The strategic theme for Obama will be to present a unified front--campaign and party--against a two-pronged Republican attack: the national party and affiliated smearmeisters driving one prong, and Gentleman John McCain the other.
The key thrust of the national Republican campaign on behalf of John McCain will be merely to suppress turnout. That is not something McCain will want to pursue directly: he will be trying to maximize the number willing to pull his lever (or the electronic equivalent), and his method will be to characterize Obama as green and black. Or brown. Or any color other than red, white, and blue, which are reserved exclusively for McCain.
OK, green is somewhat in play, I guess, if you're thinking environmentally. Personally, I think it's no contest, but some may question that. Actually, though, I meant green as in "inexperienced, in a bad way". As for The Black Thing (TBT), there are hundreds of ways to remind voters of it without saying it, and doing it that way is the more effective approach.
The problem is, Obama is too smart for that stuff. So, McCain's attack angle will end up having to be something different, in the end: Obama's an elitist intellectual. Meanwhile the national party will bring out whatever it has that can help reduce turnout (including all types of "non-tariff barriers" to voting) and also go negative from the start.
Obama, too, is facing a likely midcourse correction in strategy. He's coming out of the box looking to run against George W. Bush. This is a good start--it will help solidify the core, which is certainly desirable at this time--but I don't think it will get him to the finish line.
The problem with that line of attack is that McCain, while as much a "conservative hawk" as Dubya, is no Bushite. This recognized distinction is what kept him alive in the dog days of 2007: there was hope for him as the most un-Bushite national figure the party had, even if he didn't know how to lead a winning campaign operation. Eventually he got the right leadership working for him, and he got lucky with the dynamics of the primary races.
This all adds up to McCain being able to dodge the Bushite association to some extent. He will have to endure the hug on the convention platform, and he will have the dubious value of the President's support through his inappropriate public comments on the race in progress. But, like Obama with Jeremiah Wright, the Nominee will be able to shrug off any great effect from the eccentric comments of the Unavoidably Associated.
So Obama will have to find success in a more specific area then merely equating McCain with George Bush. He wants to take McCain on, to outpoint him on foreign policy (easy) and military policy (less easy). This is the right thing to do, as Obama realizes that these roles are the truly pre-eminent ones for Presidents (along with Supreme Court nominations). Politically, though, he will find that, inarticulate as McCain sometimes is, he will not lose the battle on this terrain.
The winning tack will be the correct formulation of his domestic policy package, and Obama has a vital interest in preserving the integrity of his platform at the convention. The positions he backs, he can defend well, but he would have more trouble with any areas where the platform varies with his policies. Revanchist Clintonistas may introduce troublesome resolutions for something like mandated health insurance, for example; it will be interesting to see how the disciplined, focused Obama campaign team deals with them.
Is Iraq An Issue?
This one will be fascinating to watch, and no definitive answer to that question may be clear even up until the last week of the campaign. To some extent, we will be captive to events over there, and atrocities or ambushes could make a momentary impact on the war's significance. Depending on the moment, that could be huge.
If it matters, it should help Obama. In the absence of major events there, though, it probably just helps solidify the gender and age gaps and is relatively neutral. It's conceivable that McCain will hit upon the "We are Winning; Therefore we should Continue Withdrawals" policy that could help make for an electoral upset, and Obama needs to watch for that, though it seems so out of character for McCain to take on board.
Bad Things Happening in Iraq will also hurt McCain, though we hope that they will happen less down the stretch. In particular, this will keep the focus on domestic issues where Obama should have the edge.
There was a very interesting vote today in the House that suggests much. It was on an amendment to the funding for Iraq--note the tallies:
H R 2642 YEA-AND-NAY 15-May-2008 3:30 PM
QUESTION: On Agreeing to the Senate Amendment With Amendment No. 1
BILL TITLE: Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act
| Yeas | Nays | PRES | NV | |
| Democratic | 85 | 147 | 3 | |
| Republican | 56 | 2 | 132 | 9 |
| Independent | ||||
| TOTALS | 141 | 149 | 132 | 12 |
This one was hailed by Move On as a vote to prevent a rubber-stamp approval of the Iraq funding, but it looks like a shrewd tactical win for the Republicans to me. Clearly, the Republican leadership arranged for this one to fail, when they had the votes to pass it. This allowed those who had qualms about the current execution of policy to step aside--the Senate will lead in giving Bush his number, and the House will have to fall in--or those who wanted to "support the troops" could do so, while opposition to that proposition was reserved for Democratic troublemakers.
Getting long for one post. We'll take on the Winning Domestic Angle in Part 2, and the decisive role turnout will play this time in Part 3.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment