Campaign Diaries

The McCain campaign has been unable to develop a cohesive attack, and the GOP’s growing sense of desperation is likely to make their offense only more chaotic. With 18 days to go before Election Day and no obvious event looming that could change the direction of the race, Republicans know that they need to disqualify Obama - and that means throwing all their arguments at him and seeing what sticks. Today saw a multi-pronged attack on Obama by the McCain campaign, the RNC and third party groups on a wide variety of issues.

Trouble is, that does not make for a very consistent campaign, nor the one that voters necessarily want to hear when the financial crisis is showing little sign of resolution.

First, the RNC’s independent expenditure arm unearthed the issue of Obama’s experience. A new ad features an empty chair in the Oval Office and asks voters whether they would trust Obama to sit in it in times of crisis:

The problem for the GOP, of course, is that voters feel more comfortable with Obama than they did a month ago and all polls indicate that they trust the Democrat to deal with a financial crisis more than they trust McCain. That is due first to the Democrats’ natural edge on the economy and second to McCain’s much-ridiculed behavior during the bailout negotiations. But it is also due to the fact that the McCain campaign simply stopped pushing the experience argument at the end of August when Sarah Palin chose the campaign.

Instead of framing the election as change v. experience (and there were signs that the celebrity ads were working), McCain chose to contest Obama’s mantle of change (which did not work out so well). Not even in the debates did McCain frontally challenge Obama’s readiness, which is what makes it so strange that the RNC has suddenly decided to reintroduce this angle of attack with little to no preparation, 18 days from the election.

If the GOP wanted to make this election about Obama’s readiness to lead, it should not have abandoned that argument for the past six weeks and allowed the Democrat to gain the electorate’s trust.

Second, the McCain campaign sought to push the argument that Obama is so far to the left that he is using code words for socialism - particularly when it comes to the traditionally Republican issue of taxes. This was the line of attack McCain privileged for much of the third debate, and it actually put Obama on the defensive for the first 30 minutes. Now, a new McCain ad features the exchange between Obama and Samuel Joe-the-Plumber Wurzelbacher, highlights Obama’s “spreading the wealth around” comment and accuses him of wanting to raise taxes - and wanting to promote welfare:

McCain invoking welfare could mark a new development in the presidential race. For the past few months, his campaign has mostly stayed away from the most racially charged issues that Republicans have often used to racialize a campaign when running against an African-American candidate: crime and welfare. The fact that these two issues are far less central to the political discussion today than they were in the early 90s greatly facilitates Obama’s presidential ambitions. Are these repeated references to welfare an attempt at a racial argument?

Third, there are the robocalls, and they are out in force this week. TPM has been doing an admirable job at collecting the messages that are being currently being delivered to thousands of voters in swing states, and there is nothing subtle in the robocalls’ arguments. One charges that Obama is not looking to protect the country from terrorism:

“Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats aren’t who you think they are. They say they want to keep us safe, but Barack Obama said the threat we face now from terrorism is nowhere near as dire as it was in the end of the Cold War. And Congressional Democrats now want to give civil rights to terrorists.”

Why does the first sentence use the term “who” since the rest of the message seemingly attacks Democrats for minimizing the threat rather than being active participants in any dangerous act? It is a way to channel the question Republicans have been asking at rallies over the past two weeks (”Who is Barack Obama?”) and float around the vague and implicit possibility that there is something about him (and not just about his national security policies) that he is not telling voters. Appropriately enough, a second robocall links Obama to “domestic terrorist Bill Ayers” (listen to it here):

“You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home, and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country.”

Ben Smith reports that these robocalls are not just a bluff to get the media’s attention. They have been playing in a wide range of swing states (at least WI, NM, VA, ME, FL, MO, NC, OH, IN and PA). This means that this robocall is the most intensive effort yet to tell voters about Ayers.

Fourth, try the kitchen sink approach: bring up any issue that could possibly derail Obama, especially issues no one has brought up until now. This relies on outside groups stepping in and willing to do the dirty job the McCain campaign would prefer not to undertake. Today brought such a group: the National Republican Trust PAC launched an ad today hitting Obama for supporting granting driving licenses to immigrants who are in the country illegally. The ad, which appears to be starting with a modest buy in Ohio, argues that the policy Obama supports is what allowed the 9-11 terrorist to organize the operation:

The point of the kitchen sink approach, of course, is that you never know what might strike a cord with voters. To the extent that illegal immigration is tied to job concerns in voters’ mind, driving licenses are an issue that could resonate with voters. And while the ad goes so far to make its case that it risks losing its credibility, outside groups with little money have to produce provocative ads and hope that the media picks it up and gives it added importance. Some Republican operatives are hoping that some 527 takes it upon itself to invoke Reverend Wright.

Overall, the GOP’s final message remains muddied, but that is first and foremost because there are so many messengers, none of which are allowed to communicate with each other. The RNC’s independent expenditure division is not allowed to talk to McCain strategists to see whether they would rather push an experience argument, a change one or even whether the McCain campaign has data on the effectiveness of attacking Obama’s experience. Is it any wonder, then, that the GOP’s attacks remain largely incoherent?

18 days from Election Day, Republicans have no more time to games and it is urgent for them to find an attack meme that will finally stick.