Progressive Movement

OMG!

See, this is what Obama should have done. Minus the swimsuit obviously. I was going to write a post on how Obama is sinking in the polls because of his refusal to fight back on character assassination or, more to the point, going after McCain. Not in an angry way, but in a way similar to Paris. Maybe he should hire her as a campaign consultant.

You cannot win on the defensive. Even his latest ad on energy attacking McCain falls flat, as the narrative now is that Obama flip-flopped on offshore oil drilling. Obama needs to learn what John Kerry did too late. As soon as some swift-boating occurs, attack it no holds barred. Turn it right back on your opponent and pounce on their every misdeed. McCain has made countless blunders the last two weeks and has shown he has no clue. That should be the narrative, not ‘oh my God, a black man is going to steal our blonde white women!”

I think McCain’s celebrity ad was brilliant, as it underscored every narrative they have built up against Obama, especially the unexperienced theme. It completely eviscerated his overseas trip that showed he was a better foreign policy leader than McCain in a mere 30 seconds.

The Paris video above, however, may end up making McCain regret that ad. It is certainly getting a lot of buzz. All Obama has to do is learn a little something about messaging and politics from Ms. Hilton.

Elections, McCain, Obama, Narratives, ads | No Comments »

I love Olbermann. He really nails McCain here for getting his facts wrong on Iraq and then trying to dance around the issue.

Uncategorized, Iraq, McCain, Olbermann, MSNBC | No Comments »

A lot of ground has been covered in the Presidential race since I posted three weeks ago. In fact, I would say this race is moving faster at this stage of the race than most other recent Presidential campaigns.

The big news, of course, was Obama’s foreign policy/Middle East trip. After looking like he had forgotten how to control overarching narratives and themes during the last few weeks, Obama seems to have found his bearing again. This week long trip proved once again that Obama understands how to effectively message compared to most Democrats. Oh, there were negative things about the trip too, so let us break it all down and see what comes out in the wash.

The Good

Obama’s trip accomplished three key things

1) Showed he could be the Commander in Chief, (i.e. negated the ‘lack of experience’ rap.)
2) Showed he had better foreign policy judgment than John McCain
3) Dominated media coverage

In the summer of ’04, John Kerry mentioned that most world leaders privately told him they wanted him to win the Presidency. Republicans poured a mountain sized amount of grief on top of Kerry for this ham-fisted attempt to show he was better at foreign policy than Bush.

But look at Obama. He actually went overseas to talk to foreign leaders publicly - none of this ‘they told me privately’ silliness. Everywhere he went he was warmly received, and better than that, Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, supported Obama’s troop pullout plan! Events in Afghanistan proved Obama’s position that we should focus on that country rather than Iraq.

As the week went on, the debate over the success of the escalation (that initially hurt Obama) ended up exposing McCain as a fraud, since he could not get his facts straight on Iraq and then continued to defend his mistakes, digging a deeper hole for himself. During the same time, Obama expertly and consistently made his case that the escalation had little to do with Iraq’s reduction in violence.

All these things combined, especially Maliki’s support of Obama’s Iraq plan, utterly destroys McCain’s position on Iraq, and certainly obliterates any rationale for staying in Iraq since the Iraqis do not even want us there. So McCain ended up looking like a fool, and Obama looked like the foreign policy expert.

Ultimately, the trip showed he can handle the job of President, dispelling the notion he does not have enough experience for the job.

Lastly, the media covered every move Obama made, and he made all the right moves. There is no better way to win over voters than to dominate the media coverage. As I mentioned in a previous post, the imagery could not be more different between Obama and McCain. Before, Al ‘Noble Peace Prize, former VP, and Oscar winner’ Gore endorsed Obama at a massive rally while McCain has to deal with the embarrassment of Clayton “rape is like the weather” Williams raising money for him. Now, Obama gave a fantastic speech in Berlin in front of 200,000 enthused Germans while McCain is at a German restaurant with 20 people eating cream puffs. That is the kind of narrative and imagery you cannot buy. If that happens a few more times, especially closer to the elections, its all over.

This trip, if the MSM picks up the right meme and Obama and progressives push the right narrative, will end up being the beginning of the end for McCain. Not overnight, but if the narrative Obama has set sticks - that he is qualified to be the CINC and that he has better judgment about defense/foreign policy issues –McCain’s whole rationale for his candidacy crumbles.

The Bad

There was only one concern I had with this trip. Read the rest of this entry »

Messaging, Iraq, Elections, Iran, Diplomacy, Polls, McCain, media, Obama, Analysis, Terrorism, Racism, Troop withdrawal, Narratives, weak on defense label, Foreign Policy, FISA | No Comments »

I have been busy with work the last few weeks, so I have not been able to really explore the Presidential campaign’s various up and downs, but have at least been able to pick up Obama’s conservative drift ever since he got the nomination.

On some level this should happen, as the general election is a more moderate affair than a primary.  On another level though, this tactic has disserved the Democrats for years, and if you look at most Republican general elections, they do not move to the middle nearly as much as Democrats, preferring instead to stay true to their talking points.

As a result, Republicans have better brand identity and have functioned more efficiently as a party since they demand greater loyalty and ideological purity.

Their success I believe largely informed the Democratic move to the right, that and the fact that clearer conservative vision, narrower focus, and stricter discipline helped transform what was largely a liberal populace into a decidedly conservative one.

At least in the public’s mind’s they were conservative.  Polls for years have shown the public is largely progressive on a myriad of issues.  They just were not voting that way.  In essence, they were liberal they just did not identify themselves as such.

The Democrats, however, took the wrong lesson from this and moved the Party to the center, rather than try to readjust the public’s perception of liberalism and the Democratic Party as a whole.

Obama in the primary seemed to understand this.  He was using religious language and style to describe the moral underpinnings of progressive vaules – a key failure with previous Democratic candidates.  He spoke of post-partisanship and a need to move beyond typical Washington gridlock, essentially convincing people that progressive values are beyond politics and what Washington would embrace if it moved beyond partisanship.

Brilliant, and was largely effective.  However, what Obama seems to have forgotten Read the rest of this entry »

Messaging, Elections, Democrats, Obama, FISA | 5 Comments »

Yesterday Al Gore endorsed Obama, and McCain had to back away from a fundraiser hosted by a sexist and thoroughly discredited politician Clayton Williams.  To top it off, McCain tried to claim his people knew nothing about Williams’ notorious claim that rape was like the weather, so women should just sit back and enjoy it since they cannot fight it.

Everyone who followed politics back in 1990 heard about this statement.  This is a bold faced lie by McCain that his peeps were ignorant of Williams’ comment.  For crying out loud, he made it in the heat of the Texas Gubernatorial race that he lost to the extremely popular Ann Richards!  Of course his people knew about it.

In case there were any Hillary supporters contemplating McCain, this episode should permanently dissuade them from such nonsense.  The Republican Party, John McCain, and Clayton Williams, do not support women or care about their issues.

On the day that Al Gore, successful former Vice President, Nobel Prize Winner, Oscar winner, and leading advocate for fighting climate disruption, endorses Obama, John McCain has to back away from a supporter/fundraiser who claimed women should enjoy rape.

Can the difference be any clearer?

And yet the chattering class does not think this is a big deal nor want to make much of an issue about it.  To keep this devastating chasm in the limelight, progressives and Democrats have to force the media to cover it.  The difficulty lies in the fact that Obama cannot be seen as harping on this too much, lest he appear to be going negative.  However, there are some great progressive female surrogates who can drive this embarrassing episode into the public consciousness.  This treads a very fine line between being a legitimate issue and crass politicalization, but it has to be done.

At the least, make the point clear to wavering Democrats that McCain, who will not return the money Williams has raised for him, should be utterly unacceptable to anyone who even moderately considers themselves modern and progressive.  Heck, McCain’s refusal to back away completely from Williams is not even acceptable to people who consider themselves agreeable to the basic moral standards of the 20th century.  Taking that money essentially endorses Williams’ viewpoints.

Even if he returns the money, Williams’ comments show the moral core and attitudes of many of the Republican Party.  Who do you want representing the country, someone who bumps shoulders with Clayton Williams, or someone who bumps shoulders with Al Gore?

That is the choice this November.

Elections, McCain, Obama, sexism | 2 Comments »

As usual, I am behind the curve, but people are still madly dissecting the ‘Clinton collapse’, even going so far as to make fun of how much money she spend per delegate (over $100,000) just to lose. The only thing this says to me is that we need to make the process of running for President a heck of a lot cheaper.

I also believe that the ‘Clinton collapse’ is not really a collapse. It was partly if not wholly engendered by the media anointing her the front runner and repeating ad nauseum that it was her race to lose. Anyone who knew anything about politics had to know that Obama would be competitive.

So why do I think Clinton did not get the job done? Drum roll please…messaging.

Okay, you all knew I would say that. But seriously, her entire campaign consistently struck the wrong cord up until nearly the end.

Early Campaign

First, a bit of quick messaging overview. She started her run taking a decidedly middle ground, as if she was running a general election campaign rather than a primary one. Kerry made the same mistake in ’03 and corrected it quickly enough to stop Dean.

Clinton’s tactic was clearly aimed at bringing Independents to her cause, but like every moderate DLC Democrat, she misunderstood that Independents are not such because they have wishy-washy opinions, but because they do not like either Party. Watering down your policies does not win people in the middle over. Breaking the two-Party mold does. Standing for something wins votes. Pandering does not. Clinton, by not taking firm positions on key issues (witness her refusal to admit being wrong on the Iraq vote), simply did not excite the base nor win over Independents.

Another great example is health care. Clinton did not introduce her universal health care plan until Edwards did and started gaining traction on it. In a nutshell, Read the rest of this entry »

Messaging, Elections, Democrats, Edwards, Obama, Analysis, Hillary Clinton, Narratives, primaries | No Comments »

The dust has settled over the Obama nomination. What has remained? What is the lasting narrative we have seen over the last week?

Well, I feared that Obama losing SD would be a disastrous portend of things to come. And it still may be, but despite him limping backwards, practically mortally wounded, over the finish line, largely due to the help of superdelegates, the narrative was about how momentous and historic the occasion was. And it is. But it would have been for Hillary as well.

Obama was helped in this by two things. One, McCain’s terrible decision to have a major speech hours before Obama’s shining moment. Green backdrop, deadpan delivery, boring content, and 50 people in the audience – not good. Compare that to Obama’s gracious and soaring speech in typical Obama style on the night of his coronation. Even Fox News had to give the guy props and bash McCain.

Second, Hillary did not concede that night. Bad move, and that was all the networks could talk about. Of course now all the talk is whether we will get Obama/Clinton. I seriously doubt it; in fact, I will run around the block naked if he chooses her.

Those two things, and the very special significance of Obama’s win hide the fact that the Democratic voters were showing signs of buyer’s remorse. Only Pat Buchanan pointed it out, but no one took him up on the thread.

Needless to say, a great speech (and two bad ones), can definitely plaster over an unstable wall. I have fear that plaster may crumble, and unless Obama can fix what is causing the problem underneath, he may be in for trouble.

On the other hand, Read the rest of this entry »

Elections, McCain, Obama, Analysis, Hillary Clinton, Narratives, Elitism frame | 3 Comments »

Hillary cleaned Obama’s clock in PR today, a commonwealth that will not have a voice in the general election (would someone please makes them a state of give them independence – this wishy-washy, middle of the road commonwealth status must be dropped).

This victory makes it that much easier for her to claim she has won the popular vote, although she still only gets to make that claim by creative, self-selective math. But the media repeats it, so everyone will think it is true. Strangely, it mimics Obama’s supporter’s arguments when he was winning states but still behind due to superdelegates; the argument was that superdelegates should not overrule the will of the people. Well, now it is not so clear the will of the people has been sorted out. The vote totals are pretty close after more than 35 million votes cast.

The irony is that Obama supporters now claim the popular vote does not matter and only delegate totals do. Pretty easy to make that argument when your candidate now has more superdelegates than his opponent, huh?

But here is what is true. Read the rest of this entry »

Messaging, Elections, Democrats, Kerry, Obama, Analysis, Hillary Clinton, weak on defense label, primaries, experience frame, Elitism frame | No Comments »