Barack Obama announces

Game on.

Barack has announced his run for President, to no one's surprise.

Get ready for the smear machine to gear up against him.

Here is what I think they will do.

Stage One: Throw spaghetti at the wall.

Stage Two: Pound the crap out of whatever gets traction in the press. They are attempting to weaken the foundation among voters that pay no attention. Some voters hear something and make an early decision as to where they will get their information. If they keep lobbing in mortars they soften up the defense, and see if a weakness develops. They also might get voters to believe some of their information. If this is done long enough they can define our candidate through shear repetition.

Stage Three: Divert voter attention from real issues by initiating absurd attacks from marginal sources. They can waste a great deal of Obama's time and energy as he has to fend off attacks. This only works if the press goes along with the unsubstantiated attacks. That is, it works and works well.

Stage Four: Accuse Obama of whatever they think their candidate's weakness is, first. For example, if their candidate tends to be a racist, they accuse Barack of racism, thus blunting any attack by Barack as a tit for tat reprisal.

Stage Five: Have their candidate skate above the fray, in calm denial of all the dirty work being done by their campaign. Their candidate pounds out the same generic message day after day. They will make sure that message is full of platitudes that no reasonable person would disagree with. For example, their candidate will say something like "I believe the world should be free and happy," or "America can only be great if people are responsible."

This accomplishes two things. First, by staking out "happiness" as their issue, they imply that Barack is against "happiness." Second, the voters, that are not paying attention, hear a platitude like "happiness" and think "hay, I like this guy because I like happiness too. I should vote for him."

Of course, running a campaign on something, every human being on the planet agrees with, like "happiness," is absurd, but it works. At least it did in the last two Presidential campaigns.