Jeffrey Feldman is one of the savvier Daily Kos diarists. In a post today, he offers some advice to the moribund/struggling/bumbling/incredibly lame Obama campaign and the campaign’s destructive supporters:
These are all excellent tips. Well the last one is a little loopy, but why split hairs? But are Obama-supporting communities like the Daily Kos capable of following them? For years now, the central aspect of the left’s worldview has been its hatred for George W. Bush and everything else that bore the Republican taint. Now that the chips are down along with Obama’s polling numbers, breaking this habit is proving nearly impossible. No one worships Obama more than the Atlantic Monthly’s lead blogger, but even he has allowed his disgust and loathing for all things Republican to completely subsume his work as of late. It’s a fact of human nature that when we’re pushed, we scurry back to our comfort zones. For the modern American left, passionate loathing of its political opponents has long been its virtual barcalounger. And that’s to say nothing of the Obama campaign’s problems. The hope/change thing has run its course, and Obama will have to say something different to cut through the campaign din. That’s why I never worried about all the money the Obama campaign might have on hand. The money only matters if you have something worth saying. Since the Obama campaign’s message the past week has been “We Don’t Like Sarah Palin” and “John McCain is Old,” we can assume the campaign’s well of meaningful content has run dry. (Of course, they will be able to use all that money to make sure they lose North Carolina by only 15 points, but that’s another dubious expense.) Although the left will doubt my sincerity on this score, I find the devolution of the Obama campaign depressing. Obama was always too liberal for me, and there was frankly no imaginable way I would have voted for him. But back when he was riding high in January, I found him a tremendously attractive figure; I said as much both in print and on the radio. For what it’s worth, I still think he’s a decent man, albeit one who’s greatly unqualified for the presidency. That his followers’ bile has so thoroughly drowned out his personal decency and whatever may have been uplifting about the Obama campaign is thoroughly dispiriting. One last point: A couple of years ago, I called erstwhile Netroots heartthrob and failed congressional candidate Paul Hackett “as mean-spirited a politician as I’ve ever seen…He has shown little except a mean streak. He relishes insulting others. He delighted in calling George W. Bush a chicken-hawk S.O.B. Sort of like a crude political version of Madonna, he loves to shock.” Hackett was back in the news this week offering free and frankly disastrous advice for the Obama campaign:
Ennobling, no? It sure is more of the same, but not the way Hackett intended it to be. I can tell the Obama campaign that this is a disastrous strategy. So too can the savvy Kos Diarist Jeff Feldman. But even if the Obama campaign wants to follow our sage advice, it may well not matter, The bile and unrestrained fury of the modern left will make much more noise than anything Obama has to say. This particular genie popped out of the bottle years ago, and it’s a little late for the apparently few smart Democrats to begin plotting how to shove her back in there.
