Alright, I will be honest, I was underwhelmed by Obama’s 30 minute advertisement. As I mentioned in my previous post, he did not directly address the differences between his economic/tax philosophy and McCain’s. I will reiterate, I do not think we can transform this country fully into a progressive nation until we convince average Americans that liberal tax and economic policies are superior to conservative ones.
The imagery of the ad, the stories, the people shown, the over arching focus, show that Obama made this ad to appeal to middle America. It was a bio piece really, designed to cut through the clutter of negative ads and campaign rhetoric and redefine to people who Obama is and what he wants to do.
Case in point, he did not mention McCain once. All the negative attacks on Obama from McCain just ignored. Clearly Obama wanted a feel good piece, reassuring people he wanted to help hard working, middle class, values voter Americans. I think he did that okay, although it may not swing too many his way. By itself I think it maybe stopped the bleeding from McCain’s tax attack, and maybe it shored up some working class Democrats in some mid-West states. But I am not sure it did more than move the margins maybe .5% in his direction.
On the other hand, he brilliantly segued this piece, ending with a live speech in Florida, to a later speech with Bill Clinton. So just as the pundits were ending their pontification on the 30 minute ad, the live appearance of Obama and Clinton started. Hence, any talk about McCain’s response to the ad was cut short and Obama once again dominated the news cycle.
So great campaign craft by Team Obama, but what about the content of this joint stump event? Nearly brilliant.
Here is where Clinton and Obama layed out the progressive vision on economics. Here is where they criticized conservative, trickle down economics as hurting the middle and lower classes. Here is where they explained how working from the bottom up helped everyone, including those at the top.
The best line of the night came from Clinton, when he mentioned that his Presidency oversaw the creation of more millionaires and billionaires than Bush’s. This directly contradicts McCain’s claim Republican tax policies will make everyone rich. Only by tapping into the innate conservative notion that everyone has an inner rich person waiting to bust out can progressives persuade the majority of the public to embrace liberal economic philosophy.
In other words, the key motivator with many Americans is wealth. The difference is how to get it. By focusing on making people wealthier, Democrats will reach the main emotional driver for these Americans. Right now they trend conservative, since conservatives have a brand that says, ‘join us and you will be crazy wealthy’. Democrats need to take that away from the Republicans by convincing Americans the best way to do gain wealth is to have policies that create a strong middle class and make it easier for the lower class to move up.
I feel Clinton and Obama made big strides in that direction yesterday. Now, they need to cut TV ads repeating what they said last night.
Lines like, “everyone has a chance to succeed, from CEO to secretary.” Pitting CEOs against secretaries is not a great messaging strategy since everyone believes they are potential CEOs. But lumping them together is a great strategy. Remember, everyone wants to be rich; this is something conservatives understand. So anytime you can persuade Americans your policies will allow everyone a greater opportunity to be rich, they will respond favorably.
I also particularly liked the bit when Obama claimed, “Americans are naturally a self-reliant and independent people.” Then he followed by stating that government should, “do those things we cannot do for ourselves”.
In my last post I specifically mentioned that self-reliance was a basis for much of conservative populism. By embracing that core American value, Obama neutralizes some concerns from those to whom that is a key issue, thus making them more receptive to his message that we need the government to help us with things like education, infrastructure, rewarding drive and innovation, encouraging the free market, and protecting consumers and investors. Very smart messaging by Obama.
So overall I think Clinton and Obama made a direct play for some conservative populists. I believe many independents and undecideds out there will find lots to like in this speech, and if Obama can make some of these economic themes more prominent in his messaging, he can steal back the momentum for good.
If Obama wants to transform the country, he has to convince Americans that liberal taxation policies work for all Americans and create the best opportunity to get wealthy. If he can do that, then the transformation of this country into a center left country will be largely completed.