Skocpol: Forget Racism, Use Memorable Ads to Make McCain's Economics Scary

[nsd]

I'm not sure if this TPM article has been linked here yet, but I thought it made a lot of sense -- especially the argument that we need to take the fight to McCain and make sure people know what kind of politician he really is.


Skocpol

In recent posts, Marshall and Gitlin are pointing to the increasing use of racial innuendo by the McCain campaign. This is their only route to victory, and there is little question that they have figured out how to do it well with minimally expensive ad buys that get the 24-hour media folks blabbering: presumptuousness, uncaring to troops, images of black candidate near beautiful young white women. McCain also, not incidentially, took a move last week to get lots of "McCain rejects affirmative action" headlines before the low-attention public. He is successfully playing on white fears of a black candidate, no doubt.

BUT -- here is the point -- McCain will ALSO succeed brilliantly if bloggers and pundits and media heads start blabbering about racism right now. That will bring race front and center to the campagin, exactly what Rove-McCain want! In addition, McCain benefits a lot from the whining responses of Axelrod and the Obama campaign. They keep saying "this is not the John McCain we know," not the "honorable John McCain." That is a very weak response and all it does is validate that, underneath, McCain supposedly IS honorable. This approach will allow McCain to take the low road this summer - smearing his opponent in August, just like they did with Kerry four years ago -- and then "rediscover" his basically honorable self for the closing phases of the campaign after Labor Day, when of course there will be a foreign policy crisis manufactured to play to his supposed strengths.

Bottom line: the McCain campaign has a diabolically clever strategy for keeping the focus off the economy and off the scary Bush-McCain economic notions for as long as possible. And give it to them, they are doing brilliantly well ...

What to do? Obama and those who support him should NOT wander off into a bunch of meta-analyses of racial innuendo in the McCain approach. And we should stop saying this is not the real, honorable McCain. This is indeed the real McCain -- and he needs to be put back on his heels.

[Gabi Hayes]

1. amen....the LESS said about race the better. it only HELPS the pugs, because

it keeps the topic on the front burner

the less swing voters have this put in front of them, the less likely they are to think about it when they cast their vote

there's SO much out there to use against McCain that the mere mention of race can, and will, be used against him as whining, as playing the race card, which works VERY WELL for the pugs

it's a losing issue, as is trying to use McCain's POW status against him....the narrative is carved as holy writ, and woe betide any heretic who dares broach the subject...just ask Wes Clark