When huge stakes meet a small campaign
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.
NonyNony
says:When the Republicans have no solutions to offer, and their own governing philosophy is the source of at least half of the problems we’re in right now, what would you expect? They NEED to make this an election about “anything-but-the-issues” or they will lose.
I’m expecting it to get much, much worse before election day. Much worse. And it will be enabled (perhaps even driven) by our vapid and somehow-getting-more-useless-everyday rotting press corpse in DC, who seem to want to turn every single goddamn election into a battle over who gets to be the Homecoming King.
Michael W
says:I saw the picture in this morning’s paper, but not that headline.
Hell, how can you visit Hawaii and not go body surfing?? Even when I was living in south Florida, I loved going to Hawaii. They have much better “surfing” conditions.
And NonyNony, I agree. I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Dale
says:In a sense Republicans are post-moderns, trivializing all seriousness, makin everything self-refential, ridiculizing their “Hero” and denying the truly high-minded effort of Obama. They do tarbaby politics.
Dale
says:I think Nixon set the standard for beachwear. Wingtips and black socks at the beach.
Dennis-SGMM
says:McCain in particular and Republicans in general desperately need this election to not be a referendum on the Bush years. They are equally desperate in their need to keep the presidency out of the hands of the Democrats. Expect much more character assassination, ad hominem attacks, distractions, distortions, outright lies, terrorism alerts and saber rattling before this is over.
doubtful
says:Today, the McCain campaign — I’m not making this up — even went after Obama for taking his shirt off on a beach.
I think it would be more noteworthy if Obama went body surfing without taking his shirt off. But McCain’s attack team probably had a script ready to go for that, too.
Stevio
says:Small minds engage smallish ideologies. Americans are so awfully stupid that they can be swayed to vote for a nincompoop who tells them that the “opponent” is a celebrity and for no other reason than that, therefore is unable to lead, never mind he has good ideas and is willing to compromise if necessary. Americans are so awfully shallow that they would rather vote for a guy who lies to them about things like how off shore drilling will save their retirements while plotting to eliminate their Social Security, so awfully complacent that that they’ll listen to some jerk call them a bunch of “whiners” because the are feeling poorer than they were eight years ago and not demand his head, have another call them “un-American” if they think differently than the neo cons who have run this country into the ground, they’ve become so stupid that they’ll vote to put into place leaders who remove their civil rights, support leaders who tell them that torture is ok, that Attorneys General’s aren’t supposed to uphold the law of the land, that It’s much more important to put up walls between our borders than to think of a rational way to include those willing to scale those walls to work, have become so superficial that American Idol (read: idle) is better to watch than Kieth Olberman who may well be the last bastion of reasonable TV left to watch when it comes to reality politics, and on and on and on. “My friends” we are 12 weeks away from an election whose candidates can’t be farther apart ideologically and yet 43% of the population are undecided about which way they want the country to go. 43 friggin’ %. jesus H. christ! How can they be that stupid! But, they are, and here we are. Playing small ball when the game will be over unless someone sends one over the center field wall. Playing small ball to move a runner over to second when the country desperately needs a grand slam to turn the neo con boat around to a semblance of sanity. My fear is that this country’s going to elect Casey to come to the plate, and not Ruth…
NHCt
says:Michael W clearly doesn’t understand proper etiquette. At the beach, the modern man wears a one-piece suit, preferably black-and-white-striped, an onion hanging from his belt and a straw hat on his head. Anything less is uncivilized.
phoebes in santa fe
says:Well, if that’s true, then it’s incumbent on Obama to expand the focus of the election as much as possible.
This election – 2008 – is one of the most important in US history. It may indeed tell the future of this (once great) country.
Keori
says:The conditions at Sandys were only 2-3 feet yesterday. We’re supposed to get a small out-of-season north swell this weekend.
More about Sen. Obama’s trip in today’s Honolulu Advertiser.
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080815/NEWS05/808150364/1001
The comments section was pretty telling…here’s a beauty:
“I believe the press has more serious matters to cover at the moment like war in Georgia. Sen. Obama should be spending more time on that rather than swimming.
What about our ACTUAL president? Shouldn’t he be the one who is paying attention? He just spent a week at the Olympics, and he’s following it up with a month at the ranch in Crawford. Instead, Bush has taken more vacation than any other president in history, including:
Attending 95 sports-related events.
74 trips to his Crawford ranch, for a total of 466 days.
142 trips to Camp David, for a total of 450 days.
Attending 327 fundraising events for Republican candidates and causes.
Think this is no problem?
When he was in Crawford before 9/11, Bush ignored an infamous memo about an impending bin Laden attack.
In 2005, Bush brushed off warnings of Hurricane Katrina while at the ranch.”
jimBOB
says:The GOP owns the press, so the campaign you see there will be the one the GOP wants, focusing on trivialities and distraction. Among the many challenges facing the country is dynamiting the much-worse-than-useless corporate media. I’d put it up with (maybe even ahead of) the environment, peak oil, the deficit, the destruction of the Bill of Rights and the takeover of the judiciary by rightwing authoritarian theocrats.
hark
says:I agree with the premise, and once again the Republicans could win because they are framing the campaign in their terms. The Democrats simply don’t know how to fight. Not since the beginning of the depression have they been so well positioned, and yet the Republicans have once again pulled the rug out from beneath them and left them rolling helplessly on the floor, mired in a race of trivialities. What the hell is wrong with these guys?
Unfortunately, the American people are incapable, by themselves, of drawing the proper conclusions about the Bush years: that Reaganomics has failed, that the YOYO, social Darwinism experiment has eaten away at the great middle class, that Republican ideology is as empty as it is wrong. Instead, they see Bush as a failed president and little more. They just don’t get it, and they won’t get it the way the Democrats are performing.
I disagree with one example that Kevin provides:
“. . . 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.”
Oh how wrong he is. This is a crucial turning point for this country, and the Democrats surrender on the drilling issue (appeasement, anyone?) will severely set back plans for alternative energy development. The last thing we need is to encourage the oil companies to plow billions of profits back into drilling for more oil when they should be forced to invest in alternatives. We must break our addiction to oil, and our pandering ways to Big Oil.
The Democrats royally flubbed this opportunity to engage the public in a quest for real change. How could they blow it? For months Obama has been the agent of change, but when it comes to the biggest issue of all, where change is so desperately needed, the Democrats have fallen down. It’s a disgrace.
Imagine losing to a 29% president going for a third term. It’s unbelievable. How can they be this inept?
beep52
says:“Well, if that’s true, then it’s incumbent on Obama to expand the focus of the election as much as possible. This election – 2008 – is one of the most important in US history. It may indeed tell the future of this (once great) country.” — phoebes in santa fe
Abso-friggin-lutely!
Considering the disloyalty of many elected Democrats and nearly all elected Republicans over the past 7+ years, it’s a bit early to tell whether it’s too late to reverse the progress of the Right in tearing down our liberal institutions and heritage. So, whether this is a “big election” or a “small election” seems to come down to whether it’s too late or not, and how much passion liberals bring to changing the course of the nation. The thing is, we won’t know unless Obama is elected and true liberalism, with it’s messy reality and respect for reason, is given a shot.
If the Right has already achieved a lock on governance and the American mind — through an effective propaganda machine, a complicit media, corporate alliances, corruption of the Judiciary and the elections, an unaccountable executive increasingly defined as CIC, a castrated Congress and a bureaucracy filled with true believers — we’re screwed, and this will indeed be a small election. Considering how “well” McCain is doing in the polls, one has to wonder.
If, on the other hand, it’s NOT too late AND Obama can shake the public into realizing they’ve been had, MAYBE this can be a big election. I certainly hope so, for the sake of our daughter and her generation, and humankind as a whole.
Still, it’s an unfair, if not impossible burden to place on one man. Obama can frame the dialogue, but the American public needs to take responsibility for the way they have allowed themselves to be duped — and stop allowing it to happen. As one reader noted today on this site, this is not an election for Homecoming King. It’s an election to choose the leader of what was until recently the most powerful nation on the planet, founded on the most powerful of ideas: that everyday citizens had the power, the ability and the inalienable right to determine their own futures.
I can’t say for certain whether Obama, once elected, will be any better than the Dems who have been complicit in the rightward shift of the USA. I am convinced that his election is our last, best chance to find out short of a revolution or admission of defeat.
If McCain is elected, the America of 2012 will bear even less resemblance to the grand notions upon which this country was founded, and for which so many have given so much. We may learn that democracy is ultimately untenable.
SF
says:Maybe I read selectively, and we all do to some degree, but I think that this is a HUGE election, that the majority of voters get that, and that they are dismissing — along with other lazy, unfocused, blurry things that pop up in the dog days of summer — all the piffle and sleaze the Republicans are digging up. Obama’s statements and ads have substance and stand above the “competition,” and he’s got money and plenty of exposure, and that’s what (despite the old traditional media, which really does seem in the bag for McC, either because of its bosses or because Obama is, not, uh, white even if they would never admit that even to themselves) will matter. YEs, let’s worry, always, and take nothing for granted, but I think the quality of the candidates is coming across, and this is a big election for so many reasons, and voters know it. Proof: look at this blog and hundreds of others. EVERYBODY is watching, hearing something.
SadOldVet
says:The stupidity of all of this is not limited to the McCreep campaign. Per RawStory.com, CNN has a segment on about McLiar’s ad ‘causing a web debate’. The crawler, under video of Obama, reads “OBAMA THE ANTICHRIST?”
The corporate media will surely stay ‘neutral’ throughout the election season. Of course, neutral means they will not call McCrap on his campaign’s lies.
Thus, probable segments for CNN/MSNBC/Fox must include such as:
– ‘Is Obama the Anti-Christ or is it just that some people believe that he is?’
– ‘Obama campaign denies he is the antichrist – religious leaders say they are not sure’
– ‘Religious leaders discuss if the antichrist will come in the person of an uppity n*gg*r’
Bruno
says:Please take a moment and sign the petition to try to stop the Obama attacks happening on Fox News. It’s worth your time. The more signatures, the more push they’ll feel.
Bravenewfilms is posting videos of all the Fox lies, and you can help them.