Back during the primaries, I was one of the many who vacillated between Hillary and Barack. Why? Because of the fact that while both had programs that I liked, Hillary's was more detailed and in some minor respects arguably better than Baracks. So, what kept pulling me back to Barack? It was the incredibly powerful narrative that he presented, a narrative that could heal America and the world and move us out of the bad stretch we are in. Well before the end of the primaries, I decided to go with the strong narrative and accept the minor points of disagreement I had with Barack on policy matters.
Another advantage of Barack's strong narrative was that the Republicans, and especially John McCain, had no way of countering it. He tried, with his over-repeated prisoner of war schtick, but it really looked like it was all in the bag.
Until Sarah Palin.
What Sarah Palin did was to create a viable alternative to the Obama narrative for the Republicans. It is equally powerful, I believe. This is no longer a contest between a strong narrative and a weak one, as nearly as I can tell, it is now even on the narrative plane. There are several consequences of this.
As a result of the new Palin narrative, we've all seen: McCain's prisoner of war narrative fade into irrelevance; a number of Obama-leaning fence sitters move toward Palin; some Hillary supporters move toward Obama; a bunch of effort being spent on attacking Palins details with having any noticeable effect on the Palin narrative. I think that these things are now basic parameters of the campaign.
So, what I think we need to do is to try to make a genuine effort to understand just what the Palin narrative is, and how it could be as powerful as the Obama narrative (a corollary of this is that we also need to understand just what the Obama narrative is, and why it is so powerful).
The two narratives have certains things in common, the main one being that a member of an oppressed minority can come out of nowhere to become president. The black president theme is basically cancelled by the female president theme, thereby mutually reinforcing both narratives.
The Obama narrative has the whole rainbow theme going for it. Barack is truly multi-ethnic, and everyone recognizes that President Obama would set back American racists of all types, and would strongly counter the effects of American racism around the world. This theme encompasses race, religion, ethnicity, and regionalism. Palin can hook into a small portion of this narrative because of the female president aspect.
The other Obama theme is, of course, change. Change for the better, change to correct things that have gone wrong. McCain has tried to hack into this theme, and the choice of Palin was a rather pathetic attempt at this (it is "change" to have a woman for vice president, never mind if nothing would change if she was).
The Palin narrative basically hooks into the whole Wild West theme. Palin connects with the "frontier woman" icon, and of course this is a central part of the American character: don't tread on me, the conquest of the West, outlaws, the free range, we're number one, cold dead hands, shop at Wal-Mart. Bush also managed to hook into this theme and won even in 2004 after his entire approach to governing had been thoroughly exposed. Obama doesn't have much traction with this theme, it is the antithesis of his entire approach.
The focus of the Obama narrative is that we can change for a better world and to move the nation back to the right path. The focus of the Palin narrative is that America is number one, and there is no need for fundamental change because the world is already on the right path.
There is no way to attack the Wild West theme and win. We could try. Many of us find it disgusting and embarrassing, but based on history, we simply cannot win by attacking it.
On the other hand, just as Westerns are no longer very popular as movies, people tend to get bored of the Wild West theme eventually. That is, the Wild West audience has become rather fickle.
What we need to do is to stay with the basic Obama narrative. It works. Running the country by the Wild West narrative will make people hate us even more around the world. It will get us into even more wars. It will increase even more the division between the wealthy and the poor in America. The Obama narrative is still as powerful as ever, and it needs to be presented even more powerfully and creatively to the American people.
The McCain/Palin narrative is already old, just like McCain himself is old. It's no different from what Bush used. The more we can point out that similarity, the more people will sour on McCain/Palin, because people have been harmed by the Bush years, and they know it. McCain/Palin will try to avoid people making this connection, and the fact that Palin is female will help with this tremendously: she doesn't look that much like George Bush. But she could look very much like Bush. Put a cowboy hat on her. Make the comparison between "clearing brush" and "salmon fishing". Put them both together with Big Old, which is another storng point of comparison. It is highly important that people see the new Palin Wild North as identical to the Bush Wild West, and likely to produce the same outcome for the nation.
Finally, whenever there is an opportunity, point to specific programs and policies where Bushco have gone wrong and are still going wrong, and where Obama/Biden have a better idea. The whole change theme needs to be connected in people's minds to broken things that need to be fixed, and Republicans in the person of McCain and Palin need to be connected to the people who broke them in the first place. The same goes for the economy. Once again, we are facing the effects of 8 years of Republicans largely in control of the economy. It should be very easy to make this point: were you better off after 8 years of Clinton, or after 8 years of Bush?
However, I don't think most people will even listen to policy arguments until we have gotten our narrative back on track.
Greg Shenaut