Framing: When "Arrogance" Means "Uppity"

Today's politics is fueled by a string of Rorschach tests, double entendres and code words. We see what we want to see; we hear what we want to hear. Candidates and their campaigns bet on that. And that has sullied the 2008 Presidential race.

So far this has been the most disappointing and the nastiest Presidential campaign since, well, 2004. It's a basic axiom of electoral politics that candidates need to define their opponents (and themselves) before their opponents define them. And framing the opposition always goes negative; often it gets downright nasty.

John Kerry was not the first candidate to learn that the hard way, when the "Swift boaters for Truth" cast aspersions on his Vietnam bone fides. But this campaign was supposed to be different -- the end of "politics as usual," a "civilized" contest between two "nontraditional" candidates scrapping to champion the "politics of change." However, the lessons of using -- and ignoring --"swiftboating" are too recent and too powerful to ignore. So much for the High Road.

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