TV timeout

T minus 3 minutes until Barack Obama runs his half hour paid infomercial on most major networks tonight.  I am not sure of the last time a national candidate has bought a half hour of TV in prime time to make the case for why he/she should be elected, but I can tell you this, it's a bad move.
Most polling numbers have Obama with leads in most of the key battleground states and most likely enough votes in the Electoral College to be the winner in next Tuesday's election.  Sure, we can all do the flashback to 1980, when Ronald Reagan came back from 12 points down in the last week to win, but let's not forget, he came back against Jimmy Carter, who presided over gas shortages, double digit inflation, high unemployment, the Iran hostage crisis and the failed rescue attempt, to name just a few things.  Suffice it to say, he carried more than his fair share of baggage into election day and was far from the most popular of Presidents seeking a second term in office.
The baggage this year is clearly on the other side of the court, and Barack Obama does not suffer from the personality defects of Jimmy Carter.  That being said, with less than a week to go and a large portion of the electorate already having made up their mind, I just don't see the purpose of tonight's endeavor.  Is he really going to win that many more votes with this half hour foray into people's lives than he is going to lose?  Yes, I said lose.
There are things that for a large swath of the electorate, you just don't fuck with.  For many, you don't fuck with their guns.  You may not like the that they have them, you may want safeguards to prevent those of ill repute from purchasing weapons, but for those that already have them, you don't threaten to take them.  You'll win no votes and you will lose the votes of the people that already own them.  Likewise, you don't fuck with their TV.  Sure some people will carve out a niche in their schedule and will hang on your every word and tell you how great your speech was, but most likely you had their vote anyway.  Far more likely, those people that had planned to sit down and watch some of the mind numbing idiot box this evening, only to see your visage instead of their story du jour, are going to be pissed for the inconvenience.  If political yammering were all the rage, network TV would carry every address by the President, because it would be a ratings coup for them, but they don't because they know to the public at large, it is a yawner. 
Mind you, tonight isn't a debate, we aren't going to get the give and take of the candidates sitting down with a moderator, we are getting a 30 minute commercial.  It's Klee Irwin and Dual Action Cleanse come to primetime, and most of what the audience will hear will be as thick as their wrist and as long as their child's arm.  And who wants to be the candidate , that 6 days out, is identified with a swath of the American public, as the guy that kept them from their "stories"?  Forget foreign policy or the current financial crisis, Barack Obama will be identified by some as the guy that preempted Howie Mendel and 'Deal or No Deal".

Maybe it's just me and I am misreading the pulse of the American people, but with 6 days before the election, I can find better things to do with the reported $3 to $5 million dollars dumped on a venture that may piss off as many or more potential voters than  win. 
As for me, well my Pepsi points saved me again, and I will be watching the "Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen" two DVD set.