Clinton’s 1992 (or probably more correctly Carville’s) mantra was: “It’s the economy, stupid;” “Speed kills;” and “Don’t forget health care.” “Speed kills” referred to their strategy of responding to the Republican/Bush attacks to prevent being pummeled like Dukakas was in 1988 by GHW Bush. Obama’s adds, which thankfully are getting more pointed are all based on these themes: the economic crisis, health care and anti-attack adds. Operation Obama has taken speed kills to the next level – they have and in some cases are running anti-attack ads before McCain airs them.

The most impressive part of the 2004 Rove strategy (and again, let me point out that the original idea of the blog was to “park our ideology at the door and talk strategy for both sides.”) was how they were able to split their message. Starting with the convention, the core Bush advertising and mass public facing branding was essentially positive/patriotic/wrap the President in the flag/9-11, while the attack advertising was either micro-targeted direct mail (e.g. “gays in, god out of the white house” direct mail delivered in WV where Bush carried the 2:1 Democratic state by 12%) or run by the “Swiftboaters” and other independent groups. McCain and Palin, on the other hand, have been attacking Obama aggressively themselves, although McCain seems to be trying to put the horses back in the barn as we saw in the video I sent around earlier today.

Here are some of the latest ads:

Latest Obama Ad

Latest McCain Ad

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