"It ain't what you don't know. It's what you think you know that ain't so that's dangerous."
I was reminded of this pithy little saying last week, when confidence in Barack's lead in a few recent national polls, his turning away from the traditional public campaign financing system, and the uproar over his announcement of support for the latest FISA bill all collided and left me contemplating a few disturbing possibilities.
As someone who is deeply concerned about his FISA position, I toyed with the idea of withholding a contribution this month to express my displeasure. But a little investigation convinced me that withholding a contribution could be more damaging than I expected, that strengthening his coalition of supporters is more essential now than ever to winning in November, and that his FISA turn may have more to do with specific weaknesses in his polling than anything about the Fourth Amendment.
There are three areas that anyone who expects to beat McCain in November ought to be paying attention to:
1. Building and Consolidating Obama's Coalition
Barack's coalition is threatened from two directions. Progressives (and perhaps some traditional conservatives) are rightfully angry about his decision to vote for the new FISA bill. At the other end of the spectrum are those Americans who have just gotten used to being afraid and carry it as part of their current worldview.
Chris Bowers, at OpenLeft, focused on what Barack himself said about the FISA bill:
"The bill has changed. So I don't think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."
What could motivate Barack's statement about "the security interests of the American people," when most of us know that the FISA court is hardly an impediment to any half-way legitimate intelligence-gathering that the government wants to do?
I think the answer is in his presidential polling. Barack's deficit on terrorism leadership in recent polls is actually worse than I thought: according to TIME Magazine's June 26 poll's internals, he trails McCain by 22 points, Moreover, 81% of the country rates this as "extremely" or "very important" to their vote. The famous Newsweek poll that everyone thought was an outlier didn't include a question on terrorism. But in the LA Times/Bloomberg poll, Obama trails McCain on terrorism by 17 points--32 to 49 percent. LA/Bloomberg specifically identifies this issue as one that cuts across all demographic subgroups:
Protecting country from terrorism: McCain wins by a 17 point lead on the issue of who would be best at protecting the country from terrorism. Independents give him a whopping 39 point advantage. Except for the usual Democratic/liberal subgroups, McCain beats Obama in this category in almost all demographic groups.
It doesn't take much to imagine what Republicans will do with a vote against the new bill. TV and radio ads that claim "Obama voted to allow terrorists to use email and phone calls to cook up schemes to endanger Americans" would probably be ubiquitous. Coupled with an administration that has proven it will manipulate terrorist threats through its Pavlovian color-coded system, and the more general context of public opinion that ALREADY believes he is the weaker candidate when it comes to protecting the country from terrorism, this is an exposed flank that could become a persuasive and devastating claim. Given what he said about why he would support the bill, I am convinced that he caved on FISA to dodge this bullet.
2. Follow the Money
As depressing as the FISA position is, is it a reasonable response to think about withholding support to express disapproval? JedReport quickly splashed cold water on that idea with this post on "The Myth of John McCain's Fundraising Disadvantage": :
for weeks now the McCain campaign has been publicly boasting that McCain-RNC fundraising activities are joint operations to raise money for McCain's general election campaign.
In fact, when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis gave a strategy briefing to supporters earlier this month, he explicitly noted that as far as the general election is concerned, there is no meaningful distinction between McCain campaign fundraising and RNC fundraising.
Davis argued -- correctly -- that to get a true understanding of who is leading the fundraising battle, one must look at the combined totals of each candidate and their party.
In other words, it's not the John McCain 2008 committee versus the Obama for America committee, it's McCain+RNC versus Obama+DNC.
And when you look at the numbers that way, the world turns upside down: John McCain is leading the fundraising battle, and it's not even close.
John McCain and the RNC not only outraised Barack Obama and the DNC by more than 50% in May -- $45.9 million to $28.1 million -- they are also sitting on nearly twice as much cash-on-hand, $85.1 million to $47.1 million.
The bottom-line here is that the media have spun up a David and Goliath narrative about fundraising this campaign. They are partially right -- it is a David and Goliath battle, but they've got the roles reversed.
No matter what happened in the primary season, so far in the general election, it's John McCain whose got the fundraising advantage now.
And it's Barack Obama who is the underdog.
The monthly declines in Barack's fundraising totals since March have not bothered me very much--mostly, I realize now, because the "compared to what" question hasn't been very front and center. But in the context of an RNC which is roping in not only all the PAC money and the humongous individual contributions they traditionally get, but also (probably) contributions that have been spurned by the Obama campaign in favor of small dollar donors, I think Obama will need every cent he can get. And that would be true even if he didn't have to fight internet rumors, race-baiting, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and other culture coarseners, as well as vitriolic attacks on his wife.
3. All in Favor of McCain's National Security State, Raise Your Hand: Or, Should Progressives be Transformed into Single Issue Supporters?
So now we're down to the nitty-gritty. The FISA bill is important, but the election of John McCain will bring worse national security policies PLUS the end of important domestic, environmental, economic, health care and other initiatives that an Obama administration would surely champion. For myself, the choice is clear. I never looked for a perfect candidate and haven't found one. But I do know this: Barack Obama's coalition of African-Americans, young people, college educated, progressives, and a growing number of Hispanics is the best chance since 1932 to elect someone who isn't in thrall to market or other kinds of fundamentalisms AND could achieve functioning electoral majorities for governing.
We're not going to get this chance again any time soon. FISA is important, but it's not important enough to use as a symbolic political issue that will create fissures in this emerging electoral coalition, It is this coalition that is important. It is the battering ram that can be used to break down the walls of the National Security State and other corporatist bastions, disrupt and push back purveyors of income inequality, and more. Obama's real "transformational politics" has been to dilute the influence of money, thereby amplifying the voice of ordinary people and enabling the emergence of our new coalition.
He didn't invent it, but he has certainly shown everyone how to use the internet for a fifty-state presidential campaign. He's put a formidable weapon in our hands. It's up to us to use it to build the politics we want. And right now our weapon of choice needs MONEY.
https://donate.barackobama.com/...