Analysis of Team O Strategy: McCain's POW Status.
Team O strategy is consistently well thought out and is strongly dictated with long-range targets in mind. It is extremely important to understand that this strategy is carried out through day-to-day tactics designed to emphasize longer term objectives.
This little analysis, in good times, is meant to re-enforce the idea that team O has really thought things through and have a firm trust in their strategy. So, the next time you believe they should "use something immediately" or "need to attack," pause and consider this analysis and give Team O credit -- they likely looked at your suggested tactic, but decided (h/t watercarrier4diogenes) it would go against their longer strategic objectives.
This should not give people a false sense of security in regard to day to day operations, which need to be constantly and vigilantly maintained, improved and enhanced.
One of the most impressive things a candidate can have at their disposal is their biography.
The biography, if appropriately positioned and sanitized can be used to draw in voters to take a look at the candidates positions, and often give the candidate particular creditability in regard to key issues.
A strong element of mythology goes into the candidates biography -- as long as it is reasonably true ( LQQKn @ Palin), reasonably compelling the Press is willing to go along with the candidates carefully crafted image. I do not want to spend anytime deconstructing the objective record behind the bio, I just want to point this aspect of campaigning out.
To look at the former field of candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides I'll list a few notables:
Democrats:
John Edwards -- From mill-worker's of the South to Successful Lawyer => Horatio Alger "family man of the people."
Republican:
Mitt Romney -- His "self-made" multi-millionaire => "Business success/ Economic Guru"
Now, onto John McCain:
His biography is REMARKABLY like that of George W. Bush (It drips of power and influence in military/political establishment).
However,
John S. McCain has a key element of his biography:
5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war.
There are numerous articles that explain how key this has been for him, but I'll list the large items in my opinion in a few sentence fragments:
1.) Provides credibiltiy on war and military policy.
2.) Neutralizes potential "son of previlige meme." Very important given his background and current wealth.
3.) Allows talk about sacrifice.
4.) Allows talk about patriotism.
I'm sure there are more, but you get the point.
While the Republican strategy has been to simply ignore the P.O.W. card, let's examine why the Team O took a remarkably different route.
Existing Options:
1.) Ignore it. -- it seemed to work for the Republicans /snark.
2.) Rove tactics. This worked very, very well for Georgie, but remember he was the establishment Republican candidate.
----> Mini-analysis, weakening your opponents biography in a non-Rovian way.
Rove tactics CAN and DO work; however, there are a number of risks involved as mentioned below.
[Rove-tactical strategy is short-term, "risky" way to dismantle an opponents strength. While the Rovian method can work, it also has extreme risks. You are counting on the MSM picking up your narrative and echoing it, AND you also hope they do not blow-back put harsh scrutiny on your own methods. ]
Team O
Strategy: Remove the POW card.
Tactics: Excessively Praise, then ignore it.
Let's see why this worked really well...
Rove tactics was never really an option for Team O, and ignoring the POW experience also did not do well for Republicans in the primaries.
As a result, each of the Republicans were stuck arguing about a comparison of their own biography to McCain, let's face it, if you do not bring up the priviledged up-bringing and the adultery, you really can't go after the guy. And, you really aren't going to compare favorably against him, as long as the media is fluffing him.
So, rather than seek some sort of implicit comparison of an element of biography (e.g. McCain is stupid, Obama is smart), Team O had the patience to emphasize the long-term goal of neutralizing the POW card by praising McCain at every possible turn.
Notice pre-RNC convention, every single on-message surrogate from Team O would praise the heck out of McCain's service before offering any sort of comdemnation of policy.
Even at the expense of calling out McCain's amazing use of the "POW Card" to get out of gaffe after gaffe that drove Kossacks wild.
Even at the expense of critiquing the media who spoke of McCain "rarely" using his POW credentials.
Team O had the tactical discipline to see that the best way to get around the POW biography element was to HELP reinforce the meme until the press actually got tired of the narrative and stopped printing it.
You notice, there was a large bubble-up of "enough with the POW stuff" from the liberal MSM, it came in the form of "is mccain cheapening his biography."
[This is my guess as to why Team O does not like freelance surrogates that undermine the strategy by fucking up day to day tactics,
e.g. the Wes Clark firestorm--it wasn't that what he was saying was wrong, it was jus tat the wrong time and the flair-up crowded out the Team O message for 2-3 days.]
McCain actually reinforced this by using the POW defense for non-sensical things and making it the center of the RNC.
His biography was center-stage, but by using his biography as the main selling point for McCain, the Republicans missed a huge opportunity to frame the "new republican brand" as something that could help the average American worker.
If you notice, after the RNC the Obama campaign gradually started to talk about McCain's bio less and less...
And now less than 50 days in, no more "honorable" McCain. He's just candidate McCain, and there are no prefixes before eviscerate the man AND his (lack of) character.
I wrote this because I think it gives insight to the long-range strategy that Team O employs on an item that people were worried about; however, it is nothing that gives any sort of tactical advantage to any Repub operatives reading.
So, the next time you think "Team O should do this about Palin," or "Team O should do that about XYZ," just assume that they have already done a great deal of brainstorming about the issue and have a long-term strategy that will be emphasized with day-to-day tactics as the conditions change.
Update 1
I thought I would add that I think the Netroots does an EXCELLENT job of finding new short-term tactics to help re-enforce existing strategy.
e.g. the Health care quote.
It was used immediately because it fit into the tactical push on the "out of touch" meme.
My main point for this, was that if Team O does not use something, or does not go after someone (Palin) they probably have very good reasons. They are not going to use a tactic that undercuts exisitng strategy.
However, I do think people that are interesting targets in spite of what Team O says are Cindy and Todd. If we dig stuff up, or have good attack lines, the media will run with them on Cindy and Todd. (oh that's not fair! /snark)
It became fair imho when the media attacked Michelle O, and currently ignores Todd's shadow participation in the governance of Alaska AND is a secessionalist. As well as the media allowance of the "elitist" tag on democrats.
I'd love to see 527 ad series on the McCain's houses and jet and to push the "out of touch" meme. Like "jet-setting" with the McCain's.