Leading article: Mud-slinging to little effect
Friday, 10 October 2008
In this most unconventional of US elections, now overshadowed by a financial crisis for the ages, an ancient truism of presidential politics is being overturned. John McCain is finding out that negative campaigning, a guaranteed winner for Republicans in elections past, is simply not working as it should in 2008.
Over the past few days, the Republicans have stepped up their efforts to portray Barack Obama as some kind of hostile alien in America's midst. Mr McCain's running-mate, Sarah Palin, accuses the Democrat of "palling around with terrorists", while Republican campaign events now question Mr Obama's policies less than his patriotism, honesty and basic fitness as a human being. In a sense, you can't blame them. The economic crisis has transformed the election, pushing national security concerns like Iraq and the genuine terrorist threat out of the headlines.
Mr McCain's greatest strength has thus been rendered all but useless. Voters are fixated on the issues of jobs, wages and savings, where Democrats always have a large, in-built advantage. Nor does it help that Mr McCain, who by his own admission is no economic expert, visibly flails for answers, changing his policies daily with no sign that he is in touch with the desperate anxieties of voters.
Faced with such difficulties, the Republicans have understandably tried to change the subject, as they did to devastating effect against Michael Dukakis in 1988 and John Kerry in 2004. In similar circumstances, the black arts of politics would probably work today. An image would be sealed of Mr Obama as callow, shady, unpatriotic and somehow "different" – in other words black. This time, however, such character assassination comes across as petty and irrelevant compared to the real problems facing not just America, but individual citizens.
Despite his current lead, an Obama victory is not certain. In 1980, it was only in the final days of the campaign that the tide turned irrevocably against Jimmy Carter, as voters found themselves comfortable with the challenger Ronald Regan. An equivalent moment in 2008 has not yet arrived. But if Mr McCain is to win, it will not be by slinging mud.
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McCain has stooped to mud slinging, but the outcome
only leaves him with dirty hands.
Posted by warrior dowager | 11.10.08, 16:42 GMT
Negative ads in the US can shift a result but only if you're talking about a margin of 2-3 pts difference in the opinion polls.
The lead Obama has over McCain is simply too large. For all the corruption, problems in Iraq, cronyism, domestic spying and torture two things have set the conservative base against the current Republican leadership.
The first was Katrina. The ineptitude of the US government to protect it's own people from the aftermath of a natural disaster was an eye opener for all Americans. They finally understood that the current administration put the pocket books of their cronies above the safety of the US population.
The second is the current deficit. The Republicans inherited a stable stock market, $150 billion budget surplus, low unemployment and replaced it with a multi trillion dollar deficit, high unemployment and the largest government spending in the history of the US.
This more than anything else was seen as betrayal of conservative values.
Posted by Andrew | 10.10.08, 19:15 GMT
"It is almost as if Palin is inciting an assassination before election day."
It's almost as if...? Explain.
Obama should watch his back from within his supporters who will try and make a martyr to compensate for his ineptness.
Posted by Tyke | 10.10.08, 15:21 GMT
Lee Atwater introduced the idea of win at any cost to Republicans and they have played dirty ever since>I am aghast at the smearing vileness of personal attacks on Obama .It is almost as if Palin is inciting an assassination before election day.It is a total disgrace and has brought out the worst, mean, racist bigoted inbred hatreds of some American "yob culture" .
As for McCain I understand he was busy shooting innocent women and children when captured.Some "hero". I am sick of hearing about it as it is so irrelevant right now.
Posted by Duncan MacGregor | 10.10.08, 15:06 GMT
Obama taught Alinsky tactics in Chicago when he was a "community organiser". Tactics that were bread and butter to the Chicago radicals. That means using personal attacks rather than attacks on institutions and ridiculing your opponent.
Suddenly, it's the Republicans who are the archmasters and the Democrats are conducting a constructive campaign.
Posted by Tyke | 10.10.08, 11:32 GMT
McCain "knows how to win wars, how to fix the economy". Shame he didn't know how to avoid incoming fire. Would have saved us years of POW stories. Does the man have no shame. What happened to quiet modesty. The true VOLUNTEER heroes from WW2 who rose up to serve their country in the hour of need rather than slavishly follow in their daddy's footsteps. And when they returned, they marched on Remembrance day, and stood testament that "war is hell". McFake is a baldy old windbag. Apologies to baldies (including myself).
Posted by paulo | 10.10.08, 03:24 GMT
One flaw in the analysis. McCain cannot achieve a moment that is "equivalent" to Reagan's in 1980, because he is carrying an albatross that no reasonable person can be comfortable with, and because she can only sling mud which, as you say, will not win the election for McCain. That albatross, of McCain's own chosing, is Governor Palin, and her rabble-rousing, ignorant, hate-mongering ranting will forever stain McCain's public record. It's kind of sad, but it's true.
Posted by caldwell young | 10.10.08, 02:27 GMT
One flaw in the analysis. McCain cannot achieve a moment that is "equivalent" to Reagan's in 1980, because he is carrying an albatross that no reasonable person can be comfortable with, and because she can only sling mud which, as you say, will not win the election for McCain. That albatross, of McCain's own chosing, is Governor Palin, and her rabble-rousing, ignorant, hate-mongering ranting will forever stain McCain's public record. It's kind of sad, but it's true.
Posted by caldwell young | 10.10.08, 02:26 GMT