Last night there was simply an awful post on Kos that received over a hundred respondents all condemning it soundly and insisting that it be deleted. The poster (a first timer) was here with intent. I won't give the post more publicity by putting in a url. But this was serious politics and I think we need to address it. The post also goes to the core of Rovian politics. The topic was the pregnant daughter of a certain politician and claims by the poster to have come across evidence that the father is black. The original video apparently appeared on face book. The Canadian Press has a post on some of this crap (without all the specifics here): http://canadianpress.google.com/...
Why is this dangerous? Follow me below.
As with the earlier round of posts on Kos questioning the parentage of another baby in the family (and SHOUTS by many here to leave it alone) I have come to the conclusion that these "rumors" (whether we address them here or not) are being put out there intentionally by the Rovian campaign of McCain as both a cover for actual problems facing the McCain campaign and as a means to cause serious damage to Obama. This is also a key feature of the McCain Ad campaign as we will see.
We might call this strategy one of Cover, Flip, and Smear. Rovian politics are not so much about going after your opponent's strengths as some have claimed, but rather about going after a key weakness of your own candidate and attacking your opponent for the same thing and worse (the cover) than flipping it and twisting it into a smear - here often with racial and sexual intent. The point in part is to strategically put out there a "cover" that is FAR worse than the reality (the weakness), so when the grim news comes out by now the bad news appears to be both trite and ancient history. Who cares about the pregnancy - old news. If only that was it. But there is much more (the flip and smear). Here are two recent examples.
- The 1st pregnancy cover: In putting out rumors that questioned who is the Mommy of the new baby, attention was drawn away from the growing pregnancy of a family teen. The latter was sure to be a campaign issue when the right wing evangenical Christian VP was announced. When this questioning of "who's the mommy" was picked up in web blogs here and elsewhere, it served as an effective cover. And when the teen pregnancy itself was announced the web blogs were blamed for this. In fact, the National Enquirer was onto the pregnancy of the sixteen year old and were about to publish the news. The rumor had been put out intentionally to cover a very sad (and possibly politically lethal) situation in the Governor's family. But when the pregnancy was announced the reality of the situation was sort of "so what" indeed in this case it was flipped and twisted into a plus for the campaign (she "chose" to keep the baby). By the way, how and by whom did the water breaking story get out there anyway?. It didn't start here, but blame was put on us (another flip and smear).
- Last night - a new cover and worse? The National Enquirer apparently is coming out with a new piece saying that there was alot of partying by the person in question - even to the point of querying the paternity. I could care less. It is completely off limits. But, what happened last night is NOT and indeed has the potential to absolutely destroy Obama because if we/the campaign are not allowed to address it, the rumor will become one of those "truths" that becomes an accepted "fact." It is a cover, and is being flipped and twisted to be turned against not only us but - worse Obama. What is being proposed here is beyond dirty. It is far worse than the McCain fathered a black child meme or Willie Horton. The point in this rumor is to put into play the old societal sexual fears about black men and white women. In short here we see the worst kind of racism introduced through a rumor. Obama should not touch this with a ten foot pole and nor should we, but we need to think about (and address) how the strategy is put into play and working.
- Rovian Ads: Cover, Flip and Smear. The focus of the rumor mongering is also a key part of the McCain ad campaign. As pointed out earlier, by columnists, the Paris/Britney ads were not just about Obama's supposed celebrity. Instead the ads went out of their way to insert adjacent phallic symbols (Washington Monument for example) co-joined with the women to suggest "sexual action." The same issue (and worse) can be seen in the awful Sex Ed ad which was put up a couple of days ago. Both in its content and in the selection of a photo of Obama looking down with glee at what we are meant to see as an innocent child the same idea is put into play but much worse. But let us look deeper. The ad is a cover for the fact that McCain has an awful record on education - but here (too) it is flipped and twisted into a racist smear - a fear attack of the worst kind (sexual abuse of kids leveled at the candidate).
The new ad on the wolves (a replay of 2004 in some ways) is just as bad. In this case the ad is a cover for a serious McCain political problem (the McCain lawyers now are themselves all over Alaska like wolves. Plus Palin supports the awful practice of aerial shooting wolves). It is an effective cover, but again there is much worse here in what is being evoked. The ad flips and twists into a racist attack playing on long standing fears of African American men preying on white women (here in among other ways by evoking the children's tale about Little Red Riding Hood in which a wolf from the dark woods kills granny and probably her grand daughter too.
Last night's rumor campaign is more of the same. It is a cover for what appears to be more bad news about a disfunctional family. It flips the news and then runs with a terrible smear.
A short primer on Rovian politics: Locate your own weakness. Run both a rumor and ad campaign on it leveled against your opponent as the subject (the cover) - then flip it and twist it into the worst kind of smear.
We clearly cannot stop this newest Cover-Flip-Smear, but we need to acknowledge this is continuing to happen as part of a strategy to win at all costs - and it will no doubt get worse. Hopefully MSM will gain some back bone and moral fiber and address this as well before it is too late.
Discuss: (but please leave the kids out of it).