Posted by Jed Lewison on Sat Aug 2, 2008 at 12:52 PM Pacific

Defining John McCain

It's worth taking a look at this Washington Post editorial from August 12, 2004, attacking the swift boat smears on John Kerry as unfounded. It's not the strongest condemnation in the world, at times tough, but at other times giving Bush's allies leeway. In that sense, it's similar to the pushback in 2008 against John McCain's swiftboating of Barack Obama.

Of course, we know how 2004 turned out. In retrospect, I think we all wish Kerry had not only fought back more forcefully against the smears, but also I think most of us wish Kerry (and his allies) had unleashed a similarly tough attack on George Bush, probably on his AWOL record in the national guard.

It's tempting to apply those lessons to 2008, and in fact, Barack Obama is doing so, at least in part. Most specifically, his campaign is vigorously disputing the particulars of McCain's attacks and also using the overall tenor of the McCain campaign to portray McCain as following the low road, dishonoring the reputation he had going into the campaign.

This counterresponse is important, but is not be entirely sufficient. Something must be done to change the topic of conversation -- if this election centers on John McCain's characterization of Barack Obama, this will be a hard election to win.

Although I think it's time to start changing the topic, I'm not in despair. The Obama campaign has several huge assets which will be difficult for McCain to overcome.

First, unlike the Kerry campaign, Obama's convention hasn't happened yet. That will be a huge opportunity to refocus the debate.

Second, unlike Kerry, Obama will be well funded in the final three months of the campaign. (Remember that Kerry had to spread $75 million in public financing over three months, whereas Bush had to spread it after just two.)

Third, the Obama campaign has the experience of 2004, and they also have a candidate and campaign staff who have demonstrated themselves time after time to be master strategists.

Fourth, and finally, the Obama campaign has a huge, energized base of supporters who will not accept a McCain presidency. The campaign has developed ways of communicating with this base outside of traditional MSM channels, and its voice will be heard. On Thursday alone, 100,000 Obama supporters contributed to his campaign to fight John McCain's smears.

And now, with three months left in the campaign, the time has come to start applying these assets, both to define Barack Obama, and also to define John McCain. The message will need to be more than "John McCain is a total SOB," because at the end of the day, voters will be willing to vote for an SOB as long as they think he is their SOB.

p.s.: For some thoughts on how to do this, read my post "Three ideas for the campaign."

Defining John McCain

It's worth taking a look at this Washington Post editorial from August 12, 2004, attacking the swift boat smears on John Kerry as unfounded. It's not the strongest condemnation in the world, at times tough, but at other times giving Bush's allies leeway. In that sense, it's similar to the pushback in 2008 against John McCain's swiftboating of Barack Obama.

Of course, we know how 2004 turned out. In retrospect, I think we all wish Kerry had not only fought back more forcefully against the smears, but also I think most of us wish Kerry (and his allies) had unleashed a similarly tough attack on George Bush, probably on his AWOL record in the national guard.

It's tempting to apply those lessons to 2008, and in fact, Barack Obama is doing so, at least in part. Most specifically, his campaign is vigorously disputing the particulars of McCain's attacks and also using the overall tenor of the McCain campaign to portray McCain as following the low road, dishonoring the reputation he had going into the campaign.

This counterresponse is important, but is not be entirely sufficient. Something must be done to change the topic of conversation -- if this election centers on John McCain's characterization of Barack Obama, this will be a hard election to win.

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