Obama Needs to Play Offense in the Character Game
(updated below) (updated again)
As anyone who's paid attention to presidential politics over the last two decades knows, the Republican electoral strategy is largely character-based. In presidential elections, more than any other type of election, a large number of voters base their decisions on their perceptions of the candidates' characters, rather than any specific issue or set of issues.
Knowing this, Republican strategists focus most of their effort on creating and/or feeding negative media narratives about the Democratic candidate. They know that journalists (as well as late night comedians) like to operate within pre-existing frames or narratives. It makes their jobs easier, their analysis and humor easier to "get." Republican strategists know that if a candidate says something or does something that fits an existing narrative, it will get much more attention and will serve to reinforce that narrative.
As Bob Somerby astutely put it the other day:
That's why, in 2000, whenever Al Gore said anything that sounded even the slightest bit embellished, everyone pounced and pointed to it as further evidence of Gore's mendacity. But when George W. Bush blatantly lied about his tax cut proposal in every debate, no one even bothered to point it out. The same was true, of course, of John Kerry in 2004. Anything he did that could possibly be characterized as a "flip-flop" provided an instant "there he goes again" moment, while Bush could easily get away with similar reversals.
This time around, the narrative being fed to (and by) the media is that Obama is somehow unusually "presumptuous" or "arrogant." As a result, when Obama says "we are the change we've been waiting for", that's seen as evidence of his presumptuousness, but John McCain can go around proclaiming himself "the American President Americans have been waiting for" and it barely draws a comment.
While the Republicans have several anti-Obama narratives that are rapidly gaining steam, the Obama campaign--like the Kerry and Gore campaigns before him--has done little if anything to try to plant the seeds of anti-McCain narratives in the media. The Democrats always feel (rightly or wrongly) that if the campaign can just be about the issues, they'll win. So they actively try to steer the conversation away from discussion of character and toward discussion of the issues. Obama is following the same script now, proclaiming his "disappointment" with McCain's character attacks and trying to the steer the conversation back toward more substantive topics.
Given the overall political climate, Obama's strategy may work this year despite having failed in previous election cycles. But it would be much easier if his campaign took some initiative on the character front. They don't need to do anything sleazy or underhanded. They just need to try to associate McCain with a few simple adjectives, something that journalists and late night comedians can then latch onto and use to frame their coverage of the campaign. That's what Democrats have failed to do in the past and it's hurt them.
The only real existing narrative about McCain is that he's old. McCain's age serves as the hook for virtually all jokes about him. But there seem to be several other adjectives that would be fairly easy to pin on him. If Howard Dean had won the Democratic nomination in 2004, it's pretty clear that the Republicans would have tried to paint him as the "angry" and "emotionally volatile" candidate. They were already gearing up for such an effort when Dean's campaign imploded. It seems to me that the same tactic could work well against McCain.
McCain is famous for his temper and has already shown several flashes of genuine anger on the campaign trail. His Republican colleague, Thad Cochran, told reporters earlier this year that "the thought of [McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." If the Democrats can't turn that into a media narrative, then they just aren't trying.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that Obama should go negative, at least not in the traditional sense. Given the nature of his candidacy and his prior pronouncements on the subject, any attempt by Obama to run a Republican-style slash and burn campaign would likely backfire (not to mention lower him to their level). But that doesn't mean Obama can't plant the seeds to such a narrative in other ways, such as when he responds to McCain's attacks. For instance, he could point to the attacks themselves as evidence of McCain's anger and emotional volatility. Obama could decry the "politics of anger and resentment" and highlight the absurdity and immaturity of McCain's attacks. His surrogates could be more direct, making sure to use the word "angry" and "temper" every time they're asked about McCain's latest remarks or latest attack ad.
If this is done consistently, it should catch on, and before long the late night comedians will be making jokes about McCain's temper and comparing him to the Incredible Hulk. If McCain was a Democratic candidate this would have already happened months ago.
I wish we lived in a world where campaigns were about issues and voters didn't choose their leaders based on perceptions of character derived from watching Jay Leno. But that's the world we live in, and if the Democrats want to win presidential elections, they need to understand how it works. They need to start defining their opponents in the same way their opponents define them.
UPDATE: There is no more perfect example of the power of media narratives that this web article from CBS News. The piece is entitled "O-Force One" and it describes the supposedly lavish accommodations on Obama's new campaign jet. The author goes out of her way to point out that the word "president" is embroidered on the back of Obama's chair (how presumptuous!), though when you look at the picture, you see it's basically a tiny bumper sticker that reads "Obama '08 -- President." She also includes a snarky quote from The Politico's Mike Allen making fun of Obama. Toward the end of the article, there's a brief mention of McCain's campaign plane which, from the description, would appear to be virtually identical. But that part of the article is clearly an afterthought.
It's clear that the author of the article has either internalized the "Obama is presumptuous" narrative (and is therefore seeing everything through that lens) or--perhaps more likely--she is consciously playing into that narrative, knowing that her web piece is likely to garner a lot more attention if it feeds a narrative that Republicans are trying very hard to advance. If it's the latter, then mission accomplished; the right-wing blogs are all linking to the piece and driving up traffic.
UPDATE II: Nate Silver makes an important point. The conventional wisdom at the moment is that Obama is significantly underperforming the "generic Democrat" in the polls and that this is evidence that many voters have concerns about Obama. But Silver points out that Obama performs much closer to the generic Democrat when matched up against people other than John McCain:
As anyone who's paid attention to presidential politics over the last two decades knows, the Republican electoral strategy is largely character-based. In presidential elections, more than any other type of election, a large number of voters base their decisions on their perceptions of the candidates' characters, rather than any specific issue or set of issues.
Knowing this, Republican strategists focus most of their effort on creating and/or feeding negative media narratives about the Democratic candidate. They know that journalists (as well as late night comedians) like to operate within pre-existing frames or narratives. It makes their jobs easier, their analysis and humor easier to "get." Republican strategists know that if a candidate says something or does something that fits an existing narrative, it will get much more attention and will serve to reinforce that narrative.
As Bob Somerby astutely put it the other day:
There are three basic lines in American politics. “Happy days are here again” is one. Another basic: “It’s time for a change.” And then, there’s what Candidate Reagan said:That's the essence of Republican presidential politics. They settle on a narrative about their opponent and they repeat it over and over again until it has thoroughly saturated the public consciousness. Then when something new happens, they all chant "there he goes again." And if they've done a good job laying the groundwork, journalists, reporters, and late night comedians all join the chorus.
REAGAN (10/28/80): There you go again.
“There you go again,” he told Carter. It only worked because people had heard his narrative about “liberals” before. They’d heard it again and again—and again. Whether he was right or not in the present instance, they felt they knew what he meant.
That's why, in 2000, whenever Al Gore said anything that sounded even the slightest bit embellished, everyone pounced and pointed to it as further evidence of Gore's mendacity. But when George W. Bush blatantly lied about his tax cut proposal in every debate, no one even bothered to point it out. The same was true, of course, of John Kerry in 2004. Anything he did that could possibly be characterized as a "flip-flop" provided an instant "there he goes again" moment, while Bush could easily get away with similar reversals.
This time around, the narrative being fed to (and by) the media is that Obama is somehow unusually "presumptuous" or "arrogant." As a result, when Obama says "we are the change we've been waiting for", that's seen as evidence of his presumptuousness, but John McCain can go around proclaiming himself "the American President Americans have been waiting for" and it barely draws a comment.
While the Republicans have several anti-Obama narratives that are rapidly gaining steam, the Obama campaign--like the Kerry and Gore campaigns before him--has done little if anything to try to plant the seeds of anti-McCain narratives in the media. The Democrats always feel (rightly or wrongly) that if the campaign can just be about the issues, they'll win. So they actively try to steer the conversation away from discussion of character and toward discussion of the issues. Obama is following the same script now, proclaiming his "disappointment" with McCain's character attacks and trying to the steer the conversation back toward more substantive topics.
Given the overall political climate, Obama's strategy may work this year despite having failed in previous election cycles. But it would be much easier if his campaign took some initiative on the character front. They don't need to do anything sleazy or underhanded. They just need to try to associate McCain with a few simple adjectives, something that journalists and late night comedians can then latch onto and use to frame their coverage of the campaign. That's what Democrats have failed to do in the past and it's hurt them.
The only real existing narrative about McCain is that he's old. McCain's age serves as the hook for virtually all jokes about him. But there seem to be several other adjectives that would be fairly easy to pin on him. If Howard Dean had won the Democratic nomination in 2004, it's pretty clear that the Republicans would have tried to paint him as the "angry" and "emotionally volatile" candidate. They were already gearing up for such an effort when Dean's campaign imploded. It seems to me that the same tactic could work well against McCain.
McCain is famous for his temper and has already shown several flashes of genuine anger on the campaign trail. His Republican colleague, Thad Cochran, told reporters earlier this year that "the thought of [McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." If the Democrats can't turn that into a media narrative, then they just aren't trying.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that Obama should go negative, at least not in the traditional sense. Given the nature of his candidacy and his prior pronouncements on the subject, any attempt by Obama to run a Republican-style slash and burn campaign would likely backfire (not to mention lower him to their level). But that doesn't mean Obama can't plant the seeds to such a narrative in other ways, such as when he responds to McCain's attacks. For instance, he could point to the attacks themselves as evidence of McCain's anger and emotional volatility. Obama could decry the "politics of anger and resentment" and highlight the absurdity and immaturity of McCain's attacks. His surrogates could be more direct, making sure to use the word "angry" and "temper" every time they're asked about McCain's latest remarks or latest attack ad.
If this is done consistently, it should catch on, and before long the late night comedians will be making jokes about McCain's temper and comparing him to the Incredible Hulk. If McCain was a Democratic candidate this would have already happened months ago.
I wish we lived in a world where campaigns were about issues and voters didn't choose their leaders based on perceptions of character derived from watching Jay Leno. But that's the world we live in, and if the Democrats want to win presidential elections, they need to understand how it works. They need to start defining their opponents in the same way their opponents define them.
UPDATE: There is no more perfect example of the power of media narratives that this web article from CBS News. The piece is entitled "O-Force One" and it describes the supposedly lavish accommodations on Obama's new campaign jet. The author goes out of her way to point out that the word "president" is embroidered on the back of Obama's chair (how presumptuous!), though when you look at the picture, you see it's basically a tiny bumper sticker that reads "Obama '08 -- President." She also includes a snarky quote from The Politico's Mike Allen making fun of Obama. Toward the end of the article, there's a brief mention of McCain's campaign plane which, from the description, would appear to be virtually identical. But that part of the article is clearly an afterthought.
It's clear that the author of the article has either internalized the "Obama is presumptuous" narrative (and is therefore seeing everything through that lens) or--perhaps more likely--she is consciously playing into that narrative, knowing that her web piece is likely to garner a lot more attention if it feeds a narrative that Republicans are trying very hard to advance. If it's the latter, then mission accomplished; the right-wing blogs are all linking to the piece and driving up traffic.
UPDATE II: Nate Silver makes an important point. The conventional wisdom at the moment is that Obama is significantly underperforming the "generic Democrat" in the polls and that this is evidence that many voters have concerns about Obama. But Silver points out that Obama performs much closer to the generic Democrat when matched up against people other than John McCain:
According to polling averages compiled by the website RealClearPolitics, at the time they discontinued their respective presidential bids, Fred Thompson trailed Obama by 12 percentage points, Mitt Romney was behind by 15 and Mike Huckabee by 17. For that matter, a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports showed Obama leading President Bush by 20 percentage points in a hypothetical matchup.In other words, it's not that Obama underperforms the generic Democrat, it's that John McCain significantly overperforms the generic Republican. And that's all the more reason why the Obama campaign needs to take affirmative steps to try to change the public's perception of McCain's character.
posted by A.L. at 10:35 AM
7 Comments:
McCain is also a complete idiot, who already managed to mess up his own foreign affairs.
But your absolutely right. A little bit of character attack couldn't hurt, as long as Obama doesn't take it as far as republicans do.
What about the strategy of painting McCain as a racist because he is working so hard to prevent the election of the first African-American President? As Bob Herbert points out in the New York Times, the Paris Hilton/Britney Spears ad was obviously designed to “exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.” (I know that when I saw that ad, the first thing I thought was, damn, this guy is not only going to raise my taxes and the cost of filling my minivan, he is going to take away my shot at Paris and Britney).
I think that calling McCain a racist will be more effective than calling him old and bad-tempered. Everybody already knows he is old and bad-tempered. Plus, it conflicts with Obama’s primary campaign theme that McCain and George W. Bush are the same person. Bush is a lot of things, but he is not old or bad-tempered. He is, however, a racist, as evidenced by his attempt to ruin the reputations of several prominent African-Americans by forcing them to serve in his cabinet.
Some may argue that the tactic of attacking McCain as a racist will not work because it is, technically speaking, not true. This is just the sort of defeatism that has cost the Democrats so many elections. As you illustrate, the only reason the Republicans have won any elections is by telling lies. Why else would people have voted Republican? It follows that the best way to win an election is to tell lies. Telling the truth, even if apparently damaging to your opponent, just won’t cut it.
Obama should have an entire staff devoted to thinking up as many lies about McCain as they can. In fact, if he hires Karl Rove’s staff from the 2000 primary, they can just recycle the lies from that campaign. Obama will be a shoo-in.
MLS,
I'm not even sure what the point of your snark is. Putting aside for a moment the issue of whether there are any racial dog-whistles in McCain's ads, I don't think anyone--including the Obama folks--think that labeling McCain a "racist" is a winning strategy. Whether they agree with him or not, they'd probably prefer that people like Bob Herbert just shut up. Whenever the subject of race comes up, Obama loses. They know that.
I don't think McCain is a racist. I do think his campaign is going out of its way to try to paint Obama as somehow "foreign." Hence the tagline "the American president Americans have been waiting for" and the repeated description of Obama as a "worldwide celebrity" among other not so subtle efforts.
I'd also note that the point of my post has nothing to do with lying. I don't think you have to lie to plant the seeds of a successful media narrative.
mls,
may I recommend Thorazine?
a.l.
I think the key word in all this is "surrogates." There are a lot of high profile Dems more than capable of doing the dirty work here - Dean, Biden, Frank, Reid, Clinton (as if). It's just a question of designating the role.
On the other hand, whenever I find myself wringing my hands about Obama's reluctance to engage, I go look at 538 and remind myself that - notwithstanding the hyperventilation of the MSM - Obama is doing to McCain precisely what he did to Clinton:
Beating him soundly by the rules of the game.
Indeed, Obama's ability to figure out exactly what he needs to do in order to accomplish a given goal - (in this case, get EVs) - focus on that and not to succumb to unnecessary distractions is one of his most appealing, and encouraging, political traits.
Let's face it. Unless Obama finds a way to counter this and FAST, McCain is going to win. I'm inclined to agree with AL.
Interesting question. How did Bill Clinton overcome all those "character" negatives thrown at him? (I seem to have blacked the memory out).
el,
Clinton is just such a naturally likeable politician that he was able to deflect a lot of it. But he also benefitted big time from the presence of Perot in the race. It's much harder to run a character-based campaign when there are more than two candidates. In a three way race, attacking your opponent may just drive voters toward your other opponent. Also, the right-wing media machine we're familiar with now was just in its infancy back then. It didn't really come into it's own until the late 90s.
I think MLS is a McCain agent. That advice given was ridiculous.
But, yeah, Dems seem to think the issue will win the day. That's not how politics operates these days, unfortunately. Issues are boring and can be confusing. Characatures are fun and easy.
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