Amid the absurdity of the past month, I feel like it's time to take a step back and talk about some realities of the politics of this election going forward. Despite the pace of the day to day news cycle, there is still plenty of time left in this campaign and a number of significant events to come. Given that, I'm not going to talk about lipstick on a pig or Bridge to Nowhere politics here. The simple reality is that that type of politics depends solely on the ability to go in front of the American people and defend the exact opposite position you know to be true. With that ability, you can drive Hardball, the Situation Room and O'Reilly. Given that fact, it is easy to see why the Republican Party, in its current form, will always be more successful in that environment.
Over a long period, the political structure of this campaign, I would argue, is a completely different story for four reasons: 1) the McCain/Palin ticket has few strengths, 2) the Obama campaign has out-played the McCain campaign in financing, 3) the Obama campaign has steadily muted the McCain campaigns messaging ability, 4) this campaign is no longer defined by the question of whether Obama is ready to be president.
Here's why I think this:
1: Strengths and Weaknesses
Some days I think I completely understand the Palin choice. Other days it seems like the most absurd political decision I've ever seen. In the end, I believe it was made in such a hurry that the McCain campaign didn't really plan for the long-term impact of the choice. Sound familiar? So I'm not going to try to read their minds, but there are a few things I do know.
First off, the McCain campaign has two perceived strengths, ear mark reform and energy policy. These are the issues the McCain campaign is running on. There are other Republican strengths, such as gun control, but that is not an issue that the McCain campaign has pushed. The issue of ear mark reform is, for all his faults, an actual political strength of Senator John McCain. His Senate record generally upholds that idea. Senator Sarah Palin is another story, but like I said, who knows whether she will be seen as an ear mark reformer or not by election day. It really doesn't matter much.
Energy policy is a more nuanced debate that the American people have tried to ignore at all costs for decades. The psyche of this country towards energy policy has been driven by the Republican party position for most of this time. Despite its ridiculous, the phrase drill, baby, drill sounds pretty good to a whole lot of Americans. Senator Obama has, in my opinion, smartly shown a willingness to concede on the issue of off-shore drilling and accepted the fact that nuclear power is going to have to be a major part of a successful long term energy policy, as it obviously should. These are two very popular positions in this country.
OK, so that's pretty much it for McCain campaign strengths domestically. Let's get one thing straight: ear mark reform is a ridiculous topic to be discussing right now. Our total ear mark expenditures are minuscule in comparison to the waste by Halliburton, the tax breaks for oil companies, or the cost of fighting two wars while pretending to uphold our NATO responsibilities. Not to mention the fact that this so-called wasteful spending is the only thing that is barely keeping together an outdated and crumbling infrastructure. Anyone who thinks ear mark reform is the issue that will decide this election should turn off cable news for a week.
The Obama campaign's strengths are the economy over-all, health care, equal pay (an issue that smartly will be coming soon), education, and reforming Wall Street. If any one of these issues is the most important thing to a voter, they will much more than likely vote for Obama. Senator Obama has consistently laid out plans on each of these issues for the past pretty much 18 months. After eight years of the Bush administration, they are all now Democratic strengths, despite what some Republican strategist on TV tells you.
The economy over-all is the most important issue to most voters, which is why it is so preciously guarded by the entire Democratic party. Sometimes it's boring to say some variation of "George Bush is responsible for this problem and John McCain helped him" every single day that bad news about our economy breaks, but it is important and something that Senator Obama has smartly done since basically 2004, although obviously only more recently with respect to Senator McCain.
I believe that domestic policy will be the main driver of this election. That being said it is very important to note that Senator McCain has blunted, at least to a certain extent, any ability to take advantage of a timely bin Laden video or, god forbid, worse. Voters will have two possible questions to ponder: do I trust Senator Obama to deal with this crisis or would Sarah Palin be able to step in during this crisis. It is no longer clear how the proverbial October surprise would play out.
2: Financing
One of the Obama campaigns greatest successes has been in out maneuvering the McCain campaign with respect to financing. First off, if you've read anything about how the Obama campaign planned and executed its primary victory, you know they always make a back up plan for if their assumptions don't hold. As an example, their original plan was to win this election basically in New Hampshire. The Obama campaign's decision to forgo public financing and publicly tell the 527s to back off was just this type of forward looking decision making.
During the summer, Democratic 527s, almost completely, held off running the ads that drive day to day politics. But so did the Republican ones. Senator McCain, rather timidly, withdrew public support for Republican 527s, which are really only now gearing up. Likely, the Obama campaigns first plan would be to win this election easily without large 527 support, or to even make a deal with McCain to shut them down completely. But they always knew that if they couldn't do that, the Democrats have just as much money in 527s, ready to go. As we have seen, the political consequences of reversing your position on campaign finance are, as always, negligible.
So now the Obama campaign is going to raise who knows how much money and the Democratic 527s are going to flood the airwaves on every issue, likely with a number of over the top smears that some voters, none of whom I've ever met, seem to love. The Republican party's strength in smearing their opponent through ads has been run almost entirely by the McCain campaign, as their 527s are only now getting act together. I see this as a pretty outstanding head fake on the part of the Democratic ticket for a number of months.
3) Messaging
It's funny how now the term Swift Boating is used for just about any smear against a political opponent. This use of the phrase signifies an ignorance of a major part of the success of that particular political tactic: it was done by a group ostensibly not associated with the Bush campaign. When the McCain campaign goes out and basically calls Obama a sex offender, there is no question about who is making the claim, John McCain. The genius of a Swift Boat attack is that you could appeal to those people who love a good smear, while denying your involvement to all those independent voters who hate them.
So while the McCain campaign has directed day after day of the media cycle, the direction they have taken is as far into the gutter as any political campaign in the life times of pretty much anyone reading this. Worse smears have been thrown at opponents in the past decades, but none of them have been running every day in Ohio during a football game with I'm John McCain and I approve this message attached to them.
At a certain point every lie gets you diminishing returns in politics. WMDs was a pretty damn successful lie, for all the tragedy involved in that statement. After revealing the truth so many times, Bush administration lies like, for example, Heck of a job, Brownie were less well received by the public. The McCain campaign's willingness to say anything to hold on for just one more day has destroyed their credibility with most people whose responsibility it is to cover this campaign, despite what they tell you.
The Obama campaign has messaged the exact same way for 18 months. It's a very simple and effective strategy based: 1) I'm Senator Obama and I'm running on change, 2) Here's what I mean by change, 3) Hit me as hard as you want, but know that when you go too far, as you inevitably will, I know how to take advantage. Everyone who has run against Senator Obama has tried to mitigate his ability to win the change question, but he has been so consistent that it always eventually makes them look pretty absurd. He has more recently gotten better at telling the American people what change means, but that was always an actual strength for people who saw him in, say Iowa or any primary state, for an entire speech instead of the 10 second clip on TV followed by a commentator saying, where are the specifics.
Really the only change in Obama's message for his entire campaign has been to add: let me introduce you to Joe Biden. Biden may not break through too often but he has passed every question that is most important for a VP choice easily. He's perceived as ready to take over. And he hasn't hurt Obama. I would argue that he will be pretty effective, from time to time, when he breaks through the cluster of the media cycle, and definitely on the ground. That's pretty much all you can ask for from a VP choice.
So the last part of Obama's messaging ability has been his counter-punch which has often been the most frustrating and exciting to watch. There are a number of phases that each opponent of Senator Obama has gone through. First, they under estimate him, then they realize that mistake and over react, then they implode and finally they throw the kitchen sink at him. Perhaps the McCain campaign imploded before over reacting by promoting Rove disciple Steve Schmidt before they chose Sarah Palin, but the McCain campaign, I would contend, is pretty bad anyways.
Obama deals with all attacks the same way, he repeats them to you. He knows in this era you will eventually hear them, so he figure it's better if as many people as possible hear how absurd it is from his own mouth. Despite the persistent idea that Obama is not funny, I would contend he's pretty good at mocking the ridiculous statements that are said about him.
4) The Question in the Voting Booth
One of the most unbelievable things about the choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate is that it has taken away one of the biggest long-term strengths of the McCain campaign. For many voters, for a long time, there was a persistent question of whether Senator Obama was ready to be president. It was talked about day after day after day. Well, the answer is obviously that Senator McCain thinks so, if he's ready to promote Palin, so who am I to argue.
For many voters this simple fact frees them up to vote on any number of issues that are more important to them, most of which are Democratic strengths. I believe that this was probably the only calculated aspect of the McCain campaigns choice, because they likely had polled enough to see it wasn't going to be enough to win. They were probably right.
It can't be said enough that there is only one poll that matters, the one in the voting booth. Sometimes it's hard to remember that each person that enters the booth has an entirely different set of reasons for being there. Polls like to break people down into the exact opposite of what we are, which is, of course, individuals. The past month has shown how quickly the questions that seem most important can change from day to day and how often winning a daily media cycle is as likely to be a detriment as it is to be a help in the long run.
As long as the Obama campaign continues to maintain its dominance in these four key aspects of the political dynamics of this presidential election, he will win.