I am getting chills. Cold shivers. I’ve felt this way before. I felt it in the icy grip of Lee Atwater as he worked hard to make Willie Horton the biggest threat to white people since the Black Death. I have been feeling it for the better part of ten years as Karl Rove slandered and vilified honorable men who would dare get in Rove’s way as he pursued more and more power. I see it in the history books as Donald Segretti and Howard Hunt and their “ratfucking” ways. I smelled it four years ago in the Swift Boat ads. And it is happening again.
John McCain, who cannot win this election on the issues, is adopting a strategy that has Karl Rove’s greasy, stubby fingerprints all over it. McCain has released new ads entitled “Celebrity” and “The One” to great fanfare and uneven disgust across the country. And I am afraid it is going to work.
In case people aren’t familiar, the “Celebrity” ad uses Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to point out how famous Barack Obama is and to point out that his fame, like that of Britney and Paris, does not make him capable of leading the US. In “The One” McCainholds up Obama as some great messianic figure even comparing him to Moses (as played by Charlton Heston) and saying that “he may be ‘The One’ but is he ready to lead.”
These ads are pretty gross. First, I am a little surprised that no one has thought to ask why McCain didn’t just use his home video footage of Moses since they are roughly the same age, bit never mind that. The problem with celebrity is that McCain is suing code words (and young white women) in the same way white women were used to stir up racial prejudice against Harold Ford in the last election. Put a black man with a white woman and you pretty much set the table for at least 584 racially prejudicial clichés. And the same thing is true of “The One” although it goes out of its way to appeal less to people’s fear of the big black Buck dating a white girl (especially a couple of ingénues like Spears and Hilton), it still has all the same code words inherent to racism. Instead of calling Obama “uppity,” they now call him arrogant. With a nod to Jon Stewart, I’d like to point out that McCain and Obama are running to be the leader of the free word; how can you assume you are up to that task without being arrogant? Well, you can do it if you are an idiot like George W. Bush.
Anyway, like I was saying, all of this is really, REAALLY familiar. It reminds me of Willie Horton, of the Swift Boat bullshit, of constantly accusing Al Gore of being a liar. And, for the time being at least, it is working. McCain has dominated a couple of weeks of news cycles and while I think that there are a few angry outbursts and senior moments yet to come (not to mention a few more pre-cancerous liver spots to be removed), I don’t think Obama can depend on them.
It is time for Obama to attack. If there is one lesson democrats should have learned by now but do not seem to grasp it is that when the other guy hits you below the belt, you need to kick him in the junk. It’s like the Mutually Assured Destruction paradigm of the Cold War. The Soviets knew that if they launched at us, we’d launch right back and, therefore, they did not ever begin a nuclear war. Bill Clinton was the first guy since Lyndon Johnson who was willing to get his knuckles a little bloody and his clothes a little dirty if it meant stopping the other guy from telling lies, spreading innuendo and appealing to the baser instincts of people everywhere. Since Lyndon Johnson ran his famous “Daisy” we have had Nixon with his “Southern Strategy” (also a big ol’ kiss to racists everywhere), Reagan who didn’t need to run dirty, Bush the Elder who allowed Lee Atwater to arrange for Willie Horton’s coming out party and Dubya, who may have run the two greasiest campaigns ever. The only Democrats who won in that time period were Jimmy Carter, who was able to win because Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate coverup and Bill Clinton, who demonstrated a willingness to play dirty if it meant détente between the campaigns. In other words, the only Democrat to win the presidency since LBJ was a guy who ran against Watergate and even HE couldn’t win reelection.
The lessons of the past are clear. Barack Obama needs to go on the offensive. W e keep hearing about how sharp his organization is. We hear about how he is a Chicago pol and he knows how to survive a street fight if he has to, even against accomplished hair-pullers and cock-punchers like McCain has running his campaign. Well, then Senator Obama, unleash the hounds, let slip the dogs of war. Go after him. Hard. Hit him in the mouth and knock his fucking dentures down his throat. Because he has won the last two weeks and is showing some discipline at staying on message.
The good news is that most voters (re: people who aren’t geeks like me) haven’t really started paying attention yet and there is plenty of time for you to set up your narrative and the public’s perception of you. You are still not well-defined n the eyes of most voters. But McCain is defining you as I wrote these very words and you are letting him.
Let’s not forget that in August, 2004 the Swift Boat ads were really gearing up and John Kerry ignored them displaying tremendous yet unearned faith in the American public to see though the smears. It didn’t work. Not only did Kerry ignore the smears, he went windsurfing. Sweet Jesus, he went windsurfing.
And now I read that Obama is taking a family vacation to Hawaii. Look, I am all for vacations. I love to take them myself. But I am not running for president. I have been an Obama supporter pretty much this whole time but I have a hard time thinking that Hillary Clinton would be going on vacation right now, no matter how exhausted she might be. I know Obama has family in Hawaii, but how tone deaf do you have to be to purport to represent the general American public and take a vacation most people cannot even hope to afford? Fuel prices are skyrocketing and you are taking your family to Hawaii. This makes no sense. It’s not quite as bad as windsurfing, but it is just not a good idea.
Senator Obama, you are carrying the hopes of hundreds of millions of people on your shoulders. I am begging you to get off the bench and get in the game. Don’t go to Hawaii; stay here (send the wife and kids if you like) and take care of business. Do not let McCain further define you while it is within your power to define yourself. Do not be the John Kerry/Al Gore/George McGovern/Michael Dukakis who stays the course and tries to appeal to people’s better natures. Instead, appeal to their base instincts, incite some anger in them and direct it where it needs to go and I suspect you will see McCain stop this shit amy maybe decide to talk about the actual issues for once. I doubt it, because once you get him talking about the issues, he can’t win. But you cannot get him to talk about the issues as long as you let him keep wailing on you and don’t give him a reason to stop.
It is time to attack, ruthlessly, relentlessly and without remorse or pause. You can do it.
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