Obama Hits Back, Too Softly For Some

A liberal advertising consultant said: "There's frustration there because they're watching these childish ad campaigns, and they know exactly how to answer it, but they're powerless to do so."

Powerless, that is, because most of the independent groups that would have taken the lead in such an independent campaign have been sidelined by Obama's insistence that Democratic donors channel their money to him, rather than outside groups. Obama's efforts have succeeded in maintaining message discipline in a campaign predicated on what the senator from Illinois has called a new kind of politics.

But that has hamstrung what would have been one of the three fronts on which Democrats had hoped to wage the 2008 campaign, said Donna Brazile, Gore's 2000 campaign manager. Obama's team was able to push back quickly against McCain's character attacks, she said, and the Democratic National Committee is beginning to engage the Republican National Committee in a more cutting effort, yesterday starting an "Exxon-McCain '08" campaign that portrays the Republican as the running mate of the oil giant.

But the surrogate groups remain dormant, Brazile said, because of Obama's decision to cut them out.

"There are no independent groups. Everybody's walked off the field," said Tom Matzzie, who left MoveOn.org to form Progressive Media USA specifically to launch a massive attack against McCain. The group has since disbanded for lack of funding.

So far, said Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org's executive director, the best response to McCain's celebrity attack has come from Paris Hilton herself, who released her own ad Tuesday calling McCain "the oldest celebrity in the world, like super old."

Consultants close to Obama say the Democrat has good reason not to risk his own campaign by following McCain's lead. Because McCain has accepted public financing for the general-election campaign, he must spend all his primary campaign money before the party conventions. Obama is focusing on turning out voters, while airing a mix of positive ads and responses.

And more ads may not help, according to a Pew Research Center poll released yesterday. Nearly half of respondents -- including 51 percent of independents -- said they have been hearing too much about Obama lately, and 22 percent said all that news has made them feel less favorable toward him. On the other hand, significantly more Americans view McCain's ads as mostly negative than say the same of Obama's.

Because Obama opted out of public financing and the spending limits that come with it, he will be free to swamp McCain with television spots in the fall. If he needs to become more negative at that point, he can -- knowing that McCain would be hard pressed to reply.

Obama spokesman Burton said the campaign sees no reason to shift strategy.

"This is a classic Washington story, anonymous quotes from armchair quarterbacks with no sense of our strategy, data or plan," he said.

Bacon reported from Elkhart, Ind.