Political parties and leaders sometimes need to be reminded not to believe their own press releases. It’s one thing to spin and exaggerate; it’s another to actually buy into your own exaggerated spin.
For example, Republicans in general, and Bush and McCain in specific, tend to seriously believe their strong suit is foreign policy and national security. It’s never been altogether clear how and why they came to see their weakness as their strength, but they’ve nevertheless concluded, with absolute certainty, that they own these issues, and can beat Democrats down just by bringing the issues up.
Michael Tomasky makes a compelling case today that the rules are starting to change, and last week’s dust-up over “appeasement,” Iran, and the Nazis was an encouraging sign of what’s to come. Tomasky noted Bush’s attack, McCain’s endorsement of the attack, and the Obama campaign accusing Bush and McCain of launching “a false political attack.” And then it got interesting:
Now here’s the important part. In the past two presidential campaigns, that’s where this would have ended. The Democrat “responded” for the record, but somewhat perfunctorily, while the Republicans got their point across: the Democrats are appeasers, the Democratic nominee wants to talk to terrorists and he won’t keep the country safe.
Game, set, match. This is how Bush built margins of trust with voters over Al Gore and John Kerry on national-security questions. Invoke appeasement of Hitler, toss in Israel’s safety: this is exactly the kind of thing that sent Gore and Kerry running for the hills. Even Bill Clinton, who knew better how to return a punch, would have tried to change the subject back to the economy.
But the current version of the story ends differently. Last Friday, in South Dakota, Obama gave an extended and aggressive press conference in which he hit back hard. Bush and McCain, he told Americans, “are trying to fool you. They’re trying to scare you. And they’re not telling you the truth.” He ticked off the lies that were told about Iraq and the benefits that would redound from making war there, noting that not one of the promises had come to pass.
How does this “change the rules”? It’s not just that Obama stood his ground — though that’s part of it — it’s also that Obama fought back on foreign policy and national security without trying to get hawkish on the subject.
Tomasky added:
After the Kerry loss of 2004, Democrats began to vow: we understand what happened. We’re not going to let ourselves get outboxed and intimidated next time around, especially on national security. There was every reason in the world to think this was an empty promise. If Hillary Clinton were the nominee, it wouldn’t be exactly empty, because the Clinton camp does know how to return fire. But it would be a dissatisfying thing for most Democrats to watch, because Clinton’s returns of serve would consist of hawkish statements designed to prove that she could be just as tough as the Republicans (witness her recent promise to “obliterate” Iran).
Obama is doing something altogether different. He is standing for an alternative vision of how America should operate in the world, and he is defending it tooth and nail. I’m not sold on the idea that negotiations without preconditions with hostile powers are the world’s best strategy. If the US had some leverage over Iran that might be one thing, but, in our current state, we have little. Still, this is one of those cases where the symbolic message of what Obama did last Friday is more important, for now, than the substance. He said: These people have screwed up foreign policy and security. I have a different way of doing things. And I’m not ceding an inch.
Indeed, I don’t watch and/or hear every Obama stump speech, but checking in on campaign coverage over the weekend, I got the sense that Obama wants to fight with Bush and McCain over foreign policy. This isn’t obligatory on his part, it’s a deliberate attempt to engage the Republican Party on its perceived strength.
[W]hile it may not be true that 99 percent of life is just showing up, Obama’s been showing us that showing up is a lot of it. There’s nothing really shockingly novel about what he’s been saying, it’s just that as someone who’s genuinely untainted by the failures of the past seven years he stands up and labels attacks on him continuities with the failures of the past seven years.
It’s not that clever, but it doesn’t need to be any more clever than that. George Bush has already handed the other side a huge dump of ammunition. And now there’s a candidate who’s ready to pick it up off the floor and shoot back. Shoot back, I might add, on point without shifting targets to the economy or veterans’ benefits or whatever else.
I genuinely believe Bush and McCain didn’t expect this. As far as they were concerned, Bush would take his cheap shot at the Knesset, and McCain would play the role of the president’s cheerleader. Obama would either try to change the subject or get into an extended discussion of why he’s not an “appeaser.” Either way, the GOP wins.
Except, that’s not what happened at all. Obama fought back, not just by rejecting the Bush/McCain rhetoric, but also by going directly after their foreign policy failures and the misguided worldview that makes our enemies stronger while undermining our national security interests.
McCain might want to check his receipt — I don’t think he “owns” his signature issues as clearly as he thought.