Way back in April, which seems like a surprisingly long time ago, Atrios had a prediction: “This election is going to be much much stupider than the last time. Last time much of the stupid was at least nominally about serious issues, this time it’s just all about the stupid.”
The last four months have made this prediction look pretty good.
I’m reminded of this WaPo column from E. J. Dionne Jr., published during the Democratic primaries.
This is supposed to be a big election, but it has given every sign in recent weeks of becoming a small one. As a result, the public and the media are showing signs of exhaustion with what had once been an exhilarating contest.
In big elections, voters know how much is at stake. They focus on central problems, not manufactured issues or the foibles of candidates. In big elections, such as those of 1968, 1980 and 1992, voters realize that they are deciding whether to move the country in a new direction.
In small elections, by contrast, voters sense that the outcome is unlikely to make much difference, though they (and the media) can be wrong about this.
I not only think this was (and is) right, I think it points to a deliberate strategy. The bigger the election, the more likely an Obama victory, because on the biggest issues — the strength of our economy, the intelligence of our foreign policy, the sanity of our environmental policies, the sensibility of our judiciary, the condition of our healthcare system — Obama is clearly, obviously, transparently right and McCain is wrong.
As Dionne noted, “The smaller this election looks, the easier it will be for the Republicans to run campaigns such as those they orchestrated in 2000 and 1988, in which the particular flaws of candidates take on an exaggerated importance.” The drive, Dionne added, is to “run this election through an Incredible Shrinking Machine.”
That was in April. It looks even more accurate now.
Kevin noted today:
…I suppose this is true of lots of presidential campaigns (anyone remember Quemoy and Matsu?), but it’s remarkable how this campaign is, so far, being driven by truly trivial events. Offshore drilling has been a big deal for weeks, even though it’s plainly an issue of almost no long-term importance at all. Obama’s “celebrity” is surely a winner in the all-time campaign trivia contest. And I’m willing to bet that a decade from now, far from being seen as the first step in reassembling Russia’s old empire, the Russo-Georgian war will be virtually forgotten, a tiny, weeklong border conflict over a couple of unimportant territories that had been in limbo for 17 years and were bound to blow up sooner or later.
Quite right. Hell, by the standards of this presidential campaign, the Russo-Georgian war has actually been a reasonably significant drop in a sea of nonsense.
This may sound like cheerleading, but all available evidence suggests Obama really wants to have good-faith discussions about the major challenges facing our future. Accordingly, he’s offered pretty detailed prescriptions in every major policy area. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Obama’s pitch has been pander-free, but by modern standards, he’s been setting the curve on substantive, high-minded campaigning.
And have we heard from McCain? When he’s not describing his own beliefs in vague generalities, he and his campaign are talking up celebrities (Britney Spears, Paris Hilton), tire gauges, and arugula. Today, the McCain campaign — I’m not making this up — even went after Obama for taking his shirt off on a beach. Trivial nonsense stacked on top of trivial nonsense.
I had, naively, expected a lot more, especially given the magnitude of what’s at stake. And yet, here we are.
The bigger the challenges, the dumber the Republican rhetoric. The more important the election, the smaller the Republican campaign.