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The Palin Strategy
#120 - 0--spud--The Palin Strategy--2008-09-08 08:40:58
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A successful election strategy is about
two things: getting your voters to the polls on election day, and
demoralizing or diminishing the voter base of your opponent.
As a veteran of a congressional campaign where I served as the
speechwriter and Issues Committee Chairman for a successful candidate,
I had a rare opportunity to bring theory (my academic training) and
real-world practice together, and learn what it truly took to elect an
individual to national office.
I’ve been reminded of so many of those
lessons these past few days by watching John McCain select, and then
introduce, Sarah Palin to the American electorate.
A successful election strategy is about two things: getting your
voters to the polls on election day, and demoralizing or diminishing
the voter base of your opponent. This seems to be a simple enough
statement, but first we need some definitional details and common sense
acknowledgements before we can draw any real insights for the 2008
election.
Energizing the base
You can’t energize your base unless you have a candidate who appeals to and embraces their core interests.
In the case of McCain-Palin, that candidate occupies the #2 spot.
McCain’s “maverick” status has given enough people heartburn to
question where he actually stands on immigration, tax reform, and a
number of other conservative issues. McCain, by himself, can’t do the
job, and normally this would spell doom for the ticket. But these
aren’t “normal” times, and thus we see the significance of the Palin
nomination.
McCain’s problem is his media-hyped reluctance to associate himself
with core conservative issues. I say media-hyped, because unless
you’re a party insider or know McCain personally, most of what we
understand about him has been filtered through the liberal press or
conservative talk radio. McCain is a conservative at heart, or a
conservative on occasion, depending upon the issue and who’s doing the
reporting.
For example, a case can be made that he initially opposed Bush’s tax
plan just to take a swipe at the guy who beat him “unfairly” in the
2000 North Carolina primary. McCain has a long memory for those who’ve
done him wrong, and he’s not above sticking it to them whenever he
can. This makes him a political opportunist at worst, or a
fair-weather conservative at best.
On the other hand, I can also maker a case that “maverick” John
McCain really believed that the Bush tax plan had key deficiencies, and
in good faith couldn’t support that particular piece of legislation.
Had the plan been tweaked, McCain would have fallen in line behind the
President as he has on other important issues. This makes him a
principled conservative; a man willing to do the right thing, even when
it initially gives him bad publicity.
So, what’s the truth here? Damned if I know, which is why I and
countless others fumed over his primary success, and chaffed at the
notion that he would become the 2008 Republican Party standard bearer.
The best I, and I suspect many others, could do to comfort ourselves
was acknowledge that either McCain or the Democrat nominee stood any
realistic chance of getting elected. McCain vs. Hillary or McCain vs.
Obama led to the same decision:
I’d rather have a guy who’s a fair
weather conservative overseeing national defense, nominating key
judges, helping define tax policy, and making other critical decisions
than a left-wing former Community Organizer or the self-possessed wife
of a disgraced former president.
Any other vote would be meaningless in electoral terms. Symbolic
gestures are great when the consequences are nil. As much as I think
the last speeding ticket I got was unfair, I didn’t tear it up in front
of the cop’s face in a grand symbolic gesture, then toss it onto the
street.
In addition to the fine I’d get for littering, at that point
I’m sure he’d take a much closer look at whether my car was completely
roadworthy, or whether I’d committed any other infractions in addition
to exceeding the speed limit.
In short, that symbolism has real world
consequences, much like writing in the name this November of a failed
Republican candidate, or pulling the lever for a guaranteed losing
third party. Neither action will help you win any political power, and
may possibly help elect your opponent as the Nadarites in Florida found
out in 2000.
And so, I was prepared to vote against Obama and not for McCain.
Yes, the end result is the same as casting a vote for McCain, but this
observation fails to recognize the importance of the process leading up
to that vote. Pulling the lever for Candidate X guarantees a vote for
Candidate X, but it doesn’t guarantee that you will contribute to his
campaign (thus helping him publicize his message to increase his
overall vote), volunteer your services, defend him when he’s attacked
by others around the office water cooler (and in so doing perhaps
bolster the resolve of a sagging voter within earshot), or do any one
of the myriad other things necessary to actually win an election.
McCain, himself, was not capable of energizing his base. Romney,
Pawleny, Huckabee, etc. as his choice for Veep would have helped, but
helped in the way an extra bucket or two bails water from a damaged
boat to keep it afloat. Their addition on the ticket would have
stabilized the damage, but not necessarily repaired it.
Then, along came Palin. Young, dynamic, ideologically conservative
and an accomplished executive; in short, the epitome of the next
generation Conservative politician. Oh, and she’s a woman too. (Note
to file: gender for Conservatives is the icing on a delicious cake.
For the Left, it is the cake.)
Then, along came the attacks on Palin by the sanctimonious Left.
She was condemned for being a bad mother who had too many children
(period), who had too many children including a special needs child who
she didn’t abort, for never really having a special needs child at all
(she was covering for her white trash daughter), for not enough
Washington exposure (as if that’s a bad thing), for having bad hair,
for having supported candidates and parties she never actually
supported or joined, for having an affair with her husband’s business
partner that he denied and she denied and there was no evidence anyway
— but it made a good story; for her husband’s DUI (20 years ago; about
the same time Obama was snorting coke by his own admission), and for a
bunch of other equally vicious rumors and innuendo disguised as facts.
The assault on Palin’s intellect and character was relentless. And
remember, all this took place within the first 24-48 hours under the
guise of the mainstream media “just doing its job.” The only charge
that wasn’t made was a quasi-believable one. Sometime in the early
sixties Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher met for a romantic weekend
and conceived a child who, four decades later, was selected by John
McCain to be his presidential running mate.
When Palin failed to live up to that image during her acceptance
speech at the Republican convention, all these attacks had the
precisely opposite effect. Rather than diminish her, they elevated her
in the minds of the base and the population at large. Whatever McCain
is or isn’t, Palin represents the wave of the future. She’s had more
political sh*t thrown at her in four days by the mainstream press and
their kook allies than Obama has had to field in the last 36 months.
Not only did she weather the crisis, she threw the excrement back in
their collective faces.
The conservative base is energized because as the next vice
President of the United States, Palin is uniquely positioned to succeed
McCain in office. Should McCain lose in 2008, she’s already the
frontrunner for 2012 (can you say Palin-Jindal?) Whatever McCain is or
isn’t at his core, Palin “is.”
The Republican Party and its conservative base are pumped. The
media, having shot its wad and lost “big time,” does not have enough
days left between now and November 4 to recover their lost credibility
sufficiently to mount another successful smear. Any demeaning
information — even if it contains an element of truth — will be looked
at with suspicion by the base and the general public.
The only
effective enemy Sarah Palin has now is herself. If she drools, or
faints, or says something so egregiously stupid during the campaign or
debates that it cannot be explained away, the positive image she
presents today will be diminished.
Unfortunately for the press and Obama, from what I’ve seen in the last couple of days, that is not likely.
Demoralizing your opponentsAnd so we get to the second part of the electoral equation: suppressing the vote of your opponents.
To the Left, this means disqualifying candidates (as Obama did
throughout his political career to run virtually unopposed), preventing
your supporters from actually voting (as Gore tried to do with the 2000
military absentee ballots in Florida), and generally smearing your
political enemies to demoralize their base (the last minute Bush DUI
revelation in 2000; the Dan Rather phony draft dodging story in 2004;
the Sarah Palin attacks in 2008).
It doesn’t mean observing actual
election law which prevents hanging, dimpled or semi-aborted chads from
being counted, insisting that only US citizens and registered voters
actually be allowed to vote, or questioning the motives of the
hyper-partisan mainstream media as it seeks to destroy a candidate.
“Suppressing the vote,” as practiced by the Right, means pointing
out legitimate things that will cause your opponent’s potential voters
to lose enthusiasm for their candidate.
Things like, how he votes to
treat children who survive a botched abortion; the political philosophy
of the advisors and supporters he surrounds himself with; the choices
he makes to seek spiritual guidance from a pastor who thinks the US
government invented AIDS and deliberately infected the black
population; how he actually financed the purchase of his home; what he
actually did/didn’t do (as opposed to pontificate about) when in office
— and other legitimate issues.
Suppressing the vote can also involve picking the strategically
correct candidate. Obama tried to do this with Biden, hoping to
silence the critics who claimed that he (Obama) was too inexperienced
to be president, and thus give independents and moderate Republicans a
reason to vote for “hope and change.” Unfortunately for Obama, Biden
is the ultimate Washington insider, and a bit of a loose cannon, who
has done little to boost Obama’s standing in the polls. It only took a
few moments after his nomination was announced for the Biden
“Gaffe-o-meter” to start going off as the man who survived two brain
aneurisms pledged his support to “Barack America.”
McCain has played this game too this by picking a woman, which
touches the very heart and soul of the sex and race-based politics of
the Democrat Party. The only other woman to ever earn her party’s
nomination for vice president was called a racist by her fellow
Democrats for pointing out the obvious: if Obama was a white Senator
with two years national experience, he never would have secured his
party’s nomination, let alone run for the presidency in the first
place.
Moreover, Hillary’s supporters didn’t simply support Hillary
because of her positions on the issues (there’s not much difference
between her and Obama on any major points); they were looking to have a
woman ascend to the presidency because she was a woman.
Race and sex guide the Left’s worldview, and by nominating a woman
to run as his partner, McCain has entered that debate.
No one believes
that die-hard feminists who awake every morning thinking “how do I
preserve my right to kill my own baby” will vote for McCain because his
VP sits instead of stands when she pees. Some of the PUMAs (“Party
Unity My Ass”) will — but these are women who hate Obama for dissing
their gal, and like our Ron Paul Republicans, will deny Obama their
vote to punish him. A few of them may actually pull the Republican
lever in November, but I believe that most PUMAs will fall into the
same category as conflicted feminists in general. That is, while they
may not be able to actually vote for an evil Republican, they can’t
bring themselves to vote against a fellow seat-sitter. So, they’ll opt
out and either stay home, or just bypass the presidential selection on
the ballot and move on to the other races. Either way it’s a vote the
Democrat nominee loses in his effort to outdo his Republican opponent.
Just how many Leftist and politically-correct ”moderate” women will
absent themselves from the presidential race? I don’t know. But it’s
an extra obstacle for Obama to overcome, and one that could very well
make the difference in an increasingly close race.
To drive the point home clearly, the only place this calculation
really matters is in the battleground states where the Red-Blue outcome
is not already determined. It doesn’t make any difference whether the
base is jazzed or the opposition is demoralized in Texas and New York.
McCain will win Texas, and Obama will win New York — though perhaps by
smaller margins, and certainly with less financial and other support if
the opposing candidate is successful at discouraging these base
voters. But in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and a few other select states, it
matters — and matters greatly. Any effort that energizes the base
and/or dispirits the opposition here is a winning electoral strategy.
On both counts, McCain has played the game brilliantly. - --comments-->41--877--1
