When I grew up, my father owned a computer consulting firm. On each of his business cards was his firm's slogan. In that slogan is an idea that many people, especially in today's age of high speed internet and rapid response blogging, fail to understand. It's a simple idea.

There is time to do it right.

It's a slogan that reasonably explained my father's idea about his work. He believed that it is better to spend more time on a project and get it right than try to push something non-functional, bug-ridden, etc. onto a customer. It has had the effect of maintaining an incredibly dedicated customer base to his company.

Note that this slogan does not imply there is an infinity of time to get the job done. It implies that you can rush and put in a patch job that makes a bigger mess of things in the long run, or you can work solidly and get the job done right the first time. You can overreact to an issue and hack something together that deals with it in the short term, or you can lay out a plan of action and follow through on it and have a fix that lasts longterm.

So what does this have to do with political strategy?

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Obama Could Still Lose This Election

Several things happening now heightened my fear that Obama is not being diligent about wining this election.  He could still lose if he doesn't change some tactics.  I really have issues with the following developments:
1.    he's not keeping his promise to fight back promptly and to bring "a gun to a knife fight".  The McCain campaign has been running several false attack ads against him and since he came back on Saturday, I've been expecting him to respond forcefully with the truth.  
2.    His campaign should stop praising McCain e.g.: "I know that John McCain want to keep America safe, so do I" this kind of line affirming McCain who is not interested in running any respectful campaign is a negative for Obama
3.    VP:  I believe that removing Wesley Clack from his VP list is a mistake.  If Obama wants to go for a white male, it should be a know General.  Tim Kaine as VP would lose Obama the election.  McCain's only chance of winning this thing is to wait for Obama to pick a non-General white male VP, for McCain to pick Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska and win the election with the support of older white women who happen to be the largest electoral demography in America.  Obama's VP, if not a General (like Wesley Clack) should be Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.
On VP, Obama has no choice; it's either a General to neutralize McCain's military experience - like Clack did a few weeks ago, or a female governor, which will cover for the female vote as well as the economy (Americans trust governors to be good economic managers)

Finally, Obama should keep his promise to fight back promptly, ad for ad, press-release for press-release, conference-call for conference-call, radio-ad for radio-ad, web-ad for web-ad.   Obama should also hire Wolfson away from Fox News to take charge of his media counter-punches.  Currently, I see no real fighter in Obama media team that could match Tucker Bonds who is an amateur compared to Howard Wolfson.

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On the eve of critical primary elections in North Carolina and Indiana, Barack Obama has released his fourth negative ad in six days.

What happened to Barack's pledge to stay positive?  Only a week ago he made a big hoopla about his promise to take the high road, and it was reported on several mainstream media outlets and throughout the blogosphere:

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, attempting to regain his momentum after losing the Pennsylvania primary, promised to shun negative campaigning as his race drags on against Hillary Clinton.

Obama, 46, an Illinois senator, began his drive for the nomination with a message of unity and the pledge that he wouldn't run a typical political campaign. Today, Obama said he realized his campaign had strayed in recent weeks.

``I told this to my team, you know, we are starting to sound like other folks, we are starting to run the same negative stuff,'' Obama told a crowd of about 5,000 in Wilmington, North Carolina. ``It shows that none of us are immune from this kind of politics. But the problem is that it doesn't help you.''   Source.

Hmm...I guess he changed his mind, and now thinks negative campaigning might help.

Or was it just more empty rhetoric?

Here's one of Barack's latest commercials, in which he hypocritically accuses Hillary Clinton of "the same old negative politics..."

Contrast that with one of Hillary's latest, in which she makes her case for a policy initiative, the gas tax holiday...

Now, whether you agree or not with Hillary's proposal, at least she's talking about substantive issues of relevance to the voters.

Why is Barack going against his word, and relying on attack ads to compete against Hillary?  Maybe he should focus more on sharing his own concrete solutions for improving the lives of Americans.

So much for the audacity of hope.

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Everyone is making a big fuss over the fact that Republican 911 Failure, Rudy Giuliani has hired the same company that put out those Racist Pro-Corker Ads in 2006 which played just as significant a role as George Allen's Macaca Moment did in defeating Harold Fords race for the Senate. The Jim Crow Fear Baiting implication is that Barack Obama will be targeted the same way Harold Ford Jr. (DLC) was , because he is African American. Well, I am not concerned or convinced because the only reason why those ads were effective , were because they were true. The Racist overtone was just the frosting on the cupcake which blocked any leniency towards Harold Ford for his outed "indiscretions"

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DISCLAIMER: I in NO way shape or form , am coming to the defense of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton , but when I saw this recent ad, I got to thinking.

What would happen if an attack ad that you expect to be posted on You Tube , were to instead, be broad casted on National Television ? Is there a limit to what can be posted as a T.V. Ad as opposed to what we see on You Tube ? Is there a line to be drawn for T.V. Ads or is it fair and open game during a Primary?

I started wondering about this because this particular ad appears to be designed for T.V. When you see it, you will know what I am talking about. My concern is definitely not about Hillary, but rather the other candidates. What if similar ads like this one started popping up on television about them as well? I see this in General elections, but is it appropriate in a Primary for same-party Attack Ads to be posted on National T.V. ? Take a look at the ad and tell me what you think.

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