CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER Playing the Rove card
By Muhammad Cohen
HONG KONG - Republican Senator John McCain's campaign couldn't have scripted it
much better. When Democratic Senator Barack Obama accused Republicans of
broadcasting that Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the
dollar bills", the McCainaics got a two-fer.
First, they got to deny that the implied racism charge in the absence of any
smoking gun. The Republican punditocracy and blogosphere may be buzzing with
tales about Obama's secret plan to appoint Louis Farrakhan attorney general and
redefine the
traditional January white sale, but the McCain campaign keeps it all at arm's
length.
In the second volley, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis accused Obama of
"playing the race card", with advisor Steve Schmidt and the Republican
nominee-in-waiting himself chiming in to agree. That not only slugged the
Democratic contender and his campaign with the nasty charge of playing fast and
loose in America's most sensitive political nether regions, it also effectively
put public focus on the race issue, exactly where McCain's campaign wants it.
The McCain team got to talk about race and blame the other guy for bringing it
up.
Something about him is different
Although he probably now wishes he'd left the dead presidents out of it, Obama
was making a valid point about the McCain campaign's recent tactics. The
various portrayals of Obama as different from the rest of us - whether it's
calling him "arrogant" or "presumptuous" or comparing him with Paris Hilton -
are subtle reminders of the biggest difference of all.
That's garden variety low-road campaigning. The McCain team's triple-barreled
race card reaction to Obama's remarks took the campaign full speed down the on
ramp into the Karl Rove tunnel. Moreover, the reaction's swiftness and
slickness - neither McCain campaign trademarks - indicate that they've been
waiting for the moment to start playing their "race card" card from the Rove
deck that won a pair of presidential elections for George W Bush.
The McCain campaign said it was merely defending itself to slip the trap the
Obama campaign set in the primary race. McCain's campaign says Hillary
Clinton's campaign had its criticism of Obama unfairly deflected as racism.
That's a compelling tale, but simply not true: it was Clinton's campaign that
brought up race, comparing Obama's South Carolina primary win to Jesse
Jackson's to dismiss it as a black thing, pointing to significant
African-American populations in other states Obama won, and targeting his
weakness among white working-class voters to woo superdelegates. If the Obama
campaign "played the race card" in the primary campaign, it was because the
Clinton team kept dealing it.
Hit them where you're weak
One of former presidential advisor Rove's signature tactics is to attack the
opponent in the areas where your side seems most vulnerable. Traditional polite
politics calls for tiptoeing around your weaknesses and playing to your own
strengths; the Rove way tries to recast the opponent's strengths as weaknesses.
For example, National Guard no-show Bush's 2004 campaign attacked decorated
combat veteran John Kerry over his war record. Bush invaded Iraq to find
weapons of mass destruction and destroy links to global terrorism that weren't
there, so then said he really did it to free the Iraq people from a dictator
and restore women's rights; naturally, he accused his opponent of being a
flip-flopper.
The mother of all Rove reversals involves the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Every time you hear a Republican declare that the Democrats' policies will make
the US vulnerable to attack, remember which party was in charge on September
11, occupying the White House and ignoring a national security briefing memo
entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside US" that outlined a plan to use
hijacked planes as missiles against skyscrapers.
Facts are not important in Rovean politics, except that any fact that can be
harmful to the candidate must be redirected to the opposition, by whatever
means necessary. The McCain campaign's zeal to accuse Obama of using racism is
an attack to immunize themselves against accusations of racism. They protest
just a little too much about how their side has never made race any issue.
Well, not in this campaign at least.
Helms' favorite Black
McCain adviser Charles Black won his political spurs in campaigns for senator
Jesse Helms (See Thank
you, Senator Helms, July 12) in North Carolina. Black has affirmed that
he's proud of his association with Helms, who served 30 years in the senate as
an unreconstructed bigot.
In two races against black opponent Harvey Gant, Helms' campaign was widely
accused of making race an issue. One Helms ad that's drawn comparisons with the
McCain attack ad linking Obama with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears depicted a
white woman saying, "Call me, Harvey," raising the specter of miscegenation.
McCain himself lugs baggage on racial issues. As a congressman in 1983, he
voted against creating the federal Martin Luther King commemorative holiday. He
also initially backed Arizona's initiative not to recognize the holiday led by
right-wing radical governor Evan Meacham. "I was wrong," McCain now says of his
stand, and in 1990, supported a state ballot initiative to recognize the
holiday. Asked at the Urban League last week about his subsequent opposition to
federal funding for the holiday, McCain pleaded memory lapse, but such a vote
would fit his pose as the toughest guy on the block when it comes to opposing
what he considers wasteful government spending.
McCain has worked hard to win a pass on his opposition to the MLK holiday, but
he still has the wrong moves on racial issues. Last week, McCain unequivocally
supported an Arizona ballot initiative that would ban affirmative action.
Don't quota me
"I do not believe in quotas," McCain said, adopting the straw man created by
opponents of affirmative action. Affirmative action isn't about quotas, it's
about removing barriers to ensure fair consideration for all. It's not about
discriminating against the best and the brightest in society, but recognizing
that all segments of society must compete fairly for that distinction to be
meaningful. It means recognizing society's diversity is as much a legitimate
interest in college admissions as the ability to shoot a basketball, bake
heavenly bread or potentially win an Oscar or Pulitzer, things that admissions
officers should and do consider along with test scores.
Not all opponents of affirmative action are racists, but supporting
anti-affirmative action referenda effectively endorses the message from the
motley collection of racists behind the measures that minorities should know
their place and respect their betters. "[R]ather than engage in divisive ballot
initiatives, we must have a dialogue and cooperation and mutual efforts
together to provide for every child in America to fulfill their expectations,"
said one Arizona elected official opposing the state's 1998 affirmative action
referendum. His name is John McCain, but in 1998 he wasn't running for
president and trying to protect his right flank.
Aside from the phony quotas argument, I'd like to hear McCain's reasons for
opposing affirmative action this time around. Whatever they are, though, you
can be sure he'll accuse you of trying to play the race card just for asking
while he runs a campaign for president against an opponent with whom he has
"stark differences" that he wants make sure the public doesn't miss.
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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