As predicted when Steve Schmidt, a Rove disciple, was promoted to campaign manager, McCain’s going negative on Obama with his new ad. The line is that Obama is just a celebrity; an empty suit and this is only the opening salvo. The ad is horribly executed (the images are inspiring and images count far more than words), but the basic idea behind it was sound.

When it comes to publicity there are only two jobs in a campaign.

Brand yourself. Brand your opponent. Make it stick. People think in archetypes and storylines. What archetype are you? McCain is Maverick Man of Principle willing to stand up for what he believes. Bill Clinton was "The Man From Hope". Barack Obama is "the Messiah". Yeah, you probably don’t like me calling him that, but what Obama offers is three things:

  • A personal conversion experience. There is the time before you know Obama, and then there is the time after you know Obama. Obama volunteers are expressly instructed to talk this way. They are not supposed to talk about policy, but how they came to believe in the Obama movement.
  • Change. Obama will make the way Washington has operated change for the better. Nasty, bitter, divisive partisanship will go away and Republicans and Democrats will work together to make America a better place.
  • The sense of being part of a larger movement. Together we can make change!

Obama’s weakness, then, is "change for what"? Oh sure, there’s a big website full of details, but that’s not what Obama has been selling, with the one exception of maybe, Iraq. Clinton and Edwards sold specific plans, in particular universal healthcare. Obama sells "change" and being part of something bigger than yourself.

So the natural attack on Obama is exactly the one that McCain is making. That Obama is an empty suit trying to be all things to all people and that when you find out his policy, it’s stupid. It’s not that Obama doesn’t have policy papers, it’s that Obama’s emphasis is not on policy. And in moving towards the right with decisions like funding for church programs and voting for warrantless spying on Americans, Obama has made it look like his word and his convictions are not that important to him.

Since McCain’s brand is "Maverick Man of Principle", then, making Obama into someone who will do anything, say anything, in order to be elected, makes sense.

This is irrespective of reality. McCain, in fact, has thrown all of his ostensible principles overboard in the last few years in his courting of the conservative base in order to win the primaries. In particular, when he voted for torture to curry favor with Bush and the pro-torture crowd, it was gut-wrenchingly painful to watch: akin to seeing a beaten man lick the boots of the one who had broken him. With that one act John McCain showed himself to be what he would like others to believe Obama is, a man who will do anything, say anything, debase himself in any fashion, in order to be president.

And this is often the way it is with people. When someone attacks you; when someone hurts you, watch the insult they first reach for, the line of attack they make—it usually says either what they fear the most, or what they are themselves. Liars think everyone lies. Men who have sold their honor for power, think that every other man with power has done likewise.

McCain’s ad tells us not just what McCain wants us to think of Obama, but what he knows is true of himself.

The man of honor many admired; that John McCain, is dead. With each compromise he made, with each degrading vote, with each violation of his personal code and beliefs, he killed himself in inches before our very eyes.

And as with most such degraded men, now he tries to clutch the broken shards of his honor to him, and lashes out at others, imagining that they too must have made his Faustian bargain.


Related posts:

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  2. CIA Torture Briefings: McCain Owes Pelosi an Apology
  3. FDL Book Salon Welcomes Michael Huttner and Jason Salzman, 50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America
  4. Election Night Thread #2: McDonnell Projected VA Winner; NJ Gov. Race Too Close to Call
  5. Obama, in OFA Webcast, Urges Unity for “Least” of Health Care Bills