Ten Reasons McCain's Campaign Failed

Almost everyone but the most diehard McCain supporters agreethat he ran a lousy campaign, and one major reason for it is that he usedtraditional right wing tactics at a time that their intellectual bankruptcy hasbeen totally unmasked.  In thisgolden age of political satire, these positions have been unmercifully parodiedon the Internet, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live,Real Time with Bill Maher and other outlets that have increasingly becomethe primary sources of political information for millions of Americans, and notonly the young as is widely believed. Here are some of the reasons the McCainmessage failed.

1.     Obamais the most liberal member of the US Senate.  McCain continued the timeworn tactic of using the word“liberal” as an expletive, but it didn’t take a brain scientist to figure outthat the past eight years of conservative domination (six of them in whichconservatives controlled both houses and the presidency) have gotten us intothe mess we are in.  Many voterstoday identify themselves as liberal and the right is not only attacking Obamawhen it uses this term, it is attacking a huge number of American voters. 

2.     Whenthe word “liberal” doesn’t work, drag out “socialism.”  This bizarre desperation tactic,hammered at during the last weeks of the campaign revealed itself for what itwas—a desperation tactic. Americans saw the hypocrisy of calling Obama a socialist when thecongress just completed the “socialist” takeover of our financial system.  And Obama’s quiet, humorous response tothe charge—“the next thing you know they’ll be calling me a communist because Ishared my toys as a kid” was devastatingly effective.

3.     NegativeAds are the way to go. Neverhas a campaign been so unrelentingly negative as the McCain campaign, and neverhas negativity turned off so many voters. People wanted to hear McCain’s views on the economy and what they gotwas day after day attacks on Obama. To be sure, Obama ran some negative ads as well, but there’s no questionthat the tenor of his campaign was civility as opposed to the downrighthostility expressed by McCain and especially Palin.

4.     Guiltby Association.  Day afterday we heard about Obama’s association with “terrorists.”  He “pals around with them,” as SarahPalin so tirelessly (and shamelessly) insisted.  This was perhaps the dumbest charge of the campaign andpeople know that the individuals Obama really “pals around with” are some ofthe most intelligent individuals in the country.  Americans didn’t care if he sat on a board with anindividual who was an ex-Weatherman when he (Obama) was eight years old, andthey don’t feel he should be held accountable for things that his formerpreacher believes.  The apogee ofthis guilt by association approach occurred on Hardball when Minnesota Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann said shewas "very concerned" that Obama "may have anti-Americanviews" and that the news media should investigate the views of members ofCongress.  Americans have beenthrough one McCarthy era and unequivocally rejected another.

5.     Taxand Spend Democrats: This isan extension of number one above, but it has an extraordinarily hollow ringwhen Democrats were the last party to balance the budget and when the Bushadministration has spent us into deficits so large the National Debt clock hadto be expanded because it ran out of digits to record the figure once itreached ten trillion dollars.  Bush has spent us into a hole in everyyear of his disastrous presidency and McCain offered no real solution to thatproblem. 

6.     Republicansare the party of ordinary Americans, or “the Joe the Plumber” motif.This too seemed a last minute grasping at straws.  Joe the Plumber is set up as an example of the sort of“Everyman” Republican economic policies are supposed to help.  That Joe was not what he initiallyseemed is emblematic of the whole McCain campaign.  Almost everything McCain said was 180 degrees away fromthings as they actually are.  Theleading example of that is that a vote for the Republican standard bearer, whowas endorsed by both Bush and Cheney (even though McCain wisely didn’t make toomuch of this) would be a vote for change. How dumb does the McCain campaign think that Americans are? A vote forObama was clearly the vote for change, and a vote for the Republican candidatewas a vote to keep things as they are.

7.     Divideand conquer. Americans of all stripes are sick and tired of hearingthat some of us are “real” and others of us are not.  That some of us are true patriots, and others of us, eventhough we say we love our country, actually hate it.  That we can’t disagree without demonizing one another.  So Sarah Palin pulled out herlipsticked pit bull persona and told us that small town values are the realAmerican values, and God-fearing, churchgoing people who support wars and don’tprotest anything their government does are the true Americans.  Obama’s truly reaching out to Americansof all stripes was easily more appealing than this callow and opportunisticdivisiveness.

8.     Sharingthe wealth is un-American. The progressive income tax, a part ofAmerican tax policy for over a century, is based on the concept that thosefortunate enough to earn and amass a great deal of wealth should pay a higherpercentage of their income to help level the playing field for who have notbeen so fortunate.  Sharing thewealth is as American as hamburgers and a malt, and those who can afford FiletMignon and vintage Rothchild Bordeaux know it.  That’s why Warren Buffet says he should pay more taxes andwhy people like Bill Gates and Ted Turner start foundations to give away theirmoney where it’s needed.

9.     Fearand Terrorism.  Republicanscan protect the country from terrorists better than Democrats can.  Sure they can; that’s why the worstterrorist attack in American History occurred on their watch. McCain seizedBiden’s gaffe about Obama being “tested” in the early days of his presidencyand turned it into a major campaign issue.  But in 2008 Americans are more fearful of losing their lifesavings and not being able to pay their medical bills than they are of beingkilled by a terrorist.  Finally,when you pit fear against hope, you pit humanity’s great weakness against itsgreatest strength.  The audacity ofObama’s hope gleefully triumphed over those fanning the flames of dread anddisaster.

10. SarahPalin, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin. While Sarah Palin is certainly not a traditional GOP tactic, there islittle doubt that McCain chose her to solidify support with the Evangelical right.  But Palin alienated a lot more votersthan she seduced.  The interviewwith Kathy Couric alone was such an embarrassment that it made McCain’sjudgment highly questionable. And the Tina Fey impersonations were sodevastating because she hardly had to change any of Palin’s words to dothem.  If this woman is the futureof the Republican party, they are looking at a long, dry spell out of office.

In sum, the 2008 election will go down as aturning point in America—a time when reality caught up with the destructivepolitical tactics that have turned Americans into enemies with one another.Obama offered us a way out of that miserable state of affairs, reminding us, asLincoln did a century and a half ago, that a house divided against itselfcannot stand.

FredMoramarco is Professor Emeritus of English at San Diego State University andthe Artistic Director of Laterthanever Productions.