Click to read at BHO Web Site

After reading the text of an e-mail (Message from David Plouffe: ‘What you just saw’) sent to supporters of Barack Obama by his campaign manager David Plouffe at 2:44 a.m. Eastern today, I must conclude that Sarah Palin‘s nomination acceptance speech last night left those in the Democratic Party presidential nominee’s campaign afraid and desperate.

As a public service, the entire text of that e-mail appears below in exactly the same format as it appeared on the Obama web site today (minus a link to the Obama campaign donation site):

Dear Friend –

I wasn’t planning on sending you something tonight. But if you saw what I saw from the Republican convention, you know that it demands a response.

I saw John McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians. They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for being a part of this campaign.

But worst of all — and this deserves to be noted — they insulted the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our political process.

You know that despite what John McCain and his attack squad say, everyday people have the power to build something extraordinary when we come together. Will you make a donation right now to remind them?

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let’s clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

And it’s no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions of people have found that by coming together in their local communities they can change the course of history. That promise is what our campaign has been about from the beginning.

Throughout our history, ordinary people have made good on America’s promise by organizing for change from the bottom up. Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. And it’s happening today in church basements and community centers and living rooms across America.

Meanwhile, we still haven’t gotten a single idea during the entire Republican convention about the economy and how to lift a middle class so harmed by the Bush-McCain policies.

It’s now clear that John McCain’s campaign has decided that desperate lies and personal attacks — on Barack Obama and on you — are the only way they can earn a third term for the Bush policies that McCain has supported more than 90 percent of the time.

But you can send a crystal clear message.

Enough is enough. Make your voice heard loud and clear by making a donation right now:

(I’m leaving out the link here)

Thank you for joining more than 2 million ordinary Americans who refuse to be silenced.

David

Interestingly, I must note that it took Obama spin doctors two to three hours longer to craft the e-mail above than it took me to publish three after-the-speech posts — Sarah Palin Nails Speech at Republican Convention, Sarah Palin’s Top 20 Jabs at the Democrats and Links to RNC Speech Transcripts Offered.

As a long-time PR guru and manager of two campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives, I can only conclude that the length of time it took for Obama’s handlers to craft a response to the speech stands as evidence of fear and desperation in the Obama camp.