Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had an article about the Republican war room set up during the Democratic convention. This war room was meant to spin the Democratic speeches, massage the news cycle, publicize Democratic mistakes, all that process stuff that consultants love to do.
This article describes the reaction in the war room when Barack Obama says on his video feed that he is in a living room in St. Louis when in fact he was in Kansas City:
…the Republican operatives who had been tasked with undercutting the Democratic message here in Denver were electrified. “Woo-hoo!” one shouted, pumping his fist in the air. “Boo-yah!” another yelled.
Within minutes, an email went out to more than 600 reporters with the title: “Obama Gaffe Machine Rolls into DNCC.”
Really? You are running for President of the United States, the most powerful job in the world, and that is how you operate? You jump on a slip of the tongue and then taunt the other guy? I’m not just calling out the Republicans here….the Dems will do the exact same thing during the GOP convention. But we have two substantive candidates running at a tremendously important time. Our country is at war and our economy is going down the toilet. Don’t you think the campaigns could stop acting like third graders on the schoolyard?
Thoughtbasket 
Yes – we definitely need more adult and intelligent compaigns, especially given our economic and diplomatic weaknesses. How do you suggest we (the people, voters, consumers) can possibly affect the “3rd grader” process?
Great question. It’s much easier to point out the problem than to fix it. I’d like to say “don’t vote for the candidates who do it” but then you wouldn’t be able to vote for anyone. So instead, I think we need to push back on the media and get them to resist the easy spin and the 3rd grade mentality stories. Jon Taplin just had an entry on this topic on his blog, and I commented there.
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/press-and-republican-media-framing/#comments