phamos

The question is, even if Obama gets the nom while staying positive, will he be able to keep from going negative in the general election? Granted, McCain has himself been subject to very negative attacks (by GWB in 2000, for instance) and may have been disgusted enough to try to avoid using them on his opponent this time around. Or not. And even if McCain tries to avoid going negative, I don't see the mass of the Republican political war machine following his lead. I think it's inevitable that whoever gets the nom will be slammed as much as possible by the Republicans in the general election. Will not fighting back against Republican smears help or hurt Obama? Will Obama seem above the fray, or weak, or something else, if he doesn't respond in kind?

In other words, even if it doesn't happen now, is it not inevitable that Obama's armor is going to get tarnished by election day anyway?

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I'm pretty OK with him going negative in the general election, as I'm of the opinion that Kerry's reluctance to do so was a big part of his loss. I'd really rather the Dems not bloody each other up in the primary, though.

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thatabbygrrl.livejournal.com

oooh, posting at the same time with the same point! we share a political mind (kinda).

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thatabbygrrl.livejournal.com

I think these are all excellent questions, especially given the depths to which the Repubs have been willing to sink in recent elections. We all saw how effective it was for Kerry to ignore and rise above the Swiftboat stuff - unfortunately, as Texas seems to be indicating, negativity may be what gets the votes. Which raises the age-old question of how much compromise is ok if its to get elected, and when that crosses the line to becoming a candidate we no longer want to get elected. (Although, frankly, I would vote for my half-cold cup of coffee over McCain.)

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"Which raises the age-old question of how much compromise is ok if its to get elected, and when that crosses the line to becoming a candidate we no longer want to get elected."

That depends on what the voter considers most important this election, and why said voter is supporting a particular candidate.

I voted for Kerry in the last election, not because I thought that he'd be great at it, but because I wanted Bush out. I would have considered the Democratic President that I hoped for as more of a placeholder, until we could get somebody I could really root for (hopefully) in place the next election cycle. I look at Hillary/Obama the same way: neither excites me, but I want one of them in just to get the Repubs out and to hold place for a better candidate the next time around. As such, then, the most important thing to me doesn't have anything to do with the specifics of these candidates. I just want to win this time, and whichever candidate can do it, I'll support him/her. Which means that I'll support a candidate going negative (to a point, obviously) if that's what I think it will take for said candidate to win the election.

(Yeah, I'd rather not have the Dem candidates go negative against each other. OTOH, it shows that Hillary can be the fighter we may need, and it worries me that Obama may not have the willingness to do what needs to be done in order to get elected.)

Obama supporters, though, are often idealists. They support Obama because he sends a positive message, a message that the election can be won and things can be accomplished without playing politics as usual. His candidacy depends on that message. If he proves it to have been illusion by going negative against a negative opponent, the idealists may abandon him. Obama may have painted himself into a corner by denying himself weapons that his opponent will surely brandish against him. He may be in a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't situation here. Unless he's actually right, that positivity can overcome negativity. Which I highly doubt, considering the popularity of reality shows featuring contestants tearing into each other mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically.

So one of the things that worries me about Obama is this. Hillary: people already know that she can be negative, and know pretty much anything about her. She has a level of support and a level of opposition, and those are probably pretty much stable. Is Obama's support stable? Or is it metastable, able to be nudged of its peak into a downward slide if he's provoked into finally going negative against an opponent?

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Has Obama really been that "above the fray" though? I mean, he's attacked Clinton on NAFTA and her health care plan, and I don't think that cost him any idealists. Although his overall message is a positive, idealistic one, it's not like he's been sitting on his hands only playing nice this whole time.

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I think the difference is in his manner. He somehow manages to avoid coming off like a nasty trickster when he goes up against her, whereas she often looks pretty craven. There may be an element of media-related sexism in there, depending on how it's being framed in the news, but in general he just always comes off cool as a cucumber as opposed to her having little fits. Since I would prefer him to win, I hope he can keep that up.

Also there's the fact that his "attacks" have been on actual issues and haven't brought up any of her personal baggage. My fear is that if she keeps pushing the Rezko thing, we're going to see a lot of Clinton 1.0 garbage coming up again, which I would find disappointing but, you know, kinda only fair. Seriously, every time she mentions Rezko, I'm aghast that she has the balls to bring up shady land deals.

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Oh I agree that there's a difference in how he comes off. I guess my point is, do we really need to be concerned that he won't "fight back" come the general election? I don't think that we do, based on what I've seen so far.

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Yeah, I think he'll be perfectly able to stand up to John McCain in a general election. The idea that the Republican machine is somehow singularly amazing at nasty politics is kind of a weird meme. I think the Clinton camp has proven in this election that Dems can play dirty, too. What's sad is that yesterday's results will only reinforce the idea that playing dirty wins votes, which is really disappointing to me. I wish that the American public expected more out of its politicians than that. But that's just drinking the Obama koolaid again -- people are more easily manipulated by fear than hope, apparently; I should have learned that over the last 7 years.

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I have to admit I've been a bit out of the loop on this last round of primaries and so I'm not that well-versed in the latest shenanigans of the Clinton campaign, so I can't comment on how successful it was.

But on another note, my Rolling Stone magazine had an interesting quote about the success of McCain's campaign...hang on...

Here we go..."he's survived because Onward to Victory is the last great illusion the Republican Party has left to sell in this country, even to its own followers. They can't sell fiscal responsibility, they can't sell "values," they can't sell competence, they can't sell small government, they can't even sell the economy. All they have left to offer is this sad, dwindling, knee-jerk patriotism, a promise to keep selling world politics as a McHale's Navy rerun to a Middle America that wants nothing to do with realizing the world has changed since 1946."

So anyway, uh, how is this relevant? Oh yeah, I think that analysis is spot on for McCain's appeal, and that worries me because I'm just picturing all the racist or sexist crap that will likely come out in the general election. Because I don't think selling victory in Iraq will be enough for him to win, and I think his campaign will resort (or at least, some on the right will...maybe swift boaters and the like) to some pretty low tactics, because IT WORKS so often. Like you say, people are more easily manipulated by fear than hope.

It'll be interesting to see what happens, in any case.

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The problem with comparing Rezko with Whitewater and other Clinton scandals is that the latter are old news. No, I'm not saying that they don't matter, just this. First of all, the Clinton scandals have been investigated several times now, and nothing new has come up about them in a while. Second--with the exception of people who lived under a rock in the 90's--everybody knows about these scandals already. If Obama brought them up, they wouldn't surprise anybody, 'cause a knee-jerk reaction against Clinton. People presumably have already thought about them, formed their opinions on their veracity and seriousness, and so have already decided whether or not the scandals affect their view of Hillary and their vote.

Rezko, on the other hand, is just coming to trial. There's potential for new information to come of this. This could either vindicate or implicate Obama, the problem being if it's the latter. (Or, it could do neither, and continue questions as to Obama's involvement, which is also a problem.) The trial will also keep this in the news, whereas presumably Whitewater isn't going to show up except as a retrospective or if Obama specifically calls her out on it. And Rezko is also new enough that many people will not have heard of it yet, and others will not have decided what they think of it. So there's potential for someone to hear about it and have an "oh shit, Obama has a scandal" reaction.

It occurred to me a little bit ago that Hillary may have actually done Obama a favor (unwittingly, of course) by bringing Rezko up in the primary. I mean, Obama's ties with Rezko aren't something made up by the Clinton campaign, or something only they would have been able to discover. It would have come out eventually. Bringing it up in the primary means that McCain won't be able to spring it on Obama, say, 2 weeks before the election date, perhaps causing uncertainty in Obama's ranks. Instead, people may have time to take it in and decide, perhaps, that there's really nothing to it (if indeed there isn't). They may have time to form informed opinions, instead of just simply reacting to cries of "scandal!"

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Obama's taken at least some tentative steps toward attacking Clinton, such as at that debate where she mentioned Rezko and he then responded with her lawyering for Walmart. But there's still a perception of him as being the positive candidate, as not having slung any real mud. That perception can't last long, though, if he's forced to take the kid gloves off in the general election.

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I'm not so sure that's true. McCain has plenty of spots to attack him legitimately, that won't look like "playing dirty." I mean seriously, 100 years in Iraq?

The attacks about NAFTA and her health care plan seemed like "real mud" but not dirty tricks. I don't see why he can't keep that up in the future.

I think it's one thing to attack another dem and another to attack a republican too. I hope his supporters aren't quite so "idealistic" that they want him to be all "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" when it comes to the general election.

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billyphuz.livejournal.com

Man, I'm excited -- this is the first time in as long as I can remember that PA will have stumpers and political ads on TV. Whee!

I'll be curious to see Jon Stewart tonight, if only because he'll have whatever retarded fucking phraseymadoo the media latches onto to describe HC's ascension in montage, ie Brian Williams, Lipless Matthews and Wolfy the Blitz intoning "Hillary has grabbed the bull by the horns" or some other idiomatic masturbation.

Obamanation! can i get paid for that?

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