The new tone, at a Nevada campaign stop:
“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face,” he said. “And if they tell you that, ‘Well, we’re not sure where he stands on guns.’ I want you to say, ‘He believes in the Second Amendment.’ If they tell you, ‘Well, he’s going to raise your taxes,’ you say, ‘No, he’s not, he’s going lower them.’ You are my ambassadors. You guys are the ones who can make the case.”
Obama, it’s you who’s supposed to get tough, not your door-knockers (and, not just in another language, so you think we’ll miss it). The Bush campaigns of 2000, and even more in 2004, famously put neighbors to work on neighbors, advocating for the ticket between friends instead of outsourcing the winning of hearts and minds to ACORN. It was effective. Obama takes the same technique and undermines it in typical liberal fashion. Maybe they’ll knock on doors in Michigan and Ohio, handing Republicans and independents Thomas Frank’s masterpiece of condescension, , “What the Hell is Wrong With You Midwestern Mouth-Breathers?” “What’s the Matter With Kansas?.”
