Monday, October 20, 2008
campaign endgame
The most true thing Obama has said about John McCain is that he is "more of the same." That is a knowing junior senator speaking of one of the most powerful senior senators. Not more of George W. Bush - which would be giving credit where it is not due - but more of the people who placed Bush in the White House & have controlled him for 8 years. Those people made McCain more powerful, & the Republicans in the Senate have consistently done their, & his, bidding. Few were more loyal team players behind the scenes than Sen. John McCain. Obama has never underestimated John McCain's power; when he arrived in Washington, that power was among the most supreme in the Senate. McCain believes he can gain enough power through the presidency to control or demote the most corrupt &/or radical of repug powerbrokers. But Obama believes that defeating John McCain is doing a great service for America, because it's the only sure way to bring an end to "more of the same" in the Executive Branch. Only the purge of a party switch can accomplish this.
The next two weeks will be interesting for watching Obama's campaign endgame. He has one. He had a terrific endgame for the primaries, based on having already "won" the nomination & not doing anything to lose it. Basically, he just let Hillary run out the string without much competition, because he had nothing to lose by conceding those primaries. Hillary's campaign team was essentially an extension of the establishment Democratic organization. There should have been no doubt that they were coming over to Barack after the convention; they were always as invested in the down ticket races as much as in Hillary. Barack could not have handed his organization intact to Hillary, since it was designed as an insurgent campaign treating Hillary & then McCain as incumbent candidates. In a sense, Barack ran as Bill Clinton '92 against Bill's own wife, a wonderful irony that Bill himself no doubt appreciated "at the end of the day."
Barack is in better shape in the polls than he had planned at this stage. He had expected a stronger campaign from McCain, a less divisive VP candidate than Palin, & couldn't have predicted the economic disasters, all of which were to his advantage (McCain's selection of Palin was intended as move back to the model of a "weak" vice presidency with the possibility of grooming the VP as a successor). He has unlimited media & GOTV money. He has to continue the rope-a-dope tactics, allowing McCain & Palin to swing wildly & inconsistently. But he has to come off the ropes to deliver a real knockout rather than the TKO he achieved against Hillary, something much more than the one state electoral margins of Bush's two wins. Virginia in is play. Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada. A strong showing in North Carolina could take out Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Repugs are in trouble down ticket everywhere, in surprising places.
Last winter, asked about his lack of executive experience, Barack said, "Watch how I manage my campaign." So far, he's managed it brilliantly. I've been thinking about Saul Alinsky all year, although I haven't read the great community organizer & theorist since college. Alinsky's methods have long since been adapted not only to the merely liberal causes he considered too passive & too compromised in aims, but also by the religious right. Both Barack & Hillary know Alinsky intellectually, but only Barack has strong grassroots experience in community organizing. Hillary rejected Alinsky, unable apparently to separate his methods from his radicalism, she created a top-down elitist organization, woke up too late to the reality that she had been out-organized by Barack, & lost. I don't think many candidates can adopt the model Barack constructed this year, but all future presidential campaigns will draw upon it.
The protestant far right, with an aging or discredited patriarchy, its button issues undermined by the economy, couldn't find an acceptable candidate in the primaries, was forced to coalesce at the last moment around a vice presidential candidate 4 years short of national political credibility; although Palin unified most of that part of the party base, she couldn't expand it - has, in some ways, isolated it - & reflected poorly on McCain. Palin became the deal breaker for Repugs from Chris Buckley to Colin Powell, proof that the protestant far right would sell out every traditional repug principle that hadn't already been abandoned by neocons, & even put the nation at risk in exchange for someone who at least pretends to lose sleep over gay marriage.
Barack has bought time for a three network 30-minute TV commercial (CBS, NBC, Fox) that runs on 10/29, before Game Six of the World Series, if the series goes to six games. It better be an interesting half-hour.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
The next two weeks will be interesting for watching Obama's campaign endgame. He has one. He had a terrific endgame for the primaries, based on having already "won" the nomination & not doing anything to lose it. Basically, he just let Hillary run out the string without much competition, because he had nothing to lose by conceding those primaries. Hillary's campaign team was essentially an extension of the establishment Democratic organization. There should have been no doubt that they were coming over to Barack after the convention; they were always as invested in the down ticket races as much as in Hillary. Barack could not have handed his organization intact to Hillary, since it was designed as an insurgent campaign treating Hillary & then McCain as incumbent candidates. In a sense, Barack ran as Bill Clinton '92 against Bill's own wife, a wonderful irony that Bill himself no doubt appreciated "at the end of the day."
Barack is in better shape in the polls than he had planned at this stage. He had expected a stronger campaign from McCain, a less divisive VP candidate than Palin, & couldn't have predicted the economic disasters, all of which were to his advantage (McCain's selection of Palin was intended as move back to the model of a "weak" vice presidency with the possibility of grooming the VP as a successor). He has unlimited media & GOTV money. He has to continue the rope-a-dope tactics, allowing McCain & Palin to swing wildly & inconsistently. But he has to come off the ropes to deliver a real knockout rather than the TKO he achieved against Hillary, something much more than the one state electoral margins of Bush's two wins. Virginia in is play. Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada. A strong showing in North Carolina could take out Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Repugs are in trouble down ticket everywhere, in surprising places.
Last winter, asked about his lack of executive experience, Barack said, "Watch how I manage my campaign." So far, he's managed it brilliantly. I've been thinking about Saul Alinsky all year, although I haven't read the great community organizer & theorist since college. Alinsky's methods have long since been adapted not only to the merely liberal causes he considered too passive & too compromised in aims, but also by the religious right. Both Barack & Hillary know Alinsky intellectually, but only Barack has strong grassroots experience in community organizing. Hillary rejected Alinsky, unable apparently to separate his methods from his radicalism, she created a top-down elitist organization, woke up too late to the reality that she had been out-organized by Barack, & lost. I don't think many candidates can adopt the model Barack constructed this year, but all future presidential campaigns will draw upon it.
The protestant far right, with an aging or discredited patriarchy, its button issues undermined by the economy, couldn't find an acceptable candidate in the primaries, was forced to coalesce at the last moment around a vice presidential candidate 4 years short of national political credibility; although Palin unified most of that part of the party base, she couldn't expand it - has, in some ways, isolated it - & reflected poorly on McCain. Palin became the deal breaker for Repugs from Chris Buckley to Colin Powell, proof that the protestant far right would sell out every traditional repug principle that hadn't already been abandoned by neocons, & even put the nation at risk in exchange for someone who at least pretends to lose sleep over gay marriage.
Barack has bought time for a three network 30-minute TV commercial (CBS, NBC, Fox) that runs on 10/29, before Game Six of the World Series, if the series goes to six games. It better be an interesting half-hour.
Labels: bully pulpit, THE election
