Refining the Attack
Maybe the Obama campaign read my last post because this morning Obama changed course and decided to take a jab at Sarah Palin:
If you were to poll the American public right now and asked them to name one positive thing that they know about Sarah Palin, I’m certain that the only answer you’d get with any frequency is that "she told Congress 'thanks but no thanks' to the Bridge to Nowhere." Palin made that claim when John McCain introduced her to the country last week, and that’s the soundbite most news outlets ran with (it’s also, incidentally, the part of her initial remarks that focus group-tested the best). Palin then repeated the claim in her widely-viewed acceptance speech on Wednesday, and now the Bridge to Nowhere line has been incorporated into both Palin and McCain’s stump speeches. The line has been repeated so many times now that it has become closely associated with Palin’s public persona.
But, as we now know, it’s also a rather audacious lie. Not only did Palin promise to build the bridge while she was campaigning for Governor in 2006, but the earmark was killed--through no effort of hers--before she ever took office. And when she did take office, she accepted all of the federal money that had originally been earmarked for the bridge and spent it on other stuff.
Needless to say, if voters knew all of that, it would be immensely damaging to Palin’s credibility. When the first thing you ever hear someone say is a whopper of a lie, the natural human response is not to trust that person any more.
In his remarks today, Obama accused Palin of hypocrisy on the issue of earmarks and hinted that she was being less than honest ("you can't just make stuff up"). That's not specific enough. If the Obama campaign really wants to burst the Sarah Palin bubble, it needs to make sure that everyone in America knows that her Bridge to Nowhere claim is completely bogus. Obama and his surrogates need to be specific and relentless. They need to expose the lie in every speech, every interview, every television appearance.
If they do that, before long every independent and swing voter in the country will know that the very first thing Sarah Palin told them about herself was a big fat lie. This really isn’t rocket science. The McCain/Palin campaign is pitching itself as a team of straight-talking mavericks who are going to reform Washington. If voters know that Palin is repeatedly lying about her chief “accomplishment” and that McCain himself is knowingly repeating this lie, it will be devastating to their case. Once you've lost the voters' trust, it's very difficult to recover.
"I know the governor of Alaska has been saying she's change, and that's great," Obama said. "She's a skillful politician. But, you know, when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can't just make stuff up."That's a good start. It hits the right notes. But if Obama is going to take a jab at Palin, I think he needs to be a little more focused and specific.
If you were to poll the American public right now and asked them to name one positive thing that they know about Sarah Palin, I’m certain that the only answer you’d get with any frequency is that "she told Congress 'thanks but no thanks' to the Bridge to Nowhere." Palin made that claim when John McCain introduced her to the country last week, and that’s the soundbite most news outlets ran with (it’s also, incidentally, the part of her initial remarks that focus group-tested the best). Palin then repeated the claim in her widely-viewed acceptance speech on Wednesday, and now the Bridge to Nowhere line has been incorporated into both Palin and McCain’s stump speeches. The line has been repeated so many times now that it has become closely associated with Palin’s public persona.
But, as we now know, it’s also a rather audacious lie. Not only did Palin promise to build the bridge while she was campaigning for Governor in 2006, but the earmark was killed--through no effort of hers--before she ever took office. And when she did take office, she accepted all of the federal money that had originally been earmarked for the bridge and spent it on other stuff.
Needless to say, if voters knew all of that, it would be immensely damaging to Palin’s credibility. When the first thing you ever hear someone say is a whopper of a lie, the natural human response is not to trust that person any more.
In his remarks today, Obama accused Palin of hypocrisy on the issue of earmarks and hinted that she was being less than honest ("you can't just make stuff up"). That's not specific enough. If the Obama campaign really wants to burst the Sarah Palin bubble, it needs to make sure that everyone in America knows that her Bridge to Nowhere claim is completely bogus. Obama and his surrogates need to be specific and relentless. They need to expose the lie in every speech, every interview, every television appearance.
If they do that, before long every independent and swing voter in the country will know that the very first thing Sarah Palin told them about herself was a big fat lie. This really isn’t rocket science. The McCain/Palin campaign is pitching itself as a team of straight-talking mavericks who are going to reform Washington. If voters know that Palin is repeatedly lying about her chief “accomplishment” and that McCain himself is knowingly repeating this lie, it will be devastating to their case. Once you've lost the voters' trust, it's very difficult to recover.
posted by A.L. at 10:46 PM
41 Comments:
I hope they're reading you too -- you've been very good at forecasting and analyzing this campaign. I had come to exactly the same conclusion as you about Palin and the Bridge lie -- that's a really easy issue to get across in a 30-second ad, and devastating.
I've got a couple of 3rd-degree-of-separation contacts to the campaign, I'll pass this along as best I can.
I agree with mannyj. This blog has gone to the top of my list because you've been consistently supplying sensible, trenchant analysis. The point you're making here is an excellent one that seems particularly amenable to campaign messaging. Let's hope they listen.
i'll third that motion.
love A.L.'s commentary, its the only thing i read in the evenings before greenwald, if only because A.L.'s musings are less meticulous in their background research and hence generally briefer!
keep it up.
Good for A.L. It looks like the Dems are wising up to Palin's vulnerable spots, here's hoping they find some more.
They should play up the pit-bull persona and the partisan bitterness she brings to the election - they can destroy any Palin appeal to the middle ground. She'll excite the base, but none of them were going to vote Obama anyway.
Why isn't Biden going after her more? Palin is doing interference for McCain, hoping all the shots get aimed at her, while McCain can appear to be above what he called "partisan rancour".
If it becomes a Palin versus Obama fight, then I think McCain will win. Biden has to go after her record on earmarks and her other vulnerabilities seriously.
She is seriously vulnerable on her husband, Todd, who actually sat in on executive meetings in Alaska. Which member of the Palin household is going to wear the pants? On the other hand, I think the Dems should not go there - it smacks of the Republican attacks on Hilary Clinton in 1992 and 1996.
Also, why is this "pit bull momma" going back to Alaska for two weeks? She'll be back just when the debates are starting. Apparently, she'll do no talk shows with any of the heavy-hitters or hold press conferences. She'll just meet with faithful Republican groups. Dems should be pointing out that if she is such a red-hot ticket, then why is she been kept hidden away? Some pit-bull, more of a chicken.
Did I miss something here? When was Sarah Palin nominated to be the Republican Presidential candidate? Does Obama know something the rest of the country doesn't here? The last I read, she was nominated to be the Vice Presidential candidate, and John McCain was the Presidential candidate, Obama's opponent.
Does Obama really want to get into an earmark battle? Palin, as governor, doesn't put them into bills in Congress. She can't; she's not been elected to a seat in Congress. Those earmarks are actually put in by Alaska's federal representatives in Congress, not the governor of the state. If the money is there, yeah it will be used. And for the record, she cut the dollar amount of earmark requests to be made to Congress by 64% between 2007 and 2008. This line of attack would work better if Ted Stevens had been nominated to be Vice President or President. Which he was not.
This is another loser argument for Obama. Why? Because his real opponent, John McCain, has a clear record regarding earmarks: in 22 years, the Senator has put in a total of zero earmarks that cost the American taxpayers a total of zero dollars. As compared to the $1 million per day of earmarks that Obama put in during his whole 3 years in the U.S. Senate. Does Obama really want to go down this road?
And another question: when is Obama going to fire Howard Gutman?
steveil when is McCain going to fire the lobbyists on his campain, for example Charles Black, Wayne Berman, David Crane, Michael Dennehy, Richard Davis, Christian Derry, James Rill, John Green, John Timmons, Brian Ballard, Carlos Bonilla, William Ball, Susan Nelson, J. Villamil, William Hilleary, Aquiles Suarez, Matt Salmon, Robert Aiken, Kirk Blalock, Timothy McKone, Grant Aldonas, Nancy Pfotenhauer, Jerry Kilgore, Slade Gorton, Josepsh Wright, Richard Zimmer, Don Sundquist, to start?
My question for the audience is, "Where's Hillary Clinton?"
She's been remarkably quiet during this critical period.
I don't know. One of the things the Republicans have demonstrated is that by simply repeating a lie much of the public will come to believe it. The last I heard over 50% of Americans still believed that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11. I imagine if the Dems made an issue of the bridge to nowhere that most of the MSM would simply report it as "he said she said". If they have a clip of Palin actually stating that she supports it, then yes, that could be effective in campaign commercials but anything less, I doubt it.
AL- are you familiar with sponsorship theory? If so, what would that theory say about the "jury's" reaction if Obama attacks Palin (but not McCain) for initially supporting the bridge to nowhere, a project that both Obama and Biden voted for?
A.L.,
I think the general message from the Obama campaign can be a little vague sometimes. The line I cringe at is "failed policies of the past".
When I'm chatting with friends about politics, getting outraged over the past eight years, I never phrase it as "failed politics", rather I simply start on the list of specific crimes.
Instead they should give a quick list of high points "disastrous economic policy, helping their rich friends but leading to the current mortgage crisis" or "lying to the public to get us into Iraq and squandering the lives of 4,000 plus young men and women" etc etc. And, yes, they should use the word "lie" - it's pretty easy to substantiate as long as they are specific.
The challenge there is to pick WHICH high point to mention - otherwise the speech could take an hour longer.
When Joe Public is chatting with their friends, are they really going to resonate with "don't vote for McCain because he represents the failed policies of the past?"
Can the Obama campaign also talk about the insignificance of earmarks? The 10 billion dollars a month going to the Iraq occupation is the real source of budgetary dysfunction.
The Obama campaign should follow the outline suggested in Frank Rich's latest piece. After saying that McCain vetted Sarah Palin about as well as he vetted the Iraq war, he said of Palin:
"She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.
How long before we learn she never shot a moose?"
McCain and Palin are blatant, deliberate liars and they must be called on it over and over again until Americans internalize every detail and vote accordingly.
Look at the differences in campaign methodologies and you can conclude from them that:
1. McCain intends to govern exactly like Bush. He says he'll be a uniter, and even says he'll appoint Democrats to his cabinet (A.G. Joe Lieberman is attractive, no?) -- but the people running his campaign are the same kind, and in more than a few cases, the same people who ran Bush's campaign. It's obvious that, if elected, he'll dump the principles he supposedly espoused to get elected, and end up governing from the right, while paying lip service to "bipartisanship". He could not have telegraphed this intention any clearer than by choosing Palin as a running mate. In fact, given the makeup of Congress and McCain's organization, it would be fair to question whether he even has a strategy for governing after being elected -- the same as Bush (remember?)
2. Obama intends to build a governing coalition by appealing to those who are tired of Reaganism, by talking to the adults in the room as adults. Ironically, this is highly attractive to the younger voters. He doesn't need to get down to McCain's level and talk baby-talk, and he doesn't need to treat the public as if it were a jury, chosen carefully to avoid anybody intelligent as juries all-too-often are (note: buyer's remorse is not a problem with a jury, but it could be -- and has been for a president.) He clearly intends to wield his winning majority, if he can achieve it, in order to make some changes. Not too many, and none too radical -- he's not a wild-eyed leftie, sad to say -- but his intention is clearly marked by his choice of running mate.
McCain's strategy frees him from any need to be coherent, honest, or even sane. Remember who he is appealing to.
Obama's strategy constrains him to be, if not completely honest, at least no more than deniably dishonest. Remember, he hopes to keep the people who vote for him through the next 8 years.
Totally agree with you here, AL. I had exactly the same thought when I saw Obama's comments. It's a good start but he needs to spell out for voters who don't read blogs obsessively why her claim to have stopped the Bridge to Nowhere is false and in fact she is one of the foremost champions of earmarks in the country.
A.L., Donna Brazille just said on national t.v. the line that you and I articulated on one of your prior posts ... where I said Jesus was a community organizer and you replied that also Pontius Pilate was a Governor. Donna said she picked the expression up on the internet so maybe she's reading your blog. Hope so!
McCain up in both tracking polls today.
Silly libs, you should have picked Hillary. :)
Fuck you, VC.
I am a member of a mostly Democratic-leaning, web-based jazz bulletin board. One of our forums is devoted to discussions of politics. We have been discussing Palin now for over a week, and while most of what we have learned about her confirms her credentials as a standard issue republican conservative, many were particularly aghast at her efforts to ban books in her town library. Why Democrats aren't driving this point home to moderate voters is a mystery.
The book banning story is an urban legend.
It went like this:
Citizen: Mayor, what is the process for banning books?
Palin: I'll check into it.
Palin: How do you ban books?
Librarian: You can't.
Palin: Ok.
And then Palin fired the librarian.
Gosh, it's hard interpreting this sequence of events.
Urban Legend? Afraid not. Like many if not most self-identified "conservatives" you baldly lie to advance your cancerous ideology.
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?articleid=1117009&srvc=2008campaign&position=15
Anonymous-
When Obama loses the election, will you blame it on Rove or Diebold?
"McCain up in both tracking polls today. "
Wouldn't worry about it. There is a still a big McCain "bounce" from convention free publicity. Obama's "bounce" has worked through so he is artificially down when McCain is artificially up.
From RealClearPolitics Obama is still 0.8% ahead ... the Republican "bounce" is smaller than expected and (surprisingly) seems to have come more from McCain than from Palin.
A few days will show the true picture. Since McCain is on a bounce, the only way he can go is down.
This may be vaguely off-topic, but I notice great glee above on Palin's acceptances of various earmarks and a certain amount of righteous indignation about all those evil lobbyists. So here's my question:
What system do you all propose for allocating federal funds and getting Congress the information necessary to legislate effectively?
Do you really want the legislature allocating funds with no input from either the entities that might need the funds or the entities that might oppose their allocation? Right now, there seem to be two basic processes in Washington:
Case #1: You Need Something
a) You identify a need (or a want).
b) You talk to your representative or your senators.
c) If you're particularly sophisticated, you hire a lobbyist to talk not only to your Congresspeople but to others as well.
d) The lobbied Congresspeople decide whether to go to bat for you, based on the perceived need and your perceived level of gratitude and power.
e) The result is either that funds get increased in some block grant or you get funds through The Evil Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken But Which Begins With 'E' and Ends with "armark".
Case #2: You Have an Interest in Some Legislation, Either Pro or Con
a) You immediately hire a lobbyist. Talking policy with your local Congressperson is pointless.
b) The lobbyist helps you do a policy analysis, which he then shops around to various Congresspeople.
c) The Congresspeople decide how to mark up the legislation, based on whether they think your concerns are well-taken and your perceived level of gratitude and power.
Now, we all agree that the "perceived level of gratitude and power" is a problem, but what about the legitimate need to communicate needs and concerns to the folks writing the laws? So let's get real here: The system doesn't work without lobbyists. McCain and Obama both know that. So every time either one of them slams lobbyists, they're being more than a little disingenuous.
I'm not saying that the "evil lobbyist" meme isn't somewhat effective as a campaign ploy and shouldn't be manipulated by both sides for their own aggrandizement. I'm just saying that every time you accept that meme, you're accepting at least a partial lie.
Don't do that.
And then Palin fired the librarian.
No, she didn't. Palin threatened to fire the librarian, but never did. The librarian resigned. In 1999, three years after Palin took office. Tell the story correctly. VC got it right.
Urban Legend? Afraid not. Like many if not most self-identified "conservatives" you baldly lie to advance your cancerous ideology.
I looked at the link provided after. Here's what it said:
"Were any books censored banned? June Pinell-Stephens, chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, checked her files Wednesday and came up empty-handed."
From the same piece:
"Emmons [the librarian] survived the loyalty test and a second one a few months later. She resigned in August 1999, two months before Palin was voted in for a second mayoral term."
Palin did ask about censoring books, that is correct. No books were banned though, and the librarian was not fired. It is an urban legend.
The system doesn't work without lobbyists. McCain and Obama both know that. So every time either one of them slams lobbyists, they're being more than a little disingenuous.
Excellent point.
RM,
As long as things are done openly, I have no problem with the process. If I'm unhappy with the result, I know who to blame.
I have the same problem with the mysterious "holds" senators can place on bills without being identified.
Steveil,
From the boston herald link given above: "According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired."
That she wasn't fired is because citizens raised a ruckus, as is well documented.
Get it right yourself.
Obama just screwed up big time! Had his Macaca Moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75X2S8SgwbU
Get it right yourself.
You're kidding, right? VC gave you the correct information. I gave you correct information. You originally claimed the librarian was fired, and she never was. Your claim didn't include the additional stuff you said before the sentence I quoted from your most recent comment, which had nothing to do with what you originally said, that Palin fired the librarian.
Let me know when you finally get it.
Steveil,
I see. The fact that Palin sent a termination letter -- a letter which was only rescinded after a fight by the citizens -- means Palin "didn't fire her".
If you are claiming to have told the whole truth, you are simply lying, aren't you?
I get it.
This method of "telling the truth" also means that she must have wanted a city administrator to be hired as a result of her inability to be trusted as mayor.
I see. The fact that Palin sent a termination letter -- a letter which was only rescinded after a fight by the citizens -- means Palin "didn't fire her".
Actually, yes. Here's what went down (from the same piece):
"Four days before the exchange at the City Council, Emmons got a letter from Palin asking for her resignation."
She sent others as well. Turns out, and this is what Palin said:
"Palin told the Daily News back then the letters were just a test of loyalty as she took on the mayor’s job, which she’d won from three-term mayor John Stein in a hard-fought election. Stein had hired many of the department heads. Both Emmons and Stambaugh had publicly supported him against Palin.
Emmons survived the loyalty test and a second one a few months later."
It seems to have caused an uproar at the time, as reported here, and there was talk of a recall. Obviously she had learned a valuable lesson since she was able to win a second term and then the governorship.
Anne Kilkenny, a neighbor of the Palins, said the following in a letter that has made its way around the blogosphere [emphasis mine]:
"While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter.
Whether you believe Palin's story that the termination letter was a loyalty test or Kilkenny's story that the librarian was to be fired for not removing books is your choice.
But the fact remains, the librarian was never fired.
RM,
With regard to your vaguely off topic comment above, you do realize that earmarks only began their explosive growth when the Republicans gained control of all brances of government in 2001, right? If you are serious about wanting to control the size of government there is no abiguity over which party has been better at that in the last 15 years. One must admit that the Republicans are much beter at providing lip service to this concept though.
Speaking of earmarks, read this about then state Senator Obama's earmark to the taxpayers for a $100,000 gazebo. Obama's take (a campaign contribution) was $550. It was originally part of a $1.1 million botanical garden (the rest of the money was to be raised by other government money) that was going to be placed Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, part of Obama's senate district. Only the $100,000 gazebo got built. The rest of the money was never raised. Obama got had although he did get the campaign contribution.
As a U.S. Senator, Obama has been a true porker; taxpayers have been providing an average of $1 million a day in Obama earmarks. Remember, only members of Congress can put in congressional earmarks, not state governors. Plus, Palin cut the amount for earmarks to be requested for 2008 by 64% (which probably made the pork kings Ted Stevens and Don Young cry).
Steveil,
I've got no complaint about the full story on the librarian. That, indeed is the only thing I really care about -- that the full story is laid out. People can then decide who they believe. I would suggest reading the various reports and then asking "who benefits from this reading?"
Didn't John Kerry lose (partly) due to the constant barrage of Flip-Flop?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Play/32579/1/TDS-Reformed-Maverick-090508.wmv/
Why can the Daily Show crank this stuff out, but not the Obama campaign? I see 3 different 30-second flip-flop tv ads in here. Flip-floppery abound, no?
c2h50h,
I agree with your last comment.
Last point on this. It sounds like Palin was a real hard-ass when she first took office as mayor. I don't really think anybody would dispute that, nor that she wasn't the first politician, of both parties, to try to be such a hard-ass. But, she got smacked down for it, and it almost cost her the job. It is logical to assume Palin learned a lesson since she was able to get re-elected as mayor.
Anyway, that's the last I'll say on this. Got dinner going.
Twelve point surge for McCain, now up by +10!
So when do you guys dump Biden and replace him with Hillary?
SteveIL , the glaring difference about Palin and earmarks of course is that she said she was against them when she actually hired a lobbyist to get them. And she reduced the amount of earmarks from $750 mil to $375mil but that still is very different than her saying she is against them.
Anon--
...the glaring difference about Palin and earmarks of course is that she said she was against them when she actually hired a lobbyist to get them. And she reduced the amount of earmarks from $750 mil to $375mil but that still is very different than her saying she is against them.
Well, that certainly sounds hypocritical on Palin's part, but doesn't a mayor or governor have a fiduciary duty to use the system to benefit her constituency as much as possible? And isn't it possible to be against something in the federal system while still using the system as it's currently constituted?
I agree with you that Palin's rhetoric on this isn't really defensible. On the other hand, it's a paragon of forthrightnesss and clarity compared to, say, Obama's recent statements on the surge. Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer silly-season campaign rhetoric.
Beyond the rhetoric, I'm struggling with exactly why everybody's so upset with earmarks. Without earmarks, officials in the various cabinet-level departments or the administrators of various block grants make spending decisions once Congress has appropriated their budget. Would you rather have people lobbying the legislature semi-transparently for their goodies, or would you rather have them finding ways (many of them corrupt, all of them utterly opaque) to influence the bureaucracy?
You obviously don't want the legislature asserting 100% line-item control over entire departmental budgets. Nor do you want the legislature to be completely powerless to force a department to spend on something that the department may think is less of a priority. Somewhere between these two extremes is a happy medium. The earmark process, suitably reformed, should be part of that happy medium.
There's also the fact that McCain has taken Palin's story about putting the Alaska governor's personal jet up for sale on eBay (which is true), but has expanded the story to claim that she sold it on eBay (which is not true) and made a profit (which is also not true).
Why can't the so-called liberal media at least point out when a candidate says something that is demonstrably untru?
RM,
I agree, it would be irresponsible for any governor or congress-person to not put in for earmarks.
In this case, it's not earmarks, it's the hypocrisy, because, in case you didn't know, according to the AP, Alaska ranks #1 per capita in earmarks. This was in 2008, after Palin's "reduction".
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