Enemies Home And Abroad: Playing The Fear Card

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000002686783

Enemies Home And Abroad: Playing The Fear Card
By Madison Powers, CQ Guest Columnist


The clear implication of the controversial Hillary Clinton “3 a.m.” attack ad is that Barack Obama is not ready to take on the role of commander in chief. He is inexperienced and these are too dangerous times to gamble on someone who is not tested.

Recent remarks by Clinton in her stump speeches go further. Her expanded claim is that both she and her Republican rival John McCain are ready, but Obama may not be. The background assumption of these remarks is that these are dangerous times. And of course, that’s the premise of McCain’s whole campaign.

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Many have wondered aloud whether Senator Clinton’s use of the foreign policy fear gambit may not come back to haunt the Democrats.

If Obama is the nominee, Clinton’s words will surely make their way into numerous Republican television ads and speeches. If Clinton is the nominee, McCain will see her bid and raise the stakes well beyond what she can likely match.

McCain will be positioned to pursue a more robust campaign based on fear. For an all too brief moment, McCain opposed President Bush on matters of permitting torture and curbing domestic civil liberties. But his dramatic legislative turn-around leaves him free, should he choose, to go beyond anything that any Democrat is likely to find the stomach for.

In fact, it is difficult to find the appropriate stopping point once fear becomes the central case for one’s campaign. Once the shared premise of both campaigns is that our most vital concern is the dangerous world we inhabit, the candidate who can come up with the most threats and the most enemies almost always wins. The rest of us almost always lose.