How McCain Can Win

Victor David Hanson makes a good point here about the upcoming Presidential election; John McCain cannot beat Barack Obama by trying to blur the differences between himself and the likely Democratic nominee in a bid to win over the mushy middle.

... conservatives should reach out with conservative principles better framed and presented, rather than change the message for the perceived advantage of the hour.

What the Republicans need is not an abandonment of conservative principles, but a smarter, more articulate defense of even more conservativism, not less.

My shorter interpretation of what VDH is saying we need is this; BETTER MARKETING.

The fact is Conservative turnout in 2006 was virtually unchanged from 2004 in 2006 so blaming our booting from majority status on the 1-2% of the base that sat on their hands ON 11/7/2006 is being willfully blind. We lost because we lost swing voters (the "center") in massive numbers (70D-30R, if I recall correctly) from an essentially even 50D-50R split in the two years from 2004 to 2006. And from all indications, we still have a long way to go before we can claw our way back to narrowing it to 60D-40R later this fall.

The first step to doing that, over the long and short term, is recognizing the fact that swing voters are primarily won through the marketing, rhetoric, stagecraft, image management, Press coverage, etc. The presentation and the public persona of the candidate (including the baggage of the popular perception of the candidate's party) matters a lot more with the average "middle" voter than his/her policy positions.

It's not exactly the most flattering picture of the part of the electorate that generally gets to decide who ends up giving the concession (or in the case of Democrats - filing suit in the nearest friendly Court) or victory speech on Election Day, but there it is.

The thing to remember though, is that this is no sign of stupidity, it's a sign of disinterest.

Amongst these people are numbered some of America's smartest men and women in every field of endeavor. They are registered as Republicans, Democrats as well as Independents - what they generally have in common is that they just do not actively think of or pay anything beyond passive attention to politics until maybe a week or two before Election Day. Then everything they've absorbed over the whole cycle combines with what they're hearing at the moment - from their own subjective gut reactions to poll reports telling them who their neighbors are voting for to the disbelieving arch of the reporter's eyebrow to October Surprises - and then they go out and vote.

It's with a somewhat embarassed twinge that I remember the mocking laughter that erupted all over the Dextrosphere (I joined in) when, in the aftermath of 2004, elected Democrats and their claque of supporters in the Press trooped into lecture halls to listen to George Lakoff explain the importance of "framing." e.g. changing Lefty-unfriendly "Trial Lawyers" to Lefty-friendly "Public Protection Attorneys."

I admit, I thought it was ridiculous. And quite frankly, Lakoff's specific substitutions were mostly ridiculous. However, as it turns out, his general idea - deliberately choosing words, phrases and ultimately narratives to direct (for good or ill) the public's perception of political issues, news and events - was not something to be dismissed out of hand like we pooh-poohed Howard Dean's "50 State Strategy" that is paying dividends for the Democrats (IL-14, LA-6 and possibly MS-1) now.

Similarly, the two years of the New York Times' and all the other Democratic news outlets' (remember CNN's fortuitously timed "Broken Government" Special?) deliberate framing and presentation of the controversies/issues over Terrorist Surveillance, Iraq, WMDs, judicial nominations, "torture," Scooter Libby, DeLay's indictment, Katrina, the economy, stem cell research and even Social Security reform was a linchpin of the Democrats' victory.

VDH continues ...

In short, low taxes, secure borders, moral governance, sober government spending, ethical leadership, exploration and conservation of petroleum, and strong defense is what the American public wants — but those core principles have to be articulated hourly and can't be compromised. In an honest debate, Obama's alternatives to the above would be to turn toward more government, higher taxes, more bureacracies, more dependence of the individual upon the state, etc. And I can't believe the public wants a prescription that historically simply doesn't work.

I think in their depression, the Republicans fail to see that their problems were not in their principles, but rather in the sometimes sleezy and sloppy way they advanced them — and even more often in the manner that they abandoned them — and as a result, they are apparently eager to compromise on them.

True. In addition to abandoning the Information battlefield (the Bush White House is the most guilty of this), Republicans allowed themselves to abandon the moral and ethical high ground by abandoning the principles they got elected on, falling for the fiction that a Majority could be forever maintained on the "cheap" by bribing voters with pork and hiding behind the President's skirts.

Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert's abject stupidity in forgetting that they also had a mandate to govern independent of the President and their attendant failure to enforce any measure of Republican fiscal/spending discipline on their caucus cannot be overemphasized as another linchpin to the Democrats victory. This lack of discipline is primarily responsible for creating an environment that encouraged their colleagues of weaker ethics (Cunningham, Ney, etc.) to think that they could get away with not-so-petty larceny.

To the degree McCain can articulate the above [i.e. conservatism; low taxes, secure borders, spending discipline, etc.], he will win; to the degree that he either cannot or believes the latest gurus that he must abandon them, he will lose. Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European "bipartisan" and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster.

No one can out-Obama Obama.

As one would expect of a Partisan™ and Ideologue™ like me, I strongly believe this is true - if McCain provides a choice, not an echo, he stands a better chance of emerging victorious come November. There will be a lot of influential people/institutions, from outside the GOP (like the Democratic flagships of the MSM) and from inside (e.g. the GOP's pedestrian pencil-pushing coterie of campaign consultants) advising McCain to move Left in order to appeal to swing voters/Independents.

This will be a mistake. This would be fighting on Obama's homeground, and VDH is right, you cannot "out-Obama" Barack Obama.

Quite frankly, dazzling style beats solid substance in today's electorate - one looks and sounds better on TV. And much as I do not intend to poke a hornet's nest by saying this; it is the reason why I am forced to conclude Fred Thompson never would have caught on - he was unfortunately all substance and virtually no style. He was like a restaurant offering food that's scores a 100% on being healthy and 5% on taste. Such a restaurant is going nowhere but down - there'll never be enough health-freaks to keep it afloat.

The thing to remember is that while swing voters do usually vote based on the surface, superficial issues (i.e. style); on the coverage, labelling ("moderate"/"mainstream" versus "extremist"), celebrity endorsements, memorable soundbites, "appearing Presidential", "nice" rhetoric (words like "Bipartisan™" and phrases like "work with both sides to get things done" work like magic), etc. they can just as decisively be won over by the better argument delivered effectively with the aim to convince.

Like Reagan, John McCain has to find that magical combination of substance and style to send his message across in a way that will strike home (and deep) with the average American voter, the bulk of whom can be persuaded.

To use my favorite Margaret Thatcher aphorism; "First you win the argument, then you win the vote."

In my opinion, McCain winning this election hinges on the question of whether he chooses to move to "the center" (as defined by the MSM), or move "the center" to him by unapologetically pulling no punches and sparing no expense in winning the argument day after day, newscycle after newscycle till Election Day. It's ironic, but it just might turn out that John McCain, of all people, would be the man to make the GOP publicly open fire on the bias of the nation's supposedly "non-partisan", "objective", but in reality 90+% Democratic voting Fourth Estate.

McCain has to find ad/marketing men who will tirelessly seek and find ways to convey his message(s) on the economy, on national security, on the role of government, on judges, on healthcare, on energy, on spending, on taxes, etc. in a way that puts everything in the context of the best of the nation's past, from its founding documents to the best that is still yet to come and the way his and his opponents' policies will impact on the lives of those living today and decades into the future. After seven years of an Administration that failed to do so, McCain has to muscle into the public information sphere, educate and tap into the natural optimism and aspirations of the American people.

Personally, I think the coming fight is going to be interesting even if just for the opportunity to establish for certain if pure style and artifice is capable of beating substance - if a completely manufactured candidate with no accomplishments beyond a certain oratorical skill and a messianic following in the Press Corps determined to shield him from harm can beat an opponent that is head and toes above him in every issue of substance that matters.

PS: I recommend all read the entire exchange between Mark Levin and Andy Stuttaford (Mark starts it off) to see the line of the discussion all the way up to VDH and Peter Robinson's chipped in 2 cents.