Setting the Narrative

by Steve Soto

It seems that the McCain campaign has decided that volume makes up for substance; every day they throw a new punch at Obama, a new ad, without a lot of thought or fact-checking, just for the sake of being on the attack. Clearly, they are trying to get Obama to always be in response mode to their attack and (lack of an) agenda, to prevent him from coming at them on the issues and the GOP record. It's worked to a degree so far, because it keeps the focus on Obama and because Team McCain knows that the "horse race" media finds it easier to cover fistfights than it does facts and issues, as Paradox noted so well below.

McCain gets a two-fer by doing this. His campaign has conditioned the media to expect a new attack to cover every day, and it keeps an already-overexposed Obama in the limelight one more news cycle without the media focusing on McCain's record or flip-flops. Knowing this, Team Obama should set the frame each day to their advantage. Either through surrogates or through the campaign's media people, the campaign should start early each day by asking "So what false and silly McCain attack will we see today?" Obama himself doesn't need to be out there dealing with this, so that he isn't any more overexposed, but his people can set the narrative each day by belittling the McCain attack even before it comes, and they can hand out the fact-checking of the false assertions from the previous day's attacks, while the DNC runs another new commercial blowing that McCain ad right back at them. It leaves Obama free to focus on message and his agenda instead of responding to McCain's silliness. You know, a Tier One/Tier Two effort tied to a Truth Squad approach that gets control of the news cycle.

Two more things:

1. Why doesn't the Obama campaign start using actual clips of McCain's appearances to set an unflattering image of McCain as he really is? Just running a 30-second spot of McCain's appearance in front of the bikers with his stammering and whoring of his wife is more lethal than an attack ad on policy. Democrats too often make this stuff more complex than it really is, by not trying to make a visceral connection, and instead opting to use commercials for policy debates. And it's not a negative attack if shows the candidate himself, or at least that's what the GOP has told us for several elections now.

2. McCain challenged Obama to a series of town hall meetings across the country months ago. Do it. Now that the debates have been set, arrange for up to ten of these around the country, without a formal structure, and make McCain stand up there for 60-90 minutes toe-to-toe with Obama and see how far into the ten town halls it is before McCain either loses it or comes across as an out-of-touch "old, wrinkly white guy." After watching the appearance before the bikers' group, it is clear that McCain cannot go onstage without a script or teleprompter, and if left to his own will look bad very quickly under pressure from a calm yet attacking opponent.

Senator Obama, take advantage of the opponent in front of you. It's not that difficult.