Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (67707)	10/23/2008 3:43:13 PM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 90947

There was a rather well-thought Rovian analysis from that blog (explaining also why such an attack is not worthwhile). It addresses it in purely political terms, of course, but it's quite clearly a study of the methods for a themed attack. (Trying to shape the issues to just the ones you want). The problem is framing the debate. The attacks against Obama (until the latest socialist thing) have been on foreign policy/terrorism stuff. The Ayers stuff is even a nod in that direction (cause they get to use the word terrorism). The McCain people are trying to get the debate off economic turf, where they lose, and onto security turf where they can win. Also, the Senator from MBNA thing doesn't mesh with the socialist message, so not too surprising that they wouldn't try to mix them. Also, there was a bit of trial-ballooning going on from the right about it when Biden was announced, but since the big link was a really nasty attempt at familial mudslinging, it backfired with some negative stories and the McCain people probably decided not to push there. Right now, it's too late to try it. There isn't enough time to set up and exploit a narrative. Doing a campaign narrative is a three step dance. First you have to elucidate an issue as a key point of debate. Doing this usually requires some national media time, and often can be done in a debate or convention speech, or failing that by waiting for something to happen. The issue has to be one that was cared about before you launched your attack (or it will backfire like the Ayers thing has). Once the issue is set up, you have two steps to do at once. First is to paint your opponent as being on the wrong side of things. This is done by standard talking heads/speeches/ads. Then you need to run a blitz of ads on the issue (not always attack ads, but ads which keep your winning issue as the background noise of the election. Bush did this with terrorism in 2004. 1: used speeches and the power of the Oval Office to set and keep terrorism as a publicly important issue. 2: Painted Kerry as on the wrong side of national security stuff (with the swift boating), and 3: Rand a mix of positive and negative ads which kept the background noise on national security. It doesn't address the issue of what to do when simply attacking the opposition isn't enough, of course. It's purely about the negative aspects of running a campaign - or shaping it so that the opposition is depicted as unfavourably as possible, not quite the same thing...