Politicana

I am sure all of you have been watching McCain’s new ”swiftboating”
technique, engineered by the new folks brought in after his mid-July shake up (and in response to old school Republicans who thought McCain was not being aggressive enough). 

Will it work? 

It is too early to tell but I have my concerns.  Obama does not appear to have gotten a bump out of his European trip, though legitimate arguments are made that it will help him in the long run.  His national polling jumped up a bit but he is dead even again with McCain.  He fairs better in the state-by-state but those numbers have not improved for him either and that worries me (with Missouri and Indiana looking increasingly out of
reach, there could be trouble ahead). 

Right now McCain is just flinging all the mud he can to see what will stick.  On some level it is working because it has Obama off his game and defensive (he wanted to follow his high-minded international press coverage with high-minded economic coverage and that has been
derailed).  Plus, his shift on off-shore drilling might feed into the flip-flopper meme or into the “willing to reach across the aisles” one (it is also
too early to tell that). 

Of the mudslinging we have heard this week, the “race card” one is the most emotionally charged but not the most dangerous, I think.  It is so obvious that Obama can face it head on and adjust his approach.  If he keeps hammering at McCain about “pointing out my difference,” he is handing him this attack and will likely lose the election. However, if he drops that approach, McCain cannot continue with the “race card” attack without a risk of backlash (ie voters perceiving him as having the race issue). 

The more difficult meme is the “Brittany/Paris” one, not because it implies he is vacuous (nobody buys that) but because the other implication of “celebrity” is the arrogance, specifically the assumption he is going to win.  I think the image of him in front of a presidential-like seal is potentially game-ending.  If played right, it could really resonate with middle America; folks think they hate nothing more than entitlement (“he thinks he’s won already?  We’ll show him! Don’t you tell me how to vote!”). I say “think”
because, of course, American’s love certain types of entitlement their own) and ignore other types (rich people’s) but we have been conditioned to become apoplectic when people we perceive as having no right act entitled (and outsider presidential candidates and black people in general are on that list).  This attack fits all of Poblano’s criteria for a good scandal:

1- The scandal can be reduced to a one sentence sound
byte (better yet- just an image) but cannot be refuted
in one sentence.  How does Barack explain that he does
NOT consider himself inevitable? That’s a no-win for
him.

2- The scandal cuts across a core element of Obama’s
brand.  The is the all-American outsider from humble
beginings, moral and passionate and compassionate.
Not arrogant and power hungry.

3- The scandal reinforces a core negative perception
about Obama.  It actually taps into the core fear
about him, that he cannot be trusted (because he is
black, muslim, lived overseas, and now is arrogant,
power hungry and entitled.  He thinks he deserves the
presidency).

4- Can the scandal be used by McCain’s campaign
without them seeming hypocritical (Yes, easily.
McCain’s fumbling incompetence may look like a lot of
things but not entitlement) or petty (this is harder
but they don’t seem to care about that right now).

5- Is the media bored enough/does the story have
enough tabloid value to crowd out other stories and
reach saturation level?  You be the judge of that.  It
certainly has wings right now but if something else
crowds it out, it still could die out.

In the end, this thing worries me most just because he meets every criteria in Poblano’s test.  McCain’s people still may not play their cards right (they may put their energy behind a different issue and, if they try to play too many of them, they will look petty).

I may be wrong about how people will perceive the image.  A Salon article earlier this week suggested that the images of him in Berlin were his Reagan/Stahl moment- Leslie Stahl ran an attack piece on Reagan in 1980 that included images of him in front of cheering crowds.  Subsequent focus groups revealed that virtually no viewers remembered what she said but remembered the images of him looking presidental.  Voters were inspired
by Reagan appearing presidental and Obama is deliberately following that model. 

Again, will it work? 

I fear that we live in a different American that has come to value “plain spoken, just like us” over “looking presidental.”  If that is truly the case,
there was probably nothing Obama could have done to win this race (and we should have gone with Hillary); he is cut out of Reagan’s cloth.  The approach he is taking is the only one he can take (in the plainness
vs presidential debate). 

Where he might need to change his approach is in being so high minded.  Much as I hate to say it, he may need to start coming at McCain in a meaner way- if McCain wants to make his smoothness seem arrogant, he should make McCain’s clumsiness seem incompetent.  He has ample opportunities and better jump to it.

Well, after all that, I say again that it is too soon to tell.  However, I am becoming quite concerned.  July should have been Obama’s slam dunk month but it was nothing but trouble in the polls.  We have to wait
and see how August goes.  But, recently, I was begining to think that he may need Hillary as VP.  I don’t think it is about securing a state at this
point or even a key demographic.  I think he needs to sure up Democrats (according to a blog on Poblano recently, Obama has gained on Kerry (from 2004) in every demographic- men, women, whites, hispanics, Republicans, independants, the South, West, etc.- except Democrats, where he is down 9% from Kerry and has just 69% of Dems).  I also think he needs somebody
to take some of the heat; Republicans would attackher, which might give him a bit of a break, but would also double how mean-spirited they look.  Most importantly, I think it would re-excite America about the presidency.  This election has gone on too long and people have gotten fatigued.  Obama is no longer novel and people aren’t as euphoric about him (the
voters or the press).  Putting HRC back into it would reenergize things.  When folks were excited about Obama, he was bullet proof.  Now, every little thing seems to stick.  An excited populous won’t care what
McCain has to say.  They’ll just be seeing stars.

I’m not wedded to this idea and I could be convinced otherwise.
That is just how I am leaning right now.  Any thoughts?