Buy Either Plouffe’s Book or Palin’s Book But Don’t Read It

I’m not quite sure what to say about Obama for America Campaign Manager David Plouffe‘s challenge to potential readers/consumers to see try and sell more copies of his book than of Sarah Palin’s book in one day:

Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is challenging his fans and political readers to a literary duel with “our old friend Sarah Palin.”

In a new Web video, Plouffe announces a one-day-only attempt for his book on the 2008 campaign to out-sell Palin’s “Going Rogue,” which, he notes, has sold over a million copies.

“It’s selling about like a distortions and mistruths would at a tea party rally,” Plouffe says in campaign-style Web video you can watch after the jump.

“We thought it might be fun, a fun little exercise, on one day to see if we can use some of our old organizing techniques and spread the world to see if we might be able to beat her for just one day,” Plouffe said. The challenge is for Tuesday at noon.

One thing this will do is make it appear as if people actually intend to read Plouffe’s book. But I suspect people actually won’t, they’re buying it to participate in the faux drama between a liberal icon and a major conservative icon. I suspect the case is similar with a lot of people who bought Sarah Palin’s book —they don’t actually intend to read the book, they just want to show their support for Palin. The incentive to buy the book, after all, isn’t based on the quality of the prose, rather it’s the profile of the author.

–Daniel Strauss