Biography Politics
Posted on February 25th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Jonathan Martin discusses the difficulty of deploying smear tactics against Obama, but I think he underestimates the degree to which anonymous chain e-mails and third-party (i.e., independent organisations, not political parties) advertising will be able to operate unchecked under the national media’s radar. To a large degree, the rumours swirling on the Internet are already doing this, and the MSM’s ham-fisted responses to the existence of the chain e-mails have not quashed the rumours, but almost lended them a degree of credibility, as if there is a real “issue” that Obama has to confront. Politically speaking, however, it seems as if the “issue” has become real despite the completely false nature of the story. We see also at Martin’s blog Obama’s statemments to Jewish voters in Ohio regarding these e-mails, which shows that his campaign has to waste its time fielding questions about these false claims because there clearly is a concern in the campaign that these charges are sticking a little too well. In connection with the smear e-mails, you have the circulation of a photo that will probably feed the same paranoia. When he repudiates these e-mails, he has to state at some point, “I’m not a Muslim…not that there’s anything wrong with that!”
It seems to me that the public’s awareness that Obama has had some familial connections to Islam is a political liability for him, particularly at the present moment, and this is especially so when he is perceived as advocating a less aggressive foreign policy (even when his foreign policy may in some places be more aggressive). When he proposes to meet with heads of various “rogue” regimes, the status of “globalised American” that some of his supporters want to give him will be a burden. Because of his WASP background, Mr. Bush can make some gestures to the Palestinians and Muslims around the world at much less risk of being identified with these groups, while Obama will get less “credit” for his support for the air war against Lebanon and his reckless provocations over Pakistan because of the presumed empathy or affinity that his supporters keep insisting that he has. Obama is already at risk of such an identification, and his foreign policy is perceived to be more accommodating, which is a political burden regardless of the merits of Obama’s proposals for a summit with Muslim heads of state or meetings with the Syrian or Iranian governments. It is going to be much harder for someone perceived to be a “dove” to make these moves, and it will even harder for Obama personally.
It probably doesn’t help, either, when Ralph Nader begins complaining publicly that Obama “used to support” the Palestinians and now doesn’t. I wouldn’t hold this against him, but I am not at all representative of American opinion on Israel and Palestine. Neither will it help him much for columnists to draw attention to his Kenyan relatives, as Kristof does this week. Drawing attention to John Kerry’s French relatives did not make him seem more American in the end, but reinforced the hostile narrative being crafted about him that he was an out-of-touch elitist who didn’t understand America. As we all remember, there was an absurd amount of Francophobia in 2003-04, so any association with France was politically disadvantageous. To the extent that voters are aware of Kenya lately, they know that it is convulsed by chaos and ethnic strife. Does it really help Obama with voters in much of the country to broadcast that he is part Luo and has Luo relatives still living in Kenya? I suspect that, for all of the “nation of immigrants” rhetoric and the official enthusiasm for diversity, Obama’s biography will seem to most voters to be an overdose of diversity in a country that has elected just two white ethnic candidates as President in the last century (if you count Eisenhower). When Obama frames his biography in terms that make his success into an example of the opportunities available in America, he appeals to a much broader audience and to some extent neutralises the political danger that comes from emphasising his background. When he or his supporters attempt to make him into a Healer of International Rifts or a Builder of Bridges, he is on much shakier ground.
Filed under: politics
A lot of these “undernews” stories are going to be used, and a few of them are going to stick, and hurt.
1. Obama’s association (however tenuous) with former members of the Weather Underground.
2. Being sort of endorsed by Louis Farrakahn
I’m not sure if the larger “world man” meme is going to hurt him so much, or if it does, it will be among people already disinclined to support him, but people know who the Weathermen were, and they know who Louis Farrakahn is, and being assoicated with them will be problematic. The Obama is a Muslim stuff, not so much.
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the Muslim bit is sticking, including among Democratic voters, and I think we assume that it will have little impact because it is so transparently untrue. If it creates doubts about Obama, it could meaningfully hurt him by the end of the campaign. I agree that the Weathermen and Farrakhan items are also potentially significant problems.
The African thing, like his use of General American English, actually makes Sen. Obama seem less of an American black. It almost makes him an “honorary Aryan” as the Nazis called the Japanese.
And watch–the coronation will be replete with patriotic symbolism. If Paris is worth a Mass, the White House is worth some bunting.
The whole thing is quite embarrassing for the people trying to use these tactics.
I mean, did Kristol really right something on a tie pin today? Absolutely embarrassing.
It reeks of desperation, frankly.
The only strategy that has a chance is if McCain starts telling (lying) that he is going to start pulling troops out when he gets in office. A few people will be stupid enough to believe him.
You will know they Republicans have become serious at that point. But, if he waits too long even that will be too transparent a fraud to work.
Yes, he wrote about a tie pin, which is stupid. But stupid and desperate tactics work surprisingly often. The people deploying these attacks don’t care whether anyone else finds them embarrassing, provided that they are having an effect on the election.
Yes, but these claims are too obviously bogus and too obviously desperate to change the vote of anyone (except to switch them to voting for Obama).
If they had better stuff I assume they would use it. Maybe they are just “warming up,” or maybe they got nothin.
At the end of the day you are going to have to convince people that the it is better to vote for the white guy who want to keeps sending your kids to the meatgrinder or the half black guy who want to pull them out.
I think that will be a hard sell.
“Yes, but these claims are too obviously bogus and too obviously desperate to change the vote of anyone (except to switch them to voting for Obama).”
I wish I had that level of confidence. The Obama is a Muslim slur is clearly bogus. Likewise the Obama attended an Indonesian madrassah. The Weatherman and Louis Farrakahn issues are out there, and will be used, and will bite Obama. The good news for Obama is that he has the power to defuse both of them by essentially telling both of them to get buggered.
Well, the question is whether stupid and desperate attacks work anymore. You can’t fool all the people all the time, and these tactics are wearing very thin. We’ve seen this way too often, and seen the results. I thnk the real question is how Obama responds to this. If he gets defensive and “shamed” by these things, he’s done. If he sloughs them off and dismisses them as absurd, and fights back by pointing out how unpatriotic it is to advocate the kind of foreign policy we now have, I think he can reverse this pattern in our politics. That is the “change” he is talking about in our national discourse. I’m curious to see whether he can do this, and supportive of it. The “hope” he talks about is the hope that we can grow up as a nation and put this kind of slime behind us. I’m not sure which way it will go, but there are positive signs in how well Obama seems to be handling these attacks so far.
Perhaps I am too biased against mass democracy, but I think stupid and desperate attacks will almost always work if they are used with some precision and the target neglects to respond for even a short time. So far he is responding to them reasonably well after trying to ignore them for many months, but I think he is underestimating the continuing and building influence of these attacks among voters beyond the Democratic primary electorate, especially among voters who start to pay close attention only after the conventions. These attacks are not going to shake the party faithful, and so have not made much of a dent in the primaries, but moderates and independents and late-deciding voters will be a different story.
I think Obama will be trashed by smears, but not THOSE smears. Over the past few weeks I have had anti-Obama spam passed to me by three separate friends- all Jewish, all Democrats.
None of the spam emails are stupid enough to claim that Obama is a Muslim. Instead, they focus on the following:
1. Obama’s pastor is pro-Farrakhan.
2. Some of Obama’s alleged advisers are anti-Israel.
In other words, guilt by association. (Never mind that McCain has suggested sending Jim “F–k the Jews” Baker to negotiate Middle East peace!)
These are the kind of attacks that (unlike the claims that he is a Muslim) are likely to play well among people who are, or think they are, reasonably well-educated.
The advisors are real enough, but the anti-Israel stuff is the fantasy. Brzezinski is hardly anti-Israel, and neither is Power, which doesn’t mean that legions of people won’t still fall for this line. I don’t doubt that some voters will assume the worst and conclude that Obama’s people are somehow unacceptable. The pastor and church connection is trickier, but it may be Farrakhan’s enthusiasm for Obama, rather than any tenuous connections between Wright and Farrakhan, that does more damage. It makes no sense to punish someone for an unsought endorsement, but it’s the sort of thing that can dog a campaign or any public figure.
I agree that Obama will be hit by a wave of smears of the most atrocious duplicity and silliness. Some will stick for some people, but I think over time - and there’s a lot of time between now and November - most of this will backfire. It’s really embarrassing, not to Obama, but to the country, and I think that will be the end result. It will probably end up producing a great deal of sympathy for Obama, and be viewed as some great national purgation. I think people may even end up feeling obligated to elect him if only to prove that we aren’t such a bigoted and stupid people as these smears imply.