"If I were advising the candidates, I’d tell them to double down on weirdness."

Says David Brooks, on September 8, 2008.

Blogging that at the time, here, I said that Brooks observed that "Obama started out weird and did well, then got conventional and did less well, especially with McCain getting weird. 'Weirdness wins,' [Brooks] says."

I thought you might like to see that today, when so many people are saying "weird" at the same time and as if it's a bad thing.

Let me give you a bit more of Brooks:

None of us have ever lived through an election at a time when 80 percent of voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction. But now that we’re in the thick of it, a few things are clear. From voters, the demand is: Surprise Me Most. For candidates, the lesson is: Weirdness Wins.

Last winter, Barack Obama succeeded by running a weird campaign. He wasn’t just a normal politician aiming for office, he was going to cleanse the country of the baby-boom culture war mentality.... 

But over the course of the spring, Obama’s campaign got less weird... [His] speeches became more conventional, more policy-specific and more orthodox.... 

[B]y campaigning in this traditional way, Obama ceded the weirdness edge to McCain.

The old warrior jumped right in. Think about how weird last week was. The Republican convention was one long protest against the way the Republicans themselves have run Washington. McCain’s convention speech barely mentioned his own party. His vice-presidential nominee came out of the blue and seems totally unlike the regular crowd of former eighth-grade class presidents who normally dominate public life. McCain’s campaign ideology, exemplified in a new ad released on Monday, is not familiar conservatism. It’s maverickism against the entrenched powers and party orthodoxies.

And it all worked. McCain got a huge postconvention bounce in the polls....

The McCain campaign is the champion of systemic change after two decades of bickering and self-dealing, its time to shake up the whole system in order to get things done.

The Obama change is more responsible and specific, but it has all the weirdness of a Brookings Institution report....

If I were advising the candidates, I’d tell them to double down on weirdness. Obama needs to occasionally criticize his own side. If he can’t take on his own party hacks, he’ll never reclaim the mantle of systemic change. Specifically, he needs to attack the snobs who are savaging Sarah Palin’s faith and family. Many liberals claim to love working-class families, but the moment they glimpse a hunter with an uneven college record, they hop on chairs and call for disinfectant. Obama needs to attack Bill Maher for calling her a stewardess and the rest of the coastal condescenders....

The candidates probably won’t take this kind of advice. But remember: Weirdness wins. Surprise me most.