Back seat driving

I like Ed Rendell, and I think he's a smart guy. But here he is, during the convention, giving an interview in which he is implicitly critical of Obama and his campaign. It's not just that I don't see how he thinks this is helpful, it's that he (like Paul Begala and James Carville, of whom I think far less) is back seat driving Obama's campaign with out apparently grasping one key fact: this is the guy (and the campaign) that ate your candidate's lunch during the primaries. You might think that might make them a bit more reticent about pontificating about campaign strategy, but they didn't get where they are by having a realistic regard for their own gifts.

clipped from voices.washingtonpost.com For a politician cut from a rougher cloth, Rendell may have offered a back-handed compliment when he compared Obama to Adlai Stevenson, the failed Democratic candidate from the 1950s who captured the imagination of American intellectuals but not the electorate at large. "He is a little like Adlai Stevenson," Rendell mused. "You ask him a question, and he gives you a six-minute answer. And the six-minute answer is smart as all get out. It's intellectual. It's well framed. It takes care of all the contingencies. But it's a lousy soundbite." "We've got to start smacking back in short understandable bites," he said, noting "Everybody is nervous as all get out. Everybody says we ought to be ahead by 10, 15 points. What the heck is going on?"