Palin: Here’s My Take
Democrats cannot afford to be complacent about Sarah Palin, nor can they afford to be shrill. I mentioned on Twitter over the weekend that I thought it was a horrible idea to even repeat the rumors that were flying around in high number and force. Nor could they be judgmental about her parenting skills, her daughter’s pregnancy, or any other personal issues that might arise.
This, despite the fact that Republicans have traditionally used those issues to undermine Democrats’ candidacies, and especially Barack Obama’s.
Here’s why. Framing this election one around personalities and personal attacks will benefit the Republicans. They know this. From Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager:
“This election is not about issues,” said Davis. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”
Davis added that issues will no doubt play a major role in the decisions undecided voters will make but that they won’t ultimately be conclusive. He added that the campaign has “ultimate faith” in the idea that the more voters get to know McCain and Barack Obama, the better the Republican nominee will do.
Davis understands that if Democrats make this a contest of personalities, they’ll lose. Barack Obama gets that, too, which is why he so masterfully shouted out yesterday for the press and his supporters to step back from attacks on Palin and her children, while tying it all into his own past as the child of a single parent who got pregnant at age 18.
George Lakoff understands this, too:
But the Palin nomination changes the game. The initial response has been to try to keep the focus on external realities, the “issues,” and differences on the issues. But the Palin nomination is not basically about external realities and what Democrats call “issues,” but about the symbolic mechanisms of the political mind — the worldviews, frames, metaphors, cultural narratives, and stereotypes. The Republicans can’t win on realities. Her job is to speak the language of conservatism, activate the conservative view of the world, and use the advantages that conservatives have in dominating political discourse.
If bloggers and twitterers and the media focus on the personal side of Palin, they miss the larger picture, and in so doing, allow the McCain campaign to frame the election in terms of personality — in the ‘gut factor’. The gut factor involves all of those things which the right trumpets as “their” issues: family values (with a twist of authoritarian bent but still, family values).
What Palin represents is the symbol of the Republican base: solid, conservative, religious, towing the line for those “traditional family values”. Even her daughter’s pregnancy will be viewed in that light, make no mistake about it.
So we have a choice. We can speak to the family values that we hold dear or allow them to be hijacked in a petty debate that misses the larger picture in favor of nonsensical pissing matches over whether Palin should have stayed at home, whether she should have kept better track of her daughter, whether she parented right. Those are non-issues. NONE of us ‘parent right’. Or correctly. We all just do our best in the circumstances we have.
What Palin does is validate McCain’s rapid turn to the base. No longer the darling of independents, he has taken one large step to the right and turned in that direction as he moves ahead. But without Palin, who is standing there already, that turn doesn’t have much credibility. WITH her, it’s a much more powerful case for McCain’s candidacy with the base.
Democrats didn’t stand much chance of winning that base anyway. But they do have the opportunity to frame the debate around what matters to independents and the majority of Democratic voters, and that frame has to be in the context of family and family values.
- It is a family value to want your loved ones to be healthy and have access to health care when they need it.
- It is a family value to aspire to home ownership and expect to be able to not only achieve that goal, but not lose it after the fact because of greedy mortgage companies.
- It is a family value to want your children to be educated and have access to higher education.
- It is a family value to have the opportunity to work at a decent job with a decent wage.
- It is a family value to enable parents to adequately care for their children in situations where both parents must work, and for laws to protect working women and give them equal pay for equal work.
- It is a family value to expect your country to send our sons and daughters into wars worth fighting, wars over principle or security, rather than wars for oil and greed.
- It is a family value to expect our returning soldiers to be cared for and given respect not only in tribute, but in investment in their futures and their health
These are all planks on the Democrats’ platform. If we want Palin to be neutralized and for Obama to win the election, the dialogue should be all about family values, but family values as seen through the eyes of real people suffering all around this country as the result of the last 8 years of failed “family value” policies.
With that in mind, I would challenge you to go to the Momocrats’ site and read their post series entitled “Palin in Comparison“, where they look at what she represents to the Republican base and then answer with the Democrats’ position on those same issues. Then talk to family, friends. Remind them that the Republicans have had eight years to demonstrate even a small regard for the family, but have only shown an amazing tendency toward greed, avarice, and the destruction of just about every value we hold dear in this country.
The election is certainly not about personality. It is about values. It is about who voters feel will stand up for them as we face some of the hardest issues we’ve had as a nation, while cleaning up the Constitutional and economic mess left behind by the Bush Administration. When it’s seen through that frame, it’s no longer McCain’s election to win.
In a nutshell, it is all about the fierce urgency of NOW.
This was the topic of our discussion today on NewsGang Live. I recommend downloading today’s episode. Well worth the listen.
Sphere: Related ContentIs Democratic party unity really a goal for Clinton?
If so, it is time for Senator Clinton to stop saying the Democrats are fielding the wrong candidate.
Her inexperience argument is a canard that should die a rapid death. Senator Obama has demonstrated his ability to mount a strong and effective campaign while not abandoning his core principles of transparency and staying focused on the issues. He has demonstrated fiscal responsibility and an ability to reach out and build a strong coalition of support around the core principles guiding the Democratic party.
Make no mistake, the nominating process and campaign is a strong indicator of where the general election will go. Let’s call the church crap a draw, given that McCain’s got Hagee and Parsley repudiations under his belt. Barack Obama will end the primary season with millions in the bank, a nice nest egg for the general election, and a strong, empowered, grass-roots base to build his general election campaign.
ANY argument which suggests that Hillary Clinton is more capable than Barack Obama to be President of this country is based on intellectual dishonesty. Let’s talk about leadership in that context.
Leadership has more than one element. It is first, and foremost, the ability to exercise good personal judgment. Second, the ability to communicate a direction in a way that attracts people to your cause; and third, the ability to move that cause forward steadily and with purpose.
Just in the context of today’s RBC meeting, let’s look at leadership. The Obama campaign asked its followers to refrain from any demonstration or en masse appearance in Washington DC today, choosing instead to focus on their 50 state voter registration drive, intended to shore up the Democratic voter base in all 50 states. His supporters are just as passionate as Hillary Clinton’s, trust me. They could have appeared in front of that hotel with their own signs, but they DID NOT, choosing instead to follow the request of Obama and work on calling voters, registering new voters, and working on other aspects of the campaign.
Clinton’s supporters, on the other hand, disrupted the meeting (particularly the afternoon sessions), called for more division by stirring her Florida supporters with comparisons to the 2000 election, the civil rights movement, the suggestion that the compromise reached treats Florida voters as less than slaves (who received 3/5ths of a vote), aligned with slanderous and discredited characters for the sake of attention, and consistently continue to whine that the failure of her candidacy is somehow related to sexism, misogyny and unfair treatment.
The video linked above and the one embedded below are examples. Both are pathetic. I would never, ever in a hundred years do this. It’s a disgrace to Hillary Clinton. It’s a disgrace to every hard-working woman who manages to find their place in life as a self-actualized human being. As the daughter of an abusive father, I know what it feels like to be controlled by men. I also know it’s possible to be a woman in a man’s world without turning into a hater. This supporter’s hysteria and irrationality undermines Clinton’s legitimate, strong, hard-fought candidacy. I don’t hold her responsible for what one supporter says, but let’s be honest — when Clinton surrogate Geraldine Ferraro attributes her current position to nothing more than sexism, she undermines all of us who chose NOT to vote for Clinton because we did not recognize her as a strong, unifying leader. My impression of Clinton has been that she is a divider, not a uniter, and that has been obvious as the primary season has progressed. I’m a woman! I’m not anti-woman, nor do I feel bound by my physiology to vote for one candidate over another.
If Barack Obama loses in November (and the only way I see that happening is if the party is so hopelessly divided that it simply disintegrates), Hillary Clinton will lose the opportunity to advance her own agenda for women’s rights, reproductive rights, ending the war, and health care. She will have far more influence with a Barack Obama presidency than she would with a John McCain presidency.
If her motives are what she says — party unity and advancing an agenda of social reform — then it’s in her best interests to throw her support wholeheartedly behind Obama and lead her supporters to do the same. If her interests are purely self-serving, she should continue to encourage horrible behavior and paint herself as a victim. And a loser.
Clinton has the power to decide what she wants to do. Let’s hope she does it, and demonstrates leadership that is effective, outspoken and works to defeat the Republicans in November.
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