Obama in the Sarah Patch

I've been watching clips of Obama taking on Sarah Palin all day long today. (He says, for example, it seems she wants to be treated like a guy -- huh? was that ever in doubt? -- so now they'll be looking into her record -- wha? you weren't doing that already?).

I don't have clips of that but I have this from a couple of days ago, where Obama insists that running his campaign is harder than running a state:

Actually, I guess, he doesn't insist that running a campaign is harder than running a state, because he ignores the fact that she's governor; he chooses instead to talk about her mayorship of Wasilla (or, as he calls it, "Wasilly," and don't take that as sexist, sweetie).

Without belaboring the obvious differences in managing a campaign were everyone agrees on all the big points and, further, in Obama's case, having what is in effect a virtually unlimited budget requiring almost no difficult decisions about resource allocation (standard answer to the question should we spend money in state X or state Y? "Both"), let's just enjoy the trap I'd hope he'd find himself in.

Their Number One is now in a running (and kinda deadly) feud with our Number Two.

He is elevating her. Front-running candidates never want to acknowledge lesser competitors by name, or get into a direct argument with them, as that elevates the competitor and diminishes the front-runner.

And presidential candidates never want to engage vice presidential candidates. The reverse is completely untrue; a vp's job is to go after the other's sides top guy.

And yet here we are. The One, the Lamb of Chicago, the man who will clean the oceans and heal the world, is actually having a running argument with the little bumpkin beauty queen from "Wasilly," Alaska.

And no matter how much he struggles, he loses. Even if someone were to conclude Obama is better prepared to be president, if they're being honest with themselves, they have to concede that he is barely better prepared, or merely arguably better prepared.

And meanwhile, no one seems to have any questions about John McCain's fitness for the office. He gets to skate above it all while his nominal counterpart snipes at and squabbles at his junior officer.

I love it.

posted by Ace at 08:46 PM

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