Someone else made this point before I did, but it's worth recording for historical interest.
John McCain once suggested bombing Iran to the Beach Boys' song "Barbara Ann," and suggested that sending tobacco over there would kill Iranians faster.
If this were the candidate for the highest office of any other nation, advocating for death in a second sovereign nation that had not attacked the first, there would be outrage streaming forth from the American media.
Imagine Hugo Chavez getting away with it. Or Correa, Morales, Ortega, or Garcia.
A theory of discourse dependency theory, splitting us into the core and periphery?
This is a good time to post a link to the Venezuelan Sunday Extended Monologue.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Armchair quarterbacking for the Democratic nominee
The McCain campaign has thus far, as far as I can tell, failed to come up with a compelling narrative as to why the nominee of the incumbent party should win the office. The campaign, as reported recently in New York magazine, has to go negative against the Democrat because its own brand is tarnished.
The only compelling tagline of each of this week's ads has been the hanging question of whether Obama is "ready to lead." In some strange corner of conventional wisdom, the length of one's public service is directly proportional to one's fitness for the office. One can extrapolate multiple reasons why this is so; it's never explicitly clear. Knows foreign leaders on a first-name basis? Has handled crises before? Can locate countries on a map? Has a deeper understanding of issues? The most compelling reasons all seem to boil down to a formula where more experience produces better judgment.
My unsolicited advice to the Obama campaign is to run the same strategy against McCain that worked so well against Hillary. See here. Show that years of experience in Washington, D.C. does not improve one's judgment, does not make one a better decision-maker.
Sample script:
"John McCain has been in Washington for twenty-five years now. And yet his years in Washington haven't improved his judgment at all. (image of Keating Five)
After all those years, he voted with George Bush to attack a country that posed no imminent threat, based on faulty information and outright lies.
He voted with George W. Bush on policies W, X, Y, and Z. He supports the same policies that have failed us for eight years now. Years in Washington haven't taught him anything new." And so forth.
Removing the experience canard leaves McCain with only one fall-back position: he's not a scary, foreign-sounding, black, secretly Muslim, celebrity Other. Oddly enough, in American politics, that may be a strong message.
Small disclaimer: this message may only work for those with advanced mental capacity. It does nothing to address subliminal racism, the use of symbols and dog whistles, and other psychological warfare meant to stoke fear and division. So maybe it's doomed.
The only compelling tagline of each of this week's ads has been the hanging question of whether Obama is "ready to lead." In some strange corner of conventional wisdom, the length of one's public service is directly proportional to one's fitness for the office. One can extrapolate multiple reasons why this is so; it's never explicitly clear. Knows foreign leaders on a first-name basis? Has handled crises before? Can locate countries on a map? Has a deeper understanding of issues? The most compelling reasons all seem to boil down to a formula where more experience produces better judgment.
My unsolicited advice to the Obama campaign is to run the same strategy against McCain that worked so well against Hillary. See here. Show that years of experience in Washington, D.C. does not improve one's judgment, does not make one a better decision-maker.
Sample script:
"John McCain has been in Washington for twenty-five years now. And yet his years in Washington haven't improved his judgment at all. (image of Keating Five)
After all those years, he voted with George Bush to attack a country that posed no imminent threat, based on faulty information and outright lies.
He voted with George W. Bush on policies W, X, Y, and Z. He supports the same policies that have failed us for eight years now. Years in Washington haven't taught him anything new." And so forth.
Removing the experience canard leaves McCain with only one fall-back position: he's not a scary, foreign-sounding, black, secretly Muslim, celebrity Other. Oddly enough, in American politics, that may be a strong message.
Small disclaimer: this message may only work for those with advanced mental capacity. It does nothing to address subliminal racism, the use of symbols and dog whistles, and other psychological warfare meant to stoke fear and division. So maybe it's doomed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
