Republican Politics, American Style
Published on October 16th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Its 7:30 in the morning here in New Delhi, India and I am sitting in my room watching the US Presidential debates live on satellite TV. This town hall style debate will soon be over and all I can tell you is that nothing that was said here tonight has come as a surprise to me or probably any other American voter watching this second of three Presidential debates. So why am I or any other voter bothering to watch these debates?
I’m interested in seeing how each candidate performs and how they respond to the questions posed to them. Some undecided voters may be hoping to hear or see something from one of the candidates that will either resonate with them or turn them off so they can make a decision about who to vote for or against four weeks from now. Everyone else is cheering the candidate they support and hoping his opponent makes a serious mistake. That is why the style of the candidates in these debates matters so much more than the substance of their responses. This isn’t necessarily the way we should judge a debate, given the sharp differences of opinion between the candidates on many major domestic and foreign policy issues, but it has become the reality of American politics today.
So now I will begin to discuss my impressions about both candidates beginning with the Republican Presidential nominee, Senator John McCain. To begin with, Senator McCain’s disdain for his opponent, Barack Obama, was very palpable throughout the course of the debate, at one point referring to his opponent as “that one”. Stylistically speaking, I don’t acting contemptuous helps someone win over undecided voters, so I viewed his scornful attitude as a negative for McCain’s overall performance.
On the other hand, McCain was the only candidate who actually proposed something new in the way of policies he would pursue if he was elected so I saw that as a plus for him. McCain said that the US Treasury should buy up the United States’ bad sub-prime mortgages, renegotiate the interest rates those homeowners are paying and bring some stability to the US housing market in the process. This is not a new idea since it was proposed in an article published a week earlier in the Wall Street Journal and was also suggested by Barack Obama in a speech he delivered more than a month ago. But John McCain failed to provide any details about his proposal which, as I understand it, is already well within the power of the US Treasury Secretary to implement thanks to recently passed legislation to deal with the home mortgage loan problem.
Still it was the first and thus far only original economic suggestion Senator McCain has offered American voters, who are understandably very concerned about the current state and direction of the US economy. But as for any other real substance in his responses, McCain had little to offer beyond his campaign slogans and equally vague suggestions that he would cut pork barrel spending to deal with the deficit and that we should cut taxes for everyone, including those who are making millions of dollars a year.
For this reason I gave John McCain a grade of B- for the substance of his remarks, a combination of a B+ for his only new suggestion and a C for him continuing to espouse ways to deal with the ballooning budget deficit that simply don’t add up.
While it was obvious that John McCain is very much at home with the town hall question and answer debate format, he largely negated the stylistic advantage he brought to this debate my continuing to refuse to look at his opponent just as he had done in the first debate. He was very comfortable approaching audience members who had questions to ask him and calling them by name, often touching them on the arm or shaking their hands. But once the debate concluded he didn’t bother to shake Obama’s hand or stick around to talk with those same audience members, leaving Barack Obama alone on the stage after the debate, to chat with the audience and try to get them to vote for him.
So the grade of A I was initially going to give John for the style he displayed, deteriorated to a C by the time the debate was over thanks to his scornful manner and quick exit, thus leaving John McCain with a C+ as his overall mark for the evening.
Senator Barack Obama did not appear real comfortable with the town hall debate format at first as he stood in the center of the stage while listening to his initial questions from the audience. But Senator Obama seemed to warm up as the evening progressed and began walking over to those asking questions and addressing them more directly as John McCain had been doing throughout the debate and then hanging around afterwards to talk with the audience some more. In fact I noticed that Obama made a beeline to a likely McCain supporter, a retired Navy Petty Officer whose hand McCain had shaken before answering his question, and engaged him in a discussion. For this reason I upped my final style grade for Obama from a C+ to a B.
There was nothing new as regards the substance of Senator Obama’s responses to questions. He gave reasonably concise and substantive responses to roughly half of the questions but became a bit long winded whenever he was trying to avoid answering others. While Obama continued to make a stronger case than McCain regarding why he would do a better job as President addressing America’s foreign and domestic problems, I had to give him a B for substance and a B for his overall debate performance.
Overall, this was not the game changing debate performance McCain needed to close the slowly widening gap between him and Obama in public opinion polls with only four weeks left before Election Day.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Sarah Palin Show (aka The Veep Debate)
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on October 9th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
As I did last week for the first of the three Presidential debates, in this weeks column I will share my impressions regarding the performance of the Republican and Democratic Vice Presidential candidates in their one and only joint appearance at the Vice Presidents debate in St. Louis Missouri. I should also note that unlike the site of the first Presidential debate in Oxford Mississippi, the state of Missouri is considered a key battleground state in the upcoming election with Senator John McCain clinging to a narrow lead over our next President, Barack Obama, in the most recent polls taken there.
Having said that, I will now turn my attention to the two parties respective Vice Presidential nominee’s performances in the debates, beginning with the Republican candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. For her overall performance I gave Sarah Palin a higher passing grade of B than I gave her running mate John McCain (C+) based on style rather than substance. In fact it was Mrs. Palin lack of substance which brought her overall debate mark down because I gave her an A for the style she displayed during the course of her 90 minute tete a tete with Senator Joe Biden.
Unlike her prospective new boss, Senator John McCain, Sarah Palin displayed the camera savvy and delivery style Senator McCain lacks, which makes her come across as a more appealing and attractive candidate to watch and listen to on the TV tube than John McCain. Throughout the debate Governor Palin spoke to the audience watching on TV rather than those in attendance in the auditorium, rarely acknowledging them or looking at her opponent, Joe Biden, or the moderator, Gwen Ifill. It was obvious that Palin hasn’t lost the stage skills she first developed competing in beauty pageants. I actually would have given her an A+ for her performance had it not been for her annoying tendency to avoid answering questions by veering off in another direction with her responses.
As for the substance of Mrs. Palin’s remarks and her responses to the questions, I gave her a barely passing grade of C- largely because she only made a couple of minor mistakes when she made reference to the names of other people, such as referring to the US Commander in Afghanistan as General “McClellan” instead of saying his real name, General David McKiernan. She also explained to the TV audience why she wasn’t answering the questions posed to her by the moderator saying at one point “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record.”
But the fact that Sarah Palin couldn’t muster substantive answers to many of the questions posed to her was not really surprising given her rather dismal performances in prior one on one interviews with TV news reporters like Katie Couric of CBS. It was already obvious from those interviews that Governor Palin didn’t have command of any national issues that went beyond those of oil and gas drilling that she had dealt with as a Governor, so the expectations for her performance in this debate were already quite low.
As a result, I am sure most of my Republican cohorts were very pleased with Mrs. Palin’s debate performance on national television given their dismay at her previous performance in unscripted television interviews. Unlike Sarah Palin’s most recent TV interviews, her responses to the questions posed to her in the debate were steady even though she avoided answering many of the questions. Instead of stumbling pauses while trying to answer tough questions which went beyond her limited knowledge of national and international issues, Sarah reverted to McCain’s Presidential campaign talking points.
I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times she referred to herself and Senator McCain as “mavericks” or as a “team of mavericks” but suffice to say it was a “heck of a lot” (another phrase Palin repeatedly used). But while Governor Palin didn’t make a fool of herself on the debate stage, she also did little to dispel the concerns of many voters about her lack of experience and knowledge about national issues. But I think the main objective here was for Palin to at least do no further harm to the McCain presidential campaign and I think she accomplished that.
As for Senator Joe Biden’s debate performance I gave him a grade of B+, which is the same grade I gave his boss, Barack Obama, in the previous week’s first presidential debate. But Senator Biden earned this mark based more on the substance of his responses to the questions, which got him an A grade, than the style he displayed on this nationally televised debate stage, which earned him a still positive grade of B.
I actually though Senator Biden improved on some of his past presidential debate performances because he didn’t revert to the long winded answers to questions or attacks by his opponent that he has been known for. In fact he rarely lost patience with Mrs. Palin’s repeated forays away from the questions being asked of her by remaining forceful and poised in responding to an opponent who was difficult to attack because she was a woman and he was a man.
While this is not fair, it is the reality of how much of the viewing public would have interpreted any attacks on Sarah Palin and her spotty record as a small town mayor and Governor in Alaska that Biden might have attempted. Trust me, Biden had many opportunities to attack Sarah Palin, but he instead stuck to his game plan and focused his attacks on McCain’s record of supporting George Bush saying “The issue is how different is John McCain’s policy going to be than George Bush’s.”
I seriously doubt Palin’s performance will help the McCain campaign in the final month, but at least she didn’t do any further damage to his campaign.
Published on October 9th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
As I did last week for the first of the three Presidential debates, in this weeks column I will share my impressions regarding the performance of the Republican and Democratic Vice Presidential candidates in their one and only joint appearance at the Vice Presidents debate in St. Louis Missouri. I should also note that unlike the site of the first Presidential debate in Oxford Mississippi, the state of Missouri is considered a key battleground state in the upcoming election with Senator John McCain clinging to a narrow lead over our next President, Barack Obama, in the most recent polls taken there.
Having said that, I will now turn my attention to the two parties respective Vice Presidential nominee’s performances in the debates, beginning with the Republican candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. For her overall performance I gave Sarah Palin a higher passing grade of B than I gave her running mate John McCain (C+) based on style rather than substance. In fact it was Mrs. Palin lack of substance which brought her overall debate mark down because I gave her an A for the style she displayed during the course of her 90 minute tete a tete with Senator Joe Biden.
Unlike her prospective new boss, Senator John McCain, Sarah Palin displayed the camera savvy and delivery style Senator McCain lacks, which makes her come across as a more appealing and attractive candidate to watch and listen to on the TV tube than John McCain. Throughout the debate Governor Palin spoke to the audience watching on TV rather than those in attendance in the auditorium, rarely acknowledging them or looking at her opponent, Joe Biden, or the moderator, Gwen Ifill. It was obvious that Palin hasn’t lost the stage skills she first developed competing in beauty pageants. I actually would have given her an A+ for her performance had it not been for her annoying tendency to avoid answering questions by veering off in another direction with her responses.
As for the substance of Mrs. Palin’s remarks and her responses to the questions, I gave her a barely passing grade of C- largely because she only made a couple of minor mistakes when she made reference to the names of other people, such as referring to the US Commander in Afghanistan as General “McClellan” instead of saying his real name, General David McKiernan. She also explained to the TV audience why she wasn’t answering the questions posed to her by the moderator saying at one point “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record.”
But the fact that Sarah Palin couldn’t muster substantive answers to many of the questions posed to her was not really surprising given her rather dismal performances in prior one on one interviews with TV news reporters like Katie Couric of CBS. It was already obvious from those interviews that Governor Palin didn’t have command of any national issues that went beyond those of oil and gas drilling that she had dealt with as a Governor, so the expectations for her performance in this debate were already quite low.
As a result, I am sure most of my Republican cohorts were very pleased with Mrs. Palin’s debate performance on national television given their dismay at her previous performance in unscripted television interviews. Unlike Sarah Palin’s most recent TV interviews, her responses to the questions posed to her in the debate were steady even though she avoided answering many of the questions. Instead of stumbling pauses while trying to answer tough questions which went beyond her limited knowledge of national and international issues, Sarah reverted to McCain’s Presidential campaign talking points.
I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times she referred to herself and Senator McCain as “mavericks” or as a “team of mavericks” but suffice to say it was a “heck of a lot” (another phrase Palin repeatedly used). But while Governor Palin didn’t make a fool of herself on the debate stage, she also did little to dispel the concerns of many voters about her lack of experience and knowledge about national issues. But I think the main objective here was for Palin to at least do no further harm to the McCain presidential campaign and I think she accomplished that.
As for Senator Joe Biden’s debate performance I gave him a grade of B+, which is the same grade I gave his boss, Barack Obama, in the previous week’s first presidential debate. But Senator Biden earned this mark based more on the substance of his responses to the questions, which got him an A grade, than the style he displayed on this nationally televised debate stage, which earned him a still positive grade of B.
I actually though Senator Biden improved on some of his past presidential debate performances because he didn’t revert to the long winded answers to questions or attacks by his opponent that he has been known for. In fact he rarely lost patience with Mrs. Palin’s repeated forays away from the questions being asked of her by remaining forceful and poised in responding to an opponent who was difficult to attack because she was a woman and he was a man.
While this is not fair, it is the reality of how much of the viewing public would have interpreted any attacks on Sarah Palin and her spotty record as a small town mayor and Governor in Alaska that Biden might have attempted. Trust me, Biden had many opportunities to attack Sarah Palin, but he instead stuck to his game plan and focused his attacks on McCain’s record of supporting George Bush saying “The issue is how different is John McCain’s policy going to be than George Bush’s.”
I seriously doubt Palin’s performance will help the McCain campaign in the final month, but at least she didn’t do any further damage to his campaign.
My grades for 1st Presidential debate
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on October 2nd in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Today I want to discuss my impressions about the performances of both candidates in last Friday’s first US Presidential debate. While there will be two more Presidential debates following tonight’s only debate between Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden and McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin, historically the tone and substance for the entire series of Presidential debates is set during the course of the first of the three debates thus making it the most important one of the three to watch.
Even though my sentiments favoring Senator Obama in this year’s election are well known to most if not all of the readers of this column, my impressions of the candidate’s performances are based on both the style and the substance of their responses to the questions that have been posed to them by the moderator. In fact in past Presidential debates I have quite often given higher marks to the Presidential candidate I oppose (i.e. President Bush in 2004, Bill Clinton in 1992) than to the candidate I support.
Having said that, I want to begin my analysis by first giving my readers an overall mark for each candidate’s performance, followed by my reasons for giving each of them their respective grade. I will then use this same format in next week’s column about the Vice Presidential debates and any subsequent columns I might write about the remaining US Presidential debates. Practically speaking, baring a major gaffe or extremely poor performance by either candidate, these debates don’t sway many votes to or from either party’s presidential nominee. The real audience is the 10-15% of the electorate which still remains undecided about who to vote for with only a few weeks left before Election Day.
To begin with, I must first note that this initial Presidential debate almost didn’t happen. On Wednesday afternoon, just over 48 hours before the first debate was scheduled to begin, John McCain announced he was suspending his Presidential campaign so that he could devote his time and energy to resolving the financial crisis which has enveloped America’s investment banks and financial institutions on Wall Street. McCain then challenged Obama to also suspend campaigning for President and to agree to postpone the first Presidential debate.
But Obama, as well as many independent political observers, viewed McCain’s move as a political ploy and refused to take the bait. Senator Obama questioned why John McCain couldn’t seem to deal with two problems, preparing for a debate about US foreign policy and dealing with a US economic crisis, at the same time. Obama then challenged McCain saying that the financial crisis underscored the need to have just such a debate between both candidates about the future direction America would be taking.
In the end it was McCain who blinked and decided he had better show up at the debate in Oxford Mississippi even though he had previously said he wouldn’t if the US Congress had been unable to settle on a resolution to the problems on Wall Street before the debate. So Obama won the debate about the debates before the initial debate ever got underway. Not a very auspicious start for John McCain if you ask me.
As for the actual debate Friday evening, since I am still a Republican I will begin with the Republican candidate, John McCain, to whom I gave a passing grade of C+ mainly for the substance rather than the style of his initial debate performance.
Last week I closed my column saying that “I believe America will vote for change. Barack Obama embodies change. McCain doesn’t!” Well in last Friday’s debate John McCain apparently decided to cede this issue to Senator Obama, since McCain barely used the term “change” in any of his responses or remarks. I must confess I found this surprising since John McCain has been hammering away at the “change” message in his TV advertising and stump speeches for the last four weeks.
Ever since McCain’s announcement that Sarah Palin would be his Vice President, John has been trying to emphasize the fact that he is the “change” candidate who will change the way government works in Washington DC. But during the debate he focused on burnishing his image as a “maverick”, twice using the line that he has never won a “Miss Congeniality” award from his Republican colleagues or the Bush administration.
McCain had difficulty finding his footing during the first half hour of the debate when both candidates were answering questions about America’s current financial crisis. But he was folksy, used his campaign slogans about the economy effectively and avoided Obama’s taunts about McCain’s support of Bush’s tax and economic policies. On Iraq McCain repeatedly avoided his support for the war and instead emphasized his support for the US troop surge. He became more comfortable in the last hour and was also more aggressive in taking the attack to Obama in his responses to foreign policy questions.
On the other hand I gave Senator Obama a grade of B+ largely based on the stylistic improvements I noted in the way Obama responded to questions as compared to Obama’s previous debate performances during the Democratic primaries.
Obama’s answers to all of the questions were more concise and less professorial than those he often gave in previous Democratic debates. In contrast to McCain’s poking fun at himself and repeated attempts to make humorous quips, Obama avoided humor and came across as the more calm and businesslike of the two. Obama was confident and prepared with imminently reasonable answers for every question from the moderator as well as every accusation hurled at him by an oft times scolding and cranky sounding John McCain.
Obama did a better job of speaking directly to his opponent and engaging with the moderator and the audience while McCain ignored them and directed his responses to those watching on TV. While this was by far the best debate appearance I have seen from John McCain, it was likewise Obama’s best debate performance this year.
Published on October 2nd in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Today I want to discuss my impressions about the performances of both candidates in last Friday’s first US Presidential debate. While there will be two more Presidential debates following tonight’s only debate between Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden and McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin, historically the tone and substance for the entire series of Presidential debates is set during the course of the first of the three debates thus making it the most important one of the three to watch.
Even though my sentiments favoring Senator Obama in this year’s election are well known to most if not all of the readers of this column, my impressions of the candidate’s performances are based on both the style and the substance of their responses to the questions that have been posed to them by the moderator. In fact in past Presidential debates I have quite often given higher marks to the Presidential candidate I oppose (i.e. President Bush in 2004, Bill Clinton in 1992) than to the candidate I support.
Having said that, I want to begin my analysis by first giving my readers an overall mark for each candidate’s performance, followed by my reasons for giving each of them their respective grade. I will then use this same format in next week’s column about the Vice Presidential debates and any subsequent columns I might write about the remaining US Presidential debates. Practically speaking, baring a major gaffe or extremely poor performance by either candidate, these debates don’t sway many votes to or from either party’s presidential nominee. The real audience is the 10-15% of the electorate which still remains undecided about who to vote for with only a few weeks left before Election Day.
To begin with, I must first note that this initial Presidential debate almost didn’t happen. On Wednesday afternoon, just over 48 hours before the first debate was scheduled to begin, John McCain announced he was suspending his Presidential campaign so that he could devote his time and energy to resolving the financial crisis which has enveloped America’s investment banks and financial institutions on Wall Street. McCain then challenged Obama to also suspend campaigning for President and to agree to postpone the first Presidential debate.
But Obama, as well as many independent political observers, viewed McCain’s move as a political ploy and refused to take the bait. Senator Obama questioned why John McCain couldn’t seem to deal with two problems, preparing for a debate about US foreign policy and dealing with a US economic crisis, at the same time. Obama then challenged McCain saying that the financial crisis underscored the need to have just such a debate between both candidates about the future direction America would be taking.
In the end it was McCain who blinked and decided he had better show up at the debate in Oxford Mississippi even though he had previously said he wouldn’t if the US Congress had been unable to settle on a resolution to the problems on Wall Street before the debate. So Obama won the debate about the debates before the initial debate ever got underway. Not a very auspicious start for John McCain if you ask me.
As for the actual debate Friday evening, since I am still a Republican I will begin with the Republican candidate, John McCain, to whom I gave a passing grade of C+ mainly for the substance rather than the style of his initial debate performance.
Last week I closed my column saying that “I believe America will vote for change. Barack Obama embodies change. McCain doesn’t!” Well in last Friday’s debate John McCain apparently decided to cede this issue to Senator Obama, since McCain barely used the term “change” in any of his responses or remarks. I must confess I found this surprising since John McCain has been hammering away at the “change” message in his TV advertising and stump speeches for the last four weeks.
Ever since McCain’s announcement that Sarah Palin would be his Vice President, John has been trying to emphasize the fact that he is the “change” candidate who will change the way government works in Washington DC. But during the debate he focused on burnishing his image as a “maverick”, twice using the line that he has never won a “Miss Congeniality” award from his Republican colleagues or the Bush administration.
McCain had difficulty finding his footing during the first half hour of the debate when both candidates were answering questions about America’s current financial crisis. But he was folksy, used his campaign slogans about the economy effectively and avoided Obama’s taunts about McCain’s support of Bush’s tax and economic policies. On Iraq McCain repeatedly avoided his support for the war and instead emphasized his support for the US troop surge. He became more comfortable in the last hour and was also more aggressive in taking the attack to Obama in his responses to foreign policy questions.
On the other hand I gave Senator Obama a grade of B+ largely based on the stylistic improvements I noted in the way Obama responded to questions as compared to Obama’s previous debate performances during the Democratic primaries.
Obama’s answers to all of the questions were more concise and less professorial than those he often gave in previous Democratic debates. In contrast to McCain’s poking fun at himself and repeated attempts to make humorous quips, Obama avoided humor and came across as the more calm and businesslike of the two. Obama was confident and prepared with imminently reasonable answers for every question from the moderator as well as every accusation hurled at him by an oft times scolding and cranky sounding John McCain.
Obama did a better job of speaking directly to his opponent and engaging with the moderator and the audience while McCain ignored them and directed his responses to those watching on TV. While this was by far the best debate appearance I have seen from John McCain, it was likewise Obama’s best debate performance this year.
Is John McCain still calling the shots?
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on September 25th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
As you read this I am probably either getting ready to catch a plane or flying over the Atlantic on my return home to Ireland from the states. But before I leave I want to finish my discussion of John McCain’s sudden change in campaign strategy as well as his decision to embrace the same negative political attack advertising tactics President Bush and his chief advisor Karl Rove used so effectively against John McCain back in 2000.
A few months ago John McCain’s campaign events were free-wheeling and fairly entertaining affairs characterized by McCain answering questions from voters and making humorous wise-cracking remarks to audiences of interested and or undecided voters in the “town hall” format he is most comfortable with. McCain would also answer any and all questions from the TV and newspaper journalists covering his campaign from his couch at the back of his bus or the front of his plane while traveling between events.
But during the last three months it has become very evident that former Bush campaign advisor Steve Schmidt is now the man calling the shots for the McCain campaign, not McCain the Presidential candidate. Now there are two drawn curtains separating McCain from the news media on his plane and the couch is used as a repository for newspapers instead of being a seat for McCain to use when he chats with reporters. That’s because the chats reporters used to have with McCain aboard McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” bus and his jet “Straight Talk Air” are now a thing of the past.
This is the same Senator John McCain who has repeatedly promised that, unlike President Bush, if he was the President he would have press conferences every week. Hmmm. One has to wonder then why Presidential candidate McCain has not seen fit to hold a press conference since early August. The town hall meetings McCain favors have also changed from campaign events open to all interested voters into “invitation only” affairs with an audience consisting of friendly supporters rather than undecided voters.
The same John McCain, who used to roll his eyes when he was asked about the sound bite advertising and attack ads used by President Bush and other politicians, now delivers sound bite attacks on Senator Obama every time he is given the opportunity to speak into a microphone. Furthermore, McCain’s TV ads have already been criticized by non-partisan watchdog groups for their mischaracterizations of Senator Obama’s positions and lack of truthfulness. One example of this was a McCain ad accusing Obama of voting for legislation that would have led to teaching sex education to five year old children while he was serving as an Illinois state legislator.
The John McCain who once opposed opening up more of the United States’ territorial waters to off shore drilling for oil and gas now leads his supporters in chants of “Drill, Baby. Drill” at his campaign events. As for the John McCain who has sponsored legislation on campaign finance reforms, he has apparently been replaced by a team of Bush advisors who are exploiting legal loopholes to raise money in ways that circumvent the intent of John McCain’s own campaign finance reform laws.
The John McCain of September 2008, who for years was reticent to discuss his time in captivity as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war (POW), now finds a way to weave his experiences as a POW into his responses to virtually all questions. McCain’s nationally televised interview with Reverend Rick Warren last month was a prime example of this new campaign tactic in action as were the speeches given by McCain’s cohorts at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul Minnesota two weeks later.
But it seems to me that the real reason John McCain and his minions want to remind voters that he suffered for more than five years in the Hanoi Hilton, is that they think doing so might make people feel guilty if they are contemplating voting for his opponent. Indeed, McCain doesn’t want voters to consider where he stands on the issues which divide our nation because he is on the wrong side of them. McCain wants people to vote for him because they “owe it to him” since he once suffered for them as a POW.
Will McCain’s new campaign strategy and tactics work? Will they be enough to get him elected President on 4 November? While I could be wrong, I believe they will not be enough to win the election for McCain on 4 November. Granted these are tried and true strategies and tactics that Republicans have successfully used in past elections and they have already allowed McCain to close the gap between him and Barack Obama which had once existed in most national polls.
Indeed, McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate has energized the social conservatives who had previously been lukewarm to McCain’s presidential aspirations. Cutting off media access to McCain and not allowing journalists to question Sarah Palin has also made it difficult for the news media to make either one of them accountable for their scurrilous attacks on Senator Obama’s record or distortions of their own positions on any number of issues. I just don’t think these tactics will hold up over the long term because I think the American voter is smart enough to figure this out before they cast their presidential ballots less than forty five days from now.
You see despite McCain’s attempts to recast himself as a “change” candidate by selecting a white working mother as his Vice President, I think American voters will eventually see the pick of Palin for what it is; the act of a politician who will do or say anything to get himself elected. Once they do, these voters will then stop and ask themselves if this is really what America needs. With an economic future growing more uncertain with each passing day, I believe America will vote for change. Barack Obama embodies change. McCain doesn’t!
Published on September 25th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
As you read this I am probably either getting ready to catch a plane or flying over the Atlantic on my return home to Ireland from the states. But before I leave I want to finish my discussion of John McCain’s sudden change in campaign strategy as well as his decision to embrace the same negative political attack advertising tactics President Bush and his chief advisor Karl Rove used so effectively against John McCain back in 2000.
A few months ago John McCain’s campaign events were free-wheeling and fairly entertaining affairs characterized by McCain answering questions from voters and making humorous wise-cracking remarks to audiences of interested and or undecided voters in the “town hall” format he is most comfortable with. McCain would also answer any and all questions from the TV and newspaper journalists covering his campaign from his couch at the back of his bus or the front of his plane while traveling between events.
But during the last three months it has become very evident that former Bush campaign advisor Steve Schmidt is now the man calling the shots for the McCain campaign, not McCain the Presidential candidate. Now there are two drawn curtains separating McCain from the news media on his plane and the couch is used as a repository for newspapers instead of being a seat for McCain to use when he chats with reporters. That’s because the chats reporters used to have with McCain aboard McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” bus and his jet “Straight Talk Air” are now a thing of the past.
This is the same Senator John McCain who has repeatedly promised that, unlike President Bush, if he was the President he would have press conferences every week. Hmmm. One has to wonder then why Presidential candidate McCain has not seen fit to hold a press conference since early August. The town hall meetings McCain favors have also changed from campaign events open to all interested voters into “invitation only” affairs with an audience consisting of friendly supporters rather than undecided voters.
The same John McCain, who used to roll his eyes when he was asked about the sound bite advertising and attack ads used by President Bush and other politicians, now delivers sound bite attacks on Senator Obama every time he is given the opportunity to speak into a microphone. Furthermore, McCain’s TV ads have already been criticized by non-partisan watchdog groups for their mischaracterizations of Senator Obama’s positions and lack of truthfulness. One example of this was a McCain ad accusing Obama of voting for legislation that would have led to teaching sex education to five year old children while he was serving as an Illinois state legislator.
The John McCain who once opposed opening up more of the United States’ territorial waters to off shore drilling for oil and gas now leads his supporters in chants of “Drill, Baby. Drill” at his campaign events. As for the John McCain who has sponsored legislation on campaign finance reforms, he has apparently been replaced by a team of Bush advisors who are exploiting legal loopholes to raise money in ways that circumvent the intent of John McCain’s own campaign finance reform laws.
The John McCain of September 2008, who for years was reticent to discuss his time in captivity as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war (POW), now finds a way to weave his experiences as a POW into his responses to virtually all questions. McCain’s nationally televised interview with Reverend Rick Warren last month was a prime example of this new campaign tactic in action as were the speeches given by McCain’s cohorts at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul Minnesota two weeks later.
But it seems to me that the real reason John McCain and his minions want to remind voters that he suffered for more than five years in the Hanoi Hilton, is that they think doing so might make people feel guilty if they are contemplating voting for his opponent. Indeed, McCain doesn’t want voters to consider where he stands on the issues which divide our nation because he is on the wrong side of them. McCain wants people to vote for him because they “owe it to him” since he once suffered for them as a POW.
Will McCain’s new campaign strategy and tactics work? Will they be enough to get him elected President on 4 November? While I could be wrong, I believe they will not be enough to win the election for McCain on 4 November. Granted these are tried and true strategies and tactics that Republicans have successfully used in past elections and they have already allowed McCain to close the gap between him and Barack Obama which had once existed in most national polls.
Indeed, McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate has energized the social conservatives who had previously been lukewarm to McCain’s presidential aspirations. Cutting off media access to McCain and not allowing journalists to question Sarah Palin has also made it difficult for the news media to make either one of them accountable for their scurrilous attacks on Senator Obama’s record or distortions of their own positions on any number of issues. I just don’t think these tactics will hold up over the long term because I think the American voter is smart enough to figure this out before they cast their presidential ballots less than forty five days from now.
You see despite McCain’s attempts to recast himself as a “change” candidate by selecting a white working mother as his Vice President, I think American voters will eventually see the pick of Palin for what it is; the act of a politician who will do or say anything to get himself elected. Once they do, these voters will then stop and ask themselves if this is really what America needs. With an economic future growing more uncertain with each passing day, I believe America will vote for change. Barack Obama embodies change. McCain doesn’t!
Why pick sarah Palin?
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on September 18th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my column last week I noted some of the most glaring contrasts that I saw between the Democratic and Republican National Conventions so this week I want to continue along this same track and offer a bit of my own analysis of what underlies them.
I overheard Peggy Noonan, a respected Republican columnist who writes for the Wall Street Journal, characterizing McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate as a “gimmick”. While she isn’t the only Republican who views McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as a desperate political ploy, I think there was a lot more strategic thinking that went into this decision than meets the eye.
To begin with, McCain and his advisors had already spent several months pushing McCain’s “experience” theme against Barack Obama’s presidential campaign theme of “change”, but they had never been able to close the 3 to 9 percentage point lead in national polls that Obama had held since clinching the Democratic nomination last May.
Thus with only 2 months remaining till Election Day, McCain and his campaign manager, lobbyist Rick Davis, knew that the maintaining the status quo was becoming an increasingly risky strategy. So regardless of what others might call it, Mccain correctly (in my opinion) sensed that they needed to do something to change the dynamics of the 2008 Presidential race or they were most likely going to lose the election on 4 November, and McCain’s choice for Vice President was their last realistic chance to shake things up.
McCain’s first choice was Joe Lieberman, and given the fact that Lieberman had been the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate in 2000, this would have definitely created the kind of stir McCain and his campaign advisors were looking for. But while the selection of Lieberman would have stirred up some positive reactions from independents and some of the more conservative older Democratic voters, it would have also alienated many Republican social conservatives. McCain and his campaign staff thus concluded that any gains they might realize among independents and disaffected Democrats would likely be off set by their loss of support from social conservatives.
On the other hand the news media had not already spent several weeks discussing Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney as possible running mates social conservatives would find acceptable, so selecting one of them would not shake up the race nor would it arouse much interest from undecided independent and older voters. Furthermore, while all three of these men may have been acceptable to socially conservative Republicans, it was unlikely that their presence on the ticket would encourage a larger than expected number of social conservative to turn out and vote for McCain on Election Day.
Thus having calculated that none of the prospective Vice Presidential candidates they had vetted and considered during the summer would deliver the boost in the polls that McCain needed, his advisors turned their attention to the prospect of something that would; picking a woman to be McCain’s running mate.
A woman would not only be both a historic and a surprise choice as McCain’s Vice President, she would also offer McCain the opportunity to appeal to some of those disaffected white women who had been Hillary Clinton supporters. The right woman wouldn’t have to result in the loss of the support of social conservatives but could instead lead to an increase in support from independent and older Democratic voters.
But with only a few days left until the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, McCain and his advisors also knew they would have to move quickly, even though they knew that making such a decision too hastily might later come back to haunt them.
Four women who McCain and his staff believed social conservatives would support were considered; Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, North Carolina Senator Libby Dole, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. So how did McCain end up picking the woman with the least experience of the four?
Well, Dole had the experience and name recognition McCain wanted, but was eliminated because she was the same age as McCain and his advisors believed McCain needed someone younger on the ticket.
While Rice was much younger and had the same qualifications as Dole, she was also black and thus not likely to increase the turnout of the older racially prejudiced white voters McCain is counting on to vote for him on 4 November.
Even though Hutchison also had good qualifications, she was also 65. Because she was only 7 years younger than McCain, her age was not deemed to be an attractive quality for a Vice President running with the oldest Presidential candidate in US history.
So through this process of elimination, John McCain was left with only one candidate who could address his need for a younger woman as a vice presidential running mate; Governor Sarah Palin. The only real risk McCain was running in selecting Palin as his Vice President was the fact that she had very little political experience and was a relative unknown to most American voters outside of the state of Alaska. It also meant that McCain would have to abandon his “experience” trumps “change” argument and try to recast himself as a “change” candidate just like Obama had done.
While most political media pundits in the states think McCain made a very risky move by plucking Palin from her perch as a first term Governor of a sparsely populated state to be his Vice President, I disagree. In fact I believe selecting Palin was actually the best choice McCain could have made if he wanted to have any realistic chance to close the consistent lead in national polls that Barack Obama had held throughout the summer. In other words, the potential rewards to be gained by picking Sarah Palin outweighed the risks associated with abandoning his attacks on Obama’s lack of experience.
Will McCain’s sudden change in campaign strategy work? That’s our discussion for next week.
Published on September 18th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my column last week I noted some of the most glaring contrasts that I saw between the Democratic and Republican National Conventions so this week I want to continue along this same track and offer a bit of my own analysis of what underlies them.
I overheard Peggy Noonan, a respected Republican columnist who writes for the Wall Street Journal, characterizing McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate as a “gimmick”. While she isn’t the only Republican who views McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as a desperate political ploy, I think there was a lot more strategic thinking that went into this decision than meets the eye.
To begin with, McCain and his advisors had already spent several months pushing McCain’s “experience” theme against Barack Obama’s presidential campaign theme of “change”, but they had never been able to close the 3 to 9 percentage point lead in national polls that Obama had held since clinching the Democratic nomination last May.
Thus with only 2 months remaining till Election Day, McCain and his campaign manager, lobbyist Rick Davis, knew that the maintaining the status quo was becoming an increasingly risky strategy. So regardless of what others might call it, Mccain correctly (in my opinion) sensed that they needed to do something to change the dynamics of the 2008 Presidential race or they were most likely going to lose the election on 4 November, and McCain’s choice for Vice President was their last realistic chance to shake things up.
McCain’s first choice was Joe Lieberman, and given the fact that Lieberman had been the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate in 2000, this would have definitely created the kind of stir McCain and his campaign advisors were looking for. But while the selection of Lieberman would have stirred up some positive reactions from independents and some of the more conservative older Democratic voters, it would have also alienated many Republican social conservatives. McCain and his campaign staff thus concluded that any gains they might realize among independents and disaffected Democrats would likely be off set by their loss of support from social conservatives.
On the other hand the news media had not already spent several weeks discussing Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney as possible running mates social conservatives would find acceptable, so selecting one of them would not shake up the race nor would it arouse much interest from undecided independent and older voters. Furthermore, while all three of these men may have been acceptable to socially conservative Republicans, it was unlikely that their presence on the ticket would encourage a larger than expected number of social conservative to turn out and vote for McCain on Election Day.
Thus having calculated that none of the prospective Vice Presidential candidates they had vetted and considered during the summer would deliver the boost in the polls that McCain needed, his advisors turned their attention to the prospect of something that would; picking a woman to be McCain’s running mate.
A woman would not only be both a historic and a surprise choice as McCain’s Vice President, she would also offer McCain the opportunity to appeal to some of those disaffected white women who had been Hillary Clinton supporters. The right woman wouldn’t have to result in the loss of the support of social conservatives but could instead lead to an increase in support from independent and older Democratic voters.
But with only a few days left until the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, McCain and his advisors also knew they would have to move quickly, even though they knew that making such a decision too hastily might later come back to haunt them.
Four women who McCain and his staff believed social conservatives would support were considered; Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, North Carolina Senator Libby Dole, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. So how did McCain end up picking the woman with the least experience of the four?
Well, Dole had the experience and name recognition McCain wanted, but was eliminated because she was the same age as McCain and his advisors believed McCain needed someone younger on the ticket.
While Rice was much younger and had the same qualifications as Dole, she was also black and thus not likely to increase the turnout of the older racially prejudiced white voters McCain is counting on to vote for him on 4 November.
Even though Hutchison also had good qualifications, she was also 65. Because she was only 7 years younger than McCain, her age was not deemed to be an attractive quality for a Vice President running with the oldest Presidential candidate in US history.
So through this process of elimination, John McCain was left with only one candidate who could address his need for a younger woman as a vice presidential running mate; Governor Sarah Palin. The only real risk McCain was running in selecting Palin as his Vice President was the fact that she had very little political experience and was a relative unknown to most American voters outside of the state of Alaska. It also meant that McCain would have to abandon his “experience” trumps “change” argument and try to recast himself as a “change” candidate just like Obama had done.
While most political media pundits in the states think McCain made a very risky move by plucking Palin from her perch as a first term Governor of a sparsely populated state to be his Vice President, I disagree. In fact I believe selecting Palin was actually the best choice McCain could have made if he wanted to have any realistic chance to close the consistent lead in national polls that Barack Obama had held throughout the summer. In other words, the potential rewards to be gained by picking Sarah Palin outweighed the risks associated with abandoning his attacks on Obama’s lack of experience.
Will McCain’s sudden change in campaign strategy work? That’s our discussion for next week.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Marked contrasts between the Republican and Democratic Conventions
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on September 11th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
By the time you read this column it will be September 11th, the seventh anniversary of the al Qaeda airliner attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington DC. But for Senator John McCain and the Republicans assembled in the Xcel Energy Center here in St. Paul Minnesota last night, it almost seemed like the attacks had come only last week rather than almost seven years ago.
Senator McCain must have used the word “fight” at least three or four dozen times during the course of his Republican Presidential nomination acceptance speech. He then closed his address and got his audience on its feet cheering him by saying “Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.” While McCain is correct in his observation that we Americans do make history, unfortunately the type of history we make isn’t always the kind we can (or should) stand up and cheer about.
But the tone of John McCain’s acceptance speech was just one of several remarkably stark contrasts I noted between the Republican and Democratic National conventions over the last two weeks. One of the other more vivid differences was the colour (or maybe I should say lack of colour) of the skin of the participants in the Republican National Convention. While the participants in previous Republican conventions over the past twenty years have also been predominately white and male, I cannot recall one that has ever been either as white or as male dominated as this year’s.
More than two thirds of the 20,000 plus in attendance were men and I would estimate that no more than seven or eight hundred of the Republicans (counting both men and women) were Hispanic, with another three to four hundred members who were black. As a result it wasn’t to difficult to distinguish the racial, gender and ethnic differences between the crowds at the Republican and Democratic conventions. Whereas the Republican convention was probably 95% white Caucasians and 70% male, only two thirds of the convention goers were white and there were equal numbers of men and women at the Democratic convention in Denver.
A worrisome sign for the future of the Republican Party in America is the fact that the Democratic convention in Denver much more nearly reflected the current ethnic, gender and racial makeup of the United States. Why should the Republican Party be concerned? Because based on current demographic trends, thirty years from now Caucasians will represent less than 50% of the United States (US) population, which means the Republican Party has decided to hitch its wagon to the largest but also the most rapidly shrinking segment of the US electorate.
However when I point out my fear, that the Republican Party is on a path which will lead to a semi-permanent status as the minority opposition party in the US, to other Republicans, the vast majority are loathe to acknowledge such a possibility. In fact, more often than not, they usually respond by citing the fact that 44% of Hispanic and Asian voters went for Bush in 2004 while ignoring the reality that these two rapidly growing minority groups still make up only 3% of the total of all Republican delegates.
But as is so often the case, my Republican cohorts won’t be able to acknowledge much less confront the truth about where their party is heading until a series of electoral defeats over the span of several election cycles forces them to. Since the 2006 Congressional elections was actually the first time the Republican Party had lost seats in a generation, I think they will not only have to lose this November but will also have to lose again in 2010 before the party will be ready for some long overdue soul searching.
John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his Vice President was also in sharp contrast with Barack Obama’s pick of Joe Biden as his running mate a week earlier. For several months McCain considered Governors’ Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal, former Governors’ Tom Ridge and Mitt Romney as well as Senator Joe Lieberman to be his Vice Presidential running mate. But when McCain’s campaign aides floated the idea that McCain might pick a pro-choice candidate like Lieberman or Ridge (McCain’s top two choices to be his running mate) as his Vice President, Republican social conservatives put him on notice that they would rebel if he did so.
Because McCain was afraid of arousing the anger of these social conservatives, he resigned himself to finding someone who would please them as his Vice Presidential nominee. While John McCain knew that Pawlenty, Romney and Jindal would all be acceptable choices, none of them were favourites of Republican social conservatives.
So McCain dispatched his campaign aides to interview one of their favourites, Sarah Palin, on Wednesday, met her for the first time on Thursday, and then offered her the job after interviewing her for two hours. At this point I can’t decide which disturbs me more; McCain’s caving in to social conservatives or the haste with which he made his decision to go with Sarah Palin. I think maybe I’ll leave that for a later column.
Senator Obama also spent a couple of months doing background checks in addition to traveling and making campaign appearances with Governors’ Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius as well as Senators’ Jack Reed, Evan Bayh, Chuck Hagel and Joe Biden as part of his evaluation process. But unlike Senator McCain, Obama did not make his choice of Joe Biden in haste or as a reaction to pressure from many Democrats to select Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Obama did so because he thought it was important to purposely select a nominee he both liked and respected and because he knew that picking Clinton as his Vice President would severely undercut his message of “Change”.
Published on September 11th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
By the time you read this column it will be September 11th, the seventh anniversary of the al Qaeda airliner attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington DC. But for Senator John McCain and the Republicans assembled in the Xcel Energy Center here in St. Paul Minnesota last night, it almost seemed like the attacks had come only last week rather than almost seven years ago.
Senator McCain must have used the word “fight” at least three or four dozen times during the course of his Republican Presidential nomination acceptance speech. He then closed his address and got his audience on its feet cheering him by saying “Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.” While McCain is correct in his observation that we Americans do make history, unfortunately the type of history we make isn’t always the kind we can (or should) stand up and cheer about.
But the tone of John McCain’s acceptance speech was just one of several remarkably stark contrasts I noted between the Republican and Democratic National conventions over the last two weeks. One of the other more vivid differences was the colour (or maybe I should say lack of colour) of the skin of the participants in the Republican National Convention. While the participants in previous Republican conventions over the past twenty years have also been predominately white and male, I cannot recall one that has ever been either as white or as male dominated as this year’s.
More than two thirds of the 20,000 plus in attendance were men and I would estimate that no more than seven or eight hundred of the Republicans (counting both men and women) were Hispanic, with another three to four hundred members who were black. As a result it wasn’t to difficult to distinguish the racial, gender and ethnic differences between the crowds at the Republican and Democratic conventions. Whereas the Republican convention was probably 95% white Caucasians and 70% male, only two thirds of the convention goers were white and there were equal numbers of men and women at the Democratic convention in Denver.
A worrisome sign for the future of the Republican Party in America is the fact that the Democratic convention in Denver much more nearly reflected the current ethnic, gender and racial makeup of the United States. Why should the Republican Party be concerned? Because based on current demographic trends, thirty years from now Caucasians will represent less than 50% of the United States (US) population, which means the Republican Party has decided to hitch its wagon to the largest but also the most rapidly shrinking segment of the US electorate.
However when I point out my fear, that the Republican Party is on a path which will lead to a semi-permanent status as the minority opposition party in the US, to other Republicans, the vast majority are loathe to acknowledge such a possibility. In fact, more often than not, they usually respond by citing the fact that 44% of Hispanic and Asian voters went for Bush in 2004 while ignoring the reality that these two rapidly growing minority groups still make up only 3% of the total of all Republican delegates.
But as is so often the case, my Republican cohorts won’t be able to acknowledge much less confront the truth about where their party is heading until a series of electoral defeats over the span of several election cycles forces them to. Since the 2006 Congressional elections was actually the first time the Republican Party had lost seats in a generation, I think they will not only have to lose this November but will also have to lose again in 2010 before the party will be ready for some long overdue soul searching.
John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his Vice President was also in sharp contrast with Barack Obama’s pick of Joe Biden as his running mate a week earlier. For several months McCain considered Governors’ Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal, former Governors’ Tom Ridge and Mitt Romney as well as Senator Joe Lieberman to be his Vice Presidential running mate. But when McCain’s campaign aides floated the idea that McCain might pick a pro-choice candidate like Lieberman or Ridge (McCain’s top two choices to be his running mate) as his Vice President, Republican social conservatives put him on notice that they would rebel if he did so.
Because McCain was afraid of arousing the anger of these social conservatives, he resigned himself to finding someone who would please them as his Vice Presidential nominee. While John McCain knew that Pawlenty, Romney and Jindal would all be acceptable choices, none of them were favourites of Republican social conservatives.
So McCain dispatched his campaign aides to interview one of their favourites, Sarah Palin, on Wednesday, met her for the first time on Thursday, and then offered her the job after interviewing her for two hours. At this point I can’t decide which disturbs me more; McCain’s caving in to social conservatives or the haste with which he made his decision to go with Sarah Palin. I think maybe I’ll leave that for a later column.
Senator Obama also spent a couple of months doing background checks in addition to traveling and making campaign appearances with Governors’ Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius as well as Senators’ Jack Reed, Evan Bayh, Chuck Hagel and Joe Biden as part of his evaluation process. But unlike Senator McCain, Obama did not make his choice of Joe Biden in haste or as a reaction to pressure from many Democrats to select Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Obama did so because he thought it was important to purposely select a nominee he both liked and respected and because he knew that picking Clinton as his Vice President would severely undercut his message of “Change”.
Witness to history
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on September 4th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
After a month of attacks by his Republican opponent, John McCain, which had succeeded in narrowing his lead in national polls, Barack Obama chose last Thursday night 28 August, to finally respond to them. So what do I think about Obama’s response?
Only time will tell how effective Barack’s speech was in answering the Republican attacks on his candidacy, because his audience wasn’t actually the 84,000 people who joined me to listen to his Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech in Denver’s Mile High football stadium. Obama’s real audience was the record number of 43 million plus voters who were watching it on the US television networks.
So on a warm summer evening, under clear skies and in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, Senator Obama delivered what I believe was the most important speech of his Presidential campaign thus far. But unlike his keynote address to the 2004 Democratic Convention or his Philadelphia speech on race relations earlier this year, this speech wasn’t notable for its inspirational message. It was however, exactly the type of speech Barack Obama needed to deliver under the circumstances. As such, it may well go down in US political history as one of the best purely political speeches ever delivered.
There is an old saying that “All’s fair in Love and War.” Since many people believe that political contests are very much akin to war, they also use this analogy to justify the use of whatever tactics they think will help them win elections. While the vast majority of American voters decry the use of negative personal attacks on political candidates by their opponents, the fact of the matter is the only reason many politicians continue to use such strategies is because they work. That is because many of the very same voters, who profess not to like these tactics, nonetheless respond to them by voting based on their perception of the truth of such personal attacks rather than on what the candidates’ positions are on the political issues that concern these same voters.
Senator Obama’s message of “Change” is rooted in his belief that for America to move forward and deal with its many foreign and domestic problems, US politicians must move beyond these bitter and divisive personal attacks and instead focus on the issues. McCain himself has espoused a similar approach in years past but, with the US Presidency almost within his grasp, decided to abandon this approach in favour of the same negative personal attack campaign strategy that worked so well for President Bush.
So the challenge for Obama in his speech last Thursday was to respond to McCain’s personal attacks, which are designed to portray Obama as a “celebrity” lacking any real substance who is also “unpatriotic” and an “elitist”, without stooping to the same level as McCain and making similar attacks. The situation reminded me of that facing King Henry V almost 600 years ago at Agincourt in Northern France.
Henry V’s men were exhausted so all Henry wanted to do was sail home, but the French were determined to engage them in battle rather than let them withdraw to England. Forced to engage in battle when he had no desire to do so, King Henry V countered the overwhelming advantages of the French army by turning their offensive attacks against his positions back against them. As a result King Henry won this famous battle even though he and his men had no desire to fight on the grounds of Agincourt.
In a similar vein, last Thursday evening Obama succeeded in hurling all of John McCain’s attacks back against him saying at one point. “If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and judgement to serve as the next (US) Commander-in-Chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.”
In response to McCain’s claims that Obama was “unpatriotic” because of his political positions including his opposition to the Iraq war, Senator Obama responded “What I will not do is suggest that the Senator (McCain) takes his positions for political purposes. Because the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan (Republican) playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red (Republican) America or a Blue (Democrat) America – they have served the United States of America. So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.”
During the course of his speech Obama also responded to McCain’s “elitist” attacks by noting his upbringing by a single mother who struggled to support her family and the college loans he and his wife needed to use to finance their educations. And in response to McCain’s charges that he was just a “celebrity” with a message of hope that was lacking in substance, Senator Obama went point by point through the various economic, energy, environment, health insurance and tax issues and said very specifically what exactly he planned to do to address them once he became President.
Finally, Barack closed his address by borrowing a line from the “I have a Dream” speech delivered in Washington DC by Dr. Martin Luther King 45 years ago on the same day. “America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done.”
What Obama did not do was attack McCain’s elite upbringing or any of John’s numerous shortcomings as a person. It will be interesting to see how John McCain responds to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech when he gives his own Republican presidential nomination acceptance speech this evening. I’ll discuss that next week.
Published on September 4th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
After a month of attacks by his Republican opponent, John McCain, which had succeeded in narrowing his lead in national polls, Barack Obama chose last Thursday night 28 August, to finally respond to them. So what do I think about Obama’s response?
Only time will tell how effective Barack’s speech was in answering the Republican attacks on his candidacy, because his audience wasn’t actually the 84,000 people who joined me to listen to his Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech in Denver’s Mile High football stadium. Obama’s real audience was the record number of 43 million plus voters who were watching it on the US television networks.
So on a warm summer evening, under clear skies and in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, Senator Obama delivered what I believe was the most important speech of his Presidential campaign thus far. But unlike his keynote address to the 2004 Democratic Convention or his Philadelphia speech on race relations earlier this year, this speech wasn’t notable for its inspirational message. It was however, exactly the type of speech Barack Obama needed to deliver under the circumstances. As such, it may well go down in US political history as one of the best purely political speeches ever delivered.
There is an old saying that “All’s fair in Love and War.” Since many people believe that political contests are very much akin to war, they also use this analogy to justify the use of whatever tactics they think will help them win elections. While the vast majority of American voters decry the use of negative personal attacks on political candidates by their opponents, the fact of the matter is the only reason many politicians continue to use such strategies is because they work. That is because many of the very same voters, who profess not to like these tactics, nonetheless respond to them by voting based on their perception of the truth of such personal attacks rather than on what the candidates’ positions are on the political issues that concern these same voters.
Senator Obama’s message of “Change” is rooted in his belief that for America to move forward and deal with its many foreign and domestic problems, US politicians must move beyond these bitter and divisive personal attacks and instead focus on the issues. McCain himself has espoused a similar approach in years past but, with the US Presidency almost within his grasp, decided to abandon this approach in favour of the same negative personal attack campaign strategy that worked so well for President Bush.
So the challenge for Obama in his speech last Thursday was to respond to McCain’s personal attacks, which are designed to portray Obama as a “celebrity” lacking any real substance who is also “unpatriotic” and an “elitist”, without stooping to the same level as McCain and making similar attacks. The situation reminded me of that facing King Henry V almost 600 years ago at Agincourt in Northern France.
Henry V’s men were exhausted so all Henry wanted to do was sail home, but the French were determined to engage them in battle rather than let them withdraw to England. Forced to engage in battle when he had no desire to do so, King Henry V countered the overwhelming advantages of the French army by turning their offensive attacks against his positions back against them. As a result King Henry won this famous battle even though he and his men had no desire to fight on the grounds of Agincourt.
In a similar vein, last Thursday evening Obama succeeded in hurling all of John McCain’s attacks back against him saying at one point. “If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and judgement to serve as the next (US) Commander-in-Chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.”
In response to McCain’s claims that Obama was “unpatriotic” because of his political positions including his opposition to the Iraq war, Senator Obama responded “What I will not do is suggest that the Senator (McCain) takes his positions for political purposes. Because the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan (Republican) playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red (Republican) America or a Blue (Democrat) America – they have served the United States of America. So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.”
During the course of his speech Obama also responded to McCain’s “elitist” attacks by noting his upbringing by a single mother who struggled to support her family and the college loans he and his wife needed to use to finance their educations. And in response to McCain’s charges that he was just a “celebrity” with a message of hope that was lacking in substance, Senator Obama went point by point through the various economic, energy, environment, health insurance and tax issues and said very specifically what exactly he planned to do to address them once he became President.
Finally, Barack closed his address by borrowing a line from the “I have a Dream” speech delivered in Washington DC by Dr. Martin Luther King 45 years ago on the same day. “America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done.”
What Obama did not do was attack McCain’s elite upbringing or any of John’s numerous shortcomings as a person. It will be interesting to see how John McCain responds to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech when he gives his own Republican presidential nomination acceptance speech this evening. I’ll discuss that next week.
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