{"id":15437,"date":"2008-05-05T14:45:02","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T18:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15437.html"},"modified":"2008-05-05T14:45:02","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T18:45:02","slug":"why-the-moral-equivalences-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/why-the-moral-equivalences-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the moral equivalences matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on an earlier item<\/a>, a couple of pieces that ran over the weekend have drawn considerable buzz in Democratic circles — Steve Chapman’s piece<\/a> noting John McCain’s relationship with G. Gordon Liddy (contrasting it with Obama knowing Bill Ayers), and Frank Rich’s piece<\/a> noting McCain’s relationship with John Hagee (contrasting it with Obama and Jeremiah Wright).<\/p>\n

The Politico’s Jonathan Martin argues<\/a>, in response to the two items, Dems are barking up the wrong tree.<\/p>\n

By establishing moral equivalence, or at least harnessing McCain in his own baggage-by-association, the suggestion is seemingly that Obama’s ties (real or perceived) won’t look so frightening.<\/p>\n

In short, the lesson from the ’04 campaign seems to be to outswift the Swift boaters.<\/p>\n

But such an offensive ignores what has made Obama so uniquely susceptible to the Wright-induced damage: He’s a virtual unknown to the country. McCain, by contrast, is something approaching a household name. Voters may not know much beyond the basic sketches of his biography, but that is the point — his personal identity is established.<\/p>\n

And McCain wants to run on character. Given his life story and brand, it makes perfect politcal [sic<\/i>] sense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reasoning doesn’t quite work for me. <\/p>\n

The point of establishing moral equivalences is three-fold. First, Dems want to “cancel out” the charges — Obama knows some controversial figures; McCain has sought and accepted support from some controversial figures, too. Second, Dems want to highlight the often-stunning media imbalance, in which one side is exempted from the guilt-by-association game entirely. And third, there’s the obvious hypocrisy angle — McCain wants to make Wright and Ayers a campaign issue, but wants us to ignore the right-wing log in his own eye.<\/p>\n

Martin assumes McCain’s identity and brand make this exercise pointless. I think the opposite is true.
\n
\nOn the notion that McCain is “approaching a household name,” for those of us who are engaged in the political process, that’s certainly true. But let’s not forget that most Americans are not especially well informed when it comes to politics.<\/p>\n

Take the NYT\/CBS poll<\/a> released this morning. Respondents were asked, “Is your opinion of John McCain favorable, not favorable, undecided, or haven’t you heard enough about John McCain yet to have an opinion?” Nearly one in five voters (19%) said they were undecided about McCain, and an additional 14% said they haven’t heard enough yet. That’s a combined 33% — one-third of the country — who isn’t quite as familiar with McCain as most of us are inclined to assume.<\/p>\n

As for Martin’s point that McCain “wants to run on character,” that’s certainly true. But why not, then, let voters know about some of his inexplicable outreach to hateful and scandalous figures, perhaps undermining McCain’s principal personal pitch? McCain cares about his “brand,” but shouldn’t Dems take this opportunity to point out the ways in which the brand-name is something of a sham? Especially since the media won’t?<\/p>\n

Martin concluded:<\/p>\n

[T]here is another reason Republicans would welcome a chance to make this race about John Hagee vs. Jeremiah Wright: It diverts the focus from an incumbent president and party that have approval ratings south of the Mendoza line.<\/p>\n

If Democrats, spurred by the emotion of the moment and fury at Wright, bite at the forbidden fruit of a character race instead of focusing on Bush, Cheney, a looming recession, an unpopular war, mortgage insecurity and $4-per-gallon gas, you’ll have a good sense of why they have lost seven of the last 10 presidential races.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This strikes me as pretty compelling — I’d much rather talk about McCain following Bush’s script on Iraq and the economy than McCain and G. Gordon Liddy — but isn’t there room in a presidential campaign for more than argument?<\/p>\n

It seems to me the pitch can go something like this: McCain is a 72-year-old neocon who agrees with Bush on every issue that matters, is easily confused about current events, has a hot-head temperament, has trouble with the truth, has no new ideas, and hangs around with a motley crew of right-wing nuts and religious fanatics. Why limit the case to one criticism?<\/p>\n

As for the fact that Dems have “lost seven of the last 10 presidential races,” I’d just note that the Democratic candidate has won more votes than the Republican candidate in three of the last four presidential elections. Based on the current landscape, it’ll soon be four of the last five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on an earlier item, a couple of pieces that ran over the weekend have drawn considerable buzz in Democratic circles — Steve Chapman’s piece noting John McCain’s relationship with G. Gordon Liddy (contrasting it with Obama knowing Bill Ayers), and Frank Rich’s piece noting McCain’s relationship with John Hagee (contrasting it with Obama […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}