I think Chuck Spinney might be right. We do seem to have reached a point where McCain and Palin continue to repeat the same misleading lines (even outright lies) despite being directly confronted by the people they’re repeating them to. They’re being called out, over and over again, by Charlie Gibson, by Norah O’Donnell, by the NY Times, by the ladies on the View–by anyone and everyone who is not a total Republican party hack. And they are both beginning to look ridiculous.
Now you can almost feel the tide turning and the media coverage cresting. Obama has an opening. If this month’s fundraising numbers wind up being huge–despite the sense that McCain has had the momentum–the entire story will change in his favor. I hope he’s as strategic and talented as Spinney thinks–that he sees all of this happening and is prepared to take advantage of it. Fifty-two days to go.
Spinney’s thoughts:
I am beginning to sense that McCain behavior is destroying himself and that Obama has the good sense or instinct to take a deep step back and let McCain dig a hole so deep he can not get out.
After all, McCain has spent years branding himself as a straight talker of truth who puts country ahead of self … it was always a phony image, but now he is aggressively destroying that brand name and replacing it with the opposite Rovian brand. [...]
Maybe Obama’s behavior is akin to subtly waving the red cape to lure McCain into reinforcing the rebranding operation. I think Obama did a capejob on Hillary, and she ended up up with the immoral alternative of either having to destroy the democratic party inorder to win its nomination or quitting. I think (hope?) Obama is doing a similar thing with McCain, and McCain is walking into the trap. [...]
In the end, this election is a battle that takes place within an overarching moral context, and as Boyd showed, you can not isolate your opponent in moral warfare… Your opponent has to morally isolate himself, and he does that by destroying legs of the moral triangle, and in so doing, exhibits behavior that promotes his own well being by violating the codes of conduct or standards of behavior he professes to uphold and others expect him to uphold.
I have this vague sense that Obama’s goal (maybe instinct is a better word) may be to create an atmosphere (perhaps by looking weak, iter alia) that encourages McCain to reinforce this self destructive behavior and thereby make his hypocrisy obvious to a majority of the undecided voters. But then maybe I am seeing visions in cloud formations.
2 Comments
September 14, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Where’s the link to Spinney’s original speech? Both you and Fallows quote extensively from Spinney and have not provided a link to the original document. I’d like to read the original source document and make up my own mind what Spinney is saying.
Best regards,
PCOL
September 14, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I’m quoting from what Fallows has posted–my impression is that it was a personal email to him, quoted in its entirety. But he’s the man to ask for the original source.