Our Hobbesian Media Culture May Trump Obama's Big Issue Opportunity

Barack Obama's campaign finally hits John McCain for top economic advisor Phil Gramm, a principal deregulator. But Obama's vagueness thus far on solutions to the financial crisis leaves him vulnerable in our Hobbesian media culture.

It's not exactly "Happy Days Are Here Again," but there's no question that economic crisis is generally a Democratic campaign tonic. With Barack Obama moving ahead again in the polls, Sarah Palin's luster fading as I wrote two weeks ago, and John McCain flailing, it should be good times for Obama.

But it's not all good for him, because Obama still hasn't presented a clearcut approach on the crisis. And that presents an ongoing opportunity for Team McCain to use our Hobbesian new media environment to make major trouble for the Democratic frontrunner.

Remember, all the way back to last week? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had failed, McCain's take on Russia was demonstrably wrong, there was big trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what we laughingly call our national political debate was focused on lipstick and pigs.

Steve Schmidt, who I profiled on Huffington Post when he took over direction of the McCain campaign in early July, and know very well from his direction of Arnold Schwarzenegger's landslide re-election, is a master of manipulating the new media environment to trip up and scorch Obama.

He has what I think of as a Hobbesian view of the new media environment. In his view, media outlets can be backed off by a campaign. There's no established primacy of credibility. The New York Times is no better than anything else. In fact, it's frequently treated as an enemy.

A blog can be as powerful as a newspaper, even more so given its superior speed. And deliberative network news can be overwhelmed by talk radio and the easily stampeded cycle of cable news chatter.

The absence of clarity around Obama's policy on the present crisis, while perhaps admirable from a traditional academic view, presents opportunity in the Hobbesian media universe.

Vagueness can be cast as anything. And in this case, probably something bad.

Of course, it is a confusing situation. And McCain is confusing as all get out with regard to what he's doing. But Schmidt and his colleagues in Team McCain are much better at rapid, ruthless attack.

Especially as few really understand what is going on. Which means that Obama can get spun out again.

With the crisis full-blown, the laissez faire Bush/Cheney Administration is reacting like a Eurocommunist regime on speed. Big bailouts, still hazy in their particulars but not in their scope, are the order of the day. Hundreds of billions of dollars of government money is being used to float financial markets and bail out at least one firm, the world's biggest insurance firm, and perhaps more.

In the midst of all this, the presidential campaign debate has become quite murky. It's an environment once again advantaging Barack Obama and the Democrats, as Obama moves quickly this week to leads in most polls.

But it's not clear precisely what Obama wants done. He met with key economic advisors today in Florida -- including much of the top Bill Clinton team from his Cabinet and White House -- and came forth with a similar speech to what he said earlier in the week. Action is needed. Regulators and overseers have failed. He's not against what the Bush administration is doing. But he's not specifically endorsing it and is continuing to evaluate the situation. Oh, and this shows the problems of financialist greed and the failure of John McCain's deregulationist approach.

For his part, McCain has lurched around this week. On Monday, he called the American economy strong and called for a 9/11-style commission to investigate. He later adjusted his remarks on the state of the economy. And lurched into an angry sort of populist rhetoric against greed. Hit with reminders of his deregulationist record and the numbers of Wall Street lobbyists deeply involved with running his campaign, he attacked Obama as a tax-and-spend Democrat and tried to link him to the disgraced former head of the failed Fannie Mae home finance corporation. He said he would fire Securities & Exchange Commission head Chris Cox, which he couldn't do. Today he declared he is against more bailouts -- even as the Bush team is pressing forward -- and unveiled a plan to help some homeowners. And attacked Obama, implying he somehow bore responsibility for the meltdown.

If McCain is hyperactive, Obama is phlegmatic. While the overall environment should favor Obama, it's quite dangerous for him.

Comments

[freshnotbitter]

If Obama is against greed then he is against everybody and everybody knows it.

[jhNY]

But of course Obama's is behaving in a reasonable measured way. That's how he goes about his business, and in this instance, his business is a tricky walk on a knife-edge. His party has joined the republicans in a giant handover of the wealth of the nation to the donor class of fat cats who have bankrolled both parties for the last few election cycles. Despite the fact he's campaigned for health care, jobs and education, now that the troubles of financiers have been offloaded onto the backs of his constuency, he's in no position to cheerlead the infamy, or bitch about it too much, as it's his party. But all those fine speeches full of promises to restore stability to the middle class have just gone up in smoke, and to borrow a Nixonian construct, are no longer operative. Every person alive in the country just got a bill of $7,000 which they now owe because both parties have made us bag-holders for their donors. Vote early and often for the candidate of your choice...

[BottomLine2008]

Too long, too nice, too borrowing to win an election.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

He is. And he put out a more clearcut statement today.

[Transcendentobserver]

Yes, a more clearcut, but only slightly more so. He qualified what should have been "must", and when he should have asserted the verb "must" he employed a tepid "should". The irony is that the obverse would be far more easily quantified and the model historically employed: In the US under FDR and in Sweden a decade and a half ago.

[CaptainStormfield]

http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/09/murdoch-obamas.html
Here's an interesting one.
Murdoch says Obama's policies are protectionist, anti globalization. 1960's.

[BottomLine2008]

Of course, anything that is against what Murdoch wants is "protectio­nist."

[TRIATHLON]

CHANGE IS THE ISSUE AND NOT THE NOMINEE’S FOR THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY

It is Autumn and the leaves are beginning to change, the season is changing and the era is changing, and with them the end of Pox Americana. The Propaganda smoke and mirror media is a huge part of the problem, but to that must be added a government of professional, multi-generational, political elitist in gridlock and denial, and economy based upon a market economy in meltdown, and a professional military based upon more money, more time, more troops tied to corporate interests trapped in the Middle East hanging on by their finger nails getting no ware fast.

The (IPN’s) Imperial Presidential Nominee’s will bring no change as they are opposite sides of the same coin. The (2008) elections mean nothing, as the (18th) Century United States of America based upon the Constitution of the United States of America has evolved into the (21st) Century Military Industrial Complex based upon the Grand Chessboard, Full Spectrum World Domination Doctrine. It’s an election about nothing.

But, the statement that would last all time still holds true “This Too Shall End”. Change is coming, but not the change the (IPN’s) of the Military Industrial Complex as hyping

[BottomLine2008]

You have too much jargon.

[jhNY]

And yet, he's correct.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't think so.

[dvd1]

Great post. There is an American ideal of leadership, and decisiveness is a key element of that. A segment of American culture is anti-intellectual to the point of wanting a Bush or a Palin, but over the last eight years many Americans have learned some hard lessons in that area. The meme of the president as cowboy or angry, authoritarian father is dying. That an Obama or a Hillary Clinton or a Palin can even be considered to be on a presidential ticket is proof of that. Americans want BALANCE--someone who considers facts, thinks, and then makes firm and clear decisions about what to do physically. While ideas can be complex and abstract, the description of a physical action is always simple. It's fine for Obama to consider for a day or two but then he MUST come out with a simple, easy-to-communicate plan. The plan must include not just ideas but specific, physical action steps such as, "Take this money and move it over here." Bernanke and Paulson have already made the quick, tough decision, so the electorate knows it can be done. If Obama waits too much longer he is automatically late to the game, and will be seen to be less decisive than people in the administration. We have lucked out only because McCain's simple physical action ("Fire the head of the SEC.") was shown to be rash and unproductive.

[Phoenixredux]

Please don't include Palin in the company of Obama and Clinton. She said herself, she's hardwired not to blink.

[dvd1]

I only mention her as an example of the breakdown of the concept of the cowboy/aut­horitarian father president. She's using some of the authoritarian father language, but she's also using new feminine memes that would have been impossible to use 25 years ago. Geraldine Ferraro would never have gotten away with the irrationality and ignorance of Palin. Palin is using the feminine/r­ight-brain­ed/intuiti­ve meme of "I don't have to be educated because I'm in touch with a deeper, more intuitive and spiritual direction.­" It's a much more feminine archetype--no man could get away with it. And Palin won't either, in the long run, because so much of it is faked, but she can get away with it among some of the right-wing community for a while because enough Republicans think, "She may not be too smart but at least her morals, religiosity, etc., are in the right place." This is the awkward and juvenile beginning of the acceptance of more feminine archetypes in politics.

[BottomLine2008]

People want answers. They don't want to wait around. Did the Clintonoids advising Obama forget they deregulated markets in the '90s? Did they forget their own game plans for bad stuff if it happened?

[Jenoah2008]

It is simplistic to expect Obama to lay out a "take this money and move it over here" plan, for variety of reasons including these: From point of politics, he would strengthen the current McCain expertise on co-opting democrats' perspectives and "Obama policies, " with media ignoring these appropriations of ideas, assisting the socially more desirable but weaker candidate, McCain--with hood-winking skits on high level objective critical analysis staged by "graduate-­school-lik­e round-tables," without a seasoned thinker to bring productive synthesis, closure or food for serious public choice. Onexecutive leadership: Obama would be fool-hardy and pounced upon for thinking "he" alone instantly could think up a solution to this international crisis created by a decade of our unleashed personal and corporate greed. This greed has been justified by some Utopian idea of an elevated human nature that is inherently good and willing to act to restrain itself for the social good--and thus released all from personal, familial, communal, social limits agreed on behalf of a "shared" civilized humane existence. On political competition: Elections, which should be about analyzing and choosing the best ideas for governing in the interest of the whole, have been turned into protracted cacophonic psycho-social venting events. Here again, media acts as referee in the brawl of a deliberately mis-educated and under-educated populace reved-up to vote on subliminal emotions now and pay-later. "Buy now; pay later! "

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks. Decisiveness is key. I'd be surprised if Obama's economic advisors hadn't anticipated such a scenario.

[Sanity 2008]

Good analysis. Part of the problem is that Obama's economic advisory team is hobbled by ex-Clinton Rubin-Summers deregulati­on-oriente­d thinking (which aided and abetted the Phil Gramm-engineered deregulation of the 1990s).

The situation will remain somewhat murky, but to blast through with a clearer message, here are suggestions (for starters):

* Continue to pound McCain-Gra­mm-Bush-Re­publican deregulation responsibility - pious denunciations of "greed" are a cop-out for a political program built by and for the greedy...
* Emphasize program to help stressed mortgage holders while stabilizing financial system...
* How about special taxes or fees on financial industry to pay for big chunk of these bailouts?
* Propose huge public-works program, especially aimed at repairing dangerously deteriorated infrastructure (bridges, mass transit, railroads) and electrifying transportation to provide alternative to petroleum dependency - this will offset recessionary trends in economy as result of this crisis (I suspect these are proposals that will resonate positively with most voters)...

[BottomLine2008]

That's right.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Obama came out with a new statement Sunday, and said some of those things.

[proreality]

So people aren't able to recognize that the Republicans simply use everything to score political points, even if they created the debacle, because Republicans think it is all just a game and about winning like an addict at a roulette table, no matter how far down they are if they can just play a little more, while there are others who take a more measured and reasoned approach and want to do what is right and for the greater good. Oh, I see.

[BottomLine2008]

This is a political campaign. It's not civics class. Ask Professor Dukakis.

[BottomLine2008]

I'm talking about the Obama ad at the top of this page, LiberalLady.

[Lizardtales]

The RED candidate likes to gamble - throw the dice - and has been know to have a genuine affliction for it.

[BottomLine2008]

And it's not like people hate Las Vegas, right?

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Remember that this campaign hasn't been going like a civics class.

[RepugsOut08]

I feel like John McCain just shot me in the face, and is now standing with his foot on my throat screaming, "Get this man a doctor! No, a mechanic! I mean a veterinarian! No, it's doctor! That's the ticket! Some black man shot him, and I'm trying to give him some oxygen!"
I feel like Obama just gently, but decisively, shoved McCain out of the way and off of my throat, and started preparing me for the long recovery ahead.

[BottomLine2008]

Oh, that sounds so much like a winning political campaign ... :)

>>>>> I feel like Obama just gently, but decisively, shoved McCain out of the way and off of my throat, and started preparing me for the long recovery ahead.

[MAXIE19]

The essence of a wise leader is one who acts in a calm, measured, well-reasoned and temperate manner during a time of crisis. That is what Barack Obama did today. Contrast that with the erratic ever changing responses from John McCain this week. A leader needs to act only after receiving adequate information and after careful deliberation. Barack Obama made it clear that he needed time to review the bail out plan from the Feds before responding. He referenced his meeting with his economic advisers and his conversations with the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as grounds why he felt it would be ill-advised to deliver a hastily put together plan. Contrast that with John McCain who as usual shot from the hip on several occasions this week with little or no understanding of the fundamentals of the crisis. Not once during his speech (for someone who has admitted that economics was not his strong suit) did he mention talking to Mr. Paulson or Mr. Bernanke or other economic experts that would have demonstrated that he was acting with adequate information. Everything Mr. McCain has said and has done this week with regards to this economic crisis appeared to have been tailored towards scoring political points. That is not putting the country first. That is putting John McCain's political aspirations first.

[BottomLine2008]

That's about five sentences more than any swing voters would listen to.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Obama looked pretty good, but also left a big opening.

[CaptainStormfield]

The McCain campaign is certainly working hard to tie Obama to the failed Fannie and Freddie, placing the idea that the Democrats "made" Fannie and Freddie loan money to "insert your racial code word" people and blaming the Dems in general for the credit meltdown.

[BottomLine2008]

That's right. They're saying it all started with Fannie and Freddie and Obama got the most money from the two.

[yorkie]

THE DYNAMICS OF THIS Race and the one in GOV Arnold's are very diff.... MAC is proving to be a fading star candidate.­.. not sure if it's the long drawn out race and age catching up with him as well as his ideas are so yesterday for a large and growing part of the electorate that can see through IT AND THE GOPERS RULE OF DISASTER FOR YRS ON END...Also I think the media etc give too much cred to Shmitd and others of his rovian ilk.....Th­ey can;t hide MAC AND IMPLODINg and now revealed witch hunter believing PALIN...FA­DING,,,,,,­,THE JIG IS UP ON THESE AWFUL LIARS SPEWING OF HATE AND CORRUPTION­!!!!!!!!!!­!! TO THINK OUR FOUNDING FATHERS COULD HAVE SET A BETTER,PEACEFUL SYSTEM OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVT LIKE IN CANADA....­..CANADA HAS IT'S VOTE A MTH FROM NOW AFT A SHORT SET RACE THE PRIME MINISTER CALLED 2 WKS AGO OR SO,,,,,,,DUMP THE ELECTORAL VOTE SYSTEM NOW!!!!!! VOTE OUT BIGOTS, CLASS WARRIORS AND FRAUDS VOTE DEM,,VOTE O BIDEN '08 NOV 4,,,!!!!

[BottomLine2008]

Keep cheerleading. It might must work. :)

[PaulStewart]

I think McCain is way behind Obama. And I think Obama is just getting his arms around a difficult situation. Better to take a day and get it right, than to be like McCain saying one thing one day and the opposite the next. Obama is likely trying to get the fuller view of the crisis and where it might go and then come up with a clear and hard solution that will stand the test of the time through to the election and after. You won't get that down in a day or two. This thing is huge. The opportunity is correspondingly huge and he needs to get it right. He will and he will get the message out. He is calling for bold action for a reason. He is developing a bold action plan. One that is the right one, not just and expedient one. In the meantime, the McCain team will be self destructing.

When Americans here is bold plan and understand it, they will be able to contrast that to the McCain inane plan. And they will feel, if not fully understand that Obama has got it right again. Hold your confidence in Obama a little higher. He is the man.

[timberdoodle]

As an outsider I am beginning to think that the American culture is going to work against Obama. Hopefully I am wrong but I think it is your country's culture to put a much larger emphasis on patriotism rather than common sense.

What I mean about this as the simple truth can't be talked about without being politically devastating because it would be too easy for the war mongers to conger up the opposition's lack partriotism if they ever took the stance it was time America put more of it's resources into it's society and it's citizens and less into wars and munitions used in wars.

My observations are nations are going to have to find more into diplomacy than military might since enemies no longer are defined as one country but causes within many countries.

[TenThings]

Agree, that in order to win an election, you must have the Killer instinct. You have to go down to the most basic, instinctive, animalistic level, in order to win the election. From what I gather, Hobbe's one famous line from Leviathan was that we humans, were in our natural state, dogs "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". Of course in politics, you have to do this, in order to win, but of course you have to do this without turning into Nixon, and using your government offices, connections and abuse of power, as a means to an end, as a way of going after your enemies. That being said, Republicans have a problem with this. Its seems that the new media is already attacking Palin over this. Have you considered that the new media, old media, has a mind of its own, and not even Steven Schmidt's manipulation and supposed, "much better at rapid, ruthless attack."at­titude, and "kill kill kill" mentality, may not be be enough and backfire. That's not to say that Obama is just as good, with the killer instincts, you are just not appreciating it.

[BottomLine2008]

If Obama is so good at it, why is his campaign so slow?

Is this what you mean by Hobbesian media culture, Bill?

>>>> You have to go down to the most basic, instinctive, animalistic level, in order to win the election. From what I gather, Hobbe's one famous line from Leviathan was that we humans, were in our natural state, dogs "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short".

[susie1776]

Excuse me, but you and I must have listened to a different speech by Obama this morning. What I saw and heard was a calm, thoughtful assessment of a difficult situation where he said as a political candidate it was not his place to question what is being done until he had had the opportunity to study the fine details of the big bailout proposal being discussed by Congress and the Bush Administration. That he was consulting with the economics experts on his team to better understand the crisis and the ramifications for the future. That this moment was one where the political parties need to come together to solve this. He also said he would have a comment later about his ideas but that now was not the time. I was much more impressed and much more trusting of this sane, somber approach than I was to the ranting and raving and flip flops of Senator McCain. He looked like he wasn;t sure what was happening. If anyone was vague it was McCain.

[Martee]

Exactly! What are you talking about?!??! Obama had a specific 6 point plan -- McCain -- errrr . . . might appoint a 9/11 type commission. Obama is anything but vague.

[BottomLine2008]

Dude. Obama has a "specific 6-point punt." What does he think about the biggest bailout in history? He's not sure. What would he do differently? He's not sure.

[athenasword]

I agree. And, well maybe I'm naive, but how is it that people are acting like this mess is Obama's to fix? His opinions right now are just noise(as are McSame's), since the only plan that matters is the one we get from GWB and his crew. While there can be opinions on it, the media seems to make it sound like we are waiting on Obama to deliver the fix. The fact is that ball is not his right now...

But, I believe we will see calm leadership from him. He will carefully consider what's happening, gather information from a star panel of advisors and decide how best to navigate the immense issues at hand. McCain on the other hand just looks erratic and unstable.

[uheardme]

I think Obama should have a rough outline of how he would have handled Fannie, Freddie, and AIG (perhaps a smaller bailout too keep consumer confidence up, but investors not rewarded for bad decisions - some regulation and market controls). But I'm not sure he should give McCain a peek so that he can pick apart his proposals. I like the fact that he will not say anything rash for political points that may cause the markets more upset. He should be measured, but he has to show mastery and leadership in during this crisis.