It's the Stupid, Economy
Every election cycle the bobblehead pundits try to explain how things came to be. They sometimes cite seemingly common-sense things like our foreign policy/security concerns or the economy. Other times it's something that's unique to the campaign like gay rights, race or even a political party scandal.
I submit that regardless of these reasons, the crucial factor that determines who wins and who loses is how informed (or misinformed) the voters are on election day. When truthful, accurate information is missing, emotions tend to fill the gaps. And in this current political climate voters are more likely to vote along the lines of keeping themselves safe.
For example: Since the 2000 Election, the Republican Party has been able to control the narrative...especially as long as the danger was foreign. The Bush Administration has international access that no Democratic candidate could match. The POTUS can make quasi-political speeches in front of soldiers; candidates cannot. The recent legislation on FISA has insured that if the telecoms had been spying on Americans (whether in a roundabout way to get information on suspected terrorists or just for kicks) finding that out will take longer than most people are willing to wait.
These incidents and factors (along with others) have given the GOP an unbelievable gift: they could dictate the story of the War on Terror, regardless of what the independent-yet-owned-by corporations media reported. With this power, the current GOP (as well as the Bush Administration) crafted a simple yet potent message: if you want to live, America, vote Republican.
This worked wonderfully for Republicans in both the 2002 and 2004 elections. Or more to the point, the gap-filling did. Your average voter had little-to-no idea what was going on in Iraq (or any other Middle East nation, for that matter) during these elections. Their lack of information was filled in with emotion, and the emotion Republicans chose was fear.
Fear of terrorists. Fear of Muslims. Fear of people who looked Muslim. Fear of people who sympathized with Muslims. Fear of anyone who seemed to sympathized with Muslims. Fear of people who defended those who seemed to have sympathized with Muslims. And so on.
It had nothing about being "weak" or "strong." We're long past the days when the POTUS rode out with the troops to personally engage the enemy. It was about re-framing the imagine of a stubborn George W. Bush in order to make him look like a war hero, while simultaneously using misquotes and gaffes to make Al Gore and John Kerry look like wussies. If a voter was armed with the correct information, they would have known the true differences.
And now, for 2008, America is facing a similar scenario. To be frank, Barack Obama is a political clean slate; he simply hasn't been around Congress long enough for any label (whether warranted or not) to stick. Normally, that could be seen as an attribute; after all, if people don't know anything about you, you're free from having to constantly defend your image, right?
Not quite. So far, the McCain campaign (as well as the conservative radio and Fox News) had made it there business to define Barack Obama for the American people. Naturally, the descriptions they've chosen are less than positive: he's an empty suit; a classic "tax and spend" liberal; he has no executive experience; he has no military background; etc.
The only way the uniformed masses can get another opinion is to do things like visit his website. Problem is, by then the "gaps" have been filled; people who would even bother to look may assume that what they'll find will be lies.
John McCain, on the other hand, is a political celebrity. Whether you're talking about the POW, the member of the Keating Five, the 2000 GOP Primary "maverick" or the Surge-happy Bush ally, people know John McCain. He has a public story, and it's pretty extensive.
His biggest problem is owning his story, but here's where his senior status comes in handy. Mistakes can be blamed on McCain's age, or the fact that "he's been around so long" that it's easy to forget how much a carton of milk is, or how much it may take to fill up you gas tank, or which nation is which. In short, the dismissal is "Oh, you know John..."
So here we have a relatively unknown Democrat and fairly known Republican vying for the most coveted job in America. Normally that wouldn't be a big issue, but the variable even the media is loathe to point out is Obama is African-American. And he's African-American not in the "black person who uses the term to define their heritage as well as their current nationality" sense but in the "his father is from Kenya and his mother is from the United States" sense.
So think about it: if your party's current leader was still waging war on a nation from the Middle East, and your party has successfully convinced many voters that people in that region want to kill them, and you political opponent was a person of African decent who people don't really know and who also has a name that could be misconstrued as being Muslim, what route would you take in your campaign ads? Would you spend time talking about your own accomplishments, or would you make ads casting doubt about your opponent?
Would you have ads that contrast your opponent with the word "foreigner?" How about suggesting that his ability to draw crowds amounted to creating a cult following? Or ads asking that all too familiar question,"Is he ready...?"
This is not to say that Obama has no chance of winning or that McCain has nothing positive about him to run on. But its just way to easy to go for the emotions, to tug at the heart strings. Regardless of what anyone wants to believe, people will go with their hearts before their heads. Being informed is basically a check, a little person that says, "Hey! What's the problem? You know what the deal is!" The more informed a voter is, the more likely this check is occur.
On the flip-side, the less informed a person is, the more likely their emotion will dictate their logic. If someone is blaming Obama on high gas prices and voters don't know any better, then every time voters go to the pump and watch that counter zoom past $40.00, they're probably thinking, Why won't this jerk support off-shore drilling so I can fill my tank? It gets to the point where the truth isn't even relevant anymore; once you associate a person with the negative going on in your life, it's hard to dissociate yourself. It's like that old Homer Simpson quote: "Life is one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead."
I submit that regardless of these reasons, the crucial factor that determines who wins and who loses is how informed (or misinformed) the voters are on election day. When truthful, accurate information is missing, emotions tend to fill the gaps. And in this current political climate voters are more likely to vote along the lines of keeping themselves safe.
For example: Since the 2000 Election, the Republican Party has been able to control the narrative...especially as long as the danger was foreign. The Bush Administration has international access that no Democratic candidate could match. The POTUS can make quasi-political speeches in front of soldiers; candidates cannot. The recent legislation on FISA has insured that if the telecoms had been spying on Americans (whether in a roundabout way to get information on suspected terrorists or just for kicks) finding that out will take longer than most people are willing to wait.
These incidents and factors (along with others) have given the GOP an unbelievable gift: they could dictate the story of the War on Terror, regardless of what the independent-yet-owned-by corporations media reported. With this power, the current GOP (as well as the Bush Administration) crafted a simple yet potent message: if you want to live, America, vote Republican.
This worked wonderfully for Republicans in both the 2002 and 2004 elections. Or more to the point, the gap-filling did. Your average voter had little-to-no idea what was going on in Iraq (or any other Middle East nation, for that matter) during these elections. Their lack of information was filled in with emotion, and the emotion Republicans chose was fear.
Fear of terrorists. Fear of Muslims. Fear of people who looked Muslim. Fear of people who sympathized with Muslims. Fear of anyone who seemed to sympathized with Muslims. Fear of people who defended those who seemed to have sympathized with Muslims. And so on.
It had nothing about being "weak" or "strong." We're long past the days when the POTUS rode out with the troops to personally engage the enemy. It was about re-framing the imagine of a stubborn George W. Bush in order to make him look like a war hero, while simultaneously using misquotes and gaffes to make Al Gore and John Kerry look like wussies. If a voter was armed with the correct information, they would have known the true differences.
And now, for 2008, America is facing a similar scenario. To be frank, Barack Obama is a political clean slate; he simply hasn't been around Congress long enough for any label (whether warranted or not) to stick. Normally, that could be seen as an attribute; after all, if people don't know anything about you, you're free from having to constantly defend your image, right?
Not quite. So far, the McCain campaign (as well as the conservative radio and Fox News) had made it there business to define Barack Obama for the American people. Naturally, the descriptions they've chosen are less than positive: he's an empty suit; a classic "tax and spend" liberal; he has no executive experience; he has no military background; etc.
The only way the uniformed masses can get another opinion is to do things like visit his website. Problem is, by then the "gaps" have been filled; people who would even bother to look may assume that what they'll find will be lies.
John McCain, on the other hand, is a political celebrity. Whether you're talking about the POW, the member of the Keating Five, the 2000 GOP Primary "maverick" or the Surge-happy Bush ally, people know John McCain. He has a public story, and it's pretty extensive.
His biggest problem is owning his story, but here's where his senior status comes in handy. Mistakes can be blamed on McCain's age, or the fact that "he's been around so long" that it's easy to forget how much a carton of milk is, or how much it may take to fill up you gas tank, or which nation is which. In short, the dismissal is "Oh, you know John..."
So here we have a relatively unknown Democrat and fairly known Republican vying for the most coveted job in America. Normally that wouldn't be a big issue, but the variable even the media is loathe to point out is Obama is African-American. And he's African-American not in the "black person who uses the term to define their heritage as well as their current nationality" sense but in the "his father is from Kenya and his mother is from the United States" sense.
So think about it: if your party's current leader was still waging war on a nation from the Middle East, and your party has successfully convinced many voters that people in that region want to kill them, and you political opponent was a person of African decent who people don't really know and who also has a name that could be misconstrued as being Muslim, what route would you take in your campaign ads? Would you spend time talking about your own accomplishments, or would you make ads casting doubt about your opponent?
Would you have ads that contrast your opponent with the word "foreigner?" How about suggesting that his ability to draw crowds amounted to creating a cult following? Or ads asking that all too familiar question,"Is he ready...?"
This is not to say that Obama has no chance of winning or that McCain has nothing positive about him to run on. But its just way to easy to go for the emotions, to tug at the heart strings. Regardless of what anyone wants to believe, people will go with their hearts before their heads. Being informed is basically a check, a little person that says, "Hey! What's the problem? You know what the deal is!" The more informed a voter is, the more likely this check is occur.
On the flip-side, the less informed a person is, the more likely their emotion will dictate their logic. If someone is blaming Obama on high gas prices and voters don't know any better, then every time voters go to the pump and watch that counter zoom past $40.00, they're probably thinking, Why won't this jerk support off-shore drilling so I can fill my tank? It gets to the point where the truth isn't even relevant anymore; once you associate a person with the negative going on in your life, it's hard to dissociate yourself. It's like that old Homer Simpson quote: "Life is one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead."
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