What? Don't know how to tackle Palin?

Attack her record! No need to exaggerate or embellish. Just tell the facts.

Mayor with $27 mil in TAXPAYER Earmarks, for a town of 6000.

And still left it with $22 mil in debt.

JUST LIKE A BUSH REPUBLICAN!

Spent money not on useful public works, but for a sports complex that is underused. Built it on land that did not belong to the city. Left the city in litigation.

Irresponsible. JUST LIKE A BUSH REPUBLICAN!

..... (snip)

-- -- swift_goat_pet_for_truth

swift_goat_pet_for_truth has it exactly right. I do hope Obama+Biden will see, hear, listen and DO!

GSC

It would be wise not to underestimate the stupidity of US citizens as an electoral mass: after all, they have allowed/enabled GW Bush and Gang, proven War Criminals, to lead them since 2000!

What Democrats need to figure out is how to overcome the kind of stupidity that allow a clown, thief, scoundrel and war criminal like GW Bush to become POTUS not once, but TWICE over!! Thus far, I have seen a few signs - but far too few to enable me to rest easy - indicating the start of the avalanche in favour of Obama that should have been thundering by now.

-- GSC

It's clear from the polls that Obama DOES have a serious problem. Bill Maher's article quoted in one of the letters and Dan Hoyle in this article reinforce this belief.

To deny that and continue to tread the same down the same, tired old route could well lead to defeat.

True, in a contrary view, Klytus in one message here felt that in his small, mostly-white Louisania town, "the folks around here think that Obama is alright". Hopefully that will turn out to be the case in most of small-town USA - but remember that GW Bush managed first to steal the election from Al Gore in 2000 and then in 2004 he actually did win it from Kerry! It would evidently be foolish to underestimate the utter stupidity of the US citizen (that decided those two elections)!

It seems clear - from the polls, from this article, from many of the other responses to this article - that a whole lot more needs to be done by Obama to convince small-town America that Obama+Biden would be a better presidential team for them personally than would be McCain+Palin. It's evidently a huge and difficult job: you have to pander to their own overweening sense that they (small-town USA) are the centre of the universe; that they are wise and wonderful and the salt of the earth; that they have a right to continue living in the same wasteful, sloppy way that they have been doing for the past so many decades - and still to get in some progressive thinking into the leadership of the world's sole superpower! Tough job, indeed...

To my mind (as an outsider), the following issues are significant:

1) GW Bush and Gang have led the USA to disaster worldwide - in every sense in every way. GW Bush and Gang are War Criminals, plain and simple - much of the world outside the USA is convinced of this. Also, for US citizens, compute the real costs of GW Bush over the past 8 years!!! (I don't believe this has yet been done effectively and accurately, Joe Stiglitz notwithstanding. And those figures are NOT yet properly in the minds of small-town USA)...

2) McCaim+Palin are almost certainly more of the same as GW Bush and Gang. The USA is toast for sure if this Gang retains power. Small-town USA will be toast, too.

3) In many ways, Palin could well turn out to be just what Obama has been looking for. Palin is, to my mind, the pivot on which this election will turn. Palin IS practically of of McCain+Palin.

Check out those disgusting pictures of Palin proudly gutting moose; Palin proudly shooting wolves down from the air; Palin getting a 17-year old to bear a child; Palin misusing her gubernatorial powers to bully her brother-in law; Palin this and Palin that - there is plenty of ammunition available: get all of that properly into the minds of small-town USA. It's not such a heroic picture at all!

3a) Obama should not be seen to do any of that himself!

4) Thus far, this much is clear: Obama+Biden do NOT have it quite right.

(Meanwhile, those wolf ads are getting ready from Bush-Cheney-McCain-Palin-Rove! And, consider this: GW Bush is getting ready for an war-excursion into Pakistan).

GSC

I've not read all the messages here, so maybe I am repeating something (at least part of which in any case your article puts forward very well indeed):

1) Michael Moore asks the following question about John McCain: Is this man really a war hero? Bombing Vietnam in a fundamentally unjust war?

2) The right name for this man is "Two-Faced McCain" - the proper understanding of THIS is what must be brought home to US citizens.

3) The 'wolves in the undergrowth' message is already coming out of the McCain-Palin campaign.

4) On the other side of the McCain-Palin campaign, GW Bush is readying himself and his War Criminal administration to bomb Iran, bomb Pakistan, create a new war in one or both of those places.

5) Knowing US citizens (and how easily they have been fooled by this criminal administration over the past 8 years), it is quite possible that when Bush makes his war, McCain-Palin with for sure win their election! (Is that the Republican-neo-con strategy?!!! What do the Democrats have to counter that kind of game?)

GSC