Robocalls and Obama's Genius

Tonight I received an email from Joe Biden. It began:

The McCain campaign is flooding swing voters with "robocalls" -- automated phone calls smearing Barack's character.

They don't hurt Barack or me, but these dirty tactics hurt America by distracting voters from the issues that matter.

And, later on in the email stated:

Our opponent's automated "hate calls," as John McCain once called them, won't reform health care or make our economy fair again. They will only mislead voters with lies and distortions.

The voice of a supporter like you will always be much stronger.

I hope you'll take the time to join us and make these important calls.

Much has been made in the last few days about the McCain robocalls. I tend to agree that they are a desperate tactic from a desperate candidate, and a move that only serves to confirm the depths to which McCain will sink to win this election. So, imagine my surprise when i saw this headline on Talkingpointsmemo.com: Obama camp to unleash blistering robocall returning fire at McCain for running "sleazy" campaign. Granted, the text of the call is not as caustic as some that McCain has been running, but when push comes to shove it is nothing more than a negative robocall. Calling your opponent sleazy is not positive campaigning. Additionally, and as is alluded to in the Biden email, the condemnation of the robocalls was predicated not just on their content, but on - and to a lesser extent - the mere act of calling in and of itself. This brings me to the point of this post: Obama's genius.

Once again, Obama has lulled John McCain into going negative first, waited for the media - or in this case, other Republican Senators - to call him out on it, then used the cover of the negative attention to engage in similar tactic without scrutiny. I predict that Obama's robocalls will go unmentioned, or at least uncriticized in the press. And, because McCain already has been tarnished for the practice, he is in no position to criticize his opponent for using it against him.

A similar story played out with McCain's incessantly negative TV ads after the Republican Convention. Eventually, the press labeled McCain a liar - a fair in assessment my view. Consequently, when Obama started going negative McCain's previous label as a liar dulled his attacks on the veracity of Obama's ads. If, however, Obama had fought back with negativity right away, the press would likely have focused not on McCain's lies, but the mutual mudslinging. Instead, McCain was put in the unenviable position of accusing Obama of the negative trait with which he had already been tarred - a very weak position and an increasingly untenable one. Events have reapeated themselves with the Robocalls.

Genius.