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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (30388)	9/4/2008 9:59:03 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 149317

All the right notes, but still the wrong song. dailykos.com by Aethari Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 06:55:22 AM PDT I watched my first pieces of the Republican National Convention (RNC) last night, and I was struck the most by how completely both the party and the media have missed the boat. The pundits are quite right, in a sense, that Palin (and the other speakers) gave great speeches. The delegates were enthused, and there is no doubt that the right-wing base will eat up the given speeches like apple pie deep-fried in patriotism. But the pundits and GOP politicians both make the mistake of thinking that the right-wing base is the demographic that McCain needs to win. Polling has given us every reason to believe that Americans believe that our country is on the wrong track. The Bush Administration flirts with Nixon-level approval ratings. Democrats have developed a massive lead in voter registration. People are worried about the economy and unhappy about the handling of the war. And time and again voters have indicated they want change. (Remember when every single Democratic primary candidate had a banner that said ‘Change?’ That was fun.) McCain simply cannot win by aiming for the bloc which supports Bush-era politics and policies. In order to win this election, McCain must disassociate himself from the Republican brand and convince voters that he will bring a new direction to Washington. McCain has been so competitive in the polls precisely because he has such a public-conciousness history of bipartisanship and "maverickyness." To win this election, McCain had to run a campaign on bipartisanship and reform. And that’s precisely why last night’s RNC was a disaster for McCain’s campaign. The night’s theme was reform, but speaker after speaker went light (or skipped) on talking about reform, and instead went after Obama like a pack of hungry wolves. They took chunks out of Obama, and threw the still-quivering red meat to the fans in the stadium. The speakers mocked every single aspect of Obama’s resume, from his experience as a state legislator ("The President doesn’t get to vote ‘present!" - Giuliani) to his time as a community organizer ("Being a small-town mayor is a lot like being a community organizer, except you have actual responsibilities!" - Palin.) Obama was slammed for being a big-government, high-taxes liberal that wants to "forfeit" in Iraq and appease terrorists worldwide. Does that sound familiar? Of course it sounds familiar; that’s the same rhetoric we’ve heard about Democrats for the last eight years. (OK, to be fair, for the last few decades.) Throughout the night, the McCain campaign (explicitly through Palin, and implicitly through the other speakers) embraced every desire of the conservative right and tied itself to the time-honored traditions of the GOP. Let there be no doubt: McCain needs the Republican base to win. He certainly cannot carry the election without the traditional supporters of his party. But he has to carry his base without tying himself to the Republican brand. The Republican brand is poison; Republicans have been sinking like a ship nationwide in special elections, and the Democrats are poised to make substantial gains in both houses of Congress. Nobody said it would be easy: every pundit has correctly seen this election as substantially handicapped in Obama’s favor. Never in recent history has there been an election where the prevailing political conditions are more favorable to the Democratic candidate. Difficult or not, this is the path McCain had to navigate. McCain needed to sell himself as a credible, relatively bipartisan reform candidate while holding on to the favor of the traditional GOP base. Until this week, it seemed that McCain might find some success: a substantial number of voters thought McCain was moderate. But every one of last night’s speeches seemed like a nail pounded into McCain’s political coffin. McCain’s image as a moderate will not survive this convention. His image will not survive Thompson, Giuliani, and Palin mercilessly slamming Obama on practically every notable point of his biography. His image will not survive speakers that lean hard on 9/11 and war-on-terror rhetoric but avoid mentioning the economy. The speakers at the RNC have delivered a pitch-perfect appeal to the right-wing base, but this election belongs to the candidate that most credibly promises a new direction from the Bush Administration and its eight years of...catering to the right-wing base. The Republicans bowled a perfect game, but the whole country is interested in golf. My only lingering question is this: is this a concious, strategic decision on behalf of the McCain campaign, or an inability to control the party’s message? I find it almost impossible to believe that the well-paid and experienced political strategists behind McCain’s run genuinely believe a deep lean to the right will secure the election. I have some inclination to think that McCain simply cannot control the messaging of his campaign, and of his party. Where Obama has enforced strict (perhaps unprecedented) control of his campaign and party’s message, McCain’s campaign seems to be running in many directions at once. It’s hard to find consistency or planning in a night that is themed "Reform" but whose content is a litany of base-pleasing partisan attack jobs.