(NPF cancelled, obviously)
After a record number of viewers watched Thursday evening's spectacle, any delusions of Palin being an asset – or at least not a liability – to the McCain campaign have been taken behind the chemical sheds and shot. Rather than over-analyzing the performance I think it's more relevant to talk about where the campaign goes from here. McCain, in the timeless words of St. Augustine of Hippo, is looking way fucked.
That's an overstatement. He could still win; that is to say it is not impossible. It certainly looks likely that his "maverick" gamble with Palin will be self-inflicted, possibly fatal, wound. The are rapidly losing steam and they know it. They badly want to reverse the trend but there is no obvious solution. We can expect, in short, that McCain will shortly begin Phase III: Desperation.
We haven't seen this in a while. Al Gore acted like the front-runner throughout the 2000 race, and John Kerry felt like he was neck-and-neck with Bush even if trailing. Bob Dole's campaign never diverted from his patrician, boring tone in 1996 even though Clinton offered so much scandal material to work with. George H. Bush got a little frantic in 1992, but the most outrageous results were a plaintive effort to get Ross Perot to drop out and an ill-advised ten-day campaigning marathon which nearly killed the septugenarian President. Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale rode the high road to a fault. Ford, Carter, and even McGovern were able to lose without resorting to insanity.
But the 2006 election offered just a brief glimpse of how Rove & Co. react to the new experience of losing, and let's just say it will not be graceful. The next five weeks are going to be Hail Mary time for the McCain camp. Not all of it is going to be what we could call dignified. We can quasi-agree that he has lost his post-convention, post-Palin momentum and can safely be described as "trailing" at the moment. Obama is picking up steam and Palin is killing McCain with non-Republicans. McCain realizes that he is on the razor's edge between losing and getting blown out. What could they try?
1. Having Palin "decide" to spend more time with her family and respectfully withdraw. This is a no-win situation for McCain. Either he keeps a crappy running mate or admit that he blew it by picking a crappy running mate. Good judgment, John! I struggle to think of a replacement who would actually make things better. Anyone?
2. Buying into the whacko arguments about Obama and pushing them hard – the secret Muslim stuff, the "meetings with terrorists", the anti-christ angle, all of it. Abandon any claims to the high road. See what sticks and hope that it undermines Obama.
3. Promising to serve only one term. Dole floated this when he realized his odds – the theory being that an old candidate offers himself as a short-term solution who can quickly be replaced. This happened in the 19th Century (Hayes, for example) but seems woefully defeatist today.
4. Start making shit up. Promise voters anything and everything, hope it gets you in the door, and then deal with breaking your word later. Promise ridiculous things that no elected official could possibly deliver and hope someone buys it.
5. Go nuts with the martyr complex. Refuse to debate, fabricate horrible things Obama and the DNC have tried to do ("We uncovered a plot to sabotage one of our rallies!"), and aim for sympathy/outrage in general. They're already doing this to some extent.
This is really a tough situation for McCain's strategists. What would you do to turn things around? What could you do? The message isn't believable, the candidates are inarticulate, and the electoral landscape is unfavorable. Doing more of the same clearly isn't going to turn things around, but what is a reasonable alternative? Failing that, is there even a good unreasonable alternative? We'll be learning the answer through painful experience soon.
Indira says:
Yeah- Sarah Palin was absolutely obnoxious tonight. At this point, retreating to Alaska isn't really an option for Palin. My guess is that in the next few weeks, we can expect a great deal of racist dog whistles from the McCain campaign. We got a taste of that with the whole fracas over Gwen Ifill moderating the debate. She's writing a book about black leadership and she's black so how could she possibly be objective? Sadly, the idea of a black President makes many (white) Americans very uncomfortable and exploiting this will probably underscore McCain's campaign at this point. I mean, they've tried everything else…
D. Marlan says:
I didn't think she was THAT bad… a huge improvement from the Couric debacle…
J. Dryden says:
I'm going with Indira on this one; Option 2 seems to have worked for the GOP in the past (as McCain well knows, as the father of a non-existant multi-racial bastard child)–hate and fear gets out the vote: "GAY MARRIAGE GAY MARRIAGE GAY MARRIAGE BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!!" So look for Obama to be portrayed in the ugliest of terms. Negativity is the name of the game from hereon in.
Ben says:
Again, I beg to differ with you about McCain's prospects. I think Palin did a superb job last night of talking to exactly the people the McCain campaign needed her to talk to: droves of lower-middle-class voters who only vote if they can identify emotionally with the candidate. They voted for Bush; they weren't going to vote for McCain, because he's more like Biden than he is like Bush; but Palin knows how to talk to these folks, and last night, she did it BRILLIANTLY.
I hope you're right, and that the American people see through Palin and McCain, but remember that Americans failed to see through GWB…twice.
pmayo says:
Here's what I see happening. Rove will get the PAC's going, and they will begin to put all sorts of vile shit; on the internets, tv, print, planting "stories" in newspapers…the whole kit and kaboodle. Meanwhile, we'll see the return of St. McCain. He'll condemn the ads and soft-peddle some talk about how the political climate needs to change, while his backers spew as much venom at Obama and Biden as possible.
Michael says:
I'm going to have to agree with Ben above… the whole Palin debate thing reminds me of something that happened to me at work. Our ad agency was in town reviewing new TV spots with our CEO. When they were over, he wrinkled his nose and said, "I don't think that's funny." And our account exec said, without missing a beat: "With all due respect, 65-year-old multi-millionaires are NOT our audience. The LAST thing I want is for you to think it's funny…"
Palin didn't go to the debate last night to convince me, or Ed, or 99% of the people who read this blog. She had to put on her "regular gal" show and repeat her talking points without going off the rails, and not drive anybody away from the ticket. Which I'm guessing she did.
But I agree that it's over for McCain. There's just no way they can turn this around unless something completely off the wall happens. I don't think at this point hyping up the "Hey, he's black!" thing is going to swing anyone.
Shane says:
Well, they can always hope for another "October Surprise." Maybe they could secretly send a message to beg Bin Laden to broadcast another tape, or perhaps Palin can use her direct line (some fshing wire and two tin cans) to Russia to suggest they drop a bomb somewhere to rile fears of a new cold war. Or maybe, just maybe, Bush isn't as greedy and selfish as we thought and he is saving the announcement of Bin Laden's capture till the most opportune moment for him to help his party….god knows he owes them something. While I am starting to allow myself to breathe a little sigh of relief, I am not quite comfortable. Anything can happen in October, and who the heck knows what Palin's beloved "Joe six-pack" will end up doing on Nov 4.
Beth says:
I tend to agree with Ben and Michael about Palin's performance. She is not there to convert the Obama faithful–the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. She did a good job connecting with the average working-class, blue-collar worker in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia (among other states). She was charming and able to articulate coherence policy positions in a way that the average American can understand. That is not to say that Biden did not do as well–he was also good, but perhaps did not connect as well..with his distinctions between policy and procedural votes, etc. The average Joe "6-pack" does not understand or care about this (look at Kerry–I voted for it before I was against it….).
Nate says:
I was watching this with my friend Liz (not your Liz), and we couldn't believe how hokey Palin was and the different phrases she used, like "Say it ain't so, Joe", etc. It was quality entertainment that kept us laughing for hours. Also, her Alaskan pronunceation of "nucular" was priceless. Can anyone who is hardcore right say "nuclear" properly?
Michael says:
I'm joining in on the "not so bad" review of the Palin performance. The Couric excerpts I saw (Supreme Court, newspapers, Wall St. regulation) made me wonder if she could get through an appearance without talking herself into a corner or visibly groping for an answer. The debate format actually seemed to favor her in that she could string platitudes together and avoid the question if necessary. Not that I thought she was exceptional, but all she had to prove was that she can hold it together under pressure. And she pulled it off before a huge tv audience. She managed the feat of not embarassing herself and avoiding any glaring youtube moments. As with most things, there's a good Simpsons' reference:
Bart: Wow, my father an astronaut. I feel so full of…what's the
opposite of shame?
Marge: Pride?
Bart: No, not _that_ far from shame.
Homer: [quavering] Less shame?
Bart: [happy] Yeah…
BK says:
How sad is it that a review of Palin that amounts to "good job, she didn't screw-up" affords her and her supporters the ability to say she did a good job? (it's also sad that the same can be said of Biden, but in my view it was clear he actually had taken the time to memorize some numbers, facts and other pertinent details related to, you know, a debate.)
She was horrible. Saying something folksy because you don't know anything else is not acceptable. Imagine, if you will, that she actually had to meet with a world leader and all she could get out was "Aw shucks Mr. Putin, there you go again looking backwards to the cold war… I'm such an international outsider Ahmadinejad… "
And shame on anyone who think that most Americans are unable to tell a big pile of BS when they see it. The American people know when somebody is full of it… it's just, unfortunately, sometimes we don't care.
ec says:
I think Palin's regurgitation of talking points in every situation is obvious and pathetic. However….
I live with two evangelical Christians who were leaning Obama – and think Palin is a "real smart cookie" They are leaning McCain because of Palin. (Which kind of makes me want to move) One of them is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage – but tells me the GOP is more inline with her moral values.
I also have a friend who is a liberal – but is suddenly worried about the radical racial views of Michelle and Barack Obama…and she liked Palin in the debate saying, "We'll she trashed NCLB, she seems good…" At which point I almost threw up into my phone.
I really hope I'm not living in the mainstream of America.
Elizabeth says:
Alas ec, the people you speak about are more along the mainstream of America and the ones on this blog are not. The people on this blog were probably struck with utter confusion after the last 2 elections, thinking that Gore and Kerry would win by a sizable margin.
beau says:
me too, ec. me too.
damn right, BK. couple of weeks ago ed posted something about the GOP lowering expectations so that the definition of success was a clean pair of lady-strides at the end of the debate. seems this, at least, worked a treat on ben, beth & co. there may have been no 'deer in headlights' moment, but was i the only one who detected a shart here and there?
honestly, i was expecting more from her. strange as that seems.
elizabeth, i didnt expect Kerry to win. i wanted him to win, but thats not the same thing. Polls, debates, etc. notwithstanding, he was up against a charismatic encumbent wartime (ha!) president.
and gore did win. :)
Ed says:
With due respect to your right to accuse me of poor judgment, nothing says "I have never met a working-class or poor person" quite like asserting that working-class and poor people probably went wild for that performance.
We did watch the same debate. The differences are two. One is that you fell for a transparent trick (the expectations game – she didn't drool on herself, ergo she looked great) and I didn't. The second is that I don't assume that people who lack high incomes or advanced education are drooling retards who need to (and want to) be spoken to like infants and who can't understand when someone is flinging meaningless slogans at them. There is a structural difference between what working-class people and working class people as imagined by multimillionaire faux-populist Republicans. We can all name a person or two from our circle who fall for the "Gee Golly Shucks, I just a-wanna chat with Joe Six-Pack" bullshit. Feel free to cite some evidence that she effectively swayed some portion of the electorate that was not already voting for McCain anyway.
George W. Bush answered questions. He made arguments. He presented ideas he was clearly familiar and comfortable with. Palin stood there and read scripted statements of cobbled-together sound bites regarding issues she had not considered as of four weeks ago.
The biggest mistake people in business, politics, and academia make is conflating "lower middle class" with "mentally retarded." There is nothing inherently valid about your classist assumption that people being A) minimally educated or B) unskilled means that they feel like Sarah Palin is "speaking to them" and saying just what they want to hear. Working class people want to hear ideas too. They don't want to hear someone condescending them with dumbed-down, empty-calorie talking points that mean nothing.
In short, the Joe Six-Pack crap is a classic straw man. Were I not prone to being an asshole myself, I would take great umbrage at the implication that Regular Folk are naturally turned off by Biden because his answers had too many words they obviously couldn't understand. And that Palin won them over by using an act approximately as convincing (and offensive) as if I painted in blackface and used slang from 10 year-old rap albums to "connect with" my black students.
Myconfidentz says:
I dunno. I was discussing Palin with a guy I know the other night. He makes good money, raised middle class, college-educated. Suffice it to say that his positive opinion of Palin amounts to the following:
Millions of otherwise not mentally disabled Americans don't know shit about their government, and have little or no capacity for seeing through the most transparent of scuzzy politicking and emotivist/Luntzy catchwords.
So it really doesn't matter if they are retarded. They know fuckall about many of the matters of vital importance to the governance and leadership of this nation. I guess what I'm saying is that, for all intents and purposes, they ARE fucking r-tards.
Goddammit, I hate it! I fucking busted ass for Kerry. I busted ass for Obama. I've wasted god-knows-how-many hours trying to inform fucking dipshits from here to New York to Colorado and back. People ARE fucking ignorant of politics/current events/government to the point of retardation.
That's all there is to it. The civic knowledge base of the majority of this country is for shit…which is why we ALL deserve to continue to get fucked right in the goat ass by the top 5%. It's communal punishment. Sigh…
Shane says:
Looks like they are going with strategy #2
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081004/pl_nm/us_usa_politics