The Lame Factor
So as it turns out my flight had DirectTV on it and I did get to see Barack Obama’s speech on patriotism after all. I thought it was a little bit lame and defensive, frankly, though certainly not nearly as lame as the campaign’s decision to hang Wes Clark out to dry for making a clearly true observation.
All that said, I read at the end of last week that McCain had “won the week” and I read the same thing after the week before that and yet despite all these winning weeks McCain is losing the election by a comfortable margin. And on some level I think this accounts for some of the lameness of the Obama campaign which, I’m now recalling, had a marked tendency to lapse into prolonged stretches of lameness during the primary only to raise it game at moments when Hillary Clinton’s attacks seemed to be getting traction. The organizational elements — field and fundraising — were brilliant throughout, but on the messaging level it was kind of a judo campaign that only really looked good when it looked like they were about to get buried. Right now, McCain’s flailing around and not getting traction with anything, and Obama seems to have retreated into a super-cautious mode just focused on parrying McCain’s feeble blows.
67 Responses to “The Lame Factor”
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June 30th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
“….though certainly not nearly as lame as the campaign’s decision to hang Wes Clark out to dry for making a clearly true observation.”
Maybe you can take your buddy Andrew Sullivan to task for this. He seems to have no problem attacking Gen. Clark for supposedly “smearing” McCains war record.
June 30th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
It is also the lame part of the campaign cycle where no one cares very much. This is why I am not really encouraged (not discouraged obviously) but Obama’s lead in the polls. Gore and Bush in 2000 exchanged double digit leads in the summer, if I recall correctly, and it didn’t matter much. The current goes up when the conventions meet.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
So McCain had the Best Week Ever! Seriously, the pundit analysis of Cilizza and his buddies is really not that different from that show, right?
June 30th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
“….though certainly not nearly as lame as the campaign’s decision to hang Wes Clark out to dry for making a clearly true observation.”
Isn’t this also a pretty standard-issue campaign tactic?
1) Have surragate make a controversial statement 2) Candidate renounce and reject said statement
3) Profit – Candidate ensures that statement gets amplified airtime while allowing candidate to also benefit from seeming high-minded?
What’s Clark’s relationship with the Obama campaign like?
June 30th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Also, now that I think about it, it seems to me that this might have been planned. Wesley Clark goes on the talk shows, gets the meme out there that McCain’s military service isn’t much of a qualification, and then Obama denounces the statement (but not really Clark) to keep his hands clean.
Then, the attack gets mentioned a second and a third time as newspapers report on McCain’s angry response and on Obama’s denunciation.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I’m sure a lot of this also has to do with all of the establishment Dems joining the campaign now that the nomination.
I remember a couple of weeks ago, it seemed like every day there’d be a couple of posts about a Hillary campaign coming over to Obama, and how it was a “great hire” yadda yadda yadda.
Maybe individually they were great hires, maybe they’re all really smart people who would do really well in the perfect world of a smoothly run campaign/administration, but the fact of the matter is they’re losers. They’ve been losing elections for decades while their billable rates have increased, and the only lesson they’ve learned is that if they keep doing what they’ve been trained to do and they don’t rock the boat, they’ll continue to get paid and one out of every five election cycles they might squeak out a win.
The entire class of Democratic political consultants from the last three decades are TOXIC, and need to be swept from the party. They came of age during the Reagan administration, but Reagan’s dead and it’s time we pulled his statue down from the square and stopped genuflecting in front of his mausoleum, urging caution and timidity so we don’t wake his ghost.
It’s going to take a pretty precipitious drop in the polls before Obama figures this out, IMO.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
You can’t judge a campaign’s effectiveness by how pumped up or deflated its core supporters are. Obviously nearly all of us are going to vote, and for Obama (me, I just punch the ‘D’ at the top of the card every other November). The fact that bullshit prevailed on this one fairly insignificant matter probably isn’t going to lose Obama many votes from committed liberals, but it gives stupid people one less reason not to vote for him.
That McCain’s war service is utterly irrelevant to whether he will be a good President is a valid point. But the Obama camp should raise it at a time and place of their own choosing, not defend it because Wes Clark was sloppy enough to have been baited by Bob Schieffer into stating it maladroitly.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
But the Obama camp should raise it at a time and place of their own choosing, not defend it because Wes Clark was sloppy enough to have been baited by Bob Schieffer into stating it maladroitly.
Clark has been making the same point for a couple of weeks – it’s not an off the cuff gaffe.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I think PTS has it right, not that many people care at this point. That’s probably even more true this year with all the primary fatigue. The real fight will occur after the conventions. If at that time Obama fails to bury McCain in his own flip-flops, oh so many of which are available on YouTube, then you can kick his butt for a bad campaign.
Let me ask you something. If the McCain campaign had the choice to have the Rev. Wright mess blow up when it did or in October, which would they have picked?
Now think about it. It’s October. The economy is still limping. And suddenly, the ads start popping up about McCain’s tax policies. The huge flip-flop from 2000 and the big wet sloppy kiss he’s giving Bush’s policies. The failure to explain just what he’ll cut to pay for them. How he and Cindy will personally benefit from them to the tune of nearly $400,000 a year. How he’d be giving himself a huge tax break but failed to pay his property taxes for years until forced to by the bad PR. That’s one big steaming pile of hypocrisy to jam in a 30 second commercial, and it could be highly effective. But not yet…
June 30th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I’m puzzled as to why many on the left are so angry at Obama’s denunciation of Wesley Clark. It was bar none the smart thing to do.
Yes, of course Clark is right that being a POW is at best tangentially relevant to the job of POTUS. But being right is different from being persuasive. And enough people — even many Obama voters — are convinced that McCain’s heroics are an asset to his candidacy and possible presidency, and cannot be persuaded otherwise, that to attack these qualifications as Clark did invites a major backlash. Indeed, McCain’s “Truth Squad” is entirely about stoking that backlash, and had Obama not disavowed Clark, it might have worked.
Besides, even if Obama wanted to make this argument — and I’m not arguing it’d be a smart move — having a surrogate broach the subject and then denouncing him is exactly the way to do it.
On that last point, though, if Clark was an intentional gambit on the Obama campaign’s part, the narrative got away from them. The take-away should have been “Clark attack’s McCain’s qualifications”, not “Clark attacks McCain’s service”, which is how McCain successfully portrayed it.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
“Clark is clearly in the wrong. What could be better preparation for being President than flying a jet, dropping napalm on Vietnamese children, and then screwing up and being shot down? He sounds like a natural successor to Bush.”
*************************************************
Heh.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
While I’d like to see Obama’s campaign coming out hard right now and kicking McCain while he’s down, I think we have to be patient. Obama’s focus right now is to get Clinton’s voters and donors on board and reconfigure his organization for the general election. Most people aren’t paying attention until September and October: if Obama gets his people in place and his money in the bank I think we can expect him to bury McCain after the conventions.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Has Obama mastered the political version of “rope-a-dope”? Let his opponent expend himself(herself) financially, politically, energetically; while expending minimal effort on his own except for the key moments when it’ll be the most effective?
Certainly not an exact parallel, but I think there are some significant similarities…
June 30th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Matt, I think you (and Josh over at TPM) are wrong to criticize Obama’s rejection of Gen. Clark’s statement as “lame.”
Clearly, there is a difference between saying something that is true, and effectively communicating that truth to the American public.
The problem with what Gen. Clark said yesterday wasn’t with the point that he was making- which he has actually been making quite effectively over the past couple of weeks- but with the words that he chose to make his point.
You simply cannot say that “Getting shot down isn’t a qualification to be President.”
That sound bite is a gift to the McCain camp and red meat for a pundit class that views McCain’s military service (and his time spent as a POW in particular) as sacrosanct.
Obama was not rejecting the point Gen. Clark was making- that McCain’s experience as a Navy pilot or as a POW does not, in of itself, qualify him to be President; Obama was rejecting (had no choice but to reject) the sound-bite.
Again, over the past few weeks Gen. Clark has argued (I think quite effectively) that contrary to what McCain has claimed about his superior foreign policy “experience,” that he really has very little of it in regards to making decisions during a time of crisis (not to mention the absolutely abysmal judgment he has demonstrated on a whole range of foreign policy issues over the course of his Senate career).
And Gen. Clark made these criticisms without getting any negative attention because he did so without adding: “Getting shot down isn’t a qualification to be President.”
In any case, I really think you and Josh need to take a step back for a moment and consider the political realities of Gen. Clark’s “gaffe” (even if it was an honest gaffe), in light of how our truly ridiculous our media is, how one could have predicted their reaction to such a statement. Not to mention the media’s proclivity of misrepresenting and distorting statements in a manner that suggests that they lack a basic understanding of the English language. See: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/202161.php
Seriously, with reporting like that (which was entirely predictable) it is completely understandable for Obama to reject Gen. Clark’s statement; as it will hopefully help to (despite the efforts of the “gaffe” addicted media and the McCain camp) cut the legs off of this story.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
This just reinforces my contention that Obama is Floyd Mayweather, the best counter-puncher in the business, but when he’s not being attacked, god does the thing look boring and sloppy. Still, Mayweather always comes out ahead on points, even if he doesn’t score the knockout blow. Obama will dance a bit, land punches when he’s swung at, and for the most part, just win.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
The problem that I am having with the Obama campaign is that it doesn’t seem that they know how to manipulate the news cycle. If Clark didn’t say what he said we all would be talking about McCain’s failure to pay taxes.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Maybe the upstart freshman senator who beat the inevitable nominee-former first lady with the entrenched political machine has a better feel for messaging than a 26 year old blogger? It seems insane to suggest that Obama would have won the primary more decisively if he had only attacked Clinton more aggressively. I’m as annoyed by the press response to Clark as anybody, but the instinctive return to “fight club democrat” mentality in the blogosphere doesn’t fit the Obama campaign and would probably be self-defeating.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I would tend to think that the Obama campaign has nothing to do with Clark’s comments, simply because Clark was a strong and vocal Clinton supporter during the primary. Also I don’t think the comments help Obama, although it’s possible some democrats outside the campaign think they will.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I think the Obama was campaign was probably aware of what Clark was going to say – Politico reported that he had gone on the show as a surrogate, and their message management has been highly disciplined. Maybe they miscalculated the effect of what Clark said, but they probably knew he was going to say it.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Obama is taking the patriotism stuff straight away, and I think its far from lame. He just got up there and said part of the misinformation has been his fault – how often does a pol do that – especially a presidential nominee?
(I tend to agree, however, that the the campaign was a bit harsh on Wes Clark. But whatever.)
June 30th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
The pundits are wrong as usual; they are disconnected from reality. Plus they have a vested interest in trying to keep this a horse race. Who cares what’s good for the country…the only thing that matters is the media.
I do agree that what Gen Clark said was very true, and indeed, the comment that he’s getting the most flak over, was really only a response to a silly question from Schieffer.
Interesting that the press has taken that quote out of context; in almost all instances, it’s cited without Schieffer’s question that led to the answer. It’s always printed as if it was a run on to a preceding paragraph of a response that Clark made.
I have really begun to lose respect for the press; they are exposing themselves to be absolutely without the basic standards of accuracy. No wonder why ratings are down, readership of newspapers is down, etc. We need a new media because the old media just isn’t cutting it, or at the very least, we need to force reform on the old media, if that can be done.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Talking Points Memo has completely jumped the shark on this. “Context, context!” Dude, Clark freakin’ insulted McCain! It’s not about context, it’s about face and trash talk. Obama did the right thing playing good cop to Clark’s bad.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Reading about this and FISA and what seems like a bunch of other stuff in recent weeks has been depressing. At this point, I’m willing to write a great deal off as campaigning, and it’s not like McCain isn’t much worse. The worst-case scenario from Obama is another Bill Clinton with more Sista Souljah moments but fewer sex scandals, and even that would be better than the best-case McCain administration.
But still, if this conventional wisdom-spouting, Blue Dog-Democrat-endorsing, kid-gloves-wearing, Iran-tough-talking Obama is still the Obama we’re seeing by February or March 2009, the country is fucked.
It seems insane to suggest that Obama would have won the primary more decisively if he had only attacked Clinton more aggressively. I’m as annoyed by the press response to Clark as anybody, but the instinctive return to “fight club democrat” mentality in the blogosphere doesn’t fit the Obama campaign and would probably be self-defeating.
Good point, and reassuring. Maybe you’re right; I sure hope so.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Obama has repeatedly stated that he respects McCain’s service to his country. If he agrees with Clark publically, he sets himself up to look like a hypocrite on that count, which he really doesn’t need. Obama will keep on respectfully saying that although McCain’s a war hero, he’s full of shit.
Meanwhile, why are people surprised that Obama’s trying to look like the nice guy? It’s to his advantage to let his opponent paint himself as petty and snide, while staying above that. Obama’s selling point is that he’s different than that. There may be legitimacy and merit to questioning the specifics of McCain’s service, but Obama’s tried his best to distance himself from that kind of ad hominem attacking.
He gains more by attacking McCain on the wrongness of his policy and his failure to sever ties from Bush than he does from wallowing in McCain’s mudpit.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
All the Obama camp had to do was see Bob Scheiffer’s incredulous “really?” in response to Clark to know that this was not an issue they could haggle over.
Just achieve distance and kill the story. There’s nothing to be gained in trying to discuss war records with McCain.
The boomer male reporters who never served in Vietnam and thus have a hero fetish around McCain (and let him tease them about it and give them noogies or whatever on the Straight Talk Express) will NOT entertain any suggestion that McCain’s war record is overhyped. (See Klein, Joe.)
Believe me, if Obama had said anything different, we’d be hearing about this shit for the next two weeks straight. And even if you totally agreed with Clark, as I did, you’ve got to understand that this issue is a third rail.
If anything, the best thing Obama can hope for is that the McCain patriotism police work themselves into an embarassing lather over this, and that a few pundits might point to this as a lame attempt to build a controversy out of nothing.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
He sounds like a natural successor to Bush.
No, it would have been natural if he had been a proponent of the Vietnam War but managed to have daddy keep him out of it.
Dude, Clark freakin’ insulted McCain!
I disagree. Look at Clark’s statements from March:
He has gone out of his way not to disparage the sacrifice. Compare this to the Swift Boaters lying about Kerry or the Bush/Rove whisper campaign in 2000 that McCain was a bit nuts from being a POW.
Clark simply pointed out the truth. McCain’s military experience means little in terms of being Commander in Chief. In fact, his Senate experience doesn’t mean much either, especially when you look at the number of times his judgment has been shown to be pretty bad. Since McCain is running on that experience, looking at it critically is rather important.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Pointing out that being shot down is not a qualification for president = lying about Kerry’s service.
IOKIYAR!!
What courage by Obama to throw Clark and MoveOn under the bus. Leadership!
June 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Obama has repeatedly stated that he respects McCain’s service to his country. If he agrees with Clark publically, he sets himself up to look like a hypocrite on that count, which he really doesn’t need. Obama will keep on respectfully saying that although McCain’s a war hero, he’s full of shit.
Meanwhile, why are people surprised that Obama’s trying to look like the nice guy? It’s to his advantage to let his opponent paint himself as petty and snide, while staying above that. Obama’s selling point is that he’s different than that. There may be legitimacy and merit to questioning the specifics of McCain’s service, but Obama’s tried his best to distance himself from that kind of ad hominem attacking.
He gains more by attacking McCain on the wrongness of his policy and his failure to sever ties from Bush than he does from wallowing in McCain’s mudpit.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
He gains more by attacking McCain on the wrongness of his policy and his failure to sever ties from Bush than he does from wallowing in McCain’s mudpit.
As the election draws closer, Obama also needs to point out McCain’s record of judgment, i.e. his “experience”. McCain is trigger happy and does not really understand diplomacy. Past examples of this need to be pushed over and over again.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Most of these issues are small potatoes. the big question is: what will Obama say when the Cheney administration starts bombing Iran? This will be a real test of character. It will be easy for McCain, since his position will simply be to cheerlead. Obama will have to clearly oppose the bombing, and give the speech of his life, with Biblical quotes, and Jim Webb, Wes Clark, and Chuck Hagel by his side. I hope to hell he’s planning it now, and planning to lay the groundwork with statements ahead of time, because this isn’t the sort of thing that can be done right as a quickly prepared reaction. He has to be prepared possibly to lose this election standing up for his principles on the biggest issues, or else he’ll lose it for turning into the insincere triangulator he promised he wasn’t.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I was just thinking about this in the shower. You know how I’d play this, if I was an unaffiliated Dem talking head:
Moderator: “Where does Clark get off calling into question the military credentials of a man who spent five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war.”
Me [shocked]: “When he do that?”
Moderator: blah blah blah
Me: “No, no, no. You misunderstand. Clark’s not calling into question McCain’s military credentials. As a higher-ranking officer” [this should be a talking point in-and-of itself] “he knows that John McCain has served his country blah blah…Clark was calling into question McCain’s presidential credentials. And he’s right, because John McCain is simply not qualified to be president.”
Moderator: [head explodes]
That’s how you play defense–you turn it back into offense. Fast-break politics, baby!
June 30th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Why the fuck should anyone go on tv, take a chance, and stick up for Obama if he’s just going to reject them?
If Obama thinks he can do this all by himself he’s nuts.
June 30th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
The Democrats have only a handful of pols with military experience, and Obama goes and burns one. Pathetic. He ought to be turning up the heat instead of sticking his head in the sand.
June 30th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
That’s how you play defense–you turn it back into offense. Fast-break politics, baby!
As far as I can tell, if one actually tries to make a point on one of those shows and back it up with cats and reasoning, one is never invited back.
June 30th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I have really begun to lose respect for the press
‘Begun’? [speechless]
I support any dem – fairly enthusiastically in Obama’s case – against any modern repub., but in case you hadn’t noticed, Obama really is pretty spineless. His patriotism speech was mostly just OK, but one part of it was disgusting – his resusitating the ‘hippies spat on the troops’ bullshit meme. Unforced error. Weak. Pandering, and obviously so. And aceeding to the press’ moronic interpretation of Clark’s comment is not only weaselly, but bad politics.
For those of you who believed that BO represented a ‘new politics’, this is your (and everybody else’s) punishment. There is no such thing as a ‘new politics’, there is only competent leadership and andante timoroso. Nice going.
June 30th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Since I can’t comment over at Andrew Sullivan’s blog, I’ll say it here, since this entry is on the same topic…
Sullivan is obsessed with this topic today. First, he said Clark’s comments were “revolting.” Now he has acknowledged them as being technically true but disadvantageous politically.
We can argue over whether the comments are advantageous or not for Democrats or Obama. But Sullivan’s original response seems very knee-jerk and overly personal.
If what Clark said was just politically tone deaf, so be it, but it most certainly is not revolting, unless making obvious and indisputable statements is defined as revolting.
There are several ways to view what’s happened with Clark’s statements, but titling a blog entry, “Swift-Boating McCain,” then calling Clark’s comments “revolting” seems gratuitous and silly, is this the way Sullivan genuinely feels?
If so, how can he say that they’re technically true (and therefore tone-deaf) AND revolting at the same time.
Maybe Andrew has his wires crossed.
June 30th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Wesley Clark, super genius.
He’s going a great job of getting Republicans and others who really don’t like McCain all that much to get a chance to really embrace him over an experience for which Obama has no equal.
I’ll assume that Wes Clark will be relegated to one of those low level staff positions from which all the Obama gaffes seem to emanate.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
If being captured by the enemy, held in prison and tortured makes you presidential material, then there is a whole heck of a lot of presidential material currently being held in Gitmo.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Philly:
If you don’t interrupt the media’s ongoing fellatiofest with St John McCain early in the general election campaign, by the time the majority of voters tune in, the narrative will be set (think 2000/Gore).
Obama’s bravely bravely running away from these things sets up a situation where there’ll be no-one around to defend him when the inevitable smear campaign goes nova.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
A good observation on the campaign’s message problems. I wonder if the fact that he’s sent 3 emails in 24 hours to supporters asking for money means that his lameness is taking a toll on the base (or maybe they too just step it up when the campaign’s in trouble).
June 30th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Obama seems to have retreated into a super-cautious mode
That’s his normal mode.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I wonder if they were testing Clark out as a possible VP, and if he just failed.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
If being captured by the enemy, held in prison and tortured makes you presidential material, then there is a whole heck of a lot of presidential material currently being held in Gitmo.
In fairness, the gitmo prisoners haven’t lost nearly as many military aircraft as John McCain has, so he’s obviously more qualified.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
If you can’t say “getting shot down is not a qualification for President”, then sorry, folks, but McCain is going to be the next President.
If Obama can’t attack McCain on his “war hero” crap, Obama is going to lose.
And I will be here in November to say “I told you so.”
June 30th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
if obama loses this election he will look at the summer, this time, as the time when he blew it by being too cautious and letting mccain off the mat.
mccain has been reeling, ready to go away and crawl into a hole and shrivel and die. instead of administering the coup de grace and putting him out of his misery with an aggressive attack, obama has, as he’s done previously, gone into a prevent defense.
and like in football, all a prevent defense does is prevent you from winning.
this type of cautious, defensive crouch is one dems are very comfortable in and it has caused many a defeat when a victory was there for the taking.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:20 am
This is the major league of politics at its finest hour. Good as opera anytime. High drama Isn’t McCain good at it? The media thinks he is adorable. It has now been said, however, that being a war hero does not a commander-in-chief make. And Senator Obama did not say it. Nor should he. Or, is Senator McCain all exercised over nothing?
Eleanor
July 1st, 2008 at 12:38 am
I’m going to assume everyone is overreacting until I see movement in polls.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:00 am
I’m going to assume everyone is overreacting until I see movement in polls.
That is indeed wise, but it also fundamentally contradicts the spirit of blog commenting.
This neutral messaging phase (nicest way I could think of to put it) will erode his polls in the short term. Nevertheless, the air war doesn’t matter so much if you beat the other guy on the ground.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:46 am
It was lame.
” Tyranny of an Empire”??!!
They just didn’t want to pay taxes and be stopped from Native Americans.
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