He's a poseur!

Jeremy Heimans and Tim Dixon offer what I think is a great suggestion for how the Democrats can deal with Bush in the upcoming election. Right now, the Dems have two big problems facing them: an ill-defined idea of what a Democrat is or should be, and the perception of Bush as a straight-shooting, tough-talking, "hero-warrior" here to save us from the "evildoers".

The first issue is undoubtedly the biggest of the two - the Democrats cannot and will not survive if they are unable to find an identity and a message beyond just being "the other white meat". Dems are supposed to be the party of the left, but the DLC complains that Howard Dean is "too liberal" - even though he's really a centrist! As a result, the Dems come off looking confused and unsure of who or what they're supposed to be, which makes it hard to build a campaign, much less a mandate.

Of course, it doesn't really help matters much that Democrats actually like to try and play closer to "fair" than the Republicans seem to, which means that when it's time for the race to the electoral finish line, the Repubs can get down in the dirt and just dig their way through, flinging mud everywhere, while the Dems seem to be more likely to lay down a coat so everyone can carefully walk across without getting their feet wet. I think you can see the problem (at least I hope you can, though the tortured metaphor there....)

Anyway, it's not that there's anything wrong with playing "fair", nor do the Dems need to start playing "dirty" - that would actually do a lot of damage to the party as a whole, but they do need to remember that "nice guys finish last" and that - while some may not consider it nice - there's nothing at all dirty in pointing out your opponents faults in the sharpest of terms.

Luckily, with Bush, finding faults to point out isn't that hard to do. From his lies about his own armed service record; to questions about why Gray Davis is facing recall in California for a busted economy, but Ken Lay - who led Enron when it's deliberate and fraudulent manipulation of the California energy markets did a large part of the damage - has yet to face any consequences for what he did; to Bush's proclivity for keeping things secret - including many documents from Reagan's presidency (when his father was Vice President) that, under normal rules would have been made available by now, the names of the people on Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force (which, not coincidentally, consulted with the President and Vice President on the California situation shortly before the administration announced that they weren't going to do anything about it), delaying the Congressional 9/11 report as long as possible, refusing to release the 28 pages of information on the Saudis from that report (even though the Saudis themselves have asked him to do so), refusing to let anyone see the daily briefing from August 6, 2001 which might have contained information that could have clued them in to al Qaeda's plans, and more; to questions about the use - or misuse - of intelligence prior to the Iraq war, including the infamous "16 words", the aluminum tubes, the specific quantities of biological and chemical toxins, the claims of knowing "beyond a doubt" that Saddam had weapons - which has magically now morphed into attempts to prove that he, at any time had a weapons program, and claims of links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein; to the misrepresentation of his tax programs and what effect they'll have on the economy (not to mention is misrepresentation of when the recession actually started); and so on. The list is quite long. As Heimans and Dixon put itBush is a phoney.

The Democrats' greatest danger is to run an issues-based campaign that becomes a ritualized liberal/conservative slanging match. Progressives who are flabbergasted at the audacity of Bush's agenda seem to think that simply communicating Bush's policy failures is enough. But this approach will play straight into Karl Rove's chubby hands and trap Democrats in the defensive, dithering posture that has defined them since the Bush presidency began.

So no matter how bad Bush's actual record may be, Democrats simply can't count on fighting the upcoming election on substantive policy grounds alone.

The question is what communications strategy will wear down the personal appeal of Bush as effectively as the "weak and indecisive" tag slapped on Jimmy Carter, and the "out of touch" tag on Bush's father. What characterization can the Democrats use to undermine Bush's image and his greatest perceived strengths? The one label that will stick and could work to undermine the positive personal perceptions of the president comes from Gephardt's line last week: George Bush is a phony. It works, because it has a ring of truth about it -- on everything from Iraq, to the economy, to tax cuts, to Bush's character and personal history.

The Bush-is-a-phony message can work because it starts where the average voter already is -- with a positive view of Bush. It recognizes that Bush may very well look tough, decisive, patriotic, responsible and compassionate. But it asks those voters to look beyond the image.

Sound nasty? It is. But expect the same from Republicans, whomever the Democrats nominate. And this time around, the Democrats clearly cannot run on the perception that Bush is not sufficiently experienced, bright or interested in the job. Those issues have been effectively neutralized as Americans have become used to seeing Bush as their commander in chief at a time of deep insecurity and fear.

Showing that Bush is a phony, rather than detailing how he's incompetent, focuses on a simpler message, and one that's harder to deflect.

Bush's image as a regular guy has helped to obscure the fact that he is an insider with close connections to big business and a natural interest in protecting them. To turn this around, Democrats can use the "phony" message as a nexus to explain the contradiction. How can the everyman who stumbles on his words and has a traveling pillow be the same fellow whose tax cuts leave nothing to poor families with kids? How can a champion of personal responsibility and born-again asceticism engineer such unsustainable budget deficits? How can a leader who claims to be the first White House CEO engage in the kind of shoddy handouts to corporate backers in Iraq that shareholders would never tolerate in a business leader? How can a president so determined to wage the war on terrorism be the same president who starves state and local authorities of critical funds for homeland security? How can the commander in chief so concerned about terrorists getting hold of nuclear weapons be the same leader who leaves Iraqi nuclear sites unattended for weeks?

These contradictions make much more sense when seen through the prism of Bush's utter phoniness. It's stunning that when Bush was making his controversial "Top Gun" flight suit appearance, no major Democrat noted the president's shoddy record in the Texas Air National Guard, where he served his country in the "Champagne" unit with Texas boys of privilege, while his poor neighbors went to Vietnam -- and still had several months of service unaccounted for. Instead Democrats complained about Bush's using public resources for the stunt, which most Americans, proud of the supposed quick victory in Iraq, couldn't care less about.

I think the idea of simplifying the message and focusing on how the carefully crafted image is just that - an image - with no substance underneath - could be a powerful one that might actually get through. I certainly can't hurt to try it - the Dems need all the help they can get.

Posted by thorswitch at August 6, 2003 09:36 AM | TrackBack