Crying over spilt milk is unproductive, but denying the existence of spilt milk is delusional. To have a rational view of the election it is essential to discard the accumulated primary season mythology and see the world as it is.
Barack Obama is likely to win this election. Intrade’s 60% chance is a reasonable guess-timate of where we are. Barack Obama is also quite capable of losing this election. (Again, Intade's 40% is not unreasonable. If one prefers 30% or 25%, that's still way too high for something so important. Your odds of losing in Russian Roulette are only about 17%, but I still don't play the game.)
Obama is the nominee and second-guessing is out of order. Some think that not second-guessing the primaries means that everyone needs to overlook all deficiencies in the candidate or campaign. That is wrong. Not second-guessing the primaries means accepting the reality of the situation and proceeding rationally.
Obama retains the strengths and weaknesses he always had. He is smart, charming and remains generally favored by the media on a personality level. He has lots of donors and lots of ground-level strength. He inspires some of the population which is a lot better than none. He can count on eye-popping margins and turnout in some demographics. He is a unique political talent.
Strengths notwithstanding, he was always the least electable ‘mainstream’ candidate in the primaries (sorry Dennis) and was the only candidate who could possibly lose to McCain in the most favorable presidential year the Democratic Party has seen since 1976 or 1964. That was always known, as was the fact that Obama was tempermentally among the further right candidates and, being the only candidate who would find himself in a close race, was likely to feel a need move further right during the general election than other candidates would have.
It was also known that Obama’s signature Iraq stance would not be a big plus outside the Party. And it isn’t. “Trust to handle Iraq” is Obama’s worst issue (except the symbolicaly related terrorism and “judgement in a crisis’) and if this election were a referendum on Iraq--which it is not--Obama would lose and take much of the party down with him. The public is fickle... 2006 isn't 2008.
So none of what we are seeing is a surprise; close race, candidate staking out rightward positions, Iraq an unproductive issue, possibility of losing to a belligerent mummy.
No sense crying about it, and no sense denying it. We are in a somewhat tougher race than some expected, but that doesn't suggest either despair or complancency.
Obama is, after all, still favored to win, even if by default as the Dem nominee. So the issue is how to limit the inevitable rearing of human nature’s ugly head that always sinks us in the fall. People are more hopeful in their decision-making the further off the decision is. As the decision approaches people become more cautious. That’s why Dems are good at leading in July but not so good at leading in November. Hope vs. Fear.
So a decent sized chunk of the electorate has to fear John McCain. That doesn’t mean fear that he will blow up the world. There is only one issue this year, so people need to FEAR that
under John McCain they will end up living on the sidewalk. If that means saying, literally, "he will mis-manage us into a depression to serve his rich buddies" or even "he doesn't care about you!" then so be it. Fear must be induced, even at the expense of being loved by all.
If it becomes apparant that Plan A isn't working then the question becomes, is the Obama campaign drinking its own Kool-Aid; do they actually believe in what was claimed during the primary? If they do he cannot win. Believing the primary hero-myths about winning tons of Republicans, being more electable than any other Dem, etc., would mean they have no concept of the American electorate as it exists. If, however, the primary line was just a fantasy narrative spun out for the masses then there is room for hope.
Some things the campaign needs to do:
1) Stop believing you are geniuses. It is provable that knowing how to work the Democratic primary system is not any sort of indicator of knowing how to win the general election. (All Democratic candidates won the primaries. Most Democratic candidates lose the general election. One of the most impressive primary campaigns I’ve ever seen was Mike Dukakis. Bill Clinton’s primary campaign was sort of a mess. Lyndon Johnson lost to Kennedy in the primaries but went on to run an amazing take-no-prisoners general election in 1964. Carter worked magic in the primaries and very nearly lost to the guy who pardoned Nixon. And so on.) The Obama campaign has wonderful organizational strengths but is, in terms of message management and concept of the electorate, among the worst general election campaigns I’ve ever seen. The Obama campaign is not “masterful” and folks need to stop reading their press clippings and get some help from people who know what they are doing. The Obama campaign has not done much right since February. That is SIX MONTHS AGO. Starting March 1, 2008, the Obama campaign has a) flirted with losing to a candidate who was all but mathematically eliminated, and b) parlayed the biggest bundle of political assets any living Dem has ever seen into a tie with a mummy. That is not success, and there is no upside to thinking it is.
2) Forget 2006. Presidential races are unlike any other elections. Even while Reagan was crushing Dems like beer cans the Dems held big majorities in the House of Representatives. So what happened in 2006 is not transferable.
3) Accept that the fad aspect of the campaign has run its course. If the Obama campaign knew they were creating a transitory media sensation as the first act in what would become a traditional campaign then hats off to them. If, however, they actually believed that a fad is a movement they will find themselves unable to handle the campaign dynamic going forward.
4) Drop “Hope and change” except as a good slogan. The nation is in crisis. Partisanship and lobbyists are not the problem, nor is a lack of optimism. The problems are that the collapse of a housing bubble is poised to take down the US and everyone we trade with (which is everyone), and energy is expensive and will not get much cheaper. (The only reason energy will get cheaper is a reduction of global demand caused by a global depression sparked by the collapse of our housing bubble, so be careful what you wish for.) There are no other issues. People say they want “change” because where they are sucks, not out of a high-minded interest in political reform.
5) Pick the strongest possible old Washington insider as VP, not some nobody who is seen as matching an arbitrary “change” concept that is wholly irrelevant to what swing-voters will be voting on. (People are not so much tired of the way Washington works as they are terrified of finding themselves living on the sidewalk.) Either Biden, The Nameless One or some wildly outside the box economy-centered pick that will put Wall Street firmly in Obama’s camp. (They are scared too. The fear among the monied interests is palpable and the situation has moved beyond the usual “who will have the lowest capital gains tax” calculations.)
6) Stop dreaming about historical landslides and accept that the future of the world is in the balance and the candidate’s only job is 50% + 1. Sew up the election before looking to burnish your place in history. Concentrate on Ohio and Michigan above project states like Colorado, Virginia, and Nevada. (If Obama wins Virginia he won't need Virginia. If we get VA it'll be in an easy win.) Accept that discouraging non-base turnout is an essential part of a modern campaign. (i.e. Negativity) The necessary numbers are lying on the table but you need to pick them up, not count on the center-left’s desperation and fear to secure their votes while you flirt with the center-right.
7) Stop reaching out for approval from project groups. This appears to be the Obama campaign’s most glaring blind spot. Obama is not bigger than the party. Obama is ten points behind the party! He needs to embrace the Democratic Party, get partisan and hope the national Dem advantage can carry his under-performing candidacy across the finish line in a down-and-dirty traditional base election. (For instance, first-trimester choice is a majority issue. The only reason to act so embarrassed about it is to try to finese a mammoth landslide. Since that horse left the barn months ago, motivate the 51% you’ve got. When the numbers are on your side, make people afraid of McCain.)
8) Be in crisis mode on the economy. Act like the economy was equivalent to an asteroid scheduled to hit New York next week. In the public mind Obama has no more intrinsic persoanl credibility on the economy than McCain does. (His advantage on the economy is more partisan than personal) So Obama needs to step up and grab the thing with both hands, delegate to expertise in a very public way and demonstrate that the economy is more pressing than the campaign. The optimum would be to take a week off the campaign in Sept. huddled with his world-class bipartisan economic team with the promise to deliver an economic plan at a fixed time at the end of the summit. Yes, he has a million economic proposals on his web-site. The point is theater and having people attach their specific hope to something presented as being dynamic—created in real time in the way one crafts policy during a crisis. It makes little difference what the plan even says, as long as it a) contains some elements he has not previously proposed, and b) is as breathlessly anticipated as the election of a Pope. This would be largely theatrical, but so were FDR’s fireside chats and even his dollar-a-year men. No matter how cynical the MSM tried to be, the public would await the emergency response with hopeful anticipation and would embrace pretty much whatever resulted. (Everyone secretly knows there are no good answers, but they want someone to at least grant them the respect of acting like the world is one fire, because that’s how it feels to people right now.)
To those who will thank me for my concern, you’re welcome.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
