I was listening to Joe Trippi on NPR this morning talking about not taking Sarah Palin too lightly. He made some good points about image and perceptions and it forced me to re-assess the McCain strategy. We've seen some new, lofty phrases from McCain in the past couple of weeks. The newest ad is called "Love." Has any Republican candidate, for anything, ever run an ad titled "Love"? In "Love" we hear that McCain returned from war to pursue "public service" - perhaps chasing Cindy Hensley was a civics project. Sure, they can't quite give up on smacking Obama, saying "beautiful words can't make our lives better", but the message is shifting.
One of the volunteer pages on the McCain site asks that you
sign up for "A Cause Greater Than Self". Tell me this isn't lifted out of the Obama playbook (or any progressive campaign):
My friends, each and every one of us has a duty to serve a cause greater than our own self-interest.
I hope you will take a moment to learn more about these important
causes and consider getting involved helping others either here or with
the thousands of other organizations serving the greater cause.
Since when is conservatism about somthing greater than self-interest? That's easy, it's not, but with the selection of Sarah Palin, McCain is beginning the process of appropriating all of the youth/change/reform themes that Obama has been hitting.
The new McCain message, which the RNC will amplify, is that McCain (+Palin) is just like Obama (+Biden), only with more experience and grit. All of the GOP surrogates have been talking about "bucking the party" this weekend. Bush and Cheney have a reasonable excuse to be absent from the convention, a personal and political gift for McCain. The Right's noisemakers have finally acknowledged the demise of the Republican party's credibility (aka "brand") and everyone is spinning the virtues of centrism and bipartisanship. This is a huge pack of lies, but that's
the problem.
Knocking down each individual lie is time consuming and boring. For example,
Palin said she was against earmarks, but requested $200 million in earmarks this year.
That's true, but it's also boring, dry, and forgettable. What is the alternative? Something shorter, sharper, and absolutely not sexist. For example,
John McCain and Sarah Palin are lying about their record of reform and independance.
That's a soundbite we can believe in. It's much sharper, keeps the focus on McCain, but doesn't let Palin off the hook. When the press questions this statement, Dems can explain the details (ideally starting and ending with "McCain and Palin are lying"). If the press, or McCain, or the right-wing noise factory want to rebut this charge,
they have to switch to wordy, boring, forgettable defenses.
The McCain/Palin campaign is about to turn into an even bigger circus of lies and hypocrisy. There's no reason to think the press point this out, so the Obama campaign has to do it. They have the capacity - we've seen Obama and Biden take the fight to the GOP. They have some very talented surrogates, starting with Bill and Hillary, who can make this case many times in many places, but they'll have to start now.
