Obama Should Return To First Principles

Oh no. The Obama campaign has a commercial out now, showing images of McCain and Palin, and asking: "Politicians lying about their records?" I wonder how long it will take the campaign to see that this is a mistake – both as a matter of politics and a matter of principle.

First, the politics: If you want people to see the discrepancy between what your opponents say and what they do, you want to make THEM the focus, not yourself. But instead of the story being the gap between Palin’s statements and her record, they’ve made the story – "Obama calls McCain and Palin a Liar" This is explosive stuff. Does Obama really think that a high emotional temperature favors his campaign?

No one has ever paid me a dime to write a TV ad: I'm a total amateur. But any idiot can have an opinion, and here’s mine: If you want to get people to question the nice story they’re being told about McCain-Palin, show her telling 37 million people she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere. Then show her with a T-Shirt supporting it. Show her decrying pork-barrel spending. Then show her fighting for it. Show her talking about being fiscal responsible. Then show her record as Mayor and Governor. Then say: "Did John McCain know the difference between the image and the reality? If he did, why did he pick her? If he didn’t, why didn’t he find out?" Or is he now thinking: "If Sarah Palin is good enough to fool me, she’s good enough to fool the American people."

Alright, you can do better, but the point is – Make it light. Make it humorous if you can, so the listeners are laughing with you, and laughing at them. Above all, don’t be angry!!! If you have to be mean, at least be nice about it! Instead, we now have a tough, charming, accomplished woman from Alaska with a great story who’s getting beaten up in the press, and a candidate on the other side who’s calling her a liar. Is this good politics?

Now, the principle: Calling his opponents liars throws away an ideal that Obama seemed to have in view earlier in the campaign – a new form of non-violent politics. People generally think of non-violence as not killing or injuring, or not waging war. How does it apply to a campaign? If you take non-violence as refraining from violent physical actions, then the extension to political campaigning would mean refraining from speaking or acting under the emotions that inspire violence. In other words, it means not speaking or acting out of anger and hatred.

At different points, Obama has seemed close to embracing this. But people in politics are ambitious and competitive. They hate to lose, and too often, they hate the person trying to make them lose. That may be what’s happened in the last few days in the Obama campaign. Let’s hope they get over it, and get back to their principles, and to sound politics.

Senator Obama might consider the words of someone who should know. Richard Nixon told his White House staff on the day he left the White House: "Never be petty; always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."

Tom Rosshirt

Strategic Vision Then and Now

Barack Obama is quoted in this morning’s Washington Post describing how the campaign, and specifically the GOP’s message, has changed in the past two weeks. "What’s changed is that the Republican Party, which had been trying to make an argument about experience, basically got off that and came to our field."

This put me in mind of a passage from Winston Churchill’s war memoirs. In May and June of 1940, Britain did what it could to save the French Army from destruction, but to no avail. Churchill recognized that every day, his government faced the horrific choice of aiding its ally in what was clearly a lost cause or saving sufficient resources for the Battle of Britain that was sure to follow. When France finally collapsed, Churchill writes, "It was with an actual sense of relief that some of our high commanders addressed themselves to our new and grimly simplified problem. As the commissionaire at one of the Service clubs in London said to a rather downcast member, ‘Anyhow, sir, we’re in the Final, and it’s to be played on the Home Ground.’" (Volume II, "Their Finest Hour," p. 258.)

Michael Sean Winters

State of the Campaign #3: Geography

One of the most common misperceptions about the presidential election is that on November 4, we will have a national election to select our next President. In fact, we will have 51 separate elections on November 4 because of the Electoral College. And, at least one pollster, Nate Silver, noted yesterday that this year may be close enough that one candidate could win the popular vote and the other wins the electoral college.

Al Gore discovered in 2000, you can get more than half-a-million more votes than the other guy and still lose the race for the White House because George W. Bush, with a little help from the Supreme Court, won 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes, with help from a special congressional committee, beat Samuel Tilden by one electoral vote, even though Tilden won the popular vote. (See the link at left for an interactive map of the electoral college and popular vote total for every election.) So, in addition to message and biography, the two presidential campaigns are focused intensely on the geography of the election.

The first fact about the electoral map is that most people vote the way they did last time. So, states that have voted for the GOP for many elections – red states – tend to vote for the GOP this time too. Comparing the elections of 2000 and 2004, only three states switched from one party to the other. George Bush lost New Mexico and Iowa to Al Gore but won them in 2004 against Kerry, while Kerry won New Hampshire which had voted for Bush in 2000. Every other state in the union voted the same way in both elections.

The second fact about the electoral map is that knowing which party controls the local government tells you next to nothing about how the state will vote for the presidency. Maine sends two Republican senators to Washington, both relatively liberal women, but Maine last voted for a GOP presidential candidate when summer resident George H.W. Bush – of Kennebuckport – ran in 1988. Virginia elected a Democratic Governor in 2005 and a Democratic Senator in 2006, but it last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson won the Old Dominion. Chances are that a Democrat in Virginia is more conservative than a Republican in Maine.

The third fact about the electoral map is that it can change. In 2004, John Kerry’s campaign set aggressive Get Out The Vote (GOTV) targets in key swing states like Ohio. On election night, the Kerry campaign knew that it had exceeded its targets in Ohio and they were convinced they had won the state. But, George Bush’s campaign had aggressively registered new voters in the rural northwestern part of the state, and sent both the President and his surrogates into relatively small cities to campaign. Bush won Ohio and consequently the election. (More on the importance of registering voters tomorrow!)

So, what does the map look like today? And how much room is there for change? Barring anyone slipping on a banana peel – and never, ever discount that possibility – the map appears to be favoring the Democrats this year. Obama appears to have locked up nearly all the states that Kerry took in 2004, with only New Hampshire and Michigan showing up on the GOP’s radar. Some Republicans dream of shifting Pennsylvania into teir column but that is wishful thinking. Conversely, potential Democratic pick-ups include New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and, of all places, North Dakota where the most recent poll (taken before the conventions) had Obama up by 3 percent. By way of comparison, Bush won North Dakota with 63 percent of the vote to Kerry’s 36 percent. The toss-up states include Florida, Virginia, and Ohio, with enough electoral votes to swing the election either way.

So, while the geography appears to favor Obama this year, buckle up. The race remains tight in many of the states. Either campaign could decide to spend some money in advertising in a given state to try and alter the map, or even just to get the opponents to also spend money defending a state they should win easily. Look for Obama to run ads in Georgia and McCain to run ads in Pennsylvania. In California, New York, Texas and Illinois, no one will likely see an ad this year. But, the battleground states will be dripping in campaign ads by November. It is a good thing for democracy when more states, and therefore more people, know that their votes may make a difference.

Michael Sean Winters

State of the Campaign #2: Biography

Sunday’s Washington Post had a frightening article about just how ill-informed most American voters are. It makes for some sad reading to realize how in this "information age" more people know the goings-on in Paris Hilton’s romantic life than can find Iraq on a map. But, the article misunderstood what voters do when they vote for President: They are not electing a slate of policies, they are electing a person. And, on that score, the decision of the voters may not pass muster before the bar of history (Richard Nixon won twice!) but the choices they make are defensible at the time. Biographies matter as much as issues which is why both candidates have such prominent biographies on their websites, both of which are linked under the "Catholic Info and Campaign Sites" list to the left.

To take a recent historical example, Al Gore and George W. Bush had wildly different personalities. Al Gore was clearly the more intelligent of the two, and you had the feeling he liked being acknowledged as the smartest guy in the room. George W. Bush knew he was not the brightest bulb on the planet, but he connected with people, he had an emotional intelligence that Gore lacked. Who is to say which is more important in serving as President, a highly tuned emotional intelligence or book-smarts? Being able to "read" a foreign leader during negotiations may be as important as digesting a briefing book of information and effective back-slapping may help get legislation through Congress in a way that refined arguments cannot achieve.

This year, John McCain starts at a huge advantage on the biography test because he is, quite simply, a hero. He endured unimaginable suffering as a POW in Vietnam, declined the offer to be released ahead of those who had been captured earlier, and lived to tell the tale, a tale that brings tears to the eyes of all but the most jaded of listeners. And, while there are many ways of serving one’s country, military service has always been considered uniquely beneficial to a political career. Presidents Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Eisenhower were all generals before they were presidents.

McCain’s personal life is complicated. (Whose isn’t?) When asked at the Saddleback Church forum what was his greatest moral lapse, McCain pointed without hesitation to the failure of his first marriage. But, the more indelible personal image is of McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter being carried out one of Mother Teresa’s orphanages by McCain’s second wife Cindy. First, that image connects with Catholic voters for whom Mother Teresa is, with the late Pope John Paul II, the most revered of figures. Second, for those with good memories, McCain paid a political price for the adoption of his daughter: In 2000, during the South Carolina primaries, George W. Bush ran a "push poll" in which voters were asked if they knew John McCain had a black child out of wedlock. McCain, therefore, was the victim of the kind of scorched-earth politics voters say they want to end.

Barack Obama suffers on the biography score for two reasons, both having to do with the rapidity of his ascent. First, people just do not know him. He has not been around long enough to create a public persona that voters can assess so he is still chasing false rumors such as the charge that he is really a Muslim. This means that even a slip of the tongue, which another more seasoned politician could dismiss with a quick correction, has the potential to divert him from his campaign theme for hours and even days. This happened to Obama last Sunday when he mistakenly referred to "my Muslim faith" when answering a question about the internet smears questioning his Christianity.

The second problem with Obama’s biography is more complicated. You don’t rise so far, so fast unless your early academic credentials helped propel you. If Barack Obama had not gone to Harvard Law and been the president of the Law Review while there, it is doubtful he would be where he is today. But, being head of the Harvard Law Review is precisely the kind of credential that labels you as an elitist, and that label is the kiss of electoral death in large swaths of the American electorate. Not sure why it is so. After all, we all want a doctor or a lawyer who went to the best schools and succeeded there: Doctors do not put their diplomas on the wall because of their artistic merit.

If the Democrats and Obama have an advantage on the message score, John McCain has game, set and match on the biography score. His is familiar, heroic and characteristic of those qualities Americans value in a leader. Obama is an unknown. He might have the personal attributes to be a great president: Lincoln, another less well known, non-military candidate for the presidency from Illinois, did pretty well. But, in terms of winning, the biography round goes to McCain.

Michael Sean Winters

Note to Dems: Shut Up!

First, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi demonstrated that she wasn’t paying attention during theology classes when she matriculated at Trinity College. Now, Sen. Joe Biden has managed to wade into the treacherous waters of making pronouncements on what the Church does, and does not, teach about when human life begins. The Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate, who has a mixed record on pro-life issues, went further than he needed to go on "Meet the Press" yesterday, mentioning Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica as if he were an expert, but quickly demonstrating that he is no theologian.

Note to Democratic candidates: You are not running to become theologian-in-chief. And, in the event, the platform you just adopted has something genuinely new and important to say about abortion, and theological speculation is just going to step on that platform.

The Democrats, for the first time, called for policies that will reduce the number of abortions by preventing crisis pregnancies in the first place and by providing assistance to women facing crisis pregnancies so that they can carry their child to term. The GOP removed similar language from their platform, keeping their traditional but so far unsuccessful call for overturning Roe v. Wade. Seeing as seven of the nine justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republicans, pro-life advocates need to ask themselves how effective they think the GOP approach is ever going to be.

In fact, a new study undertaken by the group Catholics in Alliance For the Common Good shows that overturning Roe would have a minimal effect on reducing the number of abortions because the states likely to enact restrictions on abortion are also the states that have the fewest number of abortions. Conversely, providing pre-natal health care to poor women and making adoption less onerous and expensive might actually produce dramatic decreases in the number of abortions.

This is what the Democrats should focus on. The debate over Roe is stale and divisive, but all Americans can agree that reducing the number of abortions is an important societal goal. What will work to achieve that? The Democrats have a plan. The GOP has a 35 year record of unfulfilled promises. And, the next time someone in the media asks when human life begins, tell them to call a theologian.

Michael Sean Winters

State of the Campaign: The Message Wars

Sixty days to go. We are waiting for the polling numbers to shake out after the post-convention bounces. But who is winning on the different components of a campaign, on message, biography, the issues, and on the ground?

Usually, the two parties craft different messages for an election depending on which party is in power, the personality and record of the candidates, and the issues on most people’s minds. But, this year, both parties have embraced the same message, change, and that is because a politician who will not even be on the ballot has made change such an unavoidable mantra. George W. Bush’s popularity is so low that even the Republicans must jump on the change bandwagon. tml
John McCain had enough of a reputation as a maverick through the years to make his claim to being a change-agent plausible. He fought his own party when he pushed for campaign finance reform. He voted against President Bush’s tax cuts back in 2001. More recently, his principled opposition to torture, strengthened by his biography, made human rights activists proud even while it angered the White House. McCain supported Bush in the effort to achieve humane immigration reform, but the GOP base revolted against both politicians and they were forced to retract. And he also backed down on his opposition to torture and now supports the Bush tax cuts. On the major issues, Bush was a maverick but he isn’t now.

McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin was an additional step towards becoming the campaign of change. Although a GOP operative, caught speaking on a microphone that he thought was turned off called the Palin choice "cynical," it represented a decision by the campaign to choose "change" rather than "experience" as the central theme of the campaign. (We don’t know which came first, the Palin egg or the change chicken, and we may never know.) Commentators note that the experience label did not work for Hillary Clinton, but that misreads what happened in the Democratic primaries. When Hillary launched her "3 a.m. phone call" ads questioning Barack Obama’s readiness for office, she started to win big primaries.

McCain’s problem is that he is a Republican and that Republicans have controlled the White House for the past eight years, the Congress for six of the past eight years, and seven of nine justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republicans. Additionally, McCain has been in Washington for 26 years: if he has not been able to change his party so far, why should we believe he can change the culture of Washington now?

Barack Obama has made change the centerpiece of his campaign from the beginning. In truth, the one-term senator from Illinois could hardly make experience his strong suit, either in the primaries against Clinton or in the general election against McCain. Obama embraced change because it was the only campaign theme that worked with his biography and, in the event, he struck gold. After eight years of George W. Bush, and twenty years of divisive partisanship under the presidents of both parties (and two families), change was bound to resonate with the electorate this year.

Obama recognizes that to win the election, he would nee to win among unaffiliated, or independent, voters. And, to beat Clinton, he needed to lump her husband’s tenure with the Bushes in their excessive partisanship. So, Obama calls for a specific kind of change: post-partisan change. But, Obama’s promise of post-partisan change is oddly lacking in any policy consequences. His proposals are mostly standard fare for any Democratic candidate: universal health insurance, tax cuts for the working and middle class, tax hikes for the rich, etc. You search in vain for an Obama policy proposal that is new, and new in a way that it permits a bi-partisan approach. The only exception is his endorsement of efforts to reduce the number of abortions. (More on that in the next couple of days.)

So, while neither candidate can really claim that their presidency would represent fundamental change, or perhaps because they can’t sustain such a claim, look for them to shout it all the louder in the last sixty days of the race. "McCain the Maverick" will become one word: McCainthemaverick. And Obama might as well change his middle name to Change. Still, round #1, the message round, goes to the Democrats: They have defined the terms of the election. And, the person they need to thank for helping them is the incumbent GOP president.

Michael Sean Winters

Convention Recap Podcast

Evans and Novak. Brooks and Shields. Now we have Winters and Malone.

Listen to "In All Things" blogger Michael Sean Winters and America associate editor Matt Malone, S.J., discuss the two party conventions on our special election 2008 podcast.

Tim Reidy, Online Editor

Cross posted with "In All Things."