Editor’s note: In the ear of bloggers, webcams and saturation media coverage the goal is to be first and to turn up the volume. The more times you can attack and counterattack with negative information, the more likely your message will get through and get attention. The truth, facts and accuracy unfortunately fall second to speed and volume. This is a gameplan political campaigns employ and it has been expected. Watch for it to be replicated here during the fall campaign season.
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=966317243b2df62a1ec0fcc7737dfbe941b51390
The Wall Street Journal – The mission is attack and counterattack for Republicans during the Democratic convention in Denver. They’ve set up a production studio for a daily slate of news conferences attacking Mr. Obama’s leadership. They’re releasing ads designed to appeal to supporters of Sen. Obama’s onetime rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121979011141174377.html
They’re even sending out teams of McCain volunteers in McCain shirts, holding McCain signs, with instructions to sneak into the background of as many photographs, videos and live TV shots as possible. The volunteers’ movements are tracked on a large Denver map spread out over a ping-pong table; each team is represented by a different, random figurine: A horse’s head, a soldier, a tank, Yoda from “Star Wars.”
The heart of the Republican counterattack is what they call the “war room,” a small space lined with TVs and red, white and blue posters that proclaim Obama “Not Ready” to lead. Here, hunched over laptops and cold coffee, bloggers, researchers, advisers and press secretaries dissect every minute of the Democratic festivities and fire off a steady stream of criticism. The goal: to shape reporters’ coverage and throw the Democrats off stride.
Democrats vow that their war room will be bigger and better. Already in the works: a “St. Paul Survival Kit” for reporters featuring a flash drive loaded with multimedia images to undercut each speaker who takes the GOP stage, including old quotes from the speakers that suggest a lack of enthusiasm for McCain’s policies or leadership.
