I wanted to take a moment to amplify something Josh Marshall said this morning which is really worth mentioning, especially if Obama takes the Democratic nomination as he’s getting ever closer to doing: John McCain seems to have had a visceral hate of Barack Obama ever since Obama stepped into the Senate. I can’t seem to find the article I wrote on the subject four years ago, but I do recall some serious back-biting between the two of them, with McCain calling Obama an “inexperienced kid” or somesuch.
Based on this video and this one, I’m thinking McCain is relishing the fight between him and Obama.
And of course, there’s a lot of people saying Barack Obama can’t handle the heat, because he hasn’t had to yet. But hold on, there, are we so sure that narrative is correct?
Hillary Clinton’s camp has mentioned Obama’s former drug days more than once. Drugs, can you imagine? They’ve been hitting him with the plagiarism charge of late. They attack his policies and they attack his lack of policies as if there was no contradiction there. He’s been accused of loving Reagan, refusing to take stands in Illinois and being a “fairy tale” and an “empty promise.”
Any one of these attacks could and probably would bring most candidacies to their knees, but ironically, they’ve had such a minimal impact on the Obama campaign that people don’t seem to notice that they’ve happened. I think that, in part, Obama’s strength has come from his ability to simply not respond and let the attacks wear themselves out. Another big advantage he’s had has been focusing his campaign on the campaigners and the activists, rather than on himself.
No, I’m not fool enough not to think the man has an ego. . . and a big one. What I am saying is that his most powerful rhetoric has always been about what his supporters have done and are doing; rather than simply thanking them for being a part of the campaign as others do, he has – rhetorically, at least – turned the campaign over to those who rally for him. Watch a speech – any speech – in this campaign, and you will notice a remarkable lack of the word “I” in each of them. Once you’ve seen that, the other candidate’s speeches seem narcissistic in comparison.
How do these two strengths work together? For one, since he’s not counter-attacking his opponents in the way one might expect him to, he’s not alienating his opponent’s supporters. Those supporters, exit polling shows, are rapidly leaving their old camps for Barack’s in primary after primary, caucus after caucus. Even John McCain’s vaunted appeal to “Independents” has been foiled in the open contests, where cross over has favoured Barack Obama every time.
Secondly, attacks against a candidate are meant to make him look bad. But when a candidate has convinced his supporters that the campaign is about them, those attacks become aimed at them instead. Calling Barack Obama an “empty promise” is as much as saying that his supporters are naive fools. Not a good plan, if you’re trying to make up lost ground.
And since neither John McCain nor Hillary Clinton has been able to generate much enthusiasm or excitement about their campaigns apart from those die-hard supporters that were with them from the beginning, they have very little else to work with other than attacks against Obama. Perhaps those cunning Republicans have been working on some diabolical attack machine that will finally break Obama’s considerable defenses. Perhaps.
But if the Swift Boat Veterans ride again, what will that say about John McCain? Worse, what will it say about his black baby?
