CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER The hope of audacity
By Muhammad Cohen
NEW YORK - After eight weeks of observing the American presidential race from
inside the United States, I see voters primed to make big choices about
reversing the rot of the George W Bush years. But, in these days of warming up
for the general election fight, the campaigns seem to want to keep the election
about small things.
One factor contributing to keeping things small is the stunning velocity of the
election news cycle. A story breaks at midday and, with the Internet and
round-the-clock news channels, it's played out and dispatched to the dustbin of
history before that evening's network news, supplanted by some later-breaking
story. Even the
most dedicated campaign junkie can find it difficult to keep up.
Electronic media, including the Internet, tend to rank what's most recent as
most important. That tendency can further accelerate the news cycle, as
reporters, editors and producers look for comments to advance that latest story
or find a new one. However, news programs that use guests need to prepare hours
before air time, so they may focus on a story that turns out not to be a fringe
item. If you're just watching one news show, or listening to the radio only
during your daily commute, you're probably getting a skewed view of events.
Some news shows try to skew things on purpose. After all, if you're telling the
same news as the next guy in the same way, why should anyone watch you?
Right-wing Fox News turned out even more ridiculous than imagined; consider the
national security consequences if Fox hadn't exposed Democratic Senator Barack
Obama's terrorist fist bump. CNN has Lou Dobbs, who left his post as the
network's top financial face during the Internet boom to work on a website
about interplanetary travel. Perhaps that's why he's come back with such
extreme views on aliens. Every show needs its shtick, and sacrificing
objectivity - though none of these news-kabob skewers would plead guilty to
that charge - is a popular method of differentiation.
Wherever you're getting your news, there's a good chance you're missing a
significant portion of the political conversation. Newspapers (and to a lesser
extent public broadcasting) offer the perspective that's too often missing from
radio and TV, but they don't have it until the next day, at which point the
conversation has moved on. In a sense, velocity has democratized the media,
giving every voter their own story to tell based on the pieces of news they
gather. The next step is to Democratize coverage via the Internet.
Playing to the (data)base
Following its audacious decision to opt out of the public finance system for
the general election, Obama's campaign is very aggressively using the Internet
to raise money from supporters. It remains to be seen if the campaign can be as
aggressive when it comes to running against Republican Senator John McCain. But
with the velocity of the news cycle, direct Internet links to its (data)base
also give the Obama campaign an avenue to create its own narrative of the race.
The campaign can present its story of the day directly to supporters, bypassing
conventional media outlets to circulate its talking points. (The campaign
wouldn't abandon its outreach to conventional media, however.) The Democratic
primary campaign in particular engaged millions of people in the political
process more intensely than any race since 1968. Direct contact could be
especially effective in reaching young supporters, many of whom are most likely
to be following the Internet closely, and helping them make the leap to young
voters. But supporters across the board, as well as the campaign, would benefit
from having the candidate's theme of the day circulating around the office
coffee maker, over lunch, or at the gym.
Hundreds of advocacy groups already use e-mail extraordinarily effectively to
energize supporters and attract new ones. MoveOn.org, TrueMajority.org and
their counterparts on the right use the Internet to motivate adherents to share
and spread political messages as well as to act, whether it's telephoning the
US Congress or holding bake sales.
The technology to get a daily message out to voters is quaintly 20th century.
Even jazzed up with videos and interactive features, it's easy technically. The
real challenge is crafting content that will excite supporters. Messages to the
media are much simpler since campaigns and the media need each other. Media may
be more analytical and tougher on whatever the campaign churns out, but members
will play along, whereas regular voters will simply ignore messages they find
boring, cloying, irrelevant or otherwise unappealing.
All those channels and nothing on
While the technology is there to make it happen, the real question is whether
Obama's campaign can muster the vigor and agility to create a compelling story
by e-mail (or any other form). Clearly, Team Obama has built on Howard Dean's
2004 model - the pioneering US Internet campaign effort - and improved it
enormously to raise record money and awareness online. But Obama's team may not
have interest or the right skill sets to use the Internet for messages more
subtle and substantive than offering an Obama 2008 refrigerator magnet for
every $15 contribution.
It's early and campaigns are still settling into general election mode, but the
signs online and beyond suggest the Obama brain trust wants to keep the race
free of issues. That could fit their overall narrative that Obama's candidacy
is a post-partisan affair so the campaign wants to talk more about doing things
differently rather than what it might actually do.
The big issue of the 2008 campaign was expected to be the war in the Iraq, with
a sharp contrast between Obama's end-the-war position and McCain's pursuit of
victory. But the American public has already made up its mind about the war and
now ignores the conflict completely. Unless you have a relative in the battle
zone or a subscription to the National Review or another conservative bible, as
far as you're concerned, the war is already over. The impact of the war on
America's reputation overseas, the federal budget, and the US economy remain
substantial, but Americans are insulated from the day-to-day fighting and have
opted out of any responsibility. Iraq is George W Bush's war, and even if US
voters elected him twice, including re-electing him after the invasion, it's
his headache.
As a result, public outrage about the war is far lower than reasonably
expected. Americans seem convinced they've done enough by saying they want the
war to end. Hawkish McCain has begun testing the line that he wants to end the
war, too, just as soon as it's safe for America to end it. That line could play
well, since most Americans - including the Democrats they elected to Congress
in 2006 to stop the war - seem to be satisfied to oppose the war without
actually doing anything to end it.
Exiting Iraq
Obama still hasn't made a convincing case about why it's important to end the
war as soon as possible and how electing him will do it. As written in this
space before, Obama needs to establish a blue ribbon panel with military
supporters and other policy experts to formulate his plan for ending the war,
while he makes the case for why the war needs to end sooner rather than later.
Having a reason and a practical plan to end the war, created by credible
people, will substantively differentiate Obama from McCain. Not doing it runs
the risk of McCain beating Obama on an issue where the public agrees with
Obama.
The economy is another area where Obama can and should distinguish himself from
McCain. Nearly eight years of updated Reaganomics, tax cuts for the wealthy and
lax regulation, has produced job losses and a credit crisis, plus US$4.50 (and
climbing) a gallon petrol. Americans are very pessimistic about the economy at
this point, but there are signs that things could improve by November.
Democrats can hope it's a repeat of 1992 when the recession was actually over
economically but was still very much alive in voters' minds when they went to
the polls, choosing Bill Clinton over George H W Bush. Regardless of the
particular spot in the economic cycle, Obama can make a clear distinction about
what he'd do differently from McCain and why that's better for you and your
family.
But drawing sharp lines seems to be exactly what the Obama campaign wants to
avoid. It's a front-runner strategy, from the Democratic Party that's lost two
slam-dunk elections in a row. Rank-and-file Democrats are feeling as if they
should be trumpeting the differences between their candidate and the guy in the
White House with a 23% approval rating. But the Obama campaign seems ready to
bet it's enough to spend $250 million to tell people their candidate is better
without saying precisely why.
Perhaps the reluctance to deal with specific differences is linked to one
obvious difference between Obama and McCain: color. Many Americans I spoke to
wonder whether other Americans will vote for a black man. No one worries about
doing it themselves, but they're not sure others are as open-minded as they
are.
From what I saw, and from what the primary season voting across the nation
demonstrated, Americans will live up to their better instincts and vote for the
best candidate in November, regardless of color. From US Independence Day on
July 4, there are exactly four months remaining for Obama or McCain to win that
mantle. So far, that contest is close, and Democrats seem committed to making
sure it stays that way.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America�s story
to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com),
a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal,
high finance and cheap lingerie.
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