Predictably, we've started to see the full-blown Karl Rove strategy applied toward Barack Obama in recent weeks. Simply stated, the idea is to attack the opponent's strengths head-on, so as to defuse them. As a result, we've seen attacks on Obama's "popularity", ""charisma" and intelligence because they're among his most obvious strengths. They did the same thing to John Kerry: they undermined a war hero by lying about his record.
I then had the thought: Well, how might you use the Rove strategy against McCain? If the strategy worked effectively for Bush, why not borrow from their playbook. I searched and searched for a counter-strategy. Then it hit me:
The Republican candidates have no strengths.
You can't really attack John McCain's strengths because he doesn't have any. All of his military background and experience is completely undermined by his blind adherence to the tragically flawed Bush Iraq war policy. Wholeheartedly embracing the worst strategic blunder in the nation's history undermines the notion that John McCain is really strong on security policy and national defense. And his clownish "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" moment would have nominally disqualified him from consideration as "leader of the free world" had George W. Bush not spent the last eight years setting the bar so low for the position that almost any tragically ill-considered utterance has so little impact.
Is there any other area in which McCain can claim "strength"?
- We know he doesn't know anything about economics: his chief economic adviser considers the current economic malaise we're suffering the result of "whining".
- We know that he's a sociopath with no conscience who's willing to sell out to social conservatives for their votes, betraying his own obvious "moral relativism" in his personal life.
- We know that his "maverick, Washington outsider" stance is belied by the fact that he's collected a paycheck from the US government for his entire adult life.
The Republicans make it impossible to attack the strengths of their candidates by running candidates who have no strengths. This insight helped me understand how George W. Bush was even viable as a Presidential candidate. For better or worse (worse) the Republicans tapped in to the modern American zeitgeist to sell deeply flawed candidates against Democrats with obvious strengths (and easily manipulated perceived "weaknesses".) The results of these winning strategies are a nearly-bankrupt nation with its reputation and its constitutional underpinnings in tatters. But at least now the Karl Rove equation makes sense to me.