networks; 30 minutes! Sure it gave him the time to talk to the American people that the debates didn't allow. But to some it came across more as a display of "Look how much money we have" rather than a last chance for a more nuanced look at a new candidate.

McCain's response "He paid for that ad by breaking a promise" (the promise being to take public finance for his campaign - one that he broke as soon as he saw how much he could make privately)

It seems to me an unneccessarily big gesture. At a time when people are looking for excuses to knock big gestures. And when the conversation is about the media that was bought, rather than what was said in that media you know that something is wrong.

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