The Powers That Be in Obama's "anti-establishment" campaign

[Straight Shooter]

A DU member wondered recently who are the people that are behind the scenes of political campaigns, the ones you never hear their names mentioned.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/barack.obama.html

David Plouffe, Campaign manager
Former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and senior aide to House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt

Pete Rousee, Chief of staff
Former chief of staff to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle

Jim Margolis, Senior advisor
A media strategist with close ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Robert Gibbs
Communications director
A former communications director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

What do we know about these people, really? We do know Robert Gibbs was responsible for the smear attack ad which morphed Dean into Osama. How clever. And how devastatingly effective it was. How did this heinous excuse for a human being end up as a crucial element in Obama's campaign?

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Considering that Lieberman is Obama's mentor, considering his endorsements from high-profile members of the Kennedy Dynasty, I think we can safely lay to rest the notion that Barack is anti-establishment. Barack is simply an ambitious politician with a very powerful machine working for him, and to believe anything else is to fall for the Audacity of Hype. Rove elevated the technique of smoke and mirrors to a whole new level, but Barack's handlers, with the power of an increasingly sophisticated Internet audience, have brought the art of political stagecraft to a state of near perfection. If only they had the power to produce holograms.

A vote for Barack is a vote for Harry Reid, for Lieberman, for Daschle, for McCaskill, and it will be interesting to see how their propping of Barack fares against the Kerry/Kennedy/Leahy faction of the machine, and the other assorted and sundry players who remain faceless yet deeply involved in creating this candidate.

I'm sure that a little digging will reveal much more about the wizards behind Obama's curtain. But I've seen enough to verify that all that glitters is not gold.