It’s not easy keeping your campaign on the good side of decent. But I have been amazed by how the Campaign for Change has gone out of their way to keep their message positive.
As Matt Damon said in an interview yesterday regarding his decision not to criticize the McCain/Palin ticket, “The Obama campaign has decided to focus on the positive, and I should be a bigger man and be able to do that with them.”
But it’s the little things that they are doing that have impressed me.
Go into the Ann Arbor Obama headquarters and you’ll be met with a visual cornucopia of posters on the wall. Everyone of them has a positive message. So many people with children have come in to volunteer to enter data and do other tasks around the office that they have put these kids to work crafting posters.
“Win, Win for Michigan!”
“Dragons for Obama”
“Spacemen for Obama”
“Hippopotamuses for Obama”
“Dogs for Obama”
A couple of stay-at-home moms in our area decided to make some buttons for a campaign fundraiser and they brought them over to us to take to the headquarters. There was a large assortment of them and a few said “McSame/Failin'” using the McCain/Palin logo.
Before we were able to display the buttons at the headquarters, one of the paid leaders went through them. He pulled out all the “McSame/Failin'” buttons.
“We shouldn’t sell these. They’re off message. We’re trying to keep it positive,” Peter told us. “The rest are awesome, though.”
Two days later the couple dozen buttons had brought in $200.
Keeping the message positive has been a hallmark of everything we’ve done for the campaign over the past few months. It has reinforced how inspired I have been by Senator Obama and his high-road approach to politics. Yes, from time to time the Obama campaign has gone negative. But nothing like the extent to which McCain’s campaign has. None of the character assassination. None of the questioning of loyalties or patriotism or the degree to which anyone is “pro-American”.
Remarkably, Barack Obama has been able to keep integrity as a key focus of his campaign and that will serve him well in the coming years as he tries to bring America together.
I’m just sayin’…
