Wikileads

Is it a secret anti-Democratic strategy sheet lifted from the McCain campaign, or a forged document, intended to stir controversy?

At this point, we can’t know for sure. The McCain campaign vehemently denied that the strategy sheet released by Wikileaks yesterday originated from their office. That makes it difficult to comment on what it means and what it says about the candidate and his campaign. It probably explains the total lack of commentary in the blogosphere and the news-o-sphere about the topic.

I can’t add to the conversation about the document’s truth or untruth. For that, read the Wikileaks analysis.

But some things did strike me about this bit of possible insight into the inner workings of a large political campaign. If the document is true, it is shocking that it did not so much as mention government, law, policy or anything having to do with the purported job of the President of the United States. Not once did the supposed author claim that McCain should focus on fixing America’s problems.

Instead, the document is about a smear campaign. It’s about enhancing or creating connections between Barack Obama and Reverend Wright and between Obama and the Chicago political machine. It’s about slanting McCain’s rhetoric so that he appeals to a certain “cross-section” of voters — white, female, over 40 — a demographic that, campaign insiders think, responds to certain psychographics, that will be influenced by certain “lines of attack.”

Also here: acute attention to the media’s role. To public relations, to casting out bait for the pundits to bite.

It’s jaded, manipulative — and, sadly, not surprising at all.

Again, it is also unconfirmed. But my guess is that most campaign memos — not just in the McCain camp — read something like this one.