Convicted Of Charisma: "This is truly perverse. It comes close to an attack on democracy itself."

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Convicted Of Charisma
By Michael Kinsley
Saturday, August 23, 2008; Page A15

....With so much going their way in this election, the biggest challenge the Democrats face is simple: The Republicans just play the game of presidential politics so much better. They play it with genius, courage, creativity and utter ruthlessness.

Most amazing among the principles of the Republican Way of War is: Don't waste much time and energy probing the enemy's weaknesses. Go directly to his biggest strength. Four years ago, it was easy to imagine any number of ways the GOP might go after John Kerry. You would not have guessed -- or at least I would not have guessed -- that they could successfully attack his service in Vietnam. Especially when the Republican candidate, George W. Bush, not only had avoided Vietnam by joining the National Guard but had avoided much of the National Guard by skipping the meetings and then had grown up to start an unpopular war that even four years ago seemed to have been going on forever.

A lesser party might have said, "You know what? Let's just leave the whole military-record thing alone." But not the Republicans. They conjured up the Swift boat campaign and managed to turn Kerry's military service into a negative.

As is usually the case, the media helped. They didn't intend to. But journalistic convention makes it hard for reporters to deal with a big, complicated lie. They can't call it a lie, so they end up giving the impression to all but the most obsessive followers of politics that, well, it's complicated, and the Republicans are probably exaggerating, but there must be something there....

***

The greatest strength of this year's Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, is his eloquence, his charisma, his ability to create excitement and draw a crowd. This could be a legitimate debating point if the Republicans were saying that, on some particular issue or even many, Obama is using his charm and way with words to disguise a lack of substance in what he says. But Republican ambitions are grander: They are attacking Obama's charisma, as if popularity itself were a disqualifying factor and whoever draws the larger crowds is by definition the lesser candidate. This is truly perverse. It comes close to being an attack on democracy itself. Can the Republicans possibly score with such a preposterous argument?

Oh, probably.

(The writer is a columnist for Time magazine and an occasional contributor to The Post.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082202354.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[bluestateguy]

1. And if Obama was a bland and policy wonkish

these same people would whine that he was "stiff", "wooden" and "boring", and "can't connect with Middle America (those precious, special, white-working class people in Southern Ohio).

[BlueManDude]

2. They want it more than we do. Meanwhile we've already cemented McCain's strength

by calling him honorable, a hero, a great American etc.

They did it again.

[Tutankhamun]

3. Let's see how McCain does against the 527s.

It wasn't Bush who turned Kerry's service in Vietnam into a liability with cognitively challenged voters; it was the 527s.