Floyd Brown, the man who together with Lee Atwater created the infamous 1988 political ad that used race as a weapon against Dukakis, is apparently back, and this time Obama is his target.
A few thoughts...
First off, it looks like his media strategy hasn't changed a bit since 1988. Brown's group apparently only had $14,027 in the bank at the end of March, so although he claims plans to air his ads on TV, his real strategy is to use his name and free digital distribution services to inject himself into the debate. As the 2004 SwiftBoat fiasco showed, if the ads push the right buttons, that might still work. But...
If this first ad is in any way representative of what's coming, it won't work. Trying to connect Obama's death penalty vote in the Illinois Senate in 2001 - a vote which he will have no problem standing up to defend - to gang violence, and then gang violence to international terrorism, isn't going to work. On the one hand, a general fear of violent crime is not nearly as prevalent as it once was. On the other, the idea that the death penalty would deter suicide bombers is so self-obviously stupid that I can't believe Brown even sent the ad out.
And it is that last point that is really critical. The premise of the ad really is laughably stupid. And although most people don't remember it that way, the premise of the Willie Horton ad wasn't much better. What made it effective wasn't the ad itself - it was the way the ad was used by Bush's campaign team, combined with the way the Dukakis camp mishandled its response. Or rather, the way his team refused to respond. Obama won't make that mistake this time around. And I promise you, with ads this bad, that will make all of the difference.
UPDATE: Like I said, Obama will respond quickly to this stuff. And people say he doesn't know how to street fight. Geez....
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