Rebranding Slick Sarah, the Make-Believe Maverick

VP choice Sarah Palin keeps repeating her lie that she said "thanks but no thanks" to the "Bridge to Nowhere" -- even in the face of unusually strong and widespread media debunking and strong visual evidence to the contrary. When Fox News' Chris Wallace debunks your multiple lies, it's probably time, at the very least, to work up some new lies.

Either Slick Sarah cynically believes that you can fool all the people all the time, much as Bush and McCain do, or Prevaricatin' Palin has actually come to believe her own lies, much as Bush and McCain do.

And, of course, Slick Sarah is an old-style lobbyist-hiring pol, who may well be the queen of pork. Slick Sarah and her lobbyists lined Alaskan pockets with U.S. taxpayer money to the tune of $4000 per citizen of Wasilla. But McCain "can't wait to introduce her to Washington." If she replicates that "success" on a national level as VP, that would be more than $1 trillion in earmarks.

Slick Sarah is all hat and no moose. She's the make-believe Maverick.

Her obsessive phoniness in the face of the facts, I think, opens the door to not just call her a liar, as the campaign has started to do, but to actually give her a defining nickname to describe what appears to be a fundamental character flaw.

This strategy would also give you an instant framing response to every new lie, like the absurd "lipstick on a pig smear," which I discuss at the end.

Memorable nicknames stick to your lips like lipstick. They invariably use one of the memorable rhetorical figures of speech -- alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyming, metaphor, or pun. [Yes, that is a bit redundant: Almost all of the figures of speech were developed 25 centuries ago specifically to aid the memory of both the speaker and the listener.] For instance, "Sarah Barracuda" is metaphor and assonance/consonance combined. Very memorable.

So I float the alliterative Slick Sarah, which has the additional benefit of a simple metaphorical word that conjures up oil slicks. I'd love to hear your suggestions. All you really need is a thesaurus and an imagination. Prevaricatin' Palin?

As for "make-believe Maverick" (alliteration and consonance), yes, I did just write a post saying Obama shouldn't keep calling Slick Sarah a maverick in his ads. And he shouldn't. But there is another rhetorical strategy worth considering. If you think a label is seared to the flesh like a real brand, then an even better strategy is to piggyback on the existing label.

Karl Rove and George W. Bush, for instance, knew they couldn't escape the conservative label, so they used alliteration, assonance, and consonance to create the memorable phrase, "compassionate conservative" -- you know, the kind of guy who waterboards people, but only with bottled water.

In this case, the McCain campaign is spending millions of dollars on ads to link their names irrevocably to the word maverick -- and the media has been sold on this particular myth. So rather than trying to spend millions of dollars countering that brand (or, foolishly, simply saying they are "not mavericks"), the trick is to taint their brand with an equally memorable phrase. That way, when voters go into the polls, they not only remember the word Maverick associated with McCain/Palin, but also "make believe." This is the Rovian jujitsu strategy, turn strengths into weaknesses.

It would require a great deal of repetition through advertising, the candidates, and their surrogates. And, of course, the blogosphere. Needless to say, Democrats are not known for picking a message and staying on it.

By the way, for all those who worry that the focus should be on McCain, not Palin -- defining Palin as the make-believe maverick is a two-fer, since it simultaneously rebrands McCain, too. They are, after all, the original make-believe Mavericks. As a bonus, slick rhymes with maverick.

Finally, the Dems should drop all criticism of Slick Sarah's supposed lack of experience. It is off message and just blows back to voter concerns about Obama. Indeed, going after her for lack of experience actually helps her -- it makes her seem like she's Mrs. Smith goes to Washington. The right message is that Slick Sarah has too much experience, not too little. Palin's pseudo-strength is that she and McCain are selling themselves as atypical politicians, supposed reformers and mavericks. But Palin is already the earmark queen, a leader in lobbying, and apparently a pathological liar or supremely cynical pol -- or both.

Hence Slick Sarah, the make-believe Maverick.

LIPSTICK UPDATE: Once you have established that Sarah is slick and that she and McCain are make-believe mavericks pushing the "old politics" -- then you have an automatic response to the next lie from the Palin-McCain campaign, like the absurd smear that Obama was referring to Palin when he said of the McCain campaign's new change theme, "you can't put lipstick on a pig."

You say, "Slick Sarah strikes again with another false smear" and "the make-believe mavericks are once again practicing the old politics of smear." Yes, you could call Palin-McCain liars, but their Rove-designed strategy is to simply lie all the time, so if you constantly call them liars -- and I'm aware that the Obama/Biden team hasn't come close to reaching that tipping point -- it wears thin.

In any case, the "liar, liar" attack has its limits because people assume politicians lie and the media hates to repeat the word "liar." More important, "liar" has no rhetorical memorableness in it, like Slick Sarah or make-believe maverick. If you don't use the figures of speech, your messaging won't be memorable.

Of course, the LAST thing you want to do is defensively repeat their inane message and say "I'm not sexist" (see "Obama, Don't Call McCain a Maverick Five Times in Your Ad!")

The only winning strategy is to respond to every attack with another attack. If you aren't attacking, you're losing.

To read more from Joseph Romm, go here.

Comments

[Palmz]

Where is my money? Why only the residents of Alaska are getting a rebate?

Is this oil rebate? Did they get this on top of the $1200 bush handed out.?

Is there any other state in the union giving such additional money back? Should we all move to Alaska so that we can benefit from this windfall?

Questions, questions, questions.­.....no answer, no answer, no answer.

Where is she?

Should i vote for her?

I think not!

[escorpion]

Truth Killah from Wasilla

[GiggidyGeshmoygen]

how about this......­........

Slick Sarah -- the Stay-at-Home Governor

[MPeter]

Beautiful. I am beginning to like where this is headed. Suddenly the noise of fog of Palin is beginning to clear for voters to see the conjob that she is; a lying Rethug who would be worse than Bush-Cheney.

[BigPaw7]

"Press Play" Palin -- since she won't take any questions from anyone on anything -- she is the equivalent of a tape player reiterating the same lies over and over.

[research]

Sarah Sarah, House on fire.

[fnygy]

I think Obama needs to go right at John McCain - as a portal to the past rather than a gateway to the future. This is an old man who doesn't even use the internet, for god's sake. He has NO new ideas; nothing but tired old bromides, much like himself. He's SOOOOO 20th century - and mid 20th century at that. We might like the furniture, but do we really want the politics? I think not.

Use Palin as a symbol of how 'out of it' McCain is. He's a maverick for picking a woman and trying to "break that glass ceiling?!" You mean - like Mondale/Ferraro in 1984?!? There's NOTHING new here. We've seen it all before.

Past/Future - that's the argument - not Left/Right.

[pb28]

Once again I ask why aren’t you running Obama's campaign. I love the idea but Obama would never do it because he is too much of a coward

[walkthewalk]

Since the campaign will not let her answer unscripted questions, I'd have to say that Sarah Palin is all moose and no beef.

[Beachrunner]

I don't get this obsession with a VP candidate . . . good grief, give it a rest. All you're doing is drawing attention to her and looking like a bunch fools while you're doing it.

[Deken]

Uh, Cheney has been the real president of the United States for the last 8 God-forsaken years. Do you get that?

That's why it is a big deal.

Maybe some of us don't want to risk that one-in-three chance that a "soccer mom" and a profound liar will inherit the presidency.

[TheFriendlyAtheist]

McSames' rise in the polls are not from his lousy speech at the conventions. It's all due to her. Bring her down and he goes down with her.

[Scottap]

Focusing on her personality and family is a distraction. Focusing on her as a reflection of John McCain's reckless judgement helps to define him.

[milo h minderbinder]

I'd agree that there's too much attention on Palin, but that's going to be pretty hard to avoid as long as McCain keeps hiding behind her.

[TexasDem0]

Who would be president if J McC has a fatal heart attack shortly after taking office?

[Nia1999]

Is John McCain and Sarah Palin a couple now? He keeps her close to him as if she's his mate. Didn't her refer to her as his soulmate. So McCain is the new "Mack Daddy"!

[Opsimath44]

First, Rick Davis says that this election isn't about issues, it's about personalities.

And then this:

John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said the campaign is entering a stage in which skirmishes over the facts are less important than the dominant themes that are forming voters' opinions of the candidates.

"The more the New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there and the bigger truths are she's new, she's popular in Alaska and she is an insurgent," Feehery said. "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter."

Little facts? Don't matter?

[smoo]

Yes they do. He just needs to stay consistent. No need to peal away his base al you need to do is keep people aware that we are back to the lies and distractions that this group of people is known for. That couple with facts about the economy, education, our world standing..­.. will go much further and a campaign about labling. People are in a frenzy but that too will run thin once the media decides that they can't afford to continue to play this game with no returns.

[CaptainStormfield]

Someone mentioned that she's in a bubble.
I thought that was a good visual.

[LemonMeringue]

I just want to see this ad:

Sarah Palin perched cross-legged on a big fat pig, on the side of which is painted Alaska Pork - $42341934.­87 -

or whatever the total Palin brought to Alaska in both her elected jobs.

And below in fine print would be the actual list - dates, bills, projects, and figures.

I like the poster's idea above: Pork Barrel Palin.

[scrappy41]

WHY is the RNC wholeheartedly supporting two Mavericks who vow to fight their fellow republicans??

[fnygy]

There are those who think they have no choice - better dead then democratic. There are others who are smart enough to know it won't really happen. And there are many who are just happy to have a Jesus Lover like Palin so close to the White House. What better way to hasten the Rapture? These are the folks who are so disappointed in W's lack of armageddon-like resolve.

[westbrooks01]

How dare ya' Sarah!