The indispensable Frank Rich on why the Obama campaign needs to take a lesson from the LBJ-era anti-Goldwater "Daisy" ad (and other successful "negative" political campaigns) and drop the bomb on weird Willard "I Like to Fire People" Romney:
"The serious questions raised by the early Obama ads are not whether they were too much but too little: Was waiting until May behind the curve? Are the ads vicious enough to inflict lasting damage? Is there a nuclear option in Obama’s advertising arsenal that can blow Romney out of the water as LBJ’s immortal mushroom-cloud 'Daisy' ad did Barry Goldwater on Labor Day in 1964? Given the anemic employment numbers and the pack of billionaire GOP sugar daddies smelling blood after their Wisconsin victory, a reboot of hope and change would truly be the reelection campaign’s most self-destructive option. Obama is embarking on one of the roughest political races in memory, not a nostalgia tour. He is facing an opponent with a proven record of successful carpet-bombing attacks, as Gingrich and Rick Santorum can attest. Just because that proposed super-PAC stink bomb branding Obama as a 'metrosexual' disciple of a frothing-at-the-mouth Reverend Jeremiah Wright was aborted doesn’t mean that more of the same and uglier aren’t on the way. The premise of Romney’s entire campaign amounts to one long complaint against Obama, and shadowy donors whose names you’ll never learn can do the dirty work under PAC cover while Romney claims his hands are clean."
It's a richly (pun-intended) detailed article that's worth reading in its entirety (pay attention Axelrod and Plouffe!). Being on the receiving end of the equivalent of a political H-bomb is one thing to which the smug Willard is entitled.
