You've probably all heard the quip about the advice they give new trial lawyers: If the evidence is not on your side, pound the law; if the law is not on your side, pound the evidence; if neither the law nor the evidence are on your side, pound the table!
The punchline is good for a laugh, but there's truth in it too. After all, pounding the table provides a distraction that draws attention away from either the issues or the law. Look at all that righteous indignation, the jury will think, there must be validity behind it!
This is the situation the Republicans find themselves in right now. They can't pound on the issues, because the issues are not on their side. They can't run on their record of governance -- it's abysmal, and everyone knows it. So what's left? Character smears, "petty distractions", righteous indignation. In other words, pounding on the table.
The Republicans know this of course. That's why McCain has been running away from Bush and his record as fast as he can, promising change. That's why McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis is trying to push the notion that:
This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.
Unfortunately, the same was true four years ago -- they had neither the record nor the issues to run on then either, but they were able to pound the table sufficiently well to eke out a win. I think it's going to be harder for them this time, but not out of the range of the possible. That's why I'm so excited to see Obama and Biden calling them out for it. Yesterday, both of them specifically jumped on the above Rick Davis quote:
Obama:
"I think I've got a pretty good personality," Obama said Friday after ridiculing McCain's campaign manager for saying the election was about personality not issues.
"But that's not why I'm running for president. I'm running for president to put people back to work, to give them health care, to make them have college that's affordable."
Biden:
Rick Davis, John’s Campaign manager said two days at the convention and I heard this. He said this election is not about issues. That’s what he said. And everything I saw at the convention demonstrated that. It was about how well placed — and boy she is good, how a left jab can be stuck pretty nice. It’s about how Barack Obama is such a bad guy.
What do you talk about when you have nothing to say? What do you talk about when you cannot explain the last 8 years of failure? You talk about the other guy.
So we all know what they're doing. We can call them out on it every time, as Obama and Biden are doing. But we can make our lives easier by turning their tactics into a cliche, an object of ridicule. This is why I bring up the "pounding the table" analogy. It's funny -- everyone loves a good lawyer joke. It's true -- the analogy is a good one, and distractions are effective if people don't recognize them for what they are. And it's pithy -- if we can get the joke into common parlance, then we can use "pounding the table" as shorthand when calling out their campaign tactics (the visual imagery is good too).
So what do you think? Is this a useful meme to pass around? Will you remember and use it?