Best and Worst of the 2008 Campaigns

Presidential candidates run plays. We know this now. They employ influence strategies to win votes for themselves, to take them from others and, once they''re in, to drive their agenda and policies. Here, on this last day of campaigning, we tap once again our groundbreaking Playmaker''s Table to find the best and the worst Plays for the Presidency:

• Play of the Year: For better or for worse, John McCain’s signature play, the Crazy Ivan , was run to perfection in his radical endorsement of the Iraq troop-surge in April 2007 and his VP pickof Gov. Sarah Palin in September 2008. It makes Col. Joshua Chamberlain at Gettysburg look downright wimpy.
• Most Blatant Screen: Hillary Clinton was never far from her hubby Bill and she never patted down the welcome inference that she, too, had eight years experience in the White House. Honorable mentions are Rudi Giuliani’s shameless attachment to 911 and Mitt Romney’s unabashed salutes to the Reagan Revolution.
• Worst Timing Play: With the media pressing for a speech on religion, Mitt Romney was late to the party with his nuanced address on Faith in America. But he paused too long to clear the media hurdle. Worse, he talked more about church and state than about church and Mormons. Mitt, like someone''s dad sporting a pair of bell bottoms, could never get hip to the party.
• Worst Playcalling: Rudi Giuliani was no less blind in the primary game. He trusted his playcallers to skip the formative contests of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina (an infamous Pass ), only to fall flat in his coveted Florida market. Giuliani became a better surrogate to the GOP. Who, among the contenders, ran a better Call Out or Label on Hillary and Obama?
• Best Filter: Somehow, Rudi Giuliani, himself a supporter of abortion rights, managed to be a first-tier candidate in the pro-life party. That was a real trick, and the handiwork of a well-run Filter .
• Strategery Award: For actor-turned-lawmaker-turned-candidate Fred Thompson, there wasn’t much strategy. We tipped our hat to his clever taunting of Michael Moore (a Bait ) and his early disclosure of cancer bouts (a Lantern ), but he waited too long to answer the call of antsy right-wingers (a self-inflicted and over-used Pause ).
• Perception-is-Reality Award: John Edwards, with all his money and all his hair, never really looked like the voters he claimed to represent. It was a case of perception rejected by reality, a brand that never matched a message. Just ask Elizabeth.
• Plucked Peacock Award: Rep. Dennis Kucinich, with his ready-reference Pocket Constitution was an enduring (and endured) annoyance to candidates and primary followers alike -- a lame stunt . Honorable mention goes to Tom Tancredo for his anti-immigrant play. His passionate position was only effected through me-too Crowds .
• Most Oblivious Playmaker: Rep. Ron Paul’s message was well-crafted, but not his influence strategy. Playmaking is a discipline of continuous assessment, conditioning and engagement, and Paul only lived in the modest pressing subclass of The Playmaker’s Table. His play of choice: The harmless and easily ignored Fiat . Though he developed a following, his base was more cult than constituency. To tap the mainstream voter, he’d have done better to engage his rivals with Baits , Challenges , and Preempts .
• Best Self-Label: Gov. Sarah Palin’s self-deprecating comparison to a “Pitbull with Lipstick” is a Label that was bound to stick. It makes Bill Clinton’s “Comeback Kid” self-reference look small-time. Now if she can just manage to peel off Tina Fey.
• Best Label: When video bites of Barack Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, exposed the now-infamous “God Damn America” sermon, conservative media and bloggers made the most of it in blatant plays that Labeled Obama a suspicious militant and closet Muslim. Eschewing American flag lapel pins, bitter cling gaffes in liberal San Francisco, and even knowing a 1960s radical didn’t help either.
• Best Counter-Play: When asked during a Democratic candidate debate by NBC anchor Brian Williams if he could keep his gaffe-prone mouth shut as President, Sen. Joe Biden answered simply and briefly, “Yes.” It was a quick-witted Fiat that killed a moderator’s over-the-top Bait .
• Worst Impersonation of Martin Luther King: Obama’s Greek-columned backdrop at Denver’s mile-high stadium was a Screen intended to inspire the left and middle. Instead it was a Peacock to be taunted by the right.
• Best Impersonation of Ronald Reagan: Obama at Berlin, standing in the shadow of the Victory column, he Screened the city of liberty to advance his agenda and seal his global popularity.
• Best Play by a Reporter: The late Meet the Press moderator Tim’s Russert’s sharp-edged Mirrors are worthy of the award. These were always better than so many self-serving Baits by his colleague-competitors. Russert’s plays were more about illuminating facts than exposing them.
• Nastiest Play: Hillary’s soft Ping on RFK’s assassination, vaguely (though effectively) surfaced the risk of an Obama assassination. She denied the effect, naturally, but the setting was too perfect and her struggling campaign was too desperate to ignore the play. It was, we contend, a calculated reference.
• Mother of all Surrogates: Oprah Winfrey, a Proxy -type surrogate, was never a better and more-timely advocate for Barack Obama. The media millionaire turned millions of votes for her media darling candidate. She sealed the deal in the Iowa caucus and kicked the Obama ticket to the front of the primary line.
• Honorable Mention, Best Preempt: Chris Dodd was first to the table with a position on global warning. Everyone else was left to run Crowds , even Bill Richardson. But did it ever really matter?

Post by Alan Kelly