Hi everyone, this is my first diary. As a little background, I am an academic who studies popular culture with a focus on how political issues are represented through commercial media. I am also a strong Obama supporter. So, for what it is worth, I would like to apply some of my knowledge (such as it is) to the question of how to successfully reach out to the proverbial, undecided/swing voter.
Many voters who fall in this category have a low-involvement relationship to politics and political information. So, such voters get their information in a very fragmented, piecemeal fashion and often don’t have a good frame of reference for distinguishing BS from factual claims. Here is just one everyday example.
Yesterday, I was sitting in the waiting room at my dentist's office. An older women and I presume her adult daughter were also there watching CNN, which was reporting something about Sarah Palin.
The older woman asked "who is that?" to which the presumed daughter proudly replied "Oh that is Sarah Palin, she is the MAYOR of Alaska and she is running for President." The older women replied "Oh that is unusual. It would be great to have a women president after all these years. I think I will vote for her."
One implication is, as many other diarists have pointed out, that door-to-door canvassing, phone banking, and generally spreading the word is critically important because these undecided voters are malleable in their opinions. But, media matters as well because it influences the way people talk about candidates when they see their images or do broach the election in casual conversations. In these everyday happen stance settings, general impressions, rather than detailed plans about health-care reform, are the lingua franca.
My inference is that these voters ultimately vote the candidate that they feel "comfortable with" and who invokes a sense of trust. Speaking bluntly, race is a factor that can not be ignored. I do worry about the Bradley effect. When it comes time to pull the lever, will these predominantly white citizens vote for the black guy who they have heard is some kind of Muslim. Of course, if you ask these voters they will rationalize their decisions based on some media cliché, "Oh I voted McCain because he was experienced blah, blah" but that is the cover story for an emotional response.
So, the Obama camp has to get out the positive message (no news here) while but also planting some doubts about McCain that undercut his emotional attractions for these undecideds.
Honestly, Michael Moore is right on the money in stating that the Democrats will lose if they keep saying nice things about McCain. I am sure Obama had focus groups that concluded they did not want to hear unkind words about a war hero so they played "the McCain is honorable man narrative to the hilt in their convention." But, I do a lot of work with focus groups and you can not take such statements at face value, you have to probe much deeper to get at what people feel rather than what they say.
When undecideds hear, "McCain is honorable man who heroically served our country," that signals, "oh we can feel good about this guy, we can trust him, he will protect us." Not the message to convey. Obama is not running against McCain the Hanoi Hilton survivor. He is running against McCain, the duplicitous politician who has abandoned everything he believes so he can be President and do the bidding his corporate benefactors.
I suspect that there will be criticisms of the new Obama counterattack ads that portray McCain as an out-of-touch relic who is trapped in the past but that is exactly the kind of seed to plant. And yes, a more subtle version of the classic Lyndon Johnson’s girls in a field /nuclear mushtroom ad would also work. Plant the seed, McCain is doddering, out of touch, and a dangerous hot head to boot, plus he is a liar who is trying to scam the good hard working, honest, salt of the earth, Americans.
Other diarists have commented ad nauseam on how to counterattack Palin, so I will pass on that issue. Let me emphasize, the idea that you can ignore Palin and just focus on McCain is a strategic mistake. Even if the argument is that Palin is just a pawn of Bush-McCain, her positives have to be taken down. She provides undecideds with an emotional excuse to not vote for Obama. VP choice may not normally influence votes but, in this case, I think it will,
In recent weeks, Obama has been at his very best during the impromptu press conference responses where he stated that "I have been called worse things on the basketball court." I think he was much less effective (in terms of public image) when trying to look calm, reserved and Presidential on the O’Reilly show. Here is why.
Popular culture matters. America has a strange relationship to representations African-American men. They are demonized as threats to the society and also celebrated as heroes. Let’s consider the African-American men who have attained a heroic status in American culture- Michael Jordan and Will Smith.
Caveat – I know this comparison may strike some readers as outrageous but remember I am talking about the cultural outlooks of people who, on a day to day basis, are more interested in the lives of celebrities that politic policy. Believe me, popular culture will be their informal frame of reference.
Both Michael Jordan and Will Smith exude a kind of street cred toughness and assurances that they are incredibly skilled at what they do (they are both guys that succeed and get things done) but they manage to avoid raising tacit racist anxieties about dangerous black men (ala the gangsta icon). A particular demeanor that is necessary to pull this image off. You need to be handsome, clean cut (Obama is good there), exude confidence without being cocky, and convey an aura of "hey when the game is on the line I am DA Man you want taking the last shot." In effect, when the debates arrive – it needs to be McCain versus the Michael Jordan of politics. This icon is the Obama who says "Enough!"; this is the Obama who says (in an Rolling Stone interview), "look I don’t do cowering." This is the Obama who looks like the guy you want to cover your back in a fight and not the over intellectualizing college professor who stammers too much. If anyone has direct connections to the Obama campaign, please, have him work on leading his responses with short declarative sentences. He can still explain in more detail but he needs to lead with the rhetorical equivalent of "Enough!" and also frame his counterattacks in ways such as "I am not going to stand here and have the American people misled by that [McCain’s] claim." The message is "I am not the guy you want to push around" and "I will always stand up for what is right"
Finally, I think some Kos readers have already picked up in this persona. During the angst ridden days of the RNC bounce, some posters replied with an image of Obama pointing his finger toward the reader and saying "Chill the Fuck Out. I got this." Minus the profanity, that image is the one which the Obama camp wants to convey. Imagine an undecided voter in the ballot box and pondering the emotionally framed options.
Obama-Biden – economic downturn – don’t worry, I got this; high gas prices? Don’t worry I got this; threats abroad? – don’t worry I got this. Will I be able to pay my medical bills?; don’t worry I got this. Can I send my kids to college? – don’t worry I got this.
McCain-Palin – "Sarah, where the hell did I put that red button thingamajig?"