Counterpunch Too Weak for Strategists

After weeks of enduring blistering attacks from John McCain, Barack Obama is launching a counter-attack. His new “Maverick” ad is his sharpest yet, calling McCain out on his similarities to George Bush. But Democratic strategists still don’t think Obama is hitting hard enough, the Washington Post reports. “If somebody attacks you ... you have to counterattack,” one strategist said. “You want to look tough.”

Obama’s campaign has cut off independent attack groups, leaving most without funding. “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,” one Democratic consultant said. But don’t expect Obama to respond to the criticism. “This is a classic Washington story,” an Obama spokesman said, “anonymous quotes from armchair quarterbacks with no sense of our strategy.” (More Obama 2008 stories.)