TPM Reader KB may be on to something:
The McCain campaign knows it can’t beat Obama in the optics of crowd size and enthusiasm. So they are going to try to use a kind of “silent majority” argument to make the case that Obama is not carrying the day with key voter groups.
To do this they will make contact with supposedly “disillusioned” former “Dems” and “Hillary supporters.” They will find ones who can speak well and are comfortable on camera and they will use them to shoot ads, get quoted in the media, get on Luntz-style cable TV focus groups, and most importantly insert them into any town-hall style events that Obama attends (with or without McCain).
They will be organized and made media-ready in a very savvy way that will function like Hamburger-helper to over stretched producers and editors.
The McCain camp will use any “moments” created by these sleepers to reinforce narratives about a “women problem,” or a “working class problem,” or a “jewish problem,” or a “catholic problem,” etc.
Remember back in 2000 when a New Hampshire woman named Katherine Prudhomme confronted Al Gore about Kathleen Willey and it generated days of coverage? That’s the sort of thing the McCain camp will be looking for in an attempt to push back on the larger sense of an Obama movement. But the media should put them in context.
Statistically speaking, these sleepers will be relatively meaningless. But the temptation to use them (rather than actual polling data) as dramatic pegs in coverage will be huge.
