Moving beyond ‘optimism’

July 23, 2008

For the last generation or so — pretty much since Reagan — we’ve heard a lot of talk about presidential campaigns and the search for “optimism.” The “optimistic” candidate tends to win. Voters necessarily gravitate towards an “optimistic” vision.

Four years ago, the Bush/Cheney campaign took this notion quite literally, creating a television ad in which the president told voters, “I’m optimistic about America because I believe in the people of America.” An announcer added, “After recession, 9/11 and war, now our economy has been growing for ten straight months. The largest tax relief in history. 1.4 million jobs added since August. Inflation, interest and mortgage rates low. Record homeownership. John Kerry’s response? He’s talking about the Great Depression. One thing’s sure — pessimism never created a job.”

This year, it seems John McCain is trying something different. Forget “optimism”; McCain is going for “dour.” Slate’s John Dickerson labeled McCain the “Unhappy Warrior.”

McCain is attacking too much and indiscriminately. The barrage undermines his brand, takes time away from telling voters what he might do for them, and looks awfully old-timey in a year when voters want a new brand. […]

When he attacks Obama on tax cuts or energy, he sounds as if he’s phoning it in. Voters get nothing to grab onto or legitimately fear. For McCain, who likes to have fun campaigning, the negativity doesn’t look as if it’s all that fun.

Well, except when he has that strained, forced laugh. No, on second thought, that doesn’t look as it’s fun, either.

But reading over Dickerson’s piece, I kept thinking about that “optimism” meme the media has been so fond of in previous election cycles. And while McCain may very try to reinvent himself again before November, at this point, there’s nothing even remotely “optimistic” about McCain’s message. It’s a combination of fear, gloom, and dread, all wrapped up in an ugly and dishonest package.

Dickerson mentioned “McCain’s wild pitches.” That’s as good an analogy as any.

Off the top of my head, from just the last couple of weeks — since the “reboot,” when McCain brought in Rove’s team to run the operation — the wild pitches have been reckless and ubiquitous:

* McCain said Obama wants to raise middle-class taxes. (He doesn’t.)

* McCain said Obama is responsible for high gas prices. (He’s not.)

* McCain said Obama healthcare plan is socialized medicine. (It’s not.)

* McCain suggested Obama might be a “socialist.” (He’s not.)

* McCain said Obama was taking Maliki’s policy endorsement out of context. (He wasn’t.)

* McCain said Obama’s tax plan would hurt millions of small businesses. (It won’t.)

* McCain said Obama is deliberately ignoring the successes of U.S. troops in Iraq. (He’s not.)

* McCain said Obama actually wants to lose the war in Iraq. (He doesn’t.)

And, of course, he’s attacked Obama’s integrity, honesty, character, and patriotism. This morning, the McCain campaign even hinted that Obama is weak on genocide.

Which is why I think the “wild pitches” metaphor works. There’s no real coherent connection here among the increasingly ridiculous attacks. The point seems to be, “McCain hates Obama, and you should, too.”

Now, negative campaigning works. Voters say they hate it, but they don’t — they respond to it. McCain is, apparently, willing to go relentlessly negative, because he doesn’t have much else to say.

But it’ll be curious to see what happens if the media picks back up on the “optimism” meme. Which candidate is positive, and which is negative? Which has a message focused on hope, and which on fear? Which is optimistic, and which is pessimistic?

there’s nothing even remotely “optimistic” about McCain’s message. It’s a combination of fear, gloom, and dread, all wrapped up in an ugly and dishonest package.

In other words, it’s a typical Republican campaign.

  • Well, the Bush campaign had that “Wolves at the Door” ad to slam Kerry, too. Domestic optimism plus foreign fear is the right combination for electoral success, I guess. Xenophobia ftw.

  • If the corporate news media picks up on the ‘optimism’ meme, it will probably be to insist that Obama is negative and McBush is optimistic!

    McCain’s base (the corporate news media) has spent countless hours this week discussing how unfair the media has been treating McCrap.

    Steve – if you believe that there is such a thing as ‘an objective truth’, do you really believe that the corporate news media of amerika will widely apply it to discussions of McSame and Obama?

  • Voters necessarily gravitate towards an “optimistic” vision… negative campaigning works. Voters say they hate it, but they don’t — they respond to it.

    Oddly enough, those statements aren’t contradictory, because emotionally-based campaigning works.

  • What’s interesting to me is how the Rove team, once so perversely admired for sliming its way to election victory, seems to be misfiring all over the place. (Of course Rove’s brand was already wrecked in 2006 — “there’s THE math” — so this may be a prolonged collapse.)

    Since these people are all about projecting their own weaknesses on others, maybe McCain just has way too many weaknesses. Hit ’em where you’re weak!

    @beep52 #4: Good point.

  • Domestic optimism and fear of the ‘other’ is indeed the Rethug formula for success, and it’s time proven. “It’s morning again in America,” Reagan told us, and the country ate it up. Four years of Jimmy Carter’s “moral equivalent of war” (the Middle-East caused energy crisis), his cardigan sweaters, and speeches about national “maiaise” made Reagan look like Goody-Two-Shoes and Pollyanna all wrapped together.

    Even a servile, adoring, media is having a hard time making McSame look good. But people remember the negatives not the positives about a person, and that’s why negative campaigning works. Rethug propagandists are far better at their jobs than the Dim-Dems.

  • The “wild pitch” metaphor is too benign. I think lobbing grenades is more precise. Or perhaps scud missles. Toss it in the general direction and hope it hits something.

  • What scares me is not that Rove’s tactics will win McCain this election – they won’t – but that this scorched earth approach will poison our politics for years to come. That’s Rove’s true legacy: ruining political climates wherever he is. He’s done it every single time he’s consulted a campaign. So far, Obama appears nearly unscathed, but… give it a few months. I’ve a feeling we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The sooner Rove goes to jail, the better for us all. Ugh.

  • I really like these arrays of fact-points CB provides. They’re like ammo for me to shoot my mouth off at Republicans. CB is the Talking Points Meme-meister.

  • I think the media can try all they want to prop McCain up, but (and I hate to sound superficial) they’re stuck propping up a doughy, ill-looking, pale old man with really bad teeth. Old doesn’t have to be a liability, but in his case it is. He looks terminal; he doesn’t come across as a protective father figure; he’s not a spritely, charming older gentleman; he’s not a wise old intellectual. He has a history of a bad and unpleasant temper and he has a “military record that dares not speak its name.” The dime novel version of John McCain the media has sold for years is as the “maverick,” but in reality its always been pretty clear that he’s just an ill-tempered, reckless bully. Now that he’s actually going to be the nominee he’s withering under the glare. When he twists facts or does an about face he looks shifty. When he’s asked a tough question he goes blank and looks paniced. He looks more comfortable going on the attack, but in doing so he just looks mean and cheap. The ghastly smile after he attacks is as rotten as his teeth..

    I still say the debates will be alarming.

  • McCain is rmeminding me more of Bob Dole everyday. Dour, angry, with an entitlement mentality.

  • The point seems to be, “McCain hates Obama, and you should, too.”

    Bingo! JSMcC*nt has decided he doesn’t like and can’t trust Obama (their plans to sponsor a bill together fell apart) and thus, because any JSMcC*nt hates must by definition be evil, Obama must not be allowed to be elected President of the United States, even if the American People happen to agree far more with Obama’s policies than JSMcC*nt’s.

    Lying and cheating (Diebold, Senator McCain is calling) are just the necessary evils.

  • Stephen Colbert came up with a slogan for McCain that encapsulates this latest persona: “You’re old and nobody likes you.”

  • It’s true that McCain is attacking too much at this stage and some of the attacks are less than accurate. However, McCain is being attacked for wanting to keep soldier’s in Iraq for 100 years among other things. And that is taking what he said pretty far out of context. This stuff is happening on both sides. It always does.

    All this talk about Rove continuously on progressive blogs is tiresome. Rove is a person like anyone else. He can’t part the Red Sea. Candidates make arguments during the course of political campaigns and one of them ends up winning. Bush won in 2004 because on balance Americans thought he made better arguments than John Kerry. So, its no big surprise that Rovian apprentices are now helping McCain and not doing so good a job of it. The tide always turns. Democrats want this election pretty bad and are working hard for it. The GOP is falling on its sword after having been fat with success for the better part of 8 years.

  • Anyone who thinks Obama’s proposed policies won’t increase the burden on the middle class is deep in the cool-aid. He might not raise income taxes directly, but I can’t believe anyone seriously thinks we can ‘fix’ global warming and provide universal health care without it being a detriment to the median standard of living. He’s said as much in his SUVs and 72 degrees speech. That wasn’t exactly a beacon of optimism.

  • Joshspark, you must not be part of that middle class.

    For a great many Americans, health care costs are a huge burden, other than housing often the next largest annual expense (unless energy costs keep going up). Moving to a more rationale, economically equitable health care system would in fact give these families a better standard of living – both economically and in terms of health and the stress of worrying about health care.

    It would also likely help most business sectors create jobs. Where I work, health care costs to the company have increased more than 45% in the past 4 years. That is a huge hit to the bottom line; there is no rational reason why this burden is borne by businesses – that is an artifact of wage controls of an entirely different era.

    Speaking of jobs, “fixing” global warming will create a ton of them. Which also primarily help the middle class.

    But the concept you raise — that there are many “costs” other than direct income taxes that harm the middle class — is a very valid concept. For example, when Bush cut taxes, primarily for the wealthy but throwing the lesser classes a $300 bone, the federal government also cut numerous payments to states and cut college grant funding so state and local taxes, tuition payments, and the aforementioned health care costs all went up. As you suggest, these policies (and many, many others of Republican genesis) have acted like an invisible tax on the middle class, swamping any benefit of the piddly $300 rebate and materially harming their standard of living.

  • McCain looks like an old faccid penis held erect by a tight collar.

    I just want Obama to come down hard on the meme that McCain is pumping out there that Obama would rather lose a war and win an election. He should just look McCain straight in the eye and say, “Senator, are you accusing me of treason? Because that is what that would be!” The old bastard wouldn’t dare say “Yes” and the American people would see the slander for what it is…

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