Rove on Obama Strategy

Thursday, July 10, 2008 | 2:51 PM

By William Rabbe

Karl Rove's column today in the Wall Street journal might be his most insightful on strategy to date. He credits the Obama campaign for running a top-notch campaign (one that he says is modeled after the Bush-Cheney playbook -- maybe true) and points out something very important: that Obama reveals his cards too much.

For instance, the Obama team (as per my post on the "50 State Strategy") has stated that it wants to campaign in traditionally red states to force Candidate McCain to play defense. The idea is that McCain will have to waste money just to hold onto the electoral votes that were solidly for Bush in 00 and 04... how clever. And yes, reminiscent of Bush in 04 running strong in New Jersey.

But Master strategist Rove says, "Mr. Obama's people admit they want to sucker Mr. McCain into spending money. To be successful, a bluff must be credible."

So has Obama undermined the effectiveness of their tactic by advertising his strategy in advance? What would prevent McCain from saying in turn: "Senator Obama has said that the only reason he's campaigning in ____[insert red state here]____ is to, quote, 'make me waste money.' Now, if that's not disingeneous, I don't know what is!"?

Maybe the Obama team will hope (hope really really hard) that the McCain camp won't think to do this.

Or maybe it is a backwards reverse double bluff play, in which case the Obama team actually wants McCain's people to think that they really think that, and actually have something else up their sleeve. Stay tuned.