Back To The Future

The Iowa caucuses not only marked the beginning of this election season, but also ushered in what was to become the theme of the election: Change. In Iowa, all the candidates from both parties saw that the two candidates that campaigned on a message of change did incredibly well (Obama and Huckabee).

Since then, the theme of change has remained a constant in the campaign. Obama has stayed with his message of "Change We Can Believe In," while McCain has attempted several different change themes prior to the republican convention (remember "The Change You Deserve" back in May).

After the convention, an interesting development occurred. Somehow Obama lost control of the theme of Change. All of a sudden McCain was all about Change. He had taken what Obama had been saying, and started campaigning as the Maverick team that could bring change to Washington. Instead of trying to come up with an original theme he simply used the media spot light of the republican convention and flatly stated, as if no one had ever thought of this idea before, that he was the candidate for change.

What happend next was quite surprising, it caught on. All of a sudden McCain, who remember is from the party who has controlled the presidency for the last eight years, as well as the House and Senate for the first six of those eight years, was the Change man. It appears to me that he was able to pull off this transformation because the base of the republican party has never embraced him (and in fact still haven't--remember they really only got on board once Palin was on the ticket), so he was able to sell himself to moderate republicans (and perhaps independent leaning republicans) that he is different than the last eight years. He can bring Change. Not the Change the democrats want, but he can bring a different kind of republican control to Washington.

With such a high level of success on the overarching theme of Change, McCain started very slowly to adopt a lot of the exact same language that Obama has been using over the last year. If you examine McCain's speeches post convention with Obama's remarks, there is no mistaking that McCain has become somewhat of a mimic or echo of Obama.

McCain has been able to pull of his copy cat nature of Obama's messages, in essence by using the same language and ideas, but in slightly different patterns and cadences. The result has been quite remarkable in the short term. McCain's national and swing state polls have shot way up. This development however has clearly made many Obama supporters quite angry. The claim is that McCain has usurped Obama's issues and is a charlatan or a wolf in sheep's clothing.

What is interesting is that this is not the first time the strategy of co-opting your opponent's popular ideas and messages as your own has occurred in a presidential race and it is not even the first time it has been done by a republican presidential candidate.

Issue and message co-option was the bread and butter of the republican party in presidential elections of most of the 1930s and 1940s. The most famous example is probably the election of 1948, in which the republican party took Truman's entire campaign platform and passed it through congress during the election in an effort to take the issues away from Truman.

The good news for Obama, is that in each historical case when the republican party attempted to take a democratic platform as their own they have lost the election in November. The historical argument for why this is the case is that in the end, issue co-opting by a rival candidate signals to the voting public that there are really only one set of options for moving forward. So when forced with a choice, why would you choose the imitator over the real Mccoy?

What has generally happened is that while issue co-optation can cause short term excitement by the partisans of the candidate that co-opted the issue, because there is no previous record of the candidate having such a position the candidate cannot make a credible commitment to actually carrying through on the co-opted issues once elected. Thus, faced with a choice between candidates that are saying the same thing, voters choice the candidate who is more likely to actually carry out those issues as promised.

As a result, issue co-option helps with popularity in the short term, because the issues themselves garner attention, but in the long term, results in the original candidate being elected. Of course there is no way to know for sure if the same will happen in this election. It is up to Obama to ensure that he remains the authentic choice by showing that McCain is merely echoing his ideas. But it cannot be denied that Obama has history on his side in this development.

Why Tell a Lie?

Today may mark the first and only time in history that Karl Rove and I agree on something. In a recent interview with Fox News, Rove stated that "McCain has gone in some of his ads one step too far...and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test."    

I find several aspects of this development quite interesting. First, let me put it in writing that I do agree with Rove. Several recent ads that have been put out by McCain have been quite nasty and border on actual slander.    

A recent example is an ad, released in areas with high latino populations, that stated that Obama voted against immigration reform and was instrumental in stalling the creation of any guest worker program or a path to citizenship. The problem with this ad, of course, is that Obama and McCain actually worked together on this bill, each voting to end the filibuster in the senate; in fact, they voted identically on the procedural and final passage votes.    

All political ads lie to some extent, and to pretend that Obama hasn't produced negative ads either would be a mischaracterization. However, Obama has not been foolish enough to create an ad that states a lie that can easily be verified and shown to be untrue. What is more startling, however, is when one examines where the nastiest attack ads are being run, it is pretty clear that the demographic groups that are being targeted are those containing individuals who are statistically on the lower end of the income and education scales.    

This tactic is about as low as it gets as it amounts to directly lying to confuse people who will not be able to gather complete information about the candidates due to limitations regarding time, resources, and language ability. Candidates launch such attacks because they can be very effective since these voters are not constantly tuning in to see what is occurring in the campaign, and reserach has shown that first impressions of a candidate are very important in deciding who to vote for among voters with lesser educations.    

The decision to go negative is not a surprise, but the manner in which is has occurred is highly questionable. It raises questions about McCain's ethics that I myself would not have thought possible. It is clear though that the straight-talking express has broken down.    

I think it is silly to argue that campaigns should always be positive; that’s not how the world works, and it isn't how campaigns are won. We may all hate negative ads, but they are really effective. I don't deplore McCain's choice to go negative, but the degree to which he has done so has the potential to backfire in a big way. 

Together Forever?

Parting ways can be difficult, which would be one explanation for why McCain and Palin are still campaigning together now that the convention is behind us. That explanation would be wrong, but it makes for a nice lead in for today’s post.   

Traditionally, after the conventions, the newly foraged party candidates for President and Vice President head off and do about 3-4 days of heavy campaigning together. After that, they bid each other ado and separate. The logic in separating is that two people can cover far more ground than a single person, and since a party ticket is usually designed to appeal to different types of voters, the splitting of the two candidates allows each to go and campaign separately to court these voters. It is not unusual for the ticket-mates to meet back together for large events, big fundraises, or meet for rallies in swing states, but generally each will spend the month of September campaigning alone.   

Obama and Biden have followed this traditional form to the letter. After the convention, the two drew huge crowds at several joint events and have since separated to court voters individually.  Since separating, Obama and Biden have done several big events together, but by and large they have been keeping separate travel schedules, events, and hotels.   

Over on the republican side, the original plan coming out of the convention was for something very similar for McCain and Palin. They would do a few events together and then separate to hit their respective bases of support. However, this has not occurred. Rather, they have repeatedly added joint events and have not really separated yet (take today’s joint campaign stop in northern VA).   

The pundits have noticed this occurrence, but have attributed it to the fact that when McCain was campaigning alone before the convention, he was pulling crowds in the 100s, whereas after the convention, he and Palin together have been attracting thousands. Thus, the two have not split yet because they want to ride the wave.   

While there is clearly merit in this explanation, I have trouble with it because logically it doesn’t make sense. It is not the fact that they are campaigning together that is drawing larger crowds, but that the republican convention really energized republicans. So whereas the support for McCain was luke-warm before the convention, that indifferent sentiment has been completely replaced by an air of excitement and enthusiasm.   

Now some will claim that if Palin wasn’t with him, he wouldn’t get the crowds. So what? If Palin is the reason they are getting crowds, then her campaigning on her own would still pull the large crowds and McCain could be working a different, if smaller, group of people at the same time. To me, the republicans’ strategy here makes no sense if the explanation is to ride the Palin wave to bigger crowds for McCain.

However, there are two alternative hypotheses that do explain why the republicans have not yet shifted to the split campaigning. The first is that the McCain staff is very afraid that if they separate, Palin will pull more people to her events than McCain will to his. Such an event would clearly be covered in the media and make McCain look weak. Obviously, the VP candidate should not pull more than the boss.   

The second alternative hypothesis is that the McCain camp is afraid to have Palin campaign by herself on the national stage at this point. It is clear that she can be very powerful when she is protected and in a controlled environment, but if she is on her own at her own events, the McCain campaign will have little control over what she says or how she answers questions.   

In both cases, these alternative hypotheses are good news for Obama. The longer McCain and Palin campaign together, the more ground they will lose as Obama and Biden each individually reach out to voters. Plus, McCain and Palin will have to separate at some point, and in terms of having something embarrassing happen, the farther it is from November 4th, the better off it will be for the campaign that makes the mistake.