The Left’s Stupid Anti-McCain Messaging
by Patrick Ruffini :: May 9th, 2008 11:41 pmThird Bush Term. The Bush-McCain hug. McSame.
Excuse me while I McYawn.
For all the left has done to move bodies and build infrastructure, there’s one area in which they remain woefully lacking: message. Nowhere is this more apparent in their central charge against McCain: that he’s a Bush clone from top to bottom. From the Obama campaign, to the DNC, to 527s and c4s like David Brock’s Progressive Media USA, you’ll see this repeated over and over.
With President Bush’s approval ratings in the toilet, and I think I’m being charitable here, it’s easy to see the Democrats as picking off low hanging fruit. They’ve been Bush haters for this long, so why give up now? And why resist the temptation to hang the Bush albatross around the GOP’s neck, which would seem to be their trump card in another down year for Republicans?
The problem is that it runs counter to some deeply ingrained perceptions about McCain, the most transparently un-Bush candidate Republicans could have nominated. How does one overlook the fact that amongst Republican primary voters most dissatisfied with Bush, McCain dominated. Or McCain’s bitter rivalry with the President that lingered long beyond the 2000 election, culminating in charges that he threatened to leave the party, and now, that he didn’t even vote for President Bush in 2000? How does Arianna’s story square with the narrative of “McSame?”
The Democrats have chosen to run the same campaign against McCain as they would have run against Romney or Huckabee. This will turn out to be a strategic mistake.
Why? Because they ignore the new media reality that no amount of points on television can overturn a narrative backed up by the free media. The left’s “McSame” campaign is an example of the particularly crude communications tactic of countermessaging. Countermessaging consists solely of challenging a prevailing public narrative. The media is not liberal. There was no housing bubble. Global warming is a myth.
This tactic can be useful practiced by notoriously off-message B- and C-teamers running interference while, well behind the line of scrimmage, the quarterback prepares to throw long. The problem is that this particularly uninventive form of McCain Maverick Denial is the Democrats’ central strategy for discrediting the Republican nominee. Few people who aren’t partisan Democrats actually believe it. If you were to ask undecideds about McCain’s comparative weaknesses, I’m not sure Bush-coziness would be close to the top of the list in the same way it would be for a more conventional Republican.
If we are in an era of authenticity, where free media narratives reign, then you’re limited to arguing based on a candidate’s actual weaknesses and strengths. In a few cases, you can create weaknesses if you’re operating in an evergreen space where there are no public perceptions yet either way. Unfortunately for David Brock et al. Bush-McCain tensions have been a recurring theme in our collective political psyche for nearly a decade.
If the left were actually smart, what would they do to us?
- Drive wedges between McCain and his base by playing up McCain’s ongoing feuds with Bush and the conservative movement, demoralizing conservatives and keeping base turnout closer to 1996-2000 levels as opposed to red-hot 2004 levels. Focus on insider issues like the 2000 vote that won’t get much play outside the respective party echo chambers, limiting any fallout among true independents, who are a dwindling percentage of the electorate anyway. Remember that it’s easier to get 4 million conservatives not to show up than it is to get 2 million independents to switch.
- Portray McCain as the “fake Democrat” and Obama as the “real Democrat.”
- Limit Bush=McCain criticisms to Iraq only, where there is already an established public narrative of McCain being very hawkish, and in fact, leading Bush into the surge. And isn’t Iraq the core of their indictment? Why muddy it up with domestic stuff where Bush and McCain are often night and day?
- If you are going to focus on Bush-McCain similarities, always juxtapose with McCain’s past Bush opposition to make him appear inconsistent. But publicly recognize that Bush and McCain were once opposed, so you don’t take the credibility hit you would from straight-up McCain Maverick Denial.
Will they pick up on this? Doubtful. To do so would mean to concede some Republican talking points to make even more devastating anti-McCain arguments, something those like Brock who are accountable to the netroots must never do. And countermessaging is too central to what Brock does as the head of Media Matters advancing liberal media bias denial.
In many ways, the Bush 2004 definition of Kerry provides a useful contrast. It was a textbook example of a more nuanced message offensive that the base wouldn’t have chosen. It would have been easy to run a classic Kerry as Massachusetts liberal campaign. Instead, they tagged Kerry as a flip-flopper, with the goal of maximizing contrasts with a decisive wartime President. In that year, juxtaposition and the perception of incoherence mattered more than one’s current or past positioning.
And isn’t Hillary Clinton the ultimate example of one’s relationship to a President not counting for squat in a real-world election?
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“And isn’t Hillary Clinton the ultimate example of one’s relationship to a President not counting for squat in a real-world election?”
That is really a throwaway line since HRC has made a public attempt (successfully I believe) to convince all voters that she is her own woman.
McCain has made a public attempt (unsuccessfully I believe) to convince Republican voters that he is a continuation of Bush.
In the general election, HRC will have an intact record of independence and McCain will have an intact record of rejecting and then embracing Bush and his policies.
Just because an argument is not made against McCain now does not mean that it will not be made in the future. In fact, since the Democrats are still fighting for their nomination, McCain isn’t the primary target of either, yet.
Democrats tend to make policy the center of their campaigns while Republicans tend to make personality the center of theirs. And with Bush policies held in low regard by many voters, that will be the eventual focus of the attack on McCain. Then McCain’s defense against those attacks will either drive a wedge between him and general voters (if he defends Bush) or a wedge between him and Republican voters (if he repudiates Bush).
The later in the general campaign that the policy-based attacks start, the fresher and more effective they are on election day. If the attacks were personal in nature, then they would start now so that the mud would stick longer and become ingrained in the voter’s mind. Thus, I don’t think that McCain will face personal attacks. Obama has experienced personal attacks for a few months now. We’ll have to wait to see if that mud sticks. HRC has faced personal attacks for so long that if voters don’t care about those attacks on her, they never will.
You ignore the fact however that in judical appointments, in Iraq, Social Security, Health Care that John McCain has the same policies as George Bush.
“John McCain wants to stay in Iraq, I want to end the war and focus on Afghansitan while McCain is running for Bush’s third term.”
That is devastaing because on Iraq; John McCain is on record as staying and fighting and then setting up bases in the country. This war is why Bush’s approval ratings are in the toilet and when they say four more years of Bush they are saying four more years of the Iraq war bleeding us economically and socially and having small gains routinely erased.
Despite Petrauses’ successes Americans want out of Iraq.
McCain doesn’t. Bush doesn’t. Many Republican’s don’t.
Four More Years of the Same = Four More Years in Iraq
And that is why this is a message that works; because in every incarnation it will be presented in a message about Iraq (people blame bush) the mortgage crisis (people blame him for not acting) the ecomonmy (people tie it to Iraq and blame him).
They don’t need to make personal attacks. No one wants four more years of the same. The Republican brand and George Bush got a second chance in 2004; Americans aren’t going to give them a second one.
We TYP’s can be counted on to buy the real deal…
the previous posts do indicate that the D’s don’t get it.
If BO needs to improve his message to middle class white people, if this is a strategy that he needs to work on, why is he not working it in West Virginia?…Hillary would be out there busting it, to find a message that works. BO seems to just be willing to kiss off voters…and he’ll need them in the general.
McCain is a genuine war hero, and very well accepted by middle America…the D’s are way underestimating him, and let’s face it, are talented @ LOSEING.
I see real resistance to the D’s changing the way they do business.
Patrick, I’m a democrat who just stumbled on to your site. Wanted to say thanks for your thoughtful column. And same to the posters of the above comments. There is so much worthless illogical drivel on so many of these blogs and threads that seeing coherent intelligent posts is refreshing. I too agree that the left’s McSame branding of McCain is stupid, childish, and illogical. Let’s have a healthy informative debate on the future, and I believe each candidate’s past actions are the best indicator of future decisions, so let’s talk about their character too. That’s all part of the process. Please let’s do it differently this time with a modicum of honesty, civility and respect. PS: For the record, if McCain runs to the center, picks a moderate with good economic creds, and doesn’t cowtow to the right, he might get my vote over Obama.
I think this is wishful thinking. Hillary underestimated Obama, and I think many Republicans are too.
I think that perhaps Republicans need to begin to stray away from their personality attack style of campaigning. I just don’t think it’s going to work this time around. I think Obama has changed the terms of the debate.
Probably Dems don’t get it. But although McCain’s war experience makes him heroic, it doesn’t mean he will make a good president. BO message appeals to a more academic mind, but not necessarily to the hearts of a lot of Republicans.
There is a lot of fodder for BO out there, McCain practically admitted that the war in Iraq was actually over oil (yet he wants to continue sacrificing lives over it).
I do aggree with Jason though, I prefer BO terms of debate.
McCain is on record that the surge is working and the economy is fine. He can’t seem to tell Shia from Sunni and thinks we should stay in Iraq for 100 years. I half hope he gets in so the GOP can take the full blame for their disastrous policies. It might end them.
All Obama will have to do is smile sadly and shake his head.
Interesting viewpoint, but I think you conveniently forgot the great countermessaging tactics Republicans successfully waged against Kerry in 2004.
Kerry was nominated largely because, and spent the entire Convention proving, that he was a war hero. A genuine, bonafide war hero, with shrapnel still in his leg. He had the men on his boat on stage with him right before he gave his acceptance speech in Boston. That was in July.
Then in August, the Swiftboat attacks started, and Kerry was no longer the war hero. He was, instead, a French-looking effete nancy boy. He really didn’t do much in Vietnam, nor earn those medals. And it stuck. Kerry’s strongest point, that someone who served heroically should be Commander-in-Chief at a time for war, was completely abolished by the Right’s countermessaging. Fat women at the RNC in New York openly mocked him by wearing purple heart Band-Aids.
Kerry never ran on being a straight talker, on being consistent all the time. Sure, that’s what Bush ran on, and sticking the flip-flopper label on Kerry only made Bush stronger because it provided such a stark contrast.
But to point out the success of the flip-flopper label while ignoring the countermessaging success of the Swiftboaters is a case of selective memory.
Hey El,
The surge IS working. Only a complete idiot could look at the totality of the situation on the ground in Iraq and not see that as fact. Of course, that would require that someone be willing to do some research on their own, not rely solely on CNN and the NY Times for their informtaion while lazily parroting the left’s talking points.
Apparently, that doesn’t seem to describe you. But regardless of whether liberal idiots like you are willing to admit it or not, the surge has working, continues to work, and we & our Iraqi allies are winning this war. Perhaps not as neatly or as quickly as you and your fellow leftist trolls would like, but we are winning it.
Oh please, please, please let McCain follow Dan’s advice and run a campaign trying to convince Americans that the surge is working and we need more of it! Obama will win by a 10 point margin or more!
Last month had the highest casualties in over a year! Apparently ANYTHING can mean the surge is working! More casualties = surge working! Less casualties=surge working! Obviously the surge works because absolutely anything and everything means it’s working! The American people have finally figured out this shell game. A little late, but still.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq was the single biggest mistake ever made by any U.S. President, with no close second. McCain wants to continue the occupation indefinitely, perhaps for 100 years.
The economic policies of the Bush Administration have been catastrophic, with the debt reaching inconceivably massive proportions, the cost of gas 4 times what it was when he was first elected, and lowering of average incomes for most Americans for the first time in memory. McCain wants to continue those policies and says things are going pretty well.
McCain once said waterboarding was torture and immoral, then decided it was okay by him. He once said that Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans were unjust, but then decided they were fine by him.
Any claim he once had to independence long ago was sacrificed to the gods of being nominated by conservatives in the GOP primaries. He is just another political hack with his arms around Bush and justly deserves to be tarred with the Bush brush and run out of town on a rail, as he surely will be in November.
Oh Dan.
The surge was a 2 part process. I know this will confuse you, but try to follow along;
The reason behind the surge was to tamp down the killing so the Iraqis could move to a political solution. Well, the violence is not down and they are no closer to a political solution.
You see a political solution? Of course you do.
Anything but admitting that this is clearly the grandest of GOP fuck-ups by the Idiot Prince. Remove your lips from W’s ass and back away. You’ll see things clearer - well, probably not you as that would take a bit of thought and willingness to open your eyes.
Oh, and super job securing that Iraqi oil and protecting the dollar.
Highest marks all around.
You and the incompetents you worship are headed for history’s shithole. You’ll all be comfortably in your element as you’ve had your heads up your collective asses forever.
Actually what republicans underestimate is the susceptibility of the public to the media.
Your candidate wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years. That, “my friend,” will be enough to keep him out of the White House. The more the Republicans scream about the “unfairness” of holding McCain to his words, the more the Democrats will do it.
This isn’t about fracturing the Republican base. Only 30% of the country is Republican. It will be about holding the Democratic Party together, and reminding the independents that a vote for McCain is a vote for Bush’s third term.
Look at the recent special elections. The Republican Party is hated more than it has been hated since Nixon, and is on its way to being hated more than at any time since the early 1930s.
p.s.: The other thing the Democrats will be throwing in your candidate’s face is his pattern of giving different versions to different people.
At one point, Falwell is an agent of intolerance. Then McSame is buddying up.
At one point, McSame is against torture. At another point, he’s voting to do nothing about it.
At one point, McSame is opposing the Iraq War. At another point, he wants to be there for another 100 years.
This goes on and on and on with your guy. Either he’s a liar or he’s an addled old fool. And don’t start thinking that the old folks are going to be offended when Democrats mention McSame’s age. They, of all people, know that you don’t stick a doddering old fool into the presidency.
Oh, and just wait until your guy gets goaded into losing his temper. It’s going to happen, and it’ll be the final nail in his coffin.
The mistake of every losing candidate is to run against a person, and not to run on the issues. Hillary is making the mistake now, because she and Obama are identical on the issues, she loses. John McCain is a war hero, and ethical person, and percieved as a “maverick” in his party. The “Bush haters” are already voting Democrat. Their attcks will only strengthen McCain’s base and gain him sympathy. Look for Obama to lose if he follows this path.
#18, that’s the genius of linking McCain to Bush. (Which, by the way, will need no stretching or distortion to do.) It’s not a personal attack in the least. It’s entirely policy-driven.
McBush has said on several occasions that he wants the U.S. to be in Iraq for another hundred years. I think that’s a very fair issue for debate. He thinks the troop surge is a great thing. That’s fair game, too.
He doesn’t want to do anything about health care. Great! Have at it! How did he vote on handing over one-third of the Social Security Trust Fund to the banks, like Bush wanted to?
It’s hilarious to watch you people run away from your disaster of a president. You’re not going to get away with it. By November, your candidate will be known throughout this country as “John McBush.” And it will be fair game, because your candidate’s voting record will justify the label.
As for his being a “maverick,” his associations with telecommunications lobbyists are going to be right out there on the table, and so will his corruption in the Keating Five scandal.
The media love McBush, and they’ll continue to be a Republican asset. But the public despises your party and, even more, it despises your president. If you think that McBush is going to wriggle away from either his party or his president, those are smoke powerful mushrooms you’ve eaten.
By the way, have you noticed that, with all the nasty publicity about the Democratic nomination battle, McBush is still in the mid-40s in the polling? That’s without any Democratic campaigning against him. Oh, this is going to be fun.
p.s.: You do know, do you not, that your president has the highest negative polls ratings in American history? And that Republican party identification is lower than at any point in the last 15 years?
And that the Democrats have signed up several million new voters? And that, in most primary states, Democratic turnout was more than double Republican turnout even before McBush wrapped up the Republican nomination. And that, since he did so, fully 25% of Republicans in remaining primaries have nevertheless been voting for someone else, i.e., Huckabee and Ron Paul?
And speaking of Ron Paul, what do you think his 5-10% of your base is going to do in November?
“For all the left has done to move bodies and build infrastructure”……….WHAT?
The “left” hasn’t built squat. Get serious.
Mickey, just wait. On November 5th, you’ll be laughing just like me. Except in your case, you’ll be like the Kansas farmer found in delirium after the tornado had stripped his fields and blown away his house, his barn, and his windmill.
“How can you be laughing at a time like this?” he was asked.
“The completeness of it all!” the farmer answered.
1964, here we come.
Patrick Ruffini is engaging in some idiotically transparent “reverse psychology.” Watch as I Patrick Ruffini, self-style GOP digital impresario, kindly dispense advice to the Democratic Party. How stupid does he think Democrats are?
George W. Bush is one of the worst presidents in American history. John McCain has no significant policy differences with George W. Bush.
GWB = McCain.
It’s just that simple. It’s so simple, even the American people will be able to get it.
When Obama is President, I hope Ruffini gets an IRS audit.
I remember when PRuffini predicted that Ron Paul would lose his House seat. How’d that work out for you, anus?
chuckles Wrote: (5/10/08 9:59p)
—————–
…
GWB = McCain.
It’s just that simple. It’s so simple, even the American people will be able to get
it.
When Obama is President, I hope Ruffini gets an IRS audit.”
…
—————–
These (3) points are EXACTLY why the Democratic party almost died after 1994, and exactly why this ‘uptick’ in thier fortunes is temporary.
pt. 1 about McCain being equal to Bush is hilarious. Have you been asleep the last decade? Those two ran in a primary that makes your current Hillary/O’BUMma one look like a scruff at a make-believe tea-party for 3 year old girls! McCain is just being intelligent, in trying to shore up his base as much as possible — the same thing O’Bummer will have to do with Himmlery’s malaffected supporters come July.
pt. 2 shows you don’t respect “the American people”. (Who the hell are you anyway? French expatriot or something?) The truth is, you hate America. Ohhh…no..you are ok with America, you just hate everyone who lives here, who doesn’t agree with you…(sic!)
And finally, pt. 3 was just Democratic politics to ad nauseum..”When O’bum-mer gets into power, I hope he uses it to undermine everyone who disagrees with him.” Good grief! As a resident of both Chicago, and Cleveland, I am well aware of how ‘machine’ politics goes down. It has done both cities wonderful! Why, Chicago and cleveland have gained population in DROVES. (as it everyone wants to DRIVE the hell away!) It’s not like people have run away from both cities like rats fleeing a garbage fire or anything! (rolls eyes)
I hope he doesn’t take this approach. It could get him in the White House, but it would fuel the freakshow politics on the right. Obama has said he’s committed to minimizing the freakshow on both ends of the spectrum.
I may be naive and idealistic, but I hope that deploying a strategy that wins him no votes but undermines his opponent’s relationship with his base is beneath him.
It’s funny when the ‘wingers give “advice” to the Democratic candidate. It shows just how thoroughly frightened they are.
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