Via Politico: Praise of McCain could haunt Biden - Kenneth P. Vogel
Within three hours of the announcement that Joe Biden would be Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate, their Republican rival John McCain was up with a striking ad highlighting Biden’s praise for McCain.
And there’s plenty more where that came from.
Republicans have at their disposal a long trail of Biden quotes speaking fondly of — and affiliating himself with — McCain.
Three things strike me:
1. I am having a hard time thinking that people predisposed to vote for Obama will now vote for McCain because there are clips of Obama’s veep selection saying nice things about McCain.
2. If Biden’s words are so powerful and persuasive, then surely his present-day stumping for Obama would trump old sound bites of him praising McCain. Not only are the present-day utterances newer, they are also more intensely pro-Obama than the pro-McCain statements.
3. It seems to me that all of this does it dissuade politicians from ever saying anything nice, conciliatory or even friendly about their political rivals for fear that it will come back to bite them in some future political campaign. That strikes me as a shame.
In case one hasn’t seen it, the ad mentioned above can be seen here.
Again, I am not sure how effective something like this is. I have no doubt that pro-McCain folks will find it amusing and like the “gotcha” quality of it all, but in terms of people changing their minds? I don’t see it. Beyond mind-changing, I am unsure that it would sway undecideds either–again, if Biden is such a persuasive fellow that his past statements would be influential, surely more recent statements will carry more weight.
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August 25th, 2008 at 8:22 am
[...] Steven Taylor expands on the last point. It seems to me that all of this does it dissuade politicians from ever [...]
August 25th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Also it strikes me as really good strategy (or at least an acceptably interesting strategy) for a candidate to praise the other candidate–to depersonalize it, to show oneself as an expansive, moderate, normal human being. And I hope the candidates do that this year.
I also hope that every morning greets me with a little fairy sprinkling pixie dust and rainbows. (Well, no, I don’t really want that, but you get the point.)
August 25th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I think it matters in the sense that if Obama is thinking of using Biden as a surrogate to attack McCain (I saw at least some articles suggesting Biden would be in the “attack dog” role), Biden will be open to charges of “flip-flopping.” Think of this as groundwork for a series of ads that attack Biden for changing his views on McCain and/or being Obama’s lapdog, rather than an effort on its own to make McCain look better.
I’d also suggest that campaign ads are mostly designed to influence undecided or independent voters, so the idea this is going to influence someone predisposed to vote for Obama seems specious. In keeping with that theme, a lot of campaign ads directed at moderates emphasize candidates’ outreach to non-traditional supporters, and this fits in that mold.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:31 am
As Chris notes, it’s only intent is to buffer Biden’s ability to be the bad-cop to Obama’s good-cop. Every time Biden attacks, people will take it with a grain of salt when put in the perspective of his past praise of McCain. I don’t think it will stop politicians from saying good things about other party members in the future because many times they need them to get their bills passed. If anything, I see good in this because it will possibly dissuade candidates from attacking each other needlessly. In some aspects, McCain may be doing Obama a favor because the more Obama/Biden resorts to old-school politics, the less they are perceived as agents of “change”. There is no need for Biden to attack McCain at this point. His history doesn’t support it, and it undermines Obama’s change theme. They should just leave that to moveon.org and daily kos.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:24 am
[...] Taylor has some smart comments on the recent John McCain ad which uses Joe Biden’s past praise towards McCain as an attack. [...]
August 25th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Campaigns serve the dual purposes of introducing people to the candidate and providing the faithful with their talking points.
In regard to the latter I think Biden’s comments are good for McCain. For one thing, Biden didn’t just say that he would be honored to run with McCain, he also said Obama was unprepared to be president. The combination of the two makes his appointment as VP look like opportunism.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:41 am
@Jim - Perhaps so. Still, I also think that voters know that comments like that will be made during primary season.
Of course, along those lines, do these logic constrain McCain in choosing Romney? It wasn’t like he was kind to McCain during the campaign.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Well, it certainly can’t help Romney’s case, but then again Romney has a nice big pile of negatives already.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
No joke.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
You forget that these ads aren’t aimed at the folks likely to visit political web sites. This is aimed at giving Democrats and Independents that like don’t Obama a decent pretext to vote for Johnny Mac. This has the added value of appealing to the “mad-as-hell-not-going-to-take-it-anymore” Clinton voter — “Hey, Biden liked him before being on the ticket, maybe I’ll vote that way.
Remember, most people have lives. They don’t spend their waking hours fretting over Ohio polls or whether calling somebody skinny is a racist taunt.
Most people end up finding 1 or 2 anecdotes that tells them whether the candidate would do a good job — GHWB: failing the supermarket scanner test, John Kerry: “I was before the war before I was against it”, Clinton: “I’ll be with you till the last dog dies”, or Ronald Reagan: “There he goes again”. All of these, whether true or not, described the candidate for better or worse to many people. People like or dislike a candidate based on such anecdotes. This year the big ones are the “Obama’s an out of touch liberal” and “McCain’s too old” stories. Some smaller stories include the always popular “Obama’s a Moslem” and “McCain’s just like GWB”. All of these will give people a validation of their choice.
Although the Biden remarks won’t have the impact of any of the above, it will change or solidify the choice in a small percentage of voters. If this changes .1% of the electorate, it will have done its job.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Really I don’t see any ad changing the mind of anyone who is already predisposed to vote for one side or the other. The majority of Americans had their minds made up who they were going to vote for before the candidates were even announced.
Like all political ads, this is aimed at a feeble, fickle minority that has been historically prone to change their mind while standing at the ballot box.
August 25th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
You have a point with your three observations. But I think you may miss to key points.
1. The idea is not attract likely voters away from Obama it is to draw the uncommitted voters to McCain.
2. You give far too much credit to the electorate in general. Shallow comments, talking heads and 15 second audio clips are the rule of the day. If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t be doing it.
Thanks for your post.