Glenden BrownCulture War
Two interesting points:
Ezra Klein:
The template is broken. One striking lesson of the campaign has been the reduced salience of the culture war stuff. Rove and Bush could gesture towards identity politics. They could hide behind issues like abortion and guns and the role of the church. McCain has had to state it all explicitly. He’s had to talk to the media about media bias and have Palin inform small town voters that they should feel insulted and run ads about drawing a cross in the dirt. I don’t know if McCain is jut bad at this stuff or the electorate has undergone some sort of sea change, but a style of politics that was one symbolic and subtle has become explicit and blunt. And its not proving very effective.
Kevin Drum:
McCain and Palin are running on fumes. There’s just nothing left for them to talk about aside from unpatriotic liberals, sneering urbanites, and how the mainstream media hates them. The politics of esthetics is all they have left.
It has truly been a remarkable campaign. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between John McCain and George Bush as president, I don’t know who I’d pick — and that’s something that would have been inconceivable as recently as a year ago. I wonder if McCain has any idea just how thoroughly he’s going to exit this campaign with his reputation permanently soiled and his life story in tatters?
McCain and Palin are being forced to be explicit, to spell out the “problem” and even that isn’t having the impact they hoped it would have. The Republicans have played a long game - making the politics of resentment a central feature of their campaigns. Something, however, is shifting. Maybe it’s the sense that we are facing real problems and who someone sleeps with or whether or not a bunch of school kids are forced to pray just aren’t real problems and we need to deal with the real problems.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:05 am
IMHO McCain is just bad at this stuff. Sure, he has Rove proteges working on his campaign, and Rove himself is on speed dial. But McCain is calling the shots, badly. He’s running disgusting smear ads with “I’m John McCain, and I approved this message” at the end of every one. Not subtle.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I wonder if this is the real John McCain coming out, or if the real John McCain is privately disgusted with this and is holding his nose while he does what he is told needs to be done.
I think Bush, a shallower man, was more comfortable doing this.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Hey! This is Ken too!
October 8th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Good post, Glen. As I have stated elsewhere, America could experience terror attacks daily for the next month and it would not make a difference so long as personal 401(k)s are at issue. Republicans are now facing real terror - terror of their purses - and not simply terror from a bunch of radical Saudis who managed to commandeer a hand full of jet-liners with box-cutting knives. Republicans should be ashamed and, perhaps now, they are!
October 8th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Speaking of culture wars, listen to Madonna give what for to Sarah Palin:
LISTEN HERE (start about 1:20 min.+)
Doggonit, betcha can’t listen to the crowd’s energy fewer than five times….