You really think think this is mud slinging? Wait until the real arrows come out. I have no idea why the Democrats thought this would be a slam- dunk election.
Neither Reagan in 1980 nor Clinton in 1992 ran an exclusively positive campaign. Instead they delivered withering assaults on the incumbent president while also outlining their vision for a better future. Broadly speaking that is what Obama needs to do and what he is doing reasonably well.
Attacking your opponent is also a legitimate tactic so long as the attacks are truthful and an effective tactic so long as you can weave the attacks as part of a larger narrative. For example the idea the Obama campaign shouldn’t attack Palin because she is a woman and it will backfire is absurd. What they need to do is choose their attacks carefully so that they deliver a broader point. The key IMO is to generally use attacks on Palin as a way to attack McCain and then use that to make a point about their general governing philosophy. After being initially thrown off their game by a surprise pick I think they have hit on the correct strategy. Rip apart Palin’s image as a maverick reformer citing her history with earmarks and the bridge to nowhere. Link that up with McCain and argue that both are sham reformers and neither is too different from Bush. Then move onto your positive agenda and show how your vision and policies are different.
But did Obama’s message change in the 48 hours or so between his speech at the Democratic convention and the announcement of Palin as the VP? I don’t think anyone disagrees with the general thrust of you statements, just that if positivity were all it takes to get elected, there would be a very different electoral record.
Your theory doesn’t even stand up to basic scrutiny of the historical record, or reasonable conjecture. Were Bush’s campaigns positive? Under your rubric, Obama should have been up by a lot before the Palin nod, but the polls have barely moved. Moreover, you don’t mention that people’s attributes, lifestyles, ideals, and proclivities dramatically affect how people view them. Do you really think if Sarah Palin were an fat, handicapped, atheist lesbian, she would be inspiring all these women? Who people think you are is more important than what you say, or what you really are. Campaigns are about perception, and you can manipulate perceptions in many ways. You can send any message you want to voters, but what they receive, hear, and internalize is often deliberately corrupted by your opponents. And obviously, if people don’t hear it, they don’t respond.
That’s where politics comes in. The average person does not get a terribly accurate picture of who a candidate is. I have met a few of them on different levels, and damn near every one was personally engaging and quite likable. Even the ones I disagree with politically. However, their public persona’s were often very different. What we see is a carefully crafted image that is molded by campaign workers on both sides.
It’s easier to make a attractive mold when you have a genuinely astute politician with a positive message, but that takes a backseat to several other things. That’s why your advice, while instructive, is about as useful in winning elections as it is picking up women.
Isn’t this pretty much what has happened to almost every sect, historically? Presbyterians and Methodists started out with the same condemnatory and dogma. In the end the evangelicals will vanish as a political entity.
Trust me, I have no delusions about the amount of mud we are in for. I just hope it is less one sided than it was last time
And I don’t think anyone thought it would be a slam dunk…at least I hope not.
As usual, Sam Stone speaks much truth.
I think Sam is exactly right. What wins elections these days is an endless exuberant chant of USA! … USA! … USA!
Solving problems involves admitting they exist, and Americans hate that. Palin is the giant foam finger of this election, and they’ll win because of it.
No, it’s positivity. One reason Obama got the nomination was because he inspired those who aspire. He’s stopped doing that; Palin’s doing it. Remember his campaign theme tune? Bob the Builder’s “Can we fix it? Yes we can!” He and the Democrats need to return to that instead of attacking McCain and Palin. Palin is showing exactly why she got the nod. In America, anyone can make it. She did (as did Obama); someday that might be you or your child. But the Democrats aren’t pushing that - instead they’re criticising her lack of experience.
I’ve heard this said dozens of times, and I don’t get it. The Democrats lost the last two Presidential elections, but before that they won two in a row. Since the end of the Second World War, they’ve won (by my quickish reckoning) 6 out of 15 elections. While not a stellar record, it is clearly not “continually losing” elections. Going further back, Democrat Roosevelt had just started his fourth freaking term in a row when the war ended.
The Democrats do not continually lose Presidential elections, and I don’t understand how this meme got started or why it appears to be so uncritically accepted as truth.
Oh, and the fact that in that brief bit of experience, she was a total fuckup.
Seriously, Sarah Palin is less an argument for “anyone can make it” than “anyone can win the lottery.”
So…let me get this straight. Mccain and Palin throw attack ad after attack ad at Obama, but Obama is going to lose because he responds in kind rather than than being positive and not using attack ads. We know this because Mccain and palin are doing well not using attack ads except when they do use attack ads which doesnt count for some reason…
sure…
I don’t think so.
No, you do both at the same time. The actual candidates are unfailingly positive and their minions sling mud like there’s no tomorrow. It’s also possible here to have a positive message and take some digs at your opponent: “Together, we can build a better America. Together we can build bridges for America that actually lead somewhere … to a better future for us all!”
Since 1968, an epochal time, Democrats have held the White House for only 12 years.
A (likely lame) anecdote that attempts to give credence to Sam Stone’s point:
My grandmother is a great woman – fun, sharp, energetic, sweet, and a lover of life. She’s also a Republican, much to my chagrin, to the point that she has held a position of some responsibility in the party back in the day. Visiting her in the summer of 2004, I saw a calendar and other paraphenalia from the RNC on her phone table – a GWB photo for every month, the birthdays of administration-level 'Pubs highlighted in red, etc. “Great googly moogly!”, thought I, “does she actually buy what they’re selling?”
I asked her who she was voting for come November (with much timidity and a fair amount of trepidation): “Are you voting for Bush? Can I ask you why?”
She looked me straight in the eye and said, “No, I think that Bush is a terrible president and is hurting the country. Sending our boys off to war like that…” A smart woman, as I said. “The party keeps sending me that stuff, even though I haven’t donated money in years.”
Then she got a far-away look in her eye and said, “Now Reagan, he was a great man. We were in such a bad place at that time, and he came in and made us all feel better. He said, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’ And he did. All those ‘Made in the USA’ commericials? That was part of the pride he brought to us; pride in our country. After Nixon and Carter and Viet Nam, we needed that desperately.”
Now, I don’t like Reagan, though I have to admit I wasn’t even of voting age during his tenure. In retrospect, and possibly from a biased and/or uninformed viewpoint, I disagree with an awful lot of the policies he and the Republicans at the time dished out. More viscerally, I find his deification by the right beyond creepy and well into the realm of scary.
But I have to say that after that conversation with Gran’ma, I felt I understood something I hadn’t before – in the immortal words of Jules from Pulp Fiction, “Personality goes a long way.” Clearly, the policy issues matter and can break a candidate. But Reagan was “one charming motherfuckin’ pig”, always able to turn a phrase, put the best face forward, and inspire the general public to believe, which made up for an awful lot.
To segue nicely into current events, AFAIK, the question of him wearing lipstick never even came up. 
So three out of ten. Still not continually losing.
But Obama isn’t being positive. As Sam Stone pointed out, he’s bringing out the laundry list.
And Biden’s gaffe? That’s the first news of him that’s made it over here after the nomination.
I hope Americians are not so foolish as to fall for the McCain-Palin tactics. I Do do not see any message of hope in the Republican message just a stab at trying to keep Obama from his. McCain seems to be afraid to let Sara out on her own, she seems to stick to him like a siamese twin. Are they giving her time to practice her lines?
Republicans talk about our freedoms but are interfering in our lives more than ever before.
I am a registered Republican but the past few elections they seem to want only what the religious right want and do not consider freedom of religion is for all religions.
In a way if McCain -Palin win and the country goes into a real depression Then their talk of trickle down economics like the Reagan years will tell their tale. There will be no improvement in our reputation in the rest of the world either. I wonder why being a Maverick is qualifications for being leader of the free world. There are a lot of Mavericks in our jails.
McCain’s childish accusation that Obama was putting poor little pit Bull Palin down on a phrase he used himself against Hillary is only makeing him look less respectable in my eyes and others I have talked to. Obama should remember if a Jackass brays you just ignore it, that is the way a jackass acts.
Monavis
And in the forty years before that, the Republicans held the White House for only 12 years.
When you get to pick and choose the goalposts, you can make any trend look meaningful.
It’s pretty common knowledge that people elect presidents to protect them from everyone else’s pork-barrel congressman, but they love the pork from their own.
It was really a stunning indictment of liberalism that the Republican congressional landslide of 1994 happened in the first place.
But he’s not being near as negative as Mccain/palin