Going local, going negative

August 21, 2008

When it comes to relentlessly negative campaigning, John McCain is setting a very high bar (or a very low bar, I suppose, depending on one’s perspective). We’ve seen attacks from the McCain gang in July that one might ordinarily expect from a 527 group in October. The low-road campaign has been ugly

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, dishonest, and shameful.

And the public has noticed.

By a nearly six-to-one margin, voters say Republican presidential candidate John McCain is running a negative campaign against his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Nearly three in 10 voters, 29%, pointed to McCain as the candidate running a negative campaign, compared to just 5% who said Obama is running a negative campaign. McCain’s 29% rating is the highest of any one candidate in the previous two presidential elections according to the WSJ/NBC News survey.

That’s quite a reputation McCain has earned for himself , and in this case, it’s well deserved. To be sure, McCain’s dishonest/negative attacks have had an effect, inasmuch as they’re weakened Obama’s support and increased his negative ratings. But at the same time, McCain’s ugly style of campaigning may have helped convince quite a few Americans that McCain fights dirty.

On the flip side, the Obama campaign has been far more subtle in its approach. It’s not that Obama has refrained from mixing it up, but rather that Obama is taking a harder-hitting message to local audiences, not national ones.

Indeed, some of the harshest advertising Obama has approved has aired exclusively in local markets.

Take this spot, for example, unveiled yesterday, which is running in Atlanta.

For those who can’t watch clips online

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, the ad links McCain to Ralph Reed and the Abramoff scandal. It might not work with a national audience, but it’s likely to be pretty effective in Georgia.

This is part of a broader strategy.

Senator Barack Obama has started a sustained and hard-hitting advertising campaign against Senator John McCain in states that will be vital this fall

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, painting Mr. McCain in a series of commercials as disconnected from the economic struggles of the middle class.

Mr. Obama has begun the drive with little fanfare, often eschewing the modern campaign technique of unveiling new spots for the news media before they run in an effort to win added (free) attention. Mr. Obama, whose candidacy has been built in part on a promise to transcend traditional politics, is running the negative commercials on local stations even as he runs generally positive spots nationally, during prime-time coverage of the Olympics.

The negative spots reflect the sharper tone Mr. Obama has struck in recent days on the stump as he heads into his party’s nominating convention in Denver next week, and seem to address the anxiety among some Democrats that Mr. Obama has not answered a volley of attacks by Mr. McCain with enough force.

“If you can go quietly negative, that’s what he’s done; I think the perception is that he’s still running the positive campaign,” said Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group of TNS Media Intelligence, which monitors political advertising. “It’s a pretty smart, high-low, good cop/bad cop strategy.”

Voters in Ohio hear ads about McCain and the controversial DHL deal. Voters in Nevada see ads about McCain and Yucca Mountain. Voters in the Rust Belt hear about McCain’s support for Bush’s economic policies.

Is all politics local? Obama clearly hopes so.

Obama is working to expand the playing field in places like Georgia (our Georgia, that is) and Virginia. It may not be a 50 state strategy yet, but it certainly is better than trying to win just 271 electorial votes.

So good on him.

  • The regional ads are a start, and with the ground game everyone keeps talking about, he’s going to have a shot at some key states.

    But Obama will be doomed if he doesn’t quickly find a way to speak to the emotions of swing voters, not just their minds. The McCain narrative is so strong to so many people that it makes him bulletproof to a lot of policy challenges. People like him, they like his story, and they’re willing to forgive a lot of things because of this. He’s a hothead? Hubba Hubba. He’s unfocused and forgetful? Hey, just like grandpa. He’s super rich and has 20 houses? Sweet, I wish I had that too. My idol.

    Obama needs a vicious street team of surrogates to methodically go after McCain on a personal level every day until the first week in November. He’s a liar. He’s a phony. Like Bush, he’s lazy and doesn’t even know his own positions. He’s living in 1968, not 2008. He’ll do anything to get elected. He’d sooner hire the worms who attacked his family than stand by his principles and personal integrity. He’ll do anything to get elected, just like George W. Bush.

    Obama himself can and should kick these themes off next week.

  • Next, go Biblical. Something New Testament. Something about loving Jesus, America and apple pies.

    Pluck a few heart strings, in a good way. End with a Norman Rockwellish scene with Barack and Michelle sitting around the fireplace with the kids, reading the Bible.

  • Eastern Pa. McCain ads are running 2 to 1 to Obamas.
    I would like to see more Obama ads, I hope he picks it up after the convention.
    The price of gas and offshore drilling is a big factor in PA. I think the Democratic message on this was poor.

  • It is a very good ad.
    I like the voice over.
    It is a departure from the normal slimy voices the dumb ad folks tend to think necessary.

    Steve Benen: …McCain’s ugly style of campaigning may have helped convince quite a few Americans that McCain fights dirty.

    You will need to convince me that is a bad thing.

    Are you sure that Americans don’t want someone who will do anything and say anything to win? Are you sure that Americans don’t equate that attitude with someone who will put the country ahead of all countries when the going gets tough?

    My perception of Kerry’s failing in 2004, was not so much that people questioned his Vietnam valor; rather, people wondered if Kerry does not vociferously defend the honor of his name, will he be there to defend the honor of his country?

    You’ve got to show the sheeple that you will defend yourself, and want the job bad enough, that you will fight even dishonestly, to get it.

    That’s where we are right now in the social psycho-dynamics….

  • As edr says, Hon. Sen. McCain is by far out advertising. I wonder if this 6:1 ratio is even more pronounced in the swings states that Senator McCain is targeting. This seems a potential problem form him.

  • When you have nothing, you create a referendum on your opponent rather than highlight your own achievements. McCain, to his credit has done a lot in his career but apparently nothing worth mentioning.

    Oh but he sets a fine table at a bar- b -q. And the sheep line up at the food trough.
    He’s more like Mr. Drummond than he is Mr. Smith.

  • The Obama campaign has got to get in the game and start scoring some hits. I am tired of hearing about their great ground game, changing politics, voters don’t pay attention in the sumer, blah, blah, blah. Gore and Kerry both lost their elections over the summer when they let Bush/Cheney/Rove define them and control the game. Obama is doing the same thing.

    I would love to be wrong. The latest poll results seem to be that Obama is losing support among Democrats and independents. Perhaps they are just tired of seeing him stand there like a punching bag.

  • Regarding McCain’s advertising ratios: It’s all he’s got. He has little to no ground support. He’s trying to win the war with air power and bypassing ground troops. It’s what the failed naval aviator knows. W won by combining sleazy Republican tactics with an effective ground game. McCain can’t afford/isn’t relying on a GOTV ground game. In a close election, GOTV makes the difference.

  • “Hire Hillary and turn Hill and Bill loose.” — Patrick

    If HRC would just stand up for all those principles she fought for for 100 years — and get behind Obama for real — Bill could keep on making money and vote for McCain.

  • ROTFL: you are on to something. Negative campaigning works despite all the polls and hand wringing and Republicans know this. Americans say they don’t like it but they respond to it. It’s mainly the punditocracy that tsks, tsks, and make the claim that Americans don’t like negative campaigning. That is bovine excrement!!!! McCain is an unstable hothead who will probably try to start a war with Russia. Well, folks, Russia actually HAS WMDs, thousands of them, and the means to deliver them. But that fool McCain is quite likely to set off a conflagration in which case, “pastor” Hagee’s support for McCain will have been justified. If I were the Dems I’d run the type of ad that LBJ ran against Barry Goldwater with the little girl picking flowers off daisies as mushroom clouds rolled by. LBJ’s ad was widely decried by the punditocracy but scared enough voters into to thinking Goldwater was a war mongering lunatic and LBJ he won a landslide. Ironically, the current Arizona senator running for office IS a war-mongering lunatic, far worse than Goldwater, and I was around and political active when Goldwater ran. For all their phony religious sanctimony, the Republicans are amoral and amoral people will do anything to win.

  • It’s good that voters are hearing about the DHL deal. Yesterday while calling for the campaign, I spoke to a lady in Wilmington OH, ground zero of the DHL scandal. She says she and her husband are lucky, since he works for AMX, the shipper that isn’t being outsourced. I asked about the Republican sentiments originally expressed by several of the DHL worker’s leaders. She told me that, one, those people are not the “leaders,” and that two, the workers were wondering what was going to be said by Obama about the situation. Now that they have heard from the Democrats, Republicans are unlikely to win in Wilmington. As she said at the end “Everybody in this part of Ohio knows who the bad guys are.”

    Hammering McCain on this and then presenting a positive ad about what Obama would do to help people would go a long way to “sealing the deal.”

  • A few points on this final day of TCBR:

    LSM: As I have been saying, WE are Obama’s ‘street surrogates.’ And I have a special suggestion to people who realize this. I have repeatedly linked to two articles on McCain, one from Military.com, one from MarketWatch — neither exactly an incredibly liberal site. Why don’t you print them out and send them — by snail mail — to any friends or relatives who are thinking of voting for McCain, or hand out copies at a neighborhood, family, or church gathering? (don’t e-mail them, except to people who know you and will not automatically disregard any political e-mails).

    For that matter, just wearing Obama t-shirts — or making your own anti-McCain shirts, getting custom t-shirts isn’t that expensive — and when people ask you why, explaining — loudly enough to bring other people into the discussion — is a useful tactic.

    RTThadeus: do you know the ‘daisy’ ad ran exactly once and was pulled — it was the first example of an ad kept alive by the press.

    But — as is frequently true — danimal has it best. The Republican GOTV (and their equivalent of ‘street surrogates’ was fueled by the RR Churches, which McCain doesn’t have — and won’t.

    For any people you know who tend to be ‘conservative Christians’ use Sturgis as an example of McCain’s poor judgment, and — this time e-mail IS a good idea — send them some of the videos available from there so they find out it wasn’t just a ‘topless’ contest that Cindy was ‘volunteered for’ — but one featuring full nudity and simulated sex. Depending how Conservative they are, simply asking them if they thought it was wise for McCain to be the ‘first and only’ candidate ever to choose to make a speech in front of these ‘drunken, fornicating’ bikers as the ‘opening act’ for Kid Rock might be effective. All of a sudden the ‘GOTV’ efforts there will turn into a wave of ‘DBTV’s — Don’t Bother To Vote.

    Also, if they are among the bigots that are in that community, point out that the four main choices for McCain’s VP that have been suggested include a Mormon (not really a Christian — and that really is true), a Catholic — Jindal — who has defended, in print, the ‘outside the Church there is no survival’ position most Catholics have abandoned, a gay man who is trying to sneak back into the closet after being all but officially out — Crist, and a pro-choice Jewish Democrat (and if your friends are Jewishk, use his support for Hagee — who even McCain abandoned).

    There are hundreds of arguments we can use. Only stop thinking that just sending a check and ‘preaching to the choir’ on blogs is sufficient.

    If a semi-hermit like myself, and a woman with Social Anxiety Disorder severe enough to get herself officially declared disabled, like my wife — one reason why I am a ‘semi-hermit’ — can get Obama t-shirts and start telling people why we support him, the rest of you can do a LOT more.

  • In 2004, the Bush campaign had a huge GOTV program. That program played a huge role in Bush’s “victory”.

    Yes, Obama will have a great GOTV of his own. But we are foolish if we ignore this probability: that the RNC will again raise ten of millions and match Obama’s program.

    I like the local negative ads but much more is needed. Please – run national ads that prove John McCain will do anything to be President. Show that McCain is a flip flopper, a liar, a (Keating 5) crook. Run his “Bomb Iran” song. Run clips showing his support for the Iraq war.

    Obama has just 10 weeks to convince the voters. Time is running out.

  • The Republican GOTV effort for Bush was feuled by the Religious Right. They aren’t so enthusiastic about McCain, to say the least, and — as i keep saying — we can help make them less so. They ‘talk among themselves’ so one serious convert to an anti-McCain position will lead to a lot more.

  • With nearly 27% of our American public school children being mentally challanged, we should not be surprised that their parents have let our country go down the drain. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time to raise a child with special needs, which leaves little time for politics. As for the other two thirds of the voters, we can only assume one third has been brainwashed by MSNBC and the other third is still fighting to get Hillary Clinton in office.

  • Pot or Kettle? Sleazy attacks are standard in politics — but hypocrisy is just flat out unacceptable. This notion that Obama doesn’t take the “low road” is complete crap. He’s desperately chasing McCain down the low road — only he gets a free pass from the media and his raving supporters.

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