2000 and 2004 led to the perception that Democratic candidates are too timid to do what it takes to win an election. But this year, it is Republicans who have had problem developing an offensive message and it is Democrats who are taking an aggressive stance - and have the financial muscle to get their message heard.
While the McCain campaign largely wasted the month of September in distracting attacks (as I explained this morning) and is now musing when and how it should use Rezko and Ayers, Obama is pushing his advantage on economic issues to paint his adversary as an out-of-touch politician and as a tax-and-spender. That’s right, the Democratic presidential nominee is attacking his Republican opponent for proposing tax hikes and expensive programs with the kicker, “Can we afford John McCain?”
First came a spot called “Spending Spree” that accused McCain of looking to raise the debt. But Democrats have been focusing in particular on health care, an issue that had disappeared from the campaign trail for months but is making a dramatic last-minute appearance in the general election. A new wave of TV advertisement and mailers is now charging that McCain is looking to tax health care benefits “for the first time ever,” in what Obama warns would cost households thousands of dollars. Here’s one version of Obama’s new health care attack, and here is another:
[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4-EBYIvwP8"]
Joe Biden devoted one of his answers in the vice-presidential debate to McCain’s tax on health care benefits, and Sarah Palin did not respond at all to his allegations. That the Obama campaign is unveiling such a large campaign on this issue and that they had entirely stayed away from discussing health care for months suggests that they were saving this attack for the last weeks of the campaign - and the timing seems very effective indeed.
The financial crisis has made voters jittery about their finances, and health care costs is obviously a big worry for them. McCain has already weakened as more voters started rating the economy as their primary concern, and these ads are a direct appeal to any voter who do so but are still leaning towards McCain. These ads could be particularly effective for older voters who have been a strong constituency for McCain and who Obama wants to bring back to the Democratic camp.
Obama’s ads are a direct response to McCain’s own tax-and-spend attacks. That Obama voted “94 times” to raise taxes was one of Palin’s main talking points on Thursday night, and McCain is airing ads accusing Obama and “congressional liberals” of being big spenders. This is McCain’s main policy-based attack against the Illinois Senator, and Obama is hoping to make himself immune from it by leveling the same charge against his opponent, and do so with no hint of being on the defensive.
And the Obama campaign is applying this strategy of preemption - essentially a defensive move that is a strong enough of an attack that it allows you to regain the offensive - in other areas as well. Politico reports that Democrats already moved on reports that the McCain campaign will start airing ads invoking Ayers and Rezko after Tuesday’s debate to craft an ad of their own that will begin airing Monday. In other words, viewers will see Obama’s response ad before Republicans release any ad of their own!
According to Politico, the ad will accuse McCain of seeking to “turn the page on the economy” by launching “dishonorable, dishonest attacks.” The ad also calls McCain “erratic in a crisis,” as direct an attack on McCain’s temperament as we have seen yet in Democratic advertising. Thus, it is important to remember that Republican efforts to paint Obama as a dangerous, untrustworthy choice will not happen in a vacuum; they will run against an equally determined effort by Democrats to do the same against the Arizona Senator and present him as a risk.
A few months ago, it would certainly have been strange for Democrats to define McCain as a risk, but recent polling indicates that voters came to view McCain’s suspending his campaign as a flippant move that spoke badly of McCain’s steadiness. In other words, the groundwork for Obama’s “erratic” attack has already been laid - which is why it could be very effective in affecting the way voters view McCain - and why the last month of presidential ads could be far more brutal than anything we have seen over the past few months.
And Democrats are better positioned to get their own attacks break through all the ad noise because of Obama’s superior financial position. The Democrat is outspending McCain by some stunning proportions. In the last week of September, the GOP only outspent Obama in Minnesota (the only state, concidentally, that recent polls have suggested might be trending Republican). In Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina, Democrats outspent Republicans 10:1… The disparity was at least 2:1 in a number of other states, including Wisconsin, Colorado, Ohio, New Hampshire, Missouri (3:1).
In fact, Republicans spent more in Iowa (a state in which Obama is leading by double-digits) than in North Carolina and Virginia combined, a truly inexplicable decision.
The most striking numbers come from Florida. It’s not just that Obama is now spending more than $3 million in the state (Republicans did not even spend $1 million in the last week of September), but the New York Times reports that since mid-September a staggering 20% of Obama’s total ad budget has gone to the Sunshine State! For anyone who doubted that Democrats would do a serious push for Florida’s 27 electoral votes, this is as dramatic a response as is possible.
Finally, this Democrats’ posture in which no Republican move is going unanswered is exemplified by the Obama campaign’s decision to be more aggressive in Nebraska’s second district after Republicans signaled their intention of going after ME-02’s electoral votes on Thursday. Both Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes by district, and both campaigns think they have a chance to steal one vote in enemy territory (I have already outlined the likelihood and consequences of a tie vote in the electoral college, testifying to the importance ME-02 and NE-02 could have).
And here again, score the first point to Democrats, who have forced Republicans on the defensive in Nebraska before exhibiting any sign of worry about Maine. Obama just opened a staff office in Omaha (where NE-02 is located) and it was just announced that Sarah Palin will be traveling to that city to hold a rally. A campaign does not dispatch its vice-presidential candidate anywhere in October unless there is a very good reason. Time is precious, and Palin’s trip betrays GOP anxiety about losing Omaha. The only poll we have of this district for now showed McCain leading by 4% in August.
Obama’s campaign has learnt to push back and as you say McCain’s negative attacks will not happen in a vacuum. I think bringing up healthcare is very clever -
1. it keeps the election on issues,
2. healthcare is related to the economic problems.
3. puts McCain on the defensive over tax
4. healthcare is a core democratic issue so it will solidify the base (including Hillary Democrats)
McCains’s negative attacks will not get far because a) he now has a reputation for lying and b) these are not new accusations and Obama weathered them during the prolonged primary season
Keating 5 and McCain’s adultery could easily come up!
Guy - I don’t think Obama has to go to Keating and adultery, although I think Keating is legitimate. He simply has to go after McCain’s unsound temperament. He’s impulsive, vindictive and unpredictable, all problems that increase with age. (I’m only 3 years younger, and believe me when I tell you it doesn’t get better as time goes on!)
The New Yorker has a lengthy editorial that nails this concern: http://tinyurl.com/4kcaxb. Here’s one particularly pertinent comment:
“The longer the campaign goes on, the more the issues of personality and character have reflected badly on McCain. Unless appearances are very deceiving, he is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatizing, erratic, and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a “maverick” senator. But in a President they would be a menace.
By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages. It is what helped him forge a political career relying both on the liberals of Hyde Park and on the political regulars of downtown Chicago. His policy preferences are distinctly liberal, but he is determined to speak to a broad range of Americans who do not necessarily share his every value or opinion. For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment. Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness.”
Not coincidentally, Obama is launching a preemptive attack this week on McCain’s ‘erratic behavior’.
Rasmussen’s latest shows Obama with a 7 point lead. That’s ten straight days he’s been at or over 50%. Hotline and Gallup show an identical spread. Columbus Dispatch has Obama +7 in Ohio through Friday. Morning Call (PA) has Obama +10 through Saturday, Star Tribune has him +18 in MN (bizarre outlier). McCain has no alternative to get down and dirty. His policies aren’t gaining traction, and while Palin excites a certain constituency, many undecideds don’t see her as VP. Barring another terrorist incident, he’s in a nose-dive.
Zoot - I completely agree Obama doesn`t need to bring up anything on McCain other than erratic. What I was alluding to was the other groups and even reporters would take Ayers etc to be a licence to bring up “associations” the GOP and McCain would rather not have raised.
Taniel,
You wrote, “A campaign does not dispatch its vice-presidential candidate anywhere in October unless there is a very good reason. Time is precious, and Palin’s trip betrays GOP anxiety about losing Omaha.”
Why do you think Palin held a rally yesterday in California? Why was McCain in Iowa a few days ago?
McCain was in Iowa because his campaign is unfocused and in the midst of a tailspin. Right after that interview, Republican operatives outside the campaign loudly questioned the logic of this appearance. Immediately after that, McCain stopped pretending to contest Michigan. I think McCain got himself a tough love talking to from the party insiders and had to start making realistic assessments.
Palin was in California because it’s a political ATM. The RNC needs money, and lots of it this year, and and the President’s unfavorably ratings are so high, no one in their right mind wants anything to do with him. Someone has to go out there and shake down the faithful.
To add to this, my gut feeling is that on a strategic level, it’s time for the Republicans to consider how to avoid keeping this from turning into a true watershed election. On a very real level Presidential campaigns are more about the party then they are about the candidate. And the campaign the top of the ticket runs reverberates all down the ballot across the country. Don’t forget that Obama has run the campaign that he’s run not just to bleed McCain dry, but to help bring in as much political support for his Presidential agenda as possible. It’s not an accident that Obama chose to put real money early on into places like Indiana and Alaska and Georgia; places that he may not win, but where organization will help Democrats in down ballot races in ways we might not be measuring right now.
McCain, on the other hand, has ignored states like Indiana and North Carolina, daring Obama to throw his away money. Obama has taken his dare.
My gut says that Republicans are seeing internal polling that they don’t like, and it’s not just coming from Michigan. Given a choice, I think they’d rather piss off the local Republican party in Michigan and maybe lose a few seats in a blue state than watch congressional, Senate, and gubernatorial races in currently red states slip away because they underestimated the impact of Obama’s voter outreach.
Just a feeling, but combined with Palin’s new roll as fundraiser/bombthrower, the GOP as a whole may have given up on more than just the state of Michigan. Now the goal is to limit their losses.