I am biting my tongue on this whole Ayers thing. I don't want to start another partisan war about media bias- particularly the tendency to highlight McCain attacks over Obama's- but you all should know there is what to say, especially about AP with its musing that the Ayers attack is racial in nature:
Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another
subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling
around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he
doesn't see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as "not like us" is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American. The fact is that when racism creeps into the discussion, it serves a purpose for McCain. As the fallout from Wright's sermons showed earlier this year, forcing Obama to abandon issues to talk about race leads to unresolved arguments about America's promise to treat all people equally.
Perhaps I am innocent, perhaps I am biased, or perhaps I am simply unaware of the subliminal working of my physce, but I never imagined such an association until reading this article. [Update: I am not crazy. The WSJ also picked up on this sketch association, and also provides other wonderful examples of bias against Palin.]
Here are two applications of Air Wars to the current cycle:
Agenda Setting is the reason for McCain current downturn in the polls. Let me explain. West sets forth two election extremes: that of 1992, where serious issues prevented Bush from setting his own agenda, and 1996, where a lack of serious agenda's gave both candidate the opportunity to set their own agenda. This year is a combination of both. On the one hand, we have serious issues, like 1992. On the other, we have a lot of serious issues, so much so that the candidates have had the opportunity, like in 1996, to emphasise what they wish. That all changed with the credit crisis. It elevated one issue over all the others, an issue that is to Obama's advantage.
The Blame Game is on in full force: Obama plans to launch an ad tomorrow condemning McCain for issuing negative ads, according to CNN. The article also provides a wonderful example of Obama mixing the positive with the negative, slamming McCain for launching negative ads and then embarking on a negative attack of his own.
"Sen. McCain and his operatives are gambling that they can distract you with
smears rather than talk to you about substance. They'd rather try to tear our
campaign down than lift this country up," Obama said at an event in Asheville,
North Carolina.
"That's what you do when you're out of touch, out of ideas,
and running out of time," he said
You gotta love that last line. On the McCain side, Palin is clearly being used as the attack dog, aka Dick Cheney in a dress, in an attempt to shift attention away from McCain. However, this tactic is not enough. Obama is winning the Blame Game, in the image of Bill Clinton in 1992. Two factors contributed to Clinton's victory: (a) successfully convincing the public of the existence of, as it is currently known, "the right wing dirt machine," and (b) as recorded by West, a media that was sympathetic to Clinton and jumped on Bush for making negative remarks. We saw this same phenomenon a month ago after the RNC convention. McCain has not- and may not- recover.
5 comments:
Your first comment isn't substantively different than a similar critique from RedState (http://www.redstate.com/diaries/redstate/2008/oct/05/the-ap-desperately-tries-to-play-the-race-car/). Rather than critique Daniel's article I'm more curious about why the AP would choose to contextualize Palin's comments in terms of race. Like we've mentioned in this class, race is a constant - an unspoken - subtext in this election cycle.
Or to state differently: When Obama made his "lipstick on a pig" comment, the assumption was that he was referring to Palin. When he denied it, McCain said that someone who chooses his words as carefully as Obama would certainly realize there's a Palin-related interpretation. Could a similar claim be made here?
(For the record, I don't see anything racial. But I am curious why racial themes keep getting brought up by the media. Also, I'm curious why Palin tried to link Ayers to Obama. That strategy didn't work particularly well for Hillary in the primary, and from all records, Obama doesn't seem to have any serious connection to Ayers.)
Mordy-
First although it didn't work for Hilary, it still may work here.
Second, we have discussed at length the effect of a false claim (a lie) on people's psyche. We have stated over and over again that even when a lie is made public, it still resonates within the people (i.e. Obama is a Muslim), therefore it is irrelevant if Obama and Ayers actually to have a connection, the important thing is that it's getting front page coverage and some people believe it to be true.
I agree. I think the question is; Are the people it'll convince people who weren't already going to vote for McCain?
I know (anecdote alert) at least one McCain voter from PA who actually switched her vote after Palin's Ayers/Obama comment because, quote, "She must be crazy if she thinks I'll believe that."
The closer we get to the election, remember, the few voters there are who have not yet made up their minds; and the closer we get, the more likely those voters are to be "inattentive" and thus more likely to vote on matters of personality, trust, and "likability" than policy.
BUT (a) are there enough of these voters left for it to have meaningful effects? and (b) there's some evidence to suggest that for each point you gain with such a personal attack, you may lose 1/2 a point from your own positive image; if, like McCain, so much of your image is about honesty, honor, and character, the risks to this strategy are potentially great, as Mordy's anecdote suggests. . . .
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