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TO CONQUER?
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They're trying to make Obama into a radical
of TheColumnists.com
So, which is it?
Sometime during the runup to the Ohio primary, a small business owner said of Barack Obama: “He’s a Muslim, and that’s it.” After all, his middle name is “Hussein.”
A little later, Obama found himself under fire for his 20-year membership in the church headed by the now-radioactive Christian preacher Jeremiah Wright, who baptized Obama’s two girls.
He is viewed by some anti-Obama types as some sort of down-and-dirty radical, shaped by Wright (the Christian) and his work as a community organizer among the unemployed in Chicago. “Community organizer”? Underclass bomb-thrower for sure.
At the same time, he is accused of being a supercilious elitist, given to making comments about “bitter” small-town Middle Americans who cling to guns, religion and a dislike of people who are different than themselves.
Obama went to Yale. So he’s out of touch with real ‘muricans. Obama went to a Muslim school. So he’s obviously some sort of terrorist. He grew up in Hawaii. That’s a little different. Something not quite mainland America about that, never mind that he served in that un-American place, the Illinois State Senate.
Centuries ago, someone said “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” But Obama’s adversaries seem to be attempting just that. They are coming at Obama from two different, diametrically opposed angles--he’s an exotic, and he’s a homegrown black militant.
Will it work? Well, the politicians are fond of telling us we stand at a crossroads, and maybe we are this time. On the one hand is the tried-and-true old-style American politics, exemplified by Hillary Clinton’s I Love Guns approach to the voters in Pennsylvania. On the other hand is a more rational, nuanced and complex approach practiced (with a few major exceptions) by Barack Obama. The principal example of that is the speech he gave in Philadelphia after Rev. Wright started to be a problem. It had complete sentences, expected the audience to read full paragraphs, and required some thinking.
Another classic of old-style politics is the gas tax moratorium advocated by John McCain and Sen. Clinton. I’m sure their advisors were convinced they had a sure thing. “Can’t miss, senator,” they said. “People are upset about gas prices, this will make them think prices will come down, and you’ll be a hero (or heroine.)” Didn’t work. The mainstream media and economic experts blasted it as reality-free hyperpandering. Obama refused to go along with it, giving audiences a short lesson in economics. Oddly, the voters, at least a majority of them, seemed to go along.
Except for soundbite hosannas to lower taxes and the glories of capitalism, lessons in economics have heretofore been anathema to American political consultants. They are convinced, with plenty of evidence to back them up, that the American voter doesn’t think things through, that simple sentences or sentence fragments designed to produce a quick, emotional reaction work best, that politics is the art of pictures and not words. Especially not more than five words strung together. And promise lots of goodies while you’re at it.
If you’re a McCain strategist, what else are you going to do? Run on the economy? The success of the Iraq War? The record of the Bush Administration? Not if you’re conscious and able to take nourishment, you don’t. You run on things like flag lapel pins.
Will it still work this time around? We’ll see. Maybe not. Maybe the Karl Rove-Lee Atwater approach of politics-as-sewage has seen its day.
Obama, for one, doesn’t think it has, and expects Rovian tactics from his Republican adversaries. “I’m not naïve,” he told an audience during his victory speech in South Carolina.
Whether or not it is obsolete, and no matter how McCain, a genuine war hero and an honorable man, may feel about it personally, we can expect a fetid campaign from the Republicans. The senator from Arizona may not himself stoop to the lowest reaches of campaign tactics, but there are plenty of surrogates who are eager to do so. Witness the Republican Party’s scurrilous television spot repeating a video clip of Wright’s inflammatory words with the hope of frightening voters into thinking that Obama is some sort of radical. And then there was the radio personality, who, warming up the crowd for a McCain speech, referred to “Barack HUSSEIN Obama.” McCain denounced the tactic, but so what? McCain denounced the South Carolina Republican Party’s Wright ad too, but they ran it anyway.
So far, Obama’s young campaign staff has proven to be both nimble and savage. He reacted brilliantly to McCain’s “I have news for Senator Obama-Al-Queda IS in Iraq” by saying, immediately, “I have news for Senator McCain--Al-Queda WASN’T in Iraq until the war started by George Bush and Senator McCain.”
He has also started referring to Sen. McCain’s “Fifty years of honorable service to this country” Yep, 50 years. Half a century, as a matter of fact. Long, long time, right? Have to be pretty old to put in 50 years of honorable service. And then there’s the “third term for George Bush” trope.
I was going to say it will be fun to see what happens on the campaign trails during the next few months. Upon further reflection, though, it’s not going to be fun. But it will be interesting.
©2008 by Charles M. McFadden. The McFadden caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The cartoon is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted May 19, 2008.
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