Regular dKos readers have been treated to the back and forth debate in the last 2-3 weeks about the appropriate response to Sarah Palin. Some of us here said "let's go after her" for all her obvious weaknesses, weaknesses that make it scary to think about her becoming commander in chief. Some of us here said "ignore her" because it takes the focus off John McCain.
But bloggers uncovered many different aspects of Palin's personality and political history, even ones that we were told weren't important, or would backfire. And now many of those aspects of her history have become conventional wisdom: she's a liar, she abuses power, she didn't return the money but squirreled it away in a slush fund, she's chintzy with tax payers' money, etc. And it's now clear that destroying her bubble did make a difference in terms of the attractiveness of the overall all ticket.
Now . . . can we do that to McCain? Let's talk about that below the fold.
Okay, John McCain is a much more well known commodity. And there are aspects of his personality and political record that many of us here wish the Democrats / traditional media / Obama campaign would go after.
A short list would include his vulgarity towards his wife, his temper, the possibility that his POW tenure was much less heroic than is commonly thought, and his Keating 5 involvement among others.
But let's be honest with ourselves: none of these are going to really gain traction with the mass of voters that we need to peel off. Do we think the feminist sensibilities of the "could be persuaded to vote McCain" voters are so highly refined as to worry what John called Cindy? Do we expect the average U.S. voter to read a sober analysis of where John McCain was housed during his imprisonment, or the nature of the radio messages he eventually recorded?
No, we need to attack him at the place where his base of persuadable voters grant him his greatest strength, and that is his ability to keep us safe, his ability to understand and use the military, his persona as a rough and tough man, a fighter, a hero.
Over the next weeks the Obama campaign will destroy him on his economic position.
We need to destroy him on his supposed ability to keep us safe.
To do so, we do not need to attack his past service to the country, nor do we need to review his history in the U.S. Senate. What we do need to do is to point out the obvious: John McCain is no longer smart enough and alert enough to understand what is happening in the world. He has lost so many brain cells over the years that he is no longer capable of being the commander in chief.
We laugh about his inability to tell the difference between Sunnis and Shia, and between Shia and Al Queda. But that's not going to get much traction with the U.S. public, many of whom have the same problem. We analyze the tapes of his interview regarding the Spanish Prime Minister, and go into the esoteric arguments advanced by his campaign.
We need to use these occurences and supply the narrative that connects the dots and scares the hell out of U.S. voters: John McCain has lost his mind. John McCain is too old to keep his facts traight John Mccain does not know what's going on. He's not a tough naval aviator anymore: he's a confused old man who can't tell the difference between our allies and our opponents in Iraq.
The adjectives to use come to mind: he's not strong and brave, he's confused, exhausted, tired, old, weak, lost, overwhelmed, not up to the task.
In our letters to the editor, our posts here, our conversations with others, we need to get this narrative into the public dialogue. We need to demand that the traditional media cover his fading mental capacity and weakening powers. We need to make that less of a partisan attack and more a legitimate news story.
How we do that is up to the creativity of this community.