Obama's Rovian Campaign [View All]

[Nexus7]

It was as I listened to and read about Obama attacking McCain yesterday, and ignoring Hillary, that it finally crystallized in my mind how the Obama campaign is patterned after Bush/Rove's.

In 2000, as Florida was still roiled in dispute, the Bush campaign gathered the incompetents into a cabinet, and the putative secretaries talked to the media in the manner of those who were going to imminently take office; and the campaigner Bush began speaking as if he were President-elect. In the minds of most people, aided by media toe-suckers, the election became a settled affair, with Bush President-elect and just some irksome details to be worked out. Obvious parallels to Obama attacking McCain.

But that's not all. The Rovian campaign takes a great strength of its opponent, and turns it into a liability by aggressively promoting a falsehood, that if true, would undermine that strength. Thus John Kerry, a multiply decorated war hero, who dared to look at the human suffering of the war, was said to have acquired his medals through fraud. Aided again, by the incompetent and malicious wings of the media, this created enough doubt in the more casual observers. Similarly, Hillary, and more broadly, the Clintons, were tarred as racists. Bill Clinton's term of course, was great for everybody, specifically for African-Americans, economically, socially, in every way. Bill Clinton is the anti-racist, personally, and in his public life. And therefore, a Rovian campaign attacks that very strength through malicious falsehoods. A better case can be made in fact, that the Obama campaign (starting with Oprah) brought race into the race.

But that's not all. The Bush/Rove campaign "turned" a supposed member of the opponent's campaign, and made a public spectacle out of that member sliming the opponent with the most disproportionately negative interpretations of the slightest events or supposed traits of the opponent. Aided again, of course, by the media-wing of the republican party, who gave such sliming the prime-time audiences and top billing. Thus Zell Miller,and thus Donna Brazille.

But that's not all. Without going on and on, here are some more parallels. Like Bush, Obama's appearances in religious forums are addressed to the fervently religious, specifically evangelical, voter base. They claim the support of vast, noble, and just awakened sections of the population. Honest, hard-working, just and righteous salt-of-the-earth types for Bush, and the cool kids for Obama. Cultivating an appearance of having great vision, that rises above "mere" partisan bickering, with clear, over-arching (and stupidly simple-minded actually) ideas and ideals - a new way of doing business in Washington for Bush, and a new type of politics for Obama. And so on.

Not that there's anything wrong in copying Bush. He "won" the elections (two, in fact) after all. It's just, so ugly, cynical, and as old as the hills.