If I were McCain's advisor... wow what a question.
Well it's obvious that something's not working, unfortunately the shots you are taking are hard to volley, your credibility, as a Republican, on the economy is a negative number, and Obama is showing better in the polls.
Now, we have to talk damage control. First of all, it's time to recapture the economy issue. Republicans are historically far more credible on responsible spending. Go after Obama where it hurts, hit him right in the porkbarrel. Try to muddy up his image on the economy and then go double-whammy.
Republicans have credibility about debt, and in the midst of a massive mortgage crisis, it's suddenly REALLY easy to bring the otherwise brain-warping issue of national debt down to the public's level. Use mortgage analogies, talk about the federal debt, talk about liquidity, attack the democratic party as a whole not just Obama.
another other issue is age. Regan's issue was age too, he won the election with a single line: "I will not exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." Pull the same. It's time to frame as Chris Mathews puts it in "Hardball," Frame this as a great contest between age and youth, experience and energy.
Palin is a foot-in-mouth machine, minimize her. Sure at the debates the gaffs were minimal, but she's more-or-less a laughingstock, get her out of the public eye and someplace her skeletons don't get turned into powerful charges leveled at you.
In short: Switch to issues where you have natural credibility, distance yourself from the republican regime, reframe the debate and put skeletons back in closets, the deeper the better.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
"consider is there any scenario where we might want to consider low turnout a sign of a healthy democracy?"
This little line from the notes on our reading really struck me, for some reason. Primarily because it's so counterintuitive. How could NOT voting be a sign of health in a democracy? I mean, voting is what democracy is all about, it's the center of the entire system. But then I started to think about potential scenarios.
The point of voting is not to take a shot in the dark, but to make an educated decision about a candidate that meets their needs and matches their positions and beliefs. If there is no such viable candidate, then the theory that some have proposed, like Dahl if I recall, say that you should just give it your best go. I disagree. If there is no candidate that matches your positions, a credible candidate now, then there really is no point in compromising the vast majority of your opinions just for the sake of feeling like you've done your civic duty. You're creating a false sense of mandate for ALL the positions of the guy you vote for, if he wins. In addition, if there just isn't enough information available to decide, then it's likewise irresponsible to vote.
To bring up an example it was for these reasons that brave dissidents in the USSR didn't vote: There was no such thing as information about candidates and the candidates were all party-loyal communists. That meant it was largely pointless to vote and as a result, if you were brave enough to stand up to the soviet system, you didn't.
Now the soviet system was not a democracy, but the same principle stands, if you are ill-informed, or ambivalent the system is better off without your vote. If there are enough people that are ill-informed (because information does not exist or is not clear) or ambivalent (usually because of frustration with the system), then a low voter turnout could be a sign of a POLITICALLY healthy system with problems in other areas.
This little line from the notes on our reading really struck me, for some reason. Primarily because it's so counterintuitive. How could NOT voting be a sign of health in a democracy? I mean, voting is what democracy is all about, it's the center of the entire system. But then I started to think about potential scenarios.
The point of voting is not to take a shot in the dark, but to make an educated decision about a candidate that meets their needs and matches their positions and beliefs. If there is no such viable candidate, then the theory that some have proposed, like Dahl if I recall, say that you should just give it your best go. I disagree. If there is no candidate that matches your positions, a credible candidate now, then there really is no point in compromising the vast majority of your opinions just for the sake of feeling like you've done your civic duty. You're creating a false sense of mandate for ALL the positions of the guy you vote for, if he wins. In addition, if there just isn't enough information available to decide, then it's likewise irresponsible to vote.
To bring up an example it was for these reasons that brave dissidents in the USSR didn't vote: There was no such thing as information about candidates and the candidates were all party-loyal communists. That meant it was largely pointless to vote and as a result, if you were brave enough to stand up to the soviet system, you didn't.
Now the soviet system was not a democracy, but the same principle stands, if you are ill-informed, or ambivalent the system is better off without your vote. If there are enough people that are ill-informed (because information does not exist or is not clear) or ambivalent (usually because of frustration with the system), then a low voter turnout could be a sign of a POLITICALLY healthy system with problems in other areas.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
party roles
Just because you don't have control of a legislative body doesn't mean that your party can't still control the way the chamber works.
America's founding father's were so obsessively paranoid that a small minority would come to popularity, get themselves elected, seize power and hold on tight that the US federal system especially is intentionally hamstrung.
Consider that one a second, they pretty much intentionally made it hard to get anything done.
Of course that leads to an entirely different problem, a small minority can get a few congressmen elected, and gum up the whole works. Now sure the senate especially has changed that, with new cloture rules, but things haven't changed that drastically.
The minority may not have the power to cause events, but they certainly, especially in a binary system like the US, especially with numbers in congress always having a fair balance of Democrats and Republicans, have the ability to gum up the works.
Now in this process of staunchly preventing government from doing anything at all, they can use this threat to extract heavy concessions from the majority party, under threat of avoiding any action at all.
In this way permanent parity is established: though one party may have the majority, so long as they are sufficiently disunited or not in enough control, you can still ensure that your platform is not utterly ignored.
America's founding father's were so obsessively paranoid that a small minority would come to popularity, get themselves elected, seize power and hold on tight that the US federal system especially is intentionally hamstrung.
Consider that one a second, they pretty much intentionally made it hard to get anything done.
Of course that leads to an entirely different problem, a small minority can get a few congressmen elected, and gum up the whole works. Now sure the senate especially has changed that, with new cloture rules, but things haven't changed that drastically.
The minority may not have the power to cause events, but they certainly, especially in a binary system like the US, especially with numbers in congress always having a fair balance of Democrats and Republicans, have the ability to gum up the works.
Now in this process of staunchly preventing government from doing anything at all, they can use this threat to extract heavy concessions from the majority party, under threat of avoiding any action at all.
In this way permanent parity is established: though one party may have the majority, so long as they are sufficiently disunited or not in enough control, you can still ensure that your platform is not utterly ignored.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
come on over here, have a cigar, boy.
If you look at the candidates in the 2008 election, it certainly seems like a mixed bag.
Both McCain and Obama should properly be called moderates, though they support significant amounts of the party's platforms, there are notable omissions and deviations: McCain opposes a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage, Obama supports sanctions against iraq and has not come down strongly against the possibility of a military intervention there, McCain is against ANWAR oil drilling and Obama is for the death penalty...
So in light of this it's not easy to say that the candidates are agents of their parties, but they certainly have a certain degree of party loyalty, after all Obama's voting record shows he's heavily towed the party line, then again his transformation from junior senator into presidential candidate may have changed that.
As I discussed a few posts back, I think the ease of cross-checking using internet sources makes that a little more difficult for politicians. Gone are the days when "tailgunner Joe" McCarthy could get away with a false military record by sheer effrontery. Now candidates must maintain a higher degree of truthfulness and consistency, or it will bite them squarely in the kiester.
Looking at a local election, things get a little more clear. To pick a candidate I knew nothing about I selected Rep. David Camp, from Michigan's 4th district (Rep). He voted the party line.
Entirely. In an era where abortion is a lock-stock-and-barrel owned issue for democrats, he's still running on it, his opposition to gay marrage, union or anti-discrimination laws mirrors the core of the party's rightest-wing. There is no deviation at all.
But I'm not sure that this is going to help him much, sure he's ideologically observant, but it's a bad time to be a republican, and after the utter implosion of the Bush-boosting neocon movement an even worse time to try to push on moral issues as a republican. No credibility left.
So while he's being far more party-aligned than his presidential candidate partymate, I think it's probably going to do far more damage than anything unless the 4th district happens to be an evangelical haven that somehow still supports bushism.
Both McCain and Obama should properly be called moderates, though they support significant amounts of the party's platforms, there are notable omissions and deviations: McCain opposes a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage, Obama supports sanctions against iraq and has not come down strongly against the possibility of a military intervention there, McCain is against ANWAR oil drilling and Obama is for the death penalty...
So in light of this it's not easy to say that the candidates are agents of their parties, but they certainly have a certain degree of party loyalty, after all Obama's voting record shows he's heavily towed the party line, then again his transformation from junior senator into presidential candidate may have changed that.
As I discussed a few posts back, I think the ease of cross-checking using internet sources makes that a little more difficult for politicians. Gone are the days when "tailgunner Joe" McCarthy could get away with a false military record by sheer effrontery. Now candidates must maintain a higher degree of truthfulness and consistency, or it will bite them squarely in the kiester.
Looking at a local election, things get a little more clear. To pick a candidate I knew nothing about I selected Rep. David Camp, from Michigan's 4th district (Rep). He voted the party line.
Entirely. In an era where abortion is a lock-stock-and-barrel owned issue for democrats, he's still running on it, his opposition to gay marrage, union or anti-discrimination laws mirrors the core of the party's rightest-wing. There is no deviation at all.
But I'm not sure that this is going to help him much, sure he's ideologically observant, but it's a bad time to be a republican, and after the utter implosion of the Bush-boosting neocon movement an even worse time to try to push on moral issues as a republican. No credibility left.
So while he's being far more party-aligned than his presidential candidate partymate, I think it's probably going to do far more damage than anything unless the 4th district happens to be an evangelical haven that somehow still supports bushism.
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