Obama Talk -- Who's Defining the Debate?

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

Obama's Words? They Could Be Better. Messaging, Framing and the Political Narrative of Election 2008.

Barack Obama is known as a man of powerful words. His 2004 convention speech, which he wrote himself, set the bar. It will be hard to top, as the candidate himself has said, when he speaks again to the nation tonight.

John McCain's words, in contrast, are mostly dull or repetitive: "My friends … POW … POW ... My friends ..."  

It's true and politically important that Barack Obama mesmerizes crowds with his best speeches, and his campaign catchwords of "Change" and "Hope" and "Yes, we can" ignited America's imagination. But has Obama figured out yet how to control the direction of the campaign with his words? How to frame the national debate? How to create a narrative that will win him the election? How to paint John McCain?

Not necessarily. Not entirely.

The Republicans have earned the grudging respect and envy of Democratic operatives with their skillful messaging and framing in recent years. Republicans scored mortal hits with their talking points and framing in 2004. John Kerry could never shake the "flip-flopping," "latte-liberal," "French" labels that the GOP operatives created for him and rolled out at their convention. It was a narrative that held together and resonated with GOP voters. Then the Swift Boat story finished Kerry off.  

Democrats can't bear the thought of a repeat of that in 2008.  

Savvy academics and political analysts have thought long and hard about what happened in 2004, and they've shared their wise advice widely. BuzzFlash.com interviewed many of these writers and thinkers and encouraged our readers to read their books and articles: George Lakoff. Paul Waldman. Drew Westen.  Paul Krugman. Tom Cathcart and Daniel Klein. And most recently, Dr. Bryant Welch.

But has the advice about shaping the message, defining the debate, and creating a powerful narrative reached Obama's team and sunk in?

Not much, it seems. The pattern remains that McCain and surrogates insinuate and attack; Obama responds. It goes as follows, more or less: 

McCain: Obama is inexperienced!
Obama: I'm more experienced than you think, and we have Joe Biden.

McCain: Obama is an unknown quantity!
Obama: I'm a nice guy. I love my family and believe in God.  

McCain: Obama is an out-of-touch elite!
Obama: Do you know the price of arugula? And, hey, I have just one house. 

McCain: Barack and Michelle aren't patriotic!
Obama: Read my lapel pin.

McCain: Obama won't keep you safe!
Obama: Yes, I can.  

It's reactive. It's sometimes weak. Americans reject weak.

As John McCarron wrote in a Chicago Tribune op-ed: "... the junior senator from Illinois continues to play defense ... Rather than carry the fight to the Republicans over, say, their central role in the foreclosure catastrophe—a genuine national crisis—Obama lets his opponent shift the national spotlight onto phony issues, such as support for offshore drilling. As if lining our coastlines with oil rigs is somehow going to roll back the $4 gallon of gasoline or turn back the pace of global warming."

NY Times columnist Frank Rich also wrote this week that Obama needs to make the narrative about the "fierce urgency of now" -- a topic on which McCain can have nothing to say.  "Economic anxiety is the new terrorism. ... How we dig out of this quagmire is the American story that Obama must tell. It is not a story of endless conflicts abroad but a potentially inspiring tale of serious economic, educational, energy and health-care mobilization at home. We don’t have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars."

At BuzzFlash, we agree with McCarron and Rich. We'd like Obama and his team to ingest all the wisdom that analysts have put out about how best to tell a progressive political story. Voters need some shorthand, and they need an emotional framework, some cherished values, on which to hang the many policy questions. And Obama shouldn't be playing defense when it's the incumbents who deserve the lion's share of blame for the mess we are in as a country. 

Obama must create and stick to his own strong framework for the political war of words -- and he needs to do it now before the GOP operatives really get rolling with their newest messaging. Their convention starts in just a few days.

Here's our brief BuzzFlash overview of messaging advice for Obama:

Paul Waldman in Being Right Is Not Enough says that candidates have to have a three-part narrative if they want to win: A, Here's the problem. B, Here is the solution. C, Here's why only I can deliver the solution. Obama certainly should do that on the economy. He can also do it on restoring American prestige and pride.

Drew Westen at Huffington Post says, don't make it a referendum on Barack Obama, but one on the GOP/Bush/McCain years. Make it about the opponent. McCain's "ideas and epithets (e.g., 'tax and spend liberal') are old and tired [and] ... he is filled with 20th century solutions to 21st century problems."

George Lakoff, author of Don't Think of an Elephant, warns it's self-defeating to argue within the framework chosen by the opposition. You should talk about your values and issues on your own terms. When McCain links Obama to assorted GOP bogeymen, Obama can't just deny or protest the link. That reinforces it. Instead, he must present his own policies in the context of progressive values. "We're all in this together" is one such values frame that makes many Democratic policies make sense. Universal health care, as an example, is a family value; not, as the GOP have argued, an example of government gone bad with overreach. 

Dr. Bryant Welch, a clinical psychologist, warns that Obama must not laugh off McCain's Paris Hilton type ads that paint the Democratic candidate as a wildly popular celebrity. What's wrong with those ads or that association? Contrary to McCain's disingenuous claim that it's just a bit of humor, the ads are "sophisticated and dangerous" (Dr. Welch's words) because they exploit the carefully planted idea that Obama has achieved fame and power without earning either. They exploit the  feelings of people who, at some level, ask, why has Obama got it all, and not me? It isn't fair; he isn't deserving; who does he think he is? In other words, the messaging taps deep-seated envy and redirects anger for life-long slights and disappointments towards the "more fortunate" candidate. Irrational? Yes. Effective? Yes. It leaves voters "just not liking" Obama. And it drives up his negatives. Voters who vote their guts instead of their heads will reject the celebrity.

To be fair, Obama and his team of advisers clearly understand some of these messaging issues. They learned from Kerry that you do not ignore slurs and slams, and they've created a response team and web page to dispute false messages.

But it's still reactive. It's playing defense. The McCain campaign is still telling the Obama campaign what they must talk about.

It's time for Obama to turn that around. Summer is over, and voters will be listening.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS