Obama's Strategy Shift: Full-Text Here Of Memo On Why He's Not Scheduling Any More Debates

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- This is the link to David Plouffe's memorandum on the Obama 2008 campaign Website announcing that the Illinois senator won't schedule any new appearances at debates or candidate forums for the rest of this year.

The link has not worked for nearly 24 hours (at least I can't get it to function.) So the full-text of campaign strategist Plouffe's reasoning was copied verbatim and appears below:

"As we head into the fall, the campaign is entering a new more engaged phase that will give voters an even greater sense of Barack's message of change and require the campaign to make decisions that balance the important role of debates and maximize time to run the kind of campaign we need to.

"We have just been thru a period of three debates/forums in six days and the outlook for the future holds more of the same. And, because of likely calendar movement, once we get past Labor Day the Iowa caucuses are less than 120 days away.

"So far, Barack has attended seven Democratic debates and nineteen candidate forums. There are five remaining sanctioned DNC debates, which we are committed to attend and two Iowa debates normally held in January, which are being held in December, which we are also committed to attend. We will also be attending the Univision debate in Florida on September 9. This means that by the end of this year, Obama will have participated in a total of 15 Democratic debates.

"The debates have been important moments for our campaign, demonstrating clearly that Barack Obama is the candidate who will bring about the greatest change to our broken politics. Looking at the first sanctioned DNC debate in South Carolina, Obama was scored the clear winner by undecided voters in South Carolina and New Hampshire.

"Unfortunately, we simply cannot run the kind of campaign we want and need to, engaging with voters in the early states and February 5 states, if our schedule is dictated by dozens of forums and debates. Ultimately, the one group left out of the current schedule is the voters and they are the ones who ask the toughest questions and most deserve to have those questions answered face to face.

"Therefore, after this week, we will only be attending the five DNC debates through the sanctioning period of December 10, Univision, and the two Iowa debates previously mentioned. Candidate forums - where candidates appear sequentially will be considered, but we are unlikely to accept many of these. Instead, Barack will spend his time answering questions directly from voters in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and elsewhere. We simply cannot continue to hopscotch from forum to forum and run a campaign true to the bottom up movement for change that propelled Barack into this race.

"After the sanctioning period, there will undoubtedly be a large number of debates scheduled in the early states and in February 5 states. We will make decisions on those as we get closer, but will clearly be doing a healthy number of debates after the sanctioning period.

"Many friends and terrific organizations are sponsoring or planning to sponsor debates and forums. So this is not an easy decision for us to execute. But it simply won't work to navigate this one by one. We felt we needed to make our approach clear and consistent.

"I think this approach will be better for the voters and the campaign."

New Harris Poll: Pakistan And China Seen As Unfriendly Nations, Probable U.S. Foes

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Illinois U.S Sen. Barack Obama took a thumping from some Democratic rivals and the pundit-ocracy for saying he would launch military attacks on Pakistan. He said armed forces could be used to root out Al Qaeda terrorists hiding in the mountains of that nation. But now there is data showing Obama seems to have a lot of company in the American public, which increasingly views Pakistan as hostile territory rather than a bosom ally.

Harris Interactive released polling data -- ignored in the press and nearly everywhere else -- showing "some general trends" in public opinion over the past three years. Both Pakistan and China, a trading partner with growing economic and military might and a penchant for shipping shoddy products to the U.S., are considered the No. 1 and No. 2 bad guys on the world stage.

"The two most negative responses that could be given about a country in this survey are 'not friendly but not an enemy' and 'unfriendly and an enemy.' The countries which are most widely viewed as not friendly (i.e. countries for which either of these responses are given) are Pakistan (69%), China (63%), Colombia (56%) and Russia (54%).

"It is striking that Pakistan is the country most widely viewed as unfriendly to the United States since it is considered an ally in the fight against the Taliban and Islamic terrorists and we have provided billions of dollars in aid."

Harris added that a "notable finding" was Pakistan's unfavorable rating had risen 20 points, and China's 9 since 2004. The poll of 1,010 adults was conducted July 10-16. Harris said only about 500 were asked about each of the 25 countries on its list.

The survey may have escaped wide notice because it was made public under a headline about nations that were most admired by Americans. No surprise on the list: Canada, Great Britain, Israel, Australia and Japan were described as the nation's best friends.

Obama could have been mining some of the distrust when he went after Pakistan, distrust that probably resonated in some of his own polls. He said Aug. 2, 2007:

"But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are planning to strike again. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

Obama spoke after reports in July that the U.S. cancelled a raid in 2005 over concerns it would damage relations with Pakistan. Obama called that decision a "terrible mistake." The Chicago Tribune report about his speech is available online. While the Illinois Democrat took criticism for the tough foreign policy statement, it looks like he could have been on solid ground with the public. They clearly don't trust Pakistan -- or China -- according to the Harris data.