Why is McCain tanking so spectacularly? Aside from, you know, Americans actually disagreeing with what he stands for.
I'm a professional screenwriter. One thing I feel has been missing in the McCain campaign is what in a script we'd call a "through line." What is the point of the story?
Obama has a compelling narrative that fits together. He's young, he's Black, he's anti-war, he's for change. It's a commonplace that this is a "change election," but that is partly the result of the Obama campaign's successful framing. When Hillary hit her stride in March, her frame was "I will fight for you"; and I think if she'd been pushing that paradigm in December (when it was "It's My Turn") or January ("Experience") or February ("I'm for change, too!"), she'd have won.
The McCain people have never really nailed down what his story is. Partly I think they've been distracted by his personal story of being a prisoner for 5 years. It's a compelling personal story but they've never tied it convincingly to what McCain would actually do. Obama would change things. Hillary would fight for you. McCain... what? Would be honorable? Would be brave? Do voters even want a brave President? I'm not sure they do. Presidents tend to be brave with your kids.
Moreover, it's hard to run a campaign on how honorable your candidate is when your campaign manager is a Karl Rove protege and your staff are lobbyists. McCain could have run an all-out insurgent campaign, rejecting the lobbyists and the Rovians, to make the "honorable" story the through line of his campaign. But he didn't.
So the McCain campaign has been flailing.
At the convention they tried to make the case that McCain was also a change candidate. But that's a tough sell coming from a Republican candidate who isn't willing to actually run against the President. And who is going to believe that the 72 year old white guy is the change candidate? Even if he does call himself a "maverick," and pick the "hottest governor from the coldest state." You are simply never going to beat the black guy for who's going to change things more.
(That was Hillary's mistake running on "experience." She was never actually the most experienced candidate, and everyone knew it. How was she going to beat McCain if the election was about "experience"?)
The McCain campaign has also been flailing in how it frames Obama. Is he an angry black man? Is he a freaky weirdo? A corrupt pol? A bleeding-heart liberal? A radical? Wishy-washy? The McCain people have tried each of these, but they keep changing the attack, and so their attacks tend to contradict. If he's wishy-washy he's not an angry man. If he's a weirdo then he's not a bleeding-heart liberal.
Meanwhile the Obama campaign has been pounding away at McCain relentlessly on message. McCain = Bush. That's been their message from Day 1. They have never bothered with attacks that don't fortify that message. Various bloggers have attacked McCain for being angry, senile, reckless, corrupt and a liar. The Obama campaign has gone with the "liar" meme, but that fits with the Bush association. They haven't, that I've noticed, made much of McCain's anger issues. Not relevant.
It's all about picking one story and telling it. The McCain people have told many stories about their candidate and their opponent; the Obama campaign has told one story about their candidate and one about their opponent.
Human beings are hardwired to absorb facts better when they fit into a single story than when they are just a grab bag.
As the proverb goes, "The fox knows many things. The hedgehog knows one Big Thing." And that's why foxes rarely get to eat hedgehogs.
To be fair, this election has always been structurally difficult for the Republicans. Party registrations are down. They're carrying an incumbent who's duking it out with Nixon for lowest approval / highest disapproval ratings in history. And McCain's timing is bad. People acknowledge him as a hero, but (I forget who noted this) the country is probably looking for a steward.
Still, would it have made more sense to frame the McCain story as Experience? When you have 26 years in the Senate, shouldn't you embrace that? The best argument against Obama is probably his lack of experience, coupled with his habit of voting "Present." Would it have made more sense to pound away at Experience vs. Inexperience? Frame it that way?
Because you could certainly distinguish yourself from Bush that way. Bush was inexperienced when he came into office. He has continued to behave like an inexperienced guy, rarely seeking out conflicting opinions and knowledge. Compared to McCain, Bush is still a callow youth. You would make the case that the country needs a leader with experience in prior crises, not a junior senator with most of his experience in local politics.
And if you can convince people that you're Mr. Experience, then you get to shuck off some of the other attacks. Experienced people have a right to be angry. He's not senile; he's just weighing his responses. Sure he's been involved in some shady deals, but hey, he's been around a long time. You can't expect a guy to spend 26 years in a Senate without ever having shaken the hand of someone who's a bit dirty.
Of course it's easy to carp at this point. Anyone can see that McCain is facing long odds now, so whatever McCain did must have been a mistake, just as whatever Obama did must have been wise. Right after the convention, Obama looked passive for all the things that now make him look steadfast.
But I can't help thinking that McCain would be doing better now if he had picked one compelling story and stuck to it all along.