For good or ill, we are not primarily rational creatures. Rationality is the tool we use to secure what we desire. There are two main strategies that must be employed by any campaign to make a majority of voters decide in favor of its candidate:
- The voter must be given a narrative that makes the opposing candidate seem dangerous, untrustworthy and basically unacceptable.
- The candidate must propose and optimistic sunny view of the future that proposes to sweep away all of the preceding misery and incompetence of the past.
We may yet see a coordinated effort by the Obama campaign to do unto McCain what Bush did unto Kerry. But here are my suggestions.
- Making McCain unacceptable. McCain is selling his experience and his "compelling life story". Not quite so compelling if McCain is nuts, is it? This is the story spread about McCain in 2000 by the Bush campaign. As a result, there are quite a number of excellent quotes from Republicans pointing out the rather unhinged nature of John McCain's temper.
Cochran On McCain’s Temper: “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
Geekesque also wrote about this a while back vis-a-vis the Nicaraguan incident. So there is plenty of ammunition. It just has to be fired. Now the important point about sowing the seeds of doubt is that, just as a farmer, doesn't plant just enough seeds to get a crop but significantly over-seeds, so the message has be repeated every single day. The message is that "McCain's experience doesn't count because McCain is a scary old man who loses his temper too much to be trusted with the Nation's security". Put more seriously "Mcain is nuts".
In 1964, Goldwater's campaign started saying "In your hearts, you know he's right", to which the Democrats replied, "In your hearts, you know he's nuts". They just kept repeating it over and over until everyone thought Goldwater was a dangerous old loon that couldn't be allowed anywhere near the nuke button. It did not help, of course, that he chose Curtis LeMay as his running mate. The key thing about 1964 was LBJ's ruthless pursuit of a single objective: make Goldwater seem so crazy that he just becomes unacceptable. That's what Obama's campaign has to do to McCain. But will it work? There has to be something to work with, of course. There has to be something about the opponent that feeds into the story. Kerry did seem aloof and patrician. His wife has an accent. He did inartfully speak about contradictory votes. And that was the cleft stick he got caught in that made him seem untrustworthy and unacceptable. The Swift Boat story really finished him off, because all Bush had to whack at him with was "not credible", and if his war story wasn't believable, then what was. Hideously beautiful in retrospect as an operation.
So the Obama campaign (not Obama himself) has to get up every day and paint John McCain crazy. The goal has to be to get McCain to actually start defending himself. The home run is to hear him say that he is not crazy. The minute someone has to say that they are not crazy, that's the point when everyone decides they are crazy, and it would be crazy for a voter to vote for someone who is crazy.
- Optimism. Optimism. Optimism. Obama is blessed in his naturally sunny personality. More of that, please. He has to ask if you are better off than 4 years ago, of course. But he equally has to have a theme of "Morning in America". FDR had "Happy Days Are Here Again" even though times were miserable. He is the happy choice, the McMuffin of this election. He has to work on making it easy to vote for him because people like him. And it has to be obvious that huge numbers of people like him A LOT. Fortunately, there is little that needs improvement in his campaign on this front. The convention will really help him along. But I am expecting that "Morning in America" ad soon. Caution: A lot of small ads is not as good as one hugely moving uplifting ad incessantly repeated that contains a very sticky handle.
But the key thing right now is to lean on a credible thing about McCain that make people see him as unacceptable. For me, it is "John McCain is crazy". Say it with me. John McCain is crazy!