It's a total jujitsu-type strategy, but it provides the best hope for victory.
Plan A was what I labeled "ABB" back in '06: that McCain was "All But Bush". I later opined that Obama would go with Plan A, but would need recourse to the winning line--a succinct economic argument--which I have given the shorthand slogans, "Tax the Bushites!" (not for public consumption, I guess) and "It's the microeconomy, stupid!" (for Obama campaigners). It's Plan B--for Bushites, the targets of the tax reforms Obama should propose.
Somehow, this doesn't seem to be working; Obama has not come up with the proper soundbite to get across this proposal, which would actually do very well if polished up properly. Pundits are still asking for the proper formulation of this from Obama, and I feel it may never quite come out. It seems reasonable--now more than ever--to ensure that the wealth of America is not siphoned off to support the golden parachutes of Bushite adventurers and failed manipulators. Yes, these CEO's and so forth have employment contracts, approved by their loyal boards, who have given them what they wanted in case of early departure. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't tax these excess earnings! Same goes for the oil companies.
Plan C, for Corruption, might have worked with a different VP candidate. In format, it's the attack on McCampaign's lobbyist core, and Obama has certainly tried it. McPalin can brush off the attack, though, because Palin "went after corruption in her own party", or some such nonsense. Let's see if she dares to snub Ted Stevens, her Alaskan homey and one-time earmark benefactor, in the fight of his life. Anyway, Plan C has worked, arguably, once in modern national political history--1976. While Bushite Misrule might be right up there on a level with Nixon-Agnew's, the chain of responsibility (which helped to sink Ford) doesn't link McCain tightly enough into it. He was there, he voted as the Administration wanted, he even tried to make peace (to help get through Republican judicial nominees), but that was not enough to have made him appear Bushite. Until this year's campaign.
The argument I advocate for the rest of Obama's campaign is to attack the notion that we can sleep more safely with McPalin in there than with Obama-Biden. It's really just the national security issue, which McCain is winning by a huge margin. We must wreak havoc and create fear among voters who go with their gut, rather than the issues.
As I suggested to davefromqueens on dailykos, in response to his Lakoff-based analysis:
Surely that's an emotion that fits somewhere in Lakoff's scheme.
Fear is what we are lacking in the attack so far:
If we can generate that fear in more people, we will close the "national security" gap and win the election.
Fear is what we are lacking in the attack so far:
- --fear that John McCain's erratic, hotheaded, impulsive nature will get us into another war ("after all, what's wrong with the ones we got?")
- --fear that McCain's impulse with regard to policy toward Russia is to return to the comfortable days of the Cold War (!?)
- --fear that he'll croak or become incapacitated and turn it over to this overhyped, neophyte stranger.
If we can generate that fear in more people, we will close the "national security" gap and win the election.
Poll Results
On a lighter note, here are the results of two recent polls I posted with diaries on Dailykos (with the "McPalin and the Electoral Map" and "Snarky Attack Fish" posts, respectively):
What do YOU mean when you say "Maverick"?
| 2% | 3 votes |
| 0% | 1 votes |
| 0% | 0 votes |
| 0% | 0 votes |
| 15% | 19 votes |
| 33% | 40 votes |
| 47% | 56 votes |
Where will Sarah Palin be in February, 2009?
| 14% | 9 votes |
| 26% | 17 votes |
| 17% | 11 votes |
| 20% | 13 votes |
| 21% | 14 votes |
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