September's Playbook

Posted by J.D. Dunn on 09.06.2008

What needs to happen for victory.



The conventions are over, the tickets are set and the campaign begins in earnest on Sunday morning with the first round of post-convention morning shows.

Here are a few strategies that I think will work for each side.


Obama/Biden

The Obama campaign must define Sarah Palin, and they must do it now. Nevermind that chestnut about this being between Obama and John McCain – John McCain is persona non grata in his own presidential campaign at this point. That might change later, but right now, focus on defining Palin.

It's true that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Everything afterward is judged on that. The people who are strongly anti-Obama view everything through that prism. "Eloquence" becomes "bloviating." "Substance" becomes "condescension." "Wit" becomes "quick words." "Thoughtfulness" becomes "calculation." The Obama campaign has to come up for a narrative for Sarah Palin that makes the public distrust her.

Don't hit Sarah Palin for things she's done in Alaska (yet) because people don't have a visceral connection to that. Hit her for things she said in her "coming-out" speech at the RNC convention.

In her red-meat speech on Wednesday, Sarah Palin didn't just throw jabs, she threw right hooks. In doing so, she left herself wide open for a Democratic counterpunch.

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities," Palin quipped in her speech. That line is at least as condescending towards the poor as Obama's "clinging to guns and religion" gaffe. The only difference is that the Republicans excel at turning minor gaffes into scandalous outrages.

Obama surrogates (Biden, Clinton, I'm looking at you) could easily counter with a little political ju-jitsu and remind voters that Jesus was a "community organizer" and Pontius Pilate was a governor. Of course, then you run the risk of comparing Obama to Jesus, and you're right back where you started. The line is a good comeback, though, and in a climate where political pundits seem to think running the country should be based on a game of "snaps," it can't hurt to be witty.

Further, I would immediately set up a campaign commercial hitting Palin (and Rudy Giuliani) hard on the issue. Open with the Giuliani and Palin quips and then show stills of Martin Luther King (the most famous "community organizer" since Gandhi). Show people helping out in voting booths and during natural disasters. Show priests and pastors (by definition, community organizers). Show soup kitchens and child counselors. Provide a voiceover with statistics on just how many poor elderly are housed, how many unwed mothers are moved from welfare to work, and how many children have a place to go after school because of community organizers. Then, show a group of volunteers (similar to gathering the Swiftboaters) and have them deliver the message: I am a community organizer. I fight for you. Who do John McCain and Sarah Palin fight for?

Play that in heavy rotation for the next week or two, and the Obama campaign begins to brand Sarah Palin as an out-of-touch WASP who has secluded herself in the Alaskan tundra so long that she doesn't know the travails of real people.

The point is, the Obama campaign has to stop thinking in terms of 60-days until the election and start breaking it up into 20 three-day news cycles. Find a way to control the agenda for the next three days. Then control the next cycle. The more of those three-day cycles you win, the better your outcome in November.

As an overall strategy, Democrats should just keep trying to tie McCain to Bush. The more they can play that "90-percent of the time" quote from McCain, the better. Also, they should continue to tastefully bring up the economic catastrophes of recent days – rising unemployment, failing banks, and wasteful spending on the war. "This is what tax cuts for the rich have gotten us" should be the mantra.

McCain/Palin

Pretty simple. Palin has the hot hand. Just as on the basketball court, you don't take the ball out of the hands of the player on a hot streak. Let Sarah Palin loose. The McCain campaign is wisely using her in her best capacity – fundraising. Palin is already scheduled for 30 fundraisers between now and Election Day, while McCain is scheduled for four.

Palin should hit Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania (in that order of importance) as much as possible in the next few weeks. As I write this, she's already touring Colorado where energizing the Focus on the Family set might just put the state over the top for McCain. That's a good start.

McCain, on the other hand, should focus on shoring up Florida. Older people love McCain and don't trust Obama, so the more time he spends down there, the redder Florida becomes.

Regarding the press situation, the answer is quite simple. If they don't think she's ready for Meet the Press or a 60 Minutes staredown with Lesley Stahl, then send Sarah Palin to friendly territory. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Hugh Hewitt would no doubt be happy to see a ratings boost, and they'd lob her softballs all day long. Add to that an appearance on the "No Spin Zone" O'Reilly Factor, and you give your surrogates plausible deniability when they say, "Hey, she's been on the talk-show circuit answering questions for the last few weeks."

To bottom line it, the McCain campaign has energized the base, but that's not nearly enough. With party identification heavily weighted toward the Democrats this year, earning 90-percent of the Democratic vote and 90-percent of the Republican vote means a landslide victory for the Democrat.

The McCain campaign now has to walk a tightrope. They have to draw in centrists, so they can't appeal too much to the conservative base. If they don't, though, they risk losing the energy they have coming out of the convention. Using Palin in conservative-friendly situations such as fundraisers and talk radio keeps her non-mainstream values out of the mainstream press while allowing her to gin up support among the right-wing. Meanwhile, the more moderate McCain can appeal to folks fed up with Washington.

The most important thing to remember, though, is that it isn't enough to merely catch up to Obama in the national polls. Obama holds a substantial electoral lead in most polling (if you look into the realclearpoltics.com numbers, you'll see they sometimes include polls from April or May in their average that skew things McCain's way). Pollster.com has Obama with 260 electoral votes already leaning his way. With only 270 needed to nominate, that means McCain would have to virtually run the table on swing states. Fivethirtyeight.com projects Obama will have more than 300 electoral votes.

That's a lot of ground to gain and little time to do it.

Both campaigns have a lot of work ahead of them, and securing victory will take a little luck – and a lot of planning.