Political Rumble: The Final Countdown
by HKS Democratic Caucus & HKS Republican Caucus on October 29, 2008 in Political Rumble
From the left…
Phillip Martin, MPP ‘09
The politics of the presidential campaigns are shaped by two very old human emotions: hope and fear. Senator Obama has built his entire campaign around the notion that hope is the motivational tool that will bring people and government together. Senator McCain, meanwhile, has shaped his entire campaign around the idea that we should all be afraid of the world, and the government should be there to protect you from it.
Senator Obama believes that the government is fundamentally an instrument of good, and he has modeled that creed in his campaign tactics. His campaign is based on empowering people - whether through neighborhood meet-ups, primary caucuses, or online networking - to engage with one another directly. The campaign’s unprecedented “50-state strategy” is one that is all-inclusive, for everyone. While Obama may not make a campaign appearance in my home state of Texas, he sends field staff to help run parallel programs on get-out-the-vote efforts for down-ballot races.
The Obama campaign is active and involved in the lives of its participants, and the senator is exceptional at motivating people to believe they are making a difference. In this way, he - unlike Democrats of past elections - is modeling the vision for government that he is talking about. He walks the talk. The grassroots movement he has created actually will make a difference this year - which, I have got to believe, is a judgment on the tremendous success of a campaign strategy based on hope.
Senator McCain is also modeling his vision of government in his campaign strategy, except that his is a strategy based on a failing model of government. Senator McCain believes in exclusiveness. His campaign politics are entirely focused on fear and individualism. Thus, his campaign strategy is doomed to fail.
McCain talks to people one at a time, in town hall meetings. He wants all of America to look at the economic struggles of one man, Joe the “I’m better off under Obama” Plumber. He only has one path to victory in the electoral college, except that path keeps moving one state at a time based on polls. Why so individualistic? Because he is afraid of looking at the writing on the wall, which reads something like, “Hey, old man, get off of my lawn!”
But his isolated, small vision campaign is based on policies that induce fear. He promotes the idea that he, not Senator Obama, is the savior of us all. “The economy is in shambles - let me show you how to fix it!” “Terrorists are after us all - I’m the only one who knows how to handle the issues!” “You can’t trust Washington anymore - but I’m a maverick, you can trust me!”
Senator McCain believes in a government in which fear isolates us into small boxes, where we are all on our own. That’s fine. But he and his supporters shouldn’t be surprised when they are on their own on election day, watching Senator Obama ride his big wave of inclusiveness straight to the White House.
From the right…
Joshua Manning, MPP ‘08
This has been an election for the books. Youth interest off the charts (it’ll fail on election day - it always does - but it’s still fun to talk about). Hundreds of millions of dollars spent. The nation’s first black, mainstream candidate for president.
But perhaps more interestingly, we also have a contender who insists on pulling punches. Rush Limbaugh noted that if McCain is to win, the right will have to drag him across the finish line because the Arizona Senator simply will not fight to win. This is true - he has pulled virtually every punch available to him - so allow me, your humble correspondent, to demur traditional coverage of this “mudslinging” (is it mud if it’s true?) and descend into the political storm’s eyeball for some coverage via emersion.
Barack Obama, “Lord of the Seas” as his own speeches strongly, if dubiously, imply, has spoken about the new tone he wants to bring to Washington - one of civility, bipartisanship, and change. Let’s take a look at what that means, given Obama’s history.
Civility. When Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenburg’s show on WGN-AM Chicago to discuss Obama’s past, the Messiah’s campaign issued an e-call-to-arms for Obama supporters to clog WGN’s switchboard with calls because “it is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves… At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttals to every one of Kurtz’s lies.” What the email failed to note was that Kurtz meticulously researches and substantiates before he writes anything and that Rosenburg offered a rebuttal chance to Obama’s campaign only to be rejected. It’s always sad to see such civility attacked by “slimy character assassin[s with] divisive, destructive ranting.”
Bipartisanship. Obama boasts about transcending race and party, yet he also boasts the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate. How anyone can say with a straight face that he wants to reach across the aisle and rise above traditional politics when he refused to condemn moveon.org’s “General Betrayus” ad is simply beyond me. Further, race is not transcended by its own invocation. Crabtree’s Bludgeon states, “No set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated.” Mr. Crabtree, meet Senator Obama and his supporters.
Change. Obama does represent a departure from the norm. He wanted to raise his children in a church that calls on God to damn America, accuses the government of spreading AIDS, and compares the U.S. to al-Qaeda. Further, Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers are “certainly friendly,” according to Obama chief strategist David Axelrod. Yes, Ayers bombed while Obama was a child. But Obama wasn’t a child when he endorsed Ayers’ book or sat on a panel with Ayers on April 19, 2002, where he reiterated what he said on September 11, 2001 - that he, Ayers, still thought that bombing was the right thing to do.
This brings us to an interesting point. Obama and bin Laden have a charming quirk in common: they both have friends who tried to bomb the Pentagon. Well, that is change. But can we really believe in it?
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The tone of these two pieces, I think, directly illustrates Phil’s point.
The Republicans, at this point, are focusing on pulling apart the Democratic Party coalition, as they have in the past, with the usual name-calling, catchphrases (not the socialists again!), a focus on individuals (Joe the Plumber or Ayers, take your pick) and fear.
I hate to break this to you, Republicans, but you’re not faced anymore with just the Democratic Party, but a new community, one based on a campaign that has literally brought people together on ideals that transcend the usual political divisions between right and left. And it seems that this is much more difficult to bring down, doesn’t it.
I think you’re wrong, Joshua, I think that come Tuesday, you’re going to have a pretty hard time arguing that the interest in a new kind of politics generated by this campaign is going to fail, “as it always does.”
Actually, it is still just the same old Democratic Party, only with more money (congrats, now you know how it feels to be a Republican).
I hope you’re right about the “new democratic party” becaused the last democratic party was less than to be dsired. Regardless, unless Obama wins, there is little hope for your new community, as the Democrats tend to eat their own.
Republicans don’t hate “new” ideas, just the bad ones.
The only good that might come from an Obama victory is that the world will be free (for at least 4 years) from the angry liberal whining that we’ve all been subjected to for the past 8 years. Now that’s change we can hope for.