To continue the trend of writing about election week media here at Banapana, i’d thought I’d make a note about the “Obamamercial,” the 30 minute informercial that candidate Barrack Obama aired tonight at 8pm Eastern. So far, around the web I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how they felt that the production values were good. Perhaps that may seem like an odd point to use to enforce the idea that Senator Obama would make a great President, but I really think it speaks volumes about a man who knows how to delegate power and knows who to trust to get the job done well. As I pointed out in a post about campaign branding the kind of design work you see coming out of a campaign does a lot more than tell you if the person in charge has taste. It tells you whether they are smart enough to not interfere with the work of the professionals that they hire to get the job done. Whether it’s the creatives he’s chosen to work with or just how totally, unbelievably thorough the campaign was in designing graphics for every necessary instance, the Obama campaign’s media strategy can tell you a lot about what Obama’s team knows about strategy and just how good they are at it. I think the production values of this “Obamamercial” just give greater weight to the point that Obama knows how to tap good, talented, smart people and he knows how to manage them cohesively. For all the rhetoric about policy decisions and political stances, I don’t think anything can tell you more about the potential for an executive team then how they’ve run the campaign. Obama’s team is good. Vote for them. Vote for Obama.

It’s a quote like this, from Obama’s interview with Rolling Stone that reminds me how smart he is. It’s one thing to see him being spirited and stoic in front of a crowd of thousands, but it’s another thing to see this side of him; the deft and strategic thinker.

In what way will people underestimate you as president? [Long pause] Because I tend to be a pretty courteous person and I don’t lose my temper, I think people underestimate my willingness to mix it up. I don’t know if they’ll continue to underestimate that after this campaign, but I think you’ll still get columns saying, “He’s too cool, he’s too soft.” [Laughs] That’s OK, actually. You like being underestimated in that way. Yeah. No point in having them see you coming.

I don’t think McCain subscribes to that point of view.

With all the hubbub about McCain and Obama being in a “dead heat” in the polls, I’m still wondering about the accuracy of these polls in the first place. Pollsters don’t call mobile phones, they call landlines. What demographic in this country do you suppose is less likely to have a landline and own only a mobile? And which demographic is really excited about Obama? Give the significant differences between the prediction markets (still almost ten points) and the polls, I seriously have to wonder if the pollsters are underestimating their tactics. I don’t think McCain is doing nearly as well as the media thinks he is.

This is Wasilla, Alaska, where Sarah Palin, John McCain’s Vice Presidential pick, was mayor two years ago. ‘Nuff said. [via mudflats]