There are two must-reads in recent weeks which will give you an idea how the race for president has arrived at the sometimes absurd, sometimes heated point where Obama struggles to get back on track and McCain is riding the surge of Hurricane Sarah. One is about McCain strategist Steve Schmidt, and the other is this one by Politico about why Democrats are more nervous than ever about Obama’s chances of winning the White House.
I’m going to point you to this section:
Lake joined other Democratic veterans, some speaking not for attribution, in emphasizing a classic liberal woe: that the Democrat let the Republican define him.
“Obama needed to define himself,” Lake said. “I do think that during the Democratic convention we should have done a better job of defining McCain.”
That is one of two reasons why Obama’s having a tough week (the other is a seemingly impossible phenomenon like Palin, who’s been teflon with all the negative stories about her record). And if Obama’s to get on track, he needs to forget about George W. Bush. If the current president were seen with his arms around McCain and Palin tomorrow, then yes, certainly, Obama should do everything in his power to connect the current GOP nominee with the outgoing Bush. However, Bush continues to fade from the spotlight, so Obama needs to run against John McCain and Sarah Palin and only John McCain and Sarah Palin. He has to forget Bush. The turnaround is going to have to be asking voters whether or not the American electorate trusts the current GOP candidate who’s flip-flopped on vital issues like the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Ask voters through television ads if they trust a candidate that ardently supported the Iraq invasion? Do voters trust someone who says they’re an “earmark” reformer and yet garnered $27 million in pork barrel spending for a tiny town and hundreds of millions for the state? Don’t put down the use of earmarks because there’s evidence of an Obama appetite for pork barrel; just go after the janus nature of McCain and Palin’s candidacies. Ask the swing voters: Do they trust McCain-Palin?
Such a media effort could be expanded to include images of Ashcroft and the Patriot Act, Gonzalez and fired attorneys, Libby and Plame, Rove and Harriet Myers, and tie McCain to the party that’s been in charge the last 8 years. Obama needs to remind Democrats and independents the reasons why they sought change in the first place. Don’t veer from the truth, but be as ruthless as the GOP has been. Simplify the message. It’s not just the economy, stupid, in this election, but the trust factor is higher than usual.
Otherwise, the Republicans are going to prove what many of us in the media know already; that the GOP’s better than Democrats at campaigning. They seem to have a better understanding of the American appetite for politics and how to feed it (see again the New York Times story about Schmidt). Their narrative is selling even if their plans for the economy are on the wrong end of public opinion. The former POW turned Senator caps his life’s work by becoming president. The PTA mom hauling kids to hockey practice turned snappy and crafty politician becoming vice president. The 72-year-old veteran and the youthful mother, both are found in any small-town diner in any state in the union, and that’s appealing to a lot of voters.
Polls show Obama has successfully linked McCain to a third Bush term, but it’s not putting him over the top. And Republican efforts to define him are working - out of touch, elitist, too inexperienced to lead. Obama needs a shift in strategy to not only define McCain but in the end define himself, his own narrative, too.
