What Did He Do to be So Black and Blue? Obama and the Race Card

This year should be a perfect storm for a Democratic presidential candidate, particularly one with the rhetorical gifts of Barack Obama. McCain has literally every indicator political scientists enter into their models to predict electoral success or defeat working against him: He has repeatedly allied himself with the most unpopular president since the history of modern polling, describing Bush in 2006 as one of our greatest presidents and musing about having Dick Cheney in a McCain cabinet (two facts the Obama campaign has failed to advertise). He has embraced the most unpopular war since Vietnam. And in the summer before the election, the economy is arguably in its worst shape since the Great Depression, with American families spending a greater percentage of their income on basic necessities, home foreclosures at their zenith, and the ratio of job loss to job creation at its highest since the 1930s.

And those are just the beginning of McCain's problems. Every time he panders to the right he turns off moderates, and every time he takes a moderate position he reinforces the view on the right that he is not a "true conservative" and depresses voter turnout from his base And finally, whether the stress of tacking right and left so many times over the last two years has taken the wind out of his sails or whether he's just gotten too old and tired to take on the rigors of a presidential campaign, he has lost the sparkle that once drew many moderates and even many liberals to him, while running against the most charismatic leader to emerge on the political scene since Bill Clinton.

Yet now John McCain is tied with Obama in the Gallup polls, in a dead heat in the mid 40s for the third consecutive day.

McCain's Only Road to Victory

As I argued several weeks ago in The New Republic, with the winds so strongly blowing against him, the only road John McCain can take to Pennsylvania Avenue is one of the few pieces of infrastructure left in good repair by the Bush administration: the low road. And in the intervening weeks he has made precisely the staff changes in his campaign necessary to turn that road into a superhighway, by hiring a team of Rove acolytes, and has begun to implement exactly the strategies characteristic of a Rove campaign. And they are working.

1. Attack his opponent's great strength. For Kerry, it was his military heroism. For Obama, it is his charisma. This week McCain, with a strong assist from the media and an Obama campaign apparently on vacation, turned an extraordinary foreign success into Paris Hilton celebrity and an illustration of how Obama is arrogant, cocky, and too big for his britches, acting like a president when he's just a nominee. (The fact is, of course, that he did exactly what McCain did, but for Obama, people showed up.)

2. Identify a wedge issue. Now that gays have lost their luster and Republicans have started to worry that too much immigrant-bashing will lead to a permanent Democratic majority as the country becomes increasingly brown, Republicans found a perfect issue in an election year in which the Democratic presidential candidate is black: affirmative action. The GOP has gotten the issue on the ballot in a handful of states, including McCain's home state of Arizona, and McCain suddenly last weekend "saw the light" and changed his position, now supporting the initiative banning affirmative action in Arizona, having previously called such efforts divisive. No one called him on it as far as I know. Now today's New York Times reports that Obama wrote as a law student in the Harvard Law Review that he was a beneficiary of affirmative action.

3. Brand Obama as effete, out of touch, outside the mainstream, different, foreign, not one of "us." This is the same strategy used effectively against every Democrat other than Clinton since Dukakis.

The Ties that Bind, the Ties that Divide

Against the perfect storm of an unpopular incumbent, an unpopular war, and an economy that has led banks to close and millions to lose their jobs and homes, McCain's campaign is creating a perfect counter-storm. Each element described above draws power on its own from the worst in our nature--the prejudice, hate, contempt, and stereotyping that have become the bread and butter of Republican campaigns for four decades, intensified since the entry of Lee Atwater and then Karl Rove onto the national scene. But just beneath the surface of each of these elements--enough below to allow plausible deniability ("there's gambling in this establishment?")--is the tie that binds them: race.

Obama's extraordinary capacity to meet with world leaders on an equal footing wasn't presidential, the story goes, even though McCain goaded him into the trip, assuming he would look and be treated like a novice. Instead, his confidence, competence, and Kennedy-like star-power became an example of his not knowing his place. (Does the term "uppity" come to mind?)

The focus on affirmative action divides the nation along racial lines by combining prejudice with legitimate grievances about the way affirmative action was implemented over the years (e.g., through quotas) and by the disastrous tendency of many on the left to drive white working class men out of the Democratic Party since 1964 (the last time white men voted Democratic nationally) by referring to them universally as privileged, when their experience of punching a timecard or working in a coal mine or an assembly plant belies that epithet and rightfully enrages them. But affirmative action is a particularly powerful tool in this election year as a stealth attack, because it activates unconscious sentiments that will likely come to an occasional conscious boil: Is Obama an affirmative action candidate, who didn't really earn his place on the ticket but was just placed there by zealous liberals (an idea unfortunately voiced consciously in the primary season by Geraldine Ferraro, and no by the words penned by his own hand as a law student)? Is he going to favor black people as president, or as described "colorfully" in a message circulating on the Internet, "paint the White House black?"

And branding Obama as different, "unknown" (despite two years of intense scrutiny and two books that reveal his inner thoughts, some of them very personal--and hardly what a 33-year-old black man aspiring to the presidency would reveal), outside the mainstream, and "not sharing our values" keeps his blackness at a heightened state of unconscious activation in the mind and brain of the voter. The purpose of the Muslim smear that began nearly two years ago on the Internet, like the purpose of conservative commentators' constantly using his middle name and Fox's repeated confusions of "Obama" and "Osama," was surely never to convince voters that he was Muslim, which its purveyors had to know would eventually be exposed as untrue (although the Obama campaign's choice to read from the Democratic playbook and let insidious attacks fester for as long as possible rather than addressing them head on didn't help with the plurality of voters convinced by them by February or the 10 percent of the population who believe them to this day, even after watching the "endless loop" of clips of Reverend Wright).

The purpose of that smear was to lay the groundwork for making Obama "them" instead of "us" (with the added benefit of connecting the unconscious dots between black and Muslim, reminding an older generation of a different kind of Muslim terrorist threat from within). And it has succeeded, creating a large percentage of the population, including many traditionally Democratic voters, who voice sentiments such as "something about him just makes me uneasy," or "I don't feel like I really know him," that bind together these nagging doubts about him with unconscious negative attitudes toward African-Americans they may consciously eschew--and mean it. The data from psychology and neuroscience are clear that even people who are consciously opposed to discrimination--which is most Americans--may hold negative unconscious attitudes toward African-Americans, reflecting the images they see on television, personal encounters, or the residues of an era past in which the only role for blacks was in low-level service jobs, and that make the image of a black president difficult, if largely unconsciously, for older white voters.

The Architecture of a Stealth Campaign

Recent history--as recent as the midterm election of 2006, when Congressman Harold Ford went down to defeat in a race-baited campaign for Senate in Tennessee against a white candidate whose stump speech and advertising centered on the question, "Who's the real Tennessean?"--suggests that Democratic "politics as usual" (i.e., when something unpleasant comes up, avoid it and talk about Social Security and Medicare) does not disarm these kinds of stealth racial appeals. Nor do facts. We can expect conservative 527 groups to unleash a series of ads that use Obama's own words and voice from his extraordinary autobiography, Dreams from my Father, against him to drive home both his differentness and his blackness. Television listeners will hear passages describing the pilgrimage he made to Africa to solidify his identity as a young man, or the fact that his father was a polygamist (perhaps that will make Mitt Romney an acceptable running mate for McCain), or that his grandfather in Africa was a convert to Islam. This is the stuff of great superficial media coverage, as each new ad unfolds, drawing endless discussions from pundits about how it will affect the average white American.

It is in this context that the McCain campaign made its impressive tactical strike this week, accusing Obama of "playing the race card" when he began inoculating voters against the racially tinged attacks that have been coming his way for two years and that right-wing media consultants have already telegraphed will be coming in full force at the appropriate moment (say, October, or during the Democratic Convention). The McCain campaign's move was intended to put Obama's campaign on the defensive, allow McCain to cry foul in the future (and win votes from incredulous and indignant whites about a black man in a position of power complaining about racism) anytime McCain brings up a racially divisive issue like affirmative action, and to "remind" voters that it was Obama who injected race into the campaign as he denounces the inevitable 527 ads to come that will play on Obama's blackness. McCain's new team has some very good chess players, and they thought several moves ahead. They were obviously waiting for this chance since Obama successfully inoculated against and foreshadowed future stealth attacks with his humorous remark a few weeks ago that "They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"

McCain and his advisors know that McCain can't be the one to run ads that cross the race line, at least not blatantly the way George H.W. Bush did with the infamous Willie Horton ad. But he can lay the groundwork for those attacks, and he already has. His first ad of the general election, a biographical spot called "The American President," had all the trappings of a positive, inspirational piece. But both its name and its final line--"John McCain: The American president Americans have been waiting for"--suggest a more insidious subtext. What other kind of president is there? An un-American president? An anti-American president? An African-American president?

When you hear unusual syntax in a Republican ad, you know the goal is something other than the conscious text. Why didn't the ad end with the grammatically expectable tagline, "John McCain: The president Americans have been waiting for"? For the same reason that the "Harold, Call Me Ad" (whose creator McCain hired within weeks of the successful race-baiting ad against Harold Ford in Tennessee) ended that ad with the syntactically peculiar words (written in white against a black screen): "Harold Ford. He's just not right." (Figure out what the brain alternatives the brain is activating as it is trying to process that sentence.)

McCain's campaign has recently followed this "positive" ad with a series of attacks ads with a similar theme: "Country First," which now appears not only in his ads (which end, "John McCain: Country First") but also in his stump speeches, letters exhorting conservatives to give to his campaign, and the banners behind him as he speaks. On the surface, of course, only a paranoid could see something insidious about his advertising that he puts his country first, right? But half of branding is identifying a tagline that differentiates a "product" from its competitors, and a political campaign run by understudies of Karl Rove does not select its taglines without maximizing bang for the buck. How does that tagline distinguish the two candidates? What is the implicit contrast with Obama? Who or what would he put first as president?

Only a few weeks have passed since McCain substituted Rove operatives for the campaign team that gave him a small speech with a small audience against a putrid green background as Obama prepared to deliver a larger than life speech with a larger than life audience as the backdrop on the evening he clinched the nomination. The change is obvious, and it has yielded dividends. After an extraordinary week abroad that led Obama to surge to a 9-point lead in the polls, McCain's team managed, with the help of a relentlessly carping media (bending over backward not to be "biased" by showing people responding to Obama in ways they do not respond to McCain), to convince voters that they hadn't seen what they'd just seen with their own eyes, that everyone from European, Arab, and Israeli leaders to our own troops in Iraq were embracing Barack Obama as the breath of fresh American air that he is after eight years of bully diplomacy and revolving door military service--and to belittle the trip as mere "celebrity." Within days, Obama's lead evaporated, even though he had just answered the main question voters have consciously had about him, voiced in Hillary's 3am ad and McCain's relentless and often condescending taunts: Does he have the right stuff to be the leader of the free world?

Is There an Antidote?

The question, of course, is whether there is an antidote to what has come and what lies ahead in the racial minefield of the 2008 election. I believe there is, but it runs against the instincts of most Democratic consultants, which is to duck for cover and change the subject when uncomfortable elephants are in the room. What Obama and his team need to do more than all else is to resist the temptation to run away from talking honestly about race or speak about issues related to it euphemistically.

Most Americans are not overt racists. But virtually all of us have internalized images and ideas that we may consciously disavow--as when our hearts beat a little faster when a young black man is approaching us on a dark street. Our better angels on race are our conscious values. Most Americans consciously detest racism, and they aren't simply lying to themselves or to pollsters. The more Barack Obama can fight this battle on the conscious battlefield, where virtually all Americans oppose discrimination on the basis of arbitrary characteristics such as race, the more he will win the hearts and minds of the American people and the more they will feel they know and can trust him. The more he shows white rural voters and white working class males that he isn't afraid to talk about his color, that he isn't afraid to talk about what it was like to grow up with a white mom and white working class grandparents but to have a black face, that he understands what it's like to feel tough economic times because he's lived through those times and because he worked for years to help workers who'd seen their plant doors shutter, that he isn't afraid to talk about both affirmative action and extending it to kids from poor rural schools regardless of their color, that he isn't afraid to talk about his values and his hopes for his two children because they're the same values and hopes most Americans share for their kids, that he isn't afraid to take stands that are unpopular but is willing to talk about why he is taking them, the more he will earn their trust.

And he needs to make clear to those same voters that he understands that if they want to know who he is and wonder whether he understands people like them, that's perfectly reasonable. Sure, he may have a higher bar to cross for some because of his color--just as a white politician might at first have to prove himself to black people he wants to represent--but that that doesn't make them racists with KKK hoods in the back of their cars. He needs to learn the lessons of his own magnificent speech in Philadelphia, which, as poll number showed (contrary to media chatter), was not "over the heads" of the millions of Americans who saw an American politician, and an African-American one at that, speak openly about both prejudice and legitimate grievances on both sides, like the fear and anger of white parents whose children were bused to parts of town that would make any reasonable parent afraid, including the parents who have to rear their children there.

So how could Obama have responded to McCain's claim that his warning that the Republicans were going to try to make him out to be different, scary, and not like the faces on our currency (a great line, if you ask me) constituted "playing the race card" and "dealing from the bottom of the deck"? I won't presume to speak in Barack Obama's voice. Only he can do that, and God knows, he has an extraordinary voice, especially on this issue, as anyone knows who has read Dreams from My Father. But suppose he said something like this:

Senator McCain, I don't presume to know what's in your heart. I don't presume to know why you were in the minority even in your party in voting against the Martin Luther King holiday, any more than I presume to know what you were thinking when you and President Bush were eating birthday cake at your home in Arizona when people were hanging from the rooftops--not just black people--in New Orleans during Katrina. I don't presume to know what was in your heart when you suddenly reversed course this week from supporting affirmative action programs aimed at giving people who are willing to work hard a hand up and not a handout, to suddenly supporting a ballot initiative in your home state that would set the clock back 40 years, when you had previously described those ballot initiatives as thinly veiled efforts to divide American against American.

But I'll tell you what I do know. Your party has used race to try to divide us in every election since 1968. You have personally attacked my patriotism, and you're not going to do it again. You've spoken to me in patronizing ways that frankly a man of your limited knowledge of the issues that confront the American people--who can't even keep straight who the warring factions are in the Middle East, which is supposedly your strong suit, and who is so out of touch on the economy that his first response to the mortgage crisis was to blame it on the victims of unscrupulous lenders--has no business doing, and you will not speak to me that way again. You and your wife have attacked my character and the character of my wife, and I suggest you not try that again, because that is a road you do not want to go down. I have always assumed that you were a man of honor, but frankly, your relentlessly negative attacks on me and your indifference to the truth is starting to make a lot of Americans wonder. For a man who said he wanted to run an honorable campaign, how many weeks and how many phone calls from Karl Rove did it take you to find the low road?

My comments were intended simply to warn the American people not to be taken in by efforts to paint me as different, as outside the mainstream, as not like them, as not sharing their values, because they are attempts to divide Americans in a way that is un-American. No more, no less. Do I think you or your Republican allies will use my race to try to drive that point home? It's already been done. Did Fox News ever refer to your wife as your "Baby Mama?" And what exactly did your surrogate, Terry Hill, mean last week when he described me on national television as "more politician than he is American"?

Senator, I believe we are one nation, under God, indivisible, and I will do everything in my power as president, and in this campaign, to keep it that way. I suggest you aspire to the same standard. That's what I believe it means to be an American.

The goal of a response like this is not to answer a charge that is nothing but a smokescreen for an attempt to inject race into the race under the guise of attacking such tactics. It makes McCain and the fire he is lighting the issue, and it changes the focus of media attention from Obama's statement to McCain's statement, record, and history.

It has been 40 years since such an eloquent voice has emerged on race as the voice of Barack Obama. He and his campaign should have more faith in his capacity to use it.

Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation," recently released in paperback with a new postscript on the 2008 primaries.

Comments

[larstein]

In 1932 FDR ran a campaign against the GOP, not against Hoover, and never played the politics of personality, except for his own optimistic determination to win. Hoover was hated as bad as Bush, but instead FDR took on the whole system. Obama should run against the Republican system: Gop gridlock, Gop hypocrisy, and Gop corruption. This country needs a history lesson.

Obama v McCain, toss up. Obama v McCain-Bush-Cheney-Big Oil-Iraq quagmire, Obama wins. Run this way: McCain IS Bush. Bush/Cheney hijacked the Republican Party and turned it into something that more resembles the Soviet Communist Party. Why, after 8 years of Bush/McCain does China own us, Arab oil prices have us trapped, and the spirit of the nation is going to hell? Republicans! They always make it happen.

[Jezreel]

Excellent and thoughtful comment.

[renatam]

I believe that is EXACTLY what Barack Obama has planned -- to begin with the Convention. He is a strategist, and despite the MEDIA's obsession w/his (very few) mistakes -- driven by Clinton/McCain operatives-for-profit -- he has been carefully building his case -- THE CASE against the Reagan/Bush/Cheney (and DLC/Clinton) for-profit dynasties. They both KNOW this is coming and WHY Clinton or McCain would have been preferred -- to Obama. Both Campaigns in a triangulated way have been and are continuing to run AGAINST Senator Obama, who will end the commoditization of American interests and further erosion of the stability of the American way of life. That is WHY both Campaigns run personal, quasi-racist, below the belt, demeaning and character taunting Campaigns against Barack, perversely turning his strengths AGAINST him as the GOP has successfully done to Al Gore and John Kerry. The Clintons laid the foundation for McCain to carry forward -- IF they didn't win. The Clintons VALIDATED John McCain over a fellow Democrat. Joe Lieberman is running as a defacto VP Candidated for John McCain until a real candidate can be found -- further fusing the DLC/Republican factions AGAINST CHANGES Democratic voters are demanding and increasingly the majority of American people want.

This is BIG BUSINESS -- these dynasties that have commoditized the interests of Americans and fostered our military into the world as an extension of the same business interests -- not protection of and defense of American people/tax payers.

[saltysea]

another great addition. if we can beat back these powerful, powerful people, we must at least start with getting rid of the voting machines.

[renatam]

The Bush/Clinton two dynasties will fight to the death. This will be grueling and unseemly -- as bloody as any real war, in psychic terms. Democrats will have to fight Bill Clinton/Hillary Clinton/Joe Lieberman/DLC AND John McCain. The Clintons brought triangulation of interests to a high art. Bill ended welfare as we know it -- and deregulated the Financial industries we just bailed out. So, WHO is really the beneficary of taxpayer largesse -- mothers or corporate titans at Fannie Mae, whose CEOs get golden parachutes? The war profiteers? Halliburton, newly repatriated as a Dubai company?

This "setup" is going to be put on trial - figuratively -- by Barack Obama. The "outsider" vs. the legacy boys and girls. The A student vs. the C- students. The welfare child vs. the Admiral's son/grandson, carried through life on permanent Government dole/security blanket.

The TRUTH vs. THE LIES. Think Watergate and then some.

[jrterrier]

bill clinton did not deregulate the financial markets. he vetoed the bill, which the republican congress passed by overriding his veto.

the clintons brought triangulation that moved the country forward.

your dichotomys don't work because they are not true. barack made a huge mistake by running this year. he should have waited and gotten some experience under his belt. then he could not have been denied.

[sandpiper1]

renatam....good post...why not send to Obama's site..there's a site for comments. I sometimes send him stuff. His supporters should email/link articles/sites that he may be able to use in his ads or speeches. I just printed one on McCain re. his PNAC membership & his flip flops on every issue. Unfortunately, Obama campaigned on a `1clean' campaign so I think he has to be careful. I would wish his supporters eg moveon.org would be more aggressive, showing McCain's history & campaign lies etc.
www.unfitmccain.com/mission by a former Vietnam Vet.

[saltysea]

nice addition.

[jrterrier]

the problem is that mccain is not bush and is not the gop. some of the biggest laws of the last 20years involve mccain partnering with some of the most liberal and progressive dems in an attempt to solve a problem. mccain/feingold for campaing reform is an example.

and those of us, life-long dems who are not yet sold on obama are not racists. obama reminds me more of W than of Bill Clinton.

he lacks experience, in my opinion. not because he is african-american but because his biggest chumk of experience is service for 12 years in a part-time state legislature and doing very well in law school. neither of those "accomplishments" resulted in any real-life accomplishments. the harvard law school education did not result in any landmark cases (contrast Thurgood Marshall) or any landmark legislation or ideas coming out of the Illinois senate.

and all the talk of "we are the ones we've been waiting for" and the day the oceans stopped rising and the planet began to heal, which his supporters sees as soaring rhetoric, i see as immature platitudes.

too many difficult issues facing the country at this moment for such a thin resume and such immature rhetoric. that's why mccain's ads have been able to knoch obama off his message.

[loria]

McCain is Bush. He might not have been, but he has voted with him 88% of the time since 2000 and 95% of the time in 2007. He hasn't shown up much to vote in 2008.

You are right there are too many issues facing this country. Why would anyone in their right mind, vote for the one who most represents the failed policies of the last eight years. You talk about inexperience and lack of accomplishment. Yet I see a man with judgment and intelligence. Experience isn't all that is needed to lead. If it were, we would just hand over the presidency and any other position of leadership to the person who has been there the longest. With Obama I see a man who gets the world today. McCain is so entrenched in the world of Washington, he gets little about the world (or seems to when you count the sheer number of gaffes) and he doesn't get all that Americans are facing today. He doesn't know the price of milk (he needed a cheat sheet) or the price of gas. He has $500 shoes and is borrowing his wife's jet. Now who is part of the elite?

[LibDrummer]

The whole " not enough experience" thing is not fooling anyone. It's sad and desperite. When you cite McCain/Feingold as "some of the biggest laws of the last 20 years" you can not expect anyone to take you seriuously can you?

As far as "immature platitudes" that is an empty, partisan, meaningless attack that can be leveled at any and all great leaders througout time. From politicians to religiuos leaders to succesful buisness leaders. Anyone who stated goals and aspirations for improvement have always had to listen to the cries of "immature platitudes" most often from the people most guilty of whatever the problem being addressed is. People made the same claims about every President that ever spoke about improving anything. It can always be charged, and it has no more meaning than a third grader saying "nuhn huh."

What was the Landmark legistlation from Bush sr., Regan. Shrub, Clinton, Carter, Nixon or where they all not experienced enough too?

[liberalloons]

McCain is essentially a dem. While Obama is liberal. We're screwed either way.

[Jezreel]

Professor Westen yours is certainly one of the most insightful and instructive articles I have read on the issue of Obama, Race and the McCain Campaign. I couldn't agree more with your analysis and your recommendations for Obama and his campaign's response.

I believe Senator Obama to be one of the most intelligent and politically astute leaders of our time. My hope is that his team will, or perhaps they already have embarked upon a strategy such as the one you have suggested because it would be at once unexpected and powerfully effective.

[jrterrier]

'one of the most intelligent and politically astute leaders of our time' please. have you ever seen him answer questions about the economy (a question about his capital gains tax proposal during one of the debates showed how unsure and lacking in knowledge he was) or the war where the question wasn't scripted. he is in over his head. he can give a mean speech but even that is getting a bit old.

listen to the kennedy/nixon debates. there were two intelligent, thoughtful even if flawed people. mario cuomo, bill clinton, hillary clinton, ted kennedy, russ feingold, madeline albright, rep bobby scott, bill bradley -- those are people with incredible knowledge of the facts and the policies. compare and contrast.

i understand you like obama and there is much to like and admire about him as a person but we are talking about the presidency of the US.

[RantingTommy]

Imagine how much traction Obama would get if it weren't for these Republicans pretending to be concerned Democrats and nipping at Obama's heels like, well, like a little annoying terrier.

[applecrispbetty]

and so you think tired old McCain is going to be better? Tell me why I should support him.

[Cyclone]

Obama's campaign needs to read this. It's insightful and absolutely on the money.

[j mcdouglas]

Obama didn't play any sort of race card.

He said McCain was trying to scare Americans by pointing out that Obama didn't look like past presidents... and he was.

What else do you call it when McCain's sleazy campaign runs an ad mocking Obama by putting his face on the dollar bill... McCain did what he did... and Obama called him on it. Nobody said racist this or racist that. Obama only talked about the facts of McCain's sleaze. The media were the only ones crying racism.

Another fake manufactured story from the US corporate media.

[iyamchazz]

Well said! I found it ironic that McCain first put Obama's face on the dollar and yet it's Obama who's accused of playing the race card. Just yesterday on Late Edition, Wolf Blitzer "interviewed" at least three people to get their reaction to Obama's comment, each time beginning with..." listen to what he said..." He thus managed to play the clip three times. Part of the "Best Political Spin" on television, except of course for Jack Cafferty.

[jrterrier]

mccain's ad with the $ bill didn't come out until after obama made the comment about not looking like the ones on the US currency.

[sandpiper1]

jrterrier

Actually that ad was dated June/08 from McCain's camp. see jed report 27/06/08. Obama was basically replying to that ad with regards to his face on the US dollar bill. I live in Canada & I did see that ad prior to Obama's remarks. McCain is playing diry & nasty because he doesn't have any policies other than Bush's to campaign on. I only hope Obama hit the airwaves with the fact that McCain is running on Bush's failed, disastrous policies.
McCain has now hired Steve Schmidt, a Rove protege & others so expect more of the same
attacks. McCain has nothing to run on..his image has been destroyed & the media myth/hype has been shown to be false.

[skantea]

I wish I had the words to explain how completely and without doubt I foresee Senator Barak Obama being our next President.

As a young African-American male who works for the D.O.J., and who considers himself deeply patriotic (sometimes against all reason), I have absolutely no fear that people will see through the convoluted fear/hatred that the Republican party is trying to pass off as legitimate debate.

People gravitate towards good.

It's in our nature-it's called evolution.

So if you all don't mind, I'm going to do my best to sit back, relax and enjoy the whole silly show.

Quietly confident that the more Honest Man will win.

I'm not naive, I simply have faith in humanity.

[arcanepsyche]

Careful, our faith in humanity has already been tested by those like Rove and his trainees. They won 4 years ago.

[WoodyCPM]

Well, you did say "young". Bless your heart. I hope you're able to hang on to that good natured optimism about American politics as you live through more and more political campaigns and elections. I'm old enough to have no faith whatsoever in the American voter or any belief that "people gravitate toward the good". I keep hoping that they will and they keep disappointing me. What I've found is that people gravitate toward what is easy and convenient and requires the least amount of thought or action. I've found that most people do what their told to do and believe what they're told to believe. Original, independent thinking is a very rare thing. Genuine intelligence (and not just educated somnambulence) is even more rare. Good luck though. I hope this time, for your sake and for mine, that the idiot American voter proves me wrong.

[iyamchazz]

Your cynicism is understandable. It was Sir Winston Churchill who said; To understand how truly fragile democracy is, just talk to the average voter for five minutes.

[saltysea]

i hope you season your wonderful optimism with a renewed effort to, say, make sure all those voters have the requisite documents on election day. Plus we all can continue to request quality exit polls, that are released in real time, and not changed to fit the "actual vote" like they were last time.

[Huffingtonposter231]

Obama's problem is that he wants to play the race card his way and deny it to McCain. He didnt' think that McCain would dare call him on it.....McCain did. And, Of course, Obama did what he always does when he gets caught....goes into denial and spin.

So much for "change"and "different politics". It's the same old thing. Obama gets caught doing some sort of a deal with a crook on his house....he calls it a "mistake" then goes into denial. Gets caught praising a bigoted racist Wright? goes into denial and then, pretends he never new and finally tosses Wright under a bus as the Wright issue was sinking him. Obama gets caught pushing the far lefts Anti Energy for America policy at a time when Americans are outraged at the lefts anti energy policy? He pretends to support drilling and tosses the left under the bus but I suspect he will toss the voters under the bus and refuse to allow drilling for America's oil. That is, the oil we know we have.

The Anti Energy left is of course willing to let us drill where the oil isn't...how clever.

[arcanepsyche]

I noticed you didn't mention anything about McCain's numerous flip-flops/denials/lies. I think most of us are mature enough to admit that every politician is going to have the characteristics of a politician. Obama is an amazing politician because he's figured out how to work within a broken system to get things done. By reaching across to Republicans and compromising on issues (like offshore drilling, which all of you republicans are now calling a flip flop) he's showing us that he will actually get things done for us. I either urge you to read up on McCain's deceptions (the Huffpost is a good place for that) or not bother us with your uninformed comments.

[jrterrier]

"figured out how to work within a broken system to get things done"? what things has he gotten done? really, this is just campaign talk. if he had stayed in the senate without running this year and helped figure out how to address the energy crunch and the financial mess, then he and his supporters could rightly have said that he had worked accross party lines to get things done.

right now all anyone can say about him is that he has run a good primary campaign with a lot of money and organizaiton. and he is running a middling presidential campaign.

[WoodyCPM]

It's amazing, the right's ability to turn reality upside down and inside out in order to make a political point. They've never met a fact they can't pervert to spread their lies. Simply jaw dropping. "Anti-Energy Left".....that's hysterical!

[MaeScott]

Repugs are so selfish. ME, ME, MINE. I got mine, you get yours.
And they try to claim " compassionate conservativism". Bull. Corporatists every one.
Pharisees of the temple, and just as hypocritical.

[mexamerican]

you're dead-on right. this is exactly how obama should respond. question is, will he?

[DonKrieger]

The Antidote Isn't About Race:

When Barack was in the middle east, McCain called him "craven" and said that he was willing to lose the war to win the campaign, i.e. he's unpatriotic. At that moment the campaign became a primitive battle of "might makes right." Since that moment, McCain has looked strong and Obama has not.

Barack must find a way to smack McCain down. It's not about any issue or race or anything by the street fight. We Americans need to see that Barack is willing and can do that. It's the last hurdle for him to pass to demonstrate that he's ready to lead us. You see? That's all we want from him.

He didn't do it with Hillary, because by the time it was called for, he was so far ahead that he didn't have to. But he did look bad, and he continues to look bad whenever he appears with her.

But he hasn't won this yet. He showed he could be strong and tough and do something that he obviously didn't want to do when smacked Jeremiah Wright down. He must do it, in his own way rather than in kind with McCain's brutishness, but it must be decisive and rough so that we know he has that in him.

Don

[arcanepsyche]

Remember though, Don, McCain is beginning these attack ads WAY earlier and with more frequency than previous campaigns. If my faith in Obama proves true, he and his campaign have a plan that will go into place once a VP is chosen. Both Obama and McCain know that the Olympics and the DNC will be huge distractions from this week's issues and will probably give Obama a small boost, especially if he unveils his VP before then (rumors...). So, these pathetic ads coming out of the McCain camp will be completely out of mind after August 8th. I think after that point we'll see the Obama team spring into action.

[WoodyCPM]

They better not make the same mistake Kerry made. They pummeled him day after day, for weeks, crapping all over his legitimate war time heroism and the Kerry campaign didn't fight back until it was too late. The McCain camp, using the very effective marketing and advertising tools, has started to define in the voters head who Obama is. If they keep repeating it long enough, and he doesn't fight back, it will stick. Lord God, please let us not have another Democratic nominee who pays too much attention to those god awful Beltway Democratic pollsters and consultants who have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time after time.

[jrterrier]

you make very good points. obama didn't do very well when hillary improved her campaign when her back was against the wall. and he doesn't seem to be doing very well when mccain has picked up his game.

one of the biggest problems for obama is that his rhetoric on iraq was that it was stupid/wrong/insane to go in. that's a fine primary campaign slogan. but we are there, what now?

mccain on the other hand can credibly say that he was willing to lose the nomination by taking a stance on the surge that was extremely unpopular with all americans, including repubs who also were tired of the cost (in blood and money) of the war. his numbers had tanked; he had no money. it was a principled stance.

now that the surge (with other changes) has worked to reduce some of the horrific violence of a year ago, the dynamic has changed. obama's "i was right on the war" looks to the past, where mccain's support for the surge is palpable evidence that he can tackle a problem, and come up with a solution unpopular as it may be.

that leaves obama looking to the past (we shouldn't have gone in) and mccain being in the present.

[ThePoliticalBrain]

I thnk what a lot of people are pointing to is somethng very important, which was goingn to be the last part of the piece until it got too long, but will post in a couple days, on the mistake of playing perpetual defense. You don't win elections without making voters FEEL why the other candidate just isn't an option, which is right now the entirety of the McCain campaign. Neither Kerry nor Gore ever told a story about why people SHOULDN'T vote for Bush, and they paid for it. Democrats have to stop confusing attacks that inform the understanding and moral emotions of the electorate from scurrilous attacks aimed at smearing the opponent for irrelevant "offenses" (as in the impeachment of President Clinton. John Kerry did a disservice to the American people by not talking about Abu Ghraib and attacking George Bush for both his character and his performance in selling American values short and trying to pin it on the lowest-ranking soldiers, when the orders came from the top. Failing to speak negatively about something negative that should capture the attention of voters is bad politics and bad ethics, particularly when the decision to avoid "going negative" is based on focus groups and the tendency of focus group members to decry precisely the attacks that most affect their voting, somethingn I talk about extensively in my book, The Political Brain..

[WoodyCPM]

Exactly, just because people say they hate "negative ads" doesn't mean they aren't swayed by them.

[Zenith1959]

(un)fortunately, dems/libs just cant play mean and dirty. I think an interesting example was at the recent Obama rally when the hecklers held up a sign. We know that if that was done at a Mccain (or any repub) rally, people nearby would have torn the sign from their hands and they would have been escorted out, but none of the people around them did anything other than start to chant and they were allowed to stay and even ask a question later.

[nomobull]

and your point

[WoodyCPM]

You've made the right analysis but you've supported it with the wrong example.

[saltysea]

i loved that willingness to listen and respond. guess that makes me a typical progressive.

[ClarkJensen]

The Repubs are winning again in the "framing" contest - it's amazing that the Democrats haven't learned the lesson yet.

McCain has the "straight talk" frame, and Obama is getting the "aloof and secretive" frame. Obama must get down and dirty with the "red meat", he's got to be in the "town halls" and he's got to do the "straight talk" or he's going to lose.

It doesn't look good.

Even Obama supporters say his campaign is getting increasingly secrative and aloof, and alienating his press corp instead of courting it.

The McCain adds are disasterously brilliant.

Bill Clinton was right all along. Obama may be another loser in the tradition of John Kerry - brighter and a better speaker than John Kerry, but a train wreck nevertheless.

[nomobull]

why because the all knowing msm says so

[arcanepsyche]

No, Fox did. Fox=God.

[Huffingtonposter231]

The Truth about Obama is that he is a radical progressive liberal......virtually a socialist. That's Obama's problem. He and all of you have to cover that up until after the election. Obama's past is pretty far left, way out of step with the voters.....which is why there is this huge move on to cover up who Obama is until after the election.

Will it work? Maybe. The stars are aligned. Just too gosh darn bad that the surge worked and Iraq is now moving into the Win side ehh? Too bad for Obama who told us we lost. Does Obama still say we lost? Will he vote against funding the troops again?

[sirpatty79]

Do some research on the internet about some of the viewpoints opposed to yours (you're a Republican, right????????????????????????????????). Learn your enemy. Try to be open-minded and objective (DUH! This goes without saying for you, I'm sure). If you and McCain are right, you have nothing to fear from doing this. Or do you already know all you NEED to know?

Goose fraaaaaba, goose fraaaaaba, keep your cool man, you can do it.

[WoodyCPM]

Oh please, what nonsense. Go home Rush. Your Moma said it was time for your meds.

[liberalloons]

Its secretive and aloof becuase he doesn't have any set policies or a plan in mind.

[larstein]

Great assessment, but I think that they SHOULD change the subject. McCain cannot be hurt unless his career is put in the context of the take over of the Gop by the neo-con extremists. If the facts are laid out, put into historical context, McCain is toast. Remember the Keating 5.

Obama needs to weld McCain to Bush, Cheney, and all the Gops who wrecked this great nation over the last 8 years. Why are you paying 25% more for everything! It goes back to the fact that every recession in the 20th century was caused by Republican incompetence and mis-management. They are lousy at governing. McCain will be a lousy president because he is so tied to the politics of corruption. (Keating 5.) The only thing they have is Sneer & Smear, and if they get in again... well, God help us all.

[nova1507]

"Every recession in the 20th century was caused by Republican incompetence and mis-management."

It would be best to make sure that any statement posted is true. Otherwise your credibility on everything else you say is gone. The truth is, the recession of 1979 began on Carter's watch.

[larstein]

The truth that I lived through was that the whole decade of the 70's was effectively a recession. The "economic malaise" that Carter spoke of in 1978 took off in 1974 under Nixon, when gas prices shot up to 55¢ a gallon in two weeks after being stable at around 25¢ for the previous 15 or so years. I remember it very well. It felt exactly like what's happening today, even worse because of gas lines. If you were working class, you felt it, and it was tough times. It didn't really end until the mid-1980's after the Reagan recession of 1982.

[lafrance]

I think it's more the media then McCain who hurting Obama.
They misquote him, don't apologize or retract when it's debunked. They are peddling 75% negative stories against Obama. And they parrot the rightwing talking points without any serious thought. and they seem to not understand nuance. So, when obama says something the media mislabels it as this or that.
I think they are doing a lot more to help McCain then is being observed.
Now they are defending McCain by saying Obama played the race card when in fact McCain did put out a video last month with Obama on a hundred dollar bill.
The media never dissects all the gaffes and stumbles mccain makes and instead focuses on and trashes Obama for everything from what he eats, ect.
They are helping McCain an awful lot.

[ThePoliticalBrain]

Do you have a link to that McCain ad with the hundred dollar bill? I hadn't seen that and would love to.
Thanks,
Drew Wesetn

[akryan]

its on youtube

[sosplendid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU

[Jezreel]

I think you make a valid point. McCain's ad blitz would be totally ineffectual and meaningless without the support and enforcement of the media including Progressive and Liberal media outlets.

[realtalk]

The fact is that if Obama was Latino, or Asian, or Jewish, a part of the white population in this country would not vote for him because he was Latino, or Asian, or Jewish.

There is simply some white people in this country who will always be prejudice toward any color of people who is not like their own. They simply choose to be that way, and simply choose to stay that way.
So, if Obama was Latino, these same prejudice white people would find a hundred reasons why he should not be elected.
If Obama was Asian, the same prejudice white people in this country would find a hundred reasons why he should not be elected.
If Obama was Jewish, the same prejudice white people in this country would find a hundred reasons why they could not vote for him.

It must be admitted that Obama is being supported by a large part of the white population in this country, and that fact shows that we have indeed come a long way, and that a large part of the population choose to be are mature, evolved human beings.

BUT, sadly, in this same country, where we do live among people who choose to be evolved, and mature, WE ALSO live among people who will always choose to discriminated against another human because of the shade of their skin.

[renatam]

All the more reason for the ethnicities you mention to not participate in this disgraceful cariacaturing of Senator Obama. Sadly, some of those you mention are at the vanguard of the RACE baiting -- in MEDIA -- and could have chosen not to participate and/or ensure a more rigorous analysis of the same. The infamous New Yorker cover comes to mind. It will forever stand as a historical reference for early 21st Century STEROTYPES during the Obama Campaign -- and, those who proffered and defiantly defended what they would find indefensible were it regarding their ethnicity -- remembered for having done so.

[nova1507]

Some white people won't vote for Obama because he is a socialist. The same white people would vote for a black man if he wasn't a socialist. Sometimes the reason for the vote transcends race, which is what is supposed to happen.

[liberalloons]

What a joke. People who are white also aren't voting for him becuase he is a socialist, black nationalist, radical.....etc. Not his skin color.

[druidlady42]

Great post, Drew! I hope the Obama campaign hires you for their team!

Obama has been letting McCain get by with everything, even apologizing/backing down from statements McCain and his windbag surrogates have whined about. WRONG!!! So far, McCain's getting away with making Obama the issue, keeping the media's attention preoccupied and away from really looking at all the "warts" on himself! Time to redirect the MSM's attention to McCain's serious flaws, make ISSUES out of the REAL issues McCain has!

Take the OFFENSIVE, Obama! Don't back down! Don't apologize (Repubs never do!)! And, it's time to start DEMANDING AN APOLOGY from John McCain each and every time he spews another lie or insult!

[GrainOSand]

Just as all of this (a candidate of brown skin with a viable chance to lead) is new to America, so it is new territory for Barack Obama. He is walking a tight rope over a pit of alligators. This is the position anyone finds themselves in when they seek to lead an entire nation. Add the history of a nation regarding hue to that predicament and now Obama is sitting on a chair that he must somehow slide across the rope as he balances a heavy object on his head. Forgive him his timidity for we will soon see (I think) a different Obama emerge. This is a process and part of the process is the growth of the candidate. The actual election process does contribute to the readiness of the candidate. He is absorbing, learning, and refining at an impressive rate. Come debate time he will be a well-tuned, finely honed candidate of intense integrity and intelligence on issues of immediate and imminent impact to a nation. He will present a concise strategy full of plausible tactics for beating back the challenges we face and John McCain will be exposed for who he is which is not what he wants us to believe he is. The contrast will be glaring and telling.