The Fighting 44s

This is a fantastic write-up on why Steven Grant thinks the Democrats will lose, and how they should attack McCain and the Republicans if they want to actually win.

I’m not sure that I agree with his assessment of Democratic motivations and wanting to be “above the fray”; I think it’s more likely that they’re just inefficient and incapable of deciding anything definitively or moving in a unified way (the classic “post-modern” or “pluralist” downfall). But I completely agree with his suggestions for tactics and overall approach.

Steven Grant:

I’m currently giving odds that the Democrats will lose in November, and here’s why: so far they’ve been following the exact same campaign course they’ve followed in the last two elections. Democrats don’t want to win as much as they want everyone to like them. The Obama campaign shows signs of this now, or maybe it’s the influence of the DNC, now that they’re merged toward that one great political goal. But look at the Republicans: a slew of ads, often petty and stupid, that nonetheless chip away at Obama. And it’s not even the ads that are doing the chipping. It’s the Democratic failure to respond to the ads. They’re always so goddamned determined to present themselves as “above the fray,” which just gives the impression that whatever idiot accusations are being hurled have merit. Until the rubbish has taken root to the point that a response must be made, and then it just plays as damage control, and everyone’s hip to that con.

Thing is, they don’t even need to respond respond. They don’t have to treat anything like a serious issue, or even a serious accusation. Let’s face it: anyone could take McCain down hard in about ten seconds if they really wanted to. (Or maybe they don’t want to until after the Republican convention, when the damage will have already been done. If you take down McCain before the convention, they can just nominate another candidate. If you do it afterward, they either have to stay the course or find some grounds to replace McCain as candidate, and both look bad. But odds are the Democrats aren’t thinking along those lines at all, because, you know, they’re above all that.) That “Paris Hilton” ad? Wouldn’t an ad have been great with Obama himself - not some nameless voice with an “I approve this message” tag at the end - just Obama on camera laughing at the ad? And saying something like “The most famous celebrity in the world? Me? Is that the best lie the Republicans could come up with? Or do they have to resort to that sort of thing because their politics are even emptier than that ad is?” You don’t have to debate ‘em, Democrats. Kill ‘em. Ridicule ‘em. How hard is that? When the Republicans put up ads about how Obama will “raise taxes,” run an ad about rampant government spending with insufficient funds by the current administration, and a Congress long controlled by Republicans, and how that has decimated the American economy, triggered financial scandal after financial scandal, and threatens to bankrupt the economy if those policies remain in force for another four years.

Remember when Michelle Obama was accused of “not being proud” of America - the shame of it! - and Cindy McCain said, “Well, I’ve always been proud of America.” There wasn’t one person who could think to say, “Well, sure, Cindy McCain’s a rich drug addict who looted her own charity to supply medicine to Africa to feed her own addiction, and she got off with a slap on the wrist and everyone chuckling about what a minx she is. If Michelle Obama had done that she’d still be doing time. That’s the America Cindy McCain’s proud of.”

But, no, that would be too impolite for the Democrats. Can’t have people thinking the Democrats are impolite.

We’re Americans, goddammit! We’re all impolite! WISE UP!

Here’s the anti-McCain ad I’d run if I were the Democrats, and I’d start running it the moment McCain makes his acceptance speech and keep it on the air all the way through November. McCain’s basically running on two things: his supposed “straight talk” and his “qualifications.” So those are what the Democrats have to gut. Bringing up how he can’t keep track of how many houses he owns won’t do it.

But McCain has done a ton of video over the past couple years, interviewed on news shows and press conferences. Where time and time again he has flat out contradicted himself. Find three of those instances, like where he said one week that his area of expertise was the economy, and the next week (this was just after the mortgage scandal hit big) said he wasn’t an expert on the economy. That sort of thing. He has contradicted himself on the war, on spending, on nuclear power. Find three sets of clips. Run one clip from McCain - in his own voice - saying, oh, “The economy is my area of expertise” and immediately follow with the counter-clip, “I’m no expert on the economy.” Immediately follow with the other two sets of clips. Freeze on McCain’s face - looking grouchy, if possible - and have the voice over: “Qualified? He’s not even qualified to tell the truth.” Fade out McCain’s face, fade in Obama’s smiling, hopeful, confident face, looking off at a bright future.

Which sets up the debates, and what a main objective should be for Obama: to piss McCain off. Republican image consultants have been desperately trying to mask one of McCain’s most prominent traits: he’s really a cranky old bastard given to flying off the handle when contradicted, who gets pretty irrational when he’s like that. They don’t want people seeing him like that. Obama must achieve two things during the debates - to establish that, yes, he does have policy positions (they’re available at his website, but that requires people to do the heavy lifting themselves, which is always problematic) and he’ll probably even have to break down a little and enunciate them, though hopefully in somewhat less tedious attention to detail than Al Gore achieved - and to get McCain to lose his cool in front of America. That bit’s a little trickier, since he has to do it in such a way that it doesn’t look like he’s trying to beat up someone’s invalid grandfather, and the moderated debate format isn’t conducive to one-on-one brawls. It requires a “nasty-nice” approach that Democrats aren’t especially adept at, like acknowledging and praising McCain’s stint in a North Vietnamese POW camp as brave and inspirational, but then pointing out that surviving a POW camp isn’t in itself a qualification for the highest office in the land, and that his experience with torture didn’t stop him from shifting from a lifelong opposition to torture to endorsing the Administration’s “measured” use of it as an interrogation technique.

Fortunately, the best approach is one he should be taking in any case: chip away at McCain hard wherever possible. Contradict his conclusions, contradict his terms. Follow the Ghost-Cheney interview approach: don’t bother answering the question you’re asked, reframe it into the question you want to answer and answer that. He might as well; you know McCain will be coached to do that. Close to every single answer should chip at McCain, which not coincidentally would also present an aggressive candidate who looks capable of fearlessly confronting challenges. That “commander-in-chief” thing.

But it won’t happen because they’re Democrats, and they want to be liked. The party wants to be liked. But if they really want to be liked, the best way to do that is to win the White House, and Congress, and make some substantive positive changes in the lives of the majority of Americans. The question now is whether Obama will get his hands dirty in a real fight, or whether he’ll follow the traditional advice of the DNC and try to remain “presidential” and above the fray, ignoring that while some Americans are less than keen on a guy who hits, most Americans like a guy who when hit hits back. Hard. The Republicans figured that one out a long time ago. Moral victories are good and all, but real victories are better, and the Democrats now have barely two months to figure that out.

Which is why I’m now giving odds on a Republican victory in November, because the Democrats have had years to figure that out and they don’t seem to be any closer to accepting it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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