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The Emerging ‘08 Caricatures
The Anonymous Liberal wrote a good article about how the GOP will try to portray whomever wins the Democratic nomination.
So, how will the Republicans attack, say, Hillary Clinton?
She will be portrayed as an overly-ambitious, calculating opportunist, much like Al Gore was in 2000. But there will also undoubtedly be a strong misogynist undercurrent to the attacks. Republican strategists will attempt to exploit–sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly–uneasiness among voters with the idea of having a female president.
In short, as “shrill, ambitious, and vindictive� and “jealous, unstable, and weak.�
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7 Responses to “The Emerging ‘08 Caricatures”
Good points. But I think you’re leaving something out about Hillary. She has been subject to unrelenting attack since she became a national figure in 1992, fifteen years ago.
So they can now also disqualify her as “divisive”!!!
Any way you look at it, it’ll be a one party race. I predict by 2009 there won’t be enough republicans in office to field a baseball game.
As a “1984/Big Brother” figure.
Since the candidates are trying to be as non-specific as possible, do they not cause people to use caricatures. Maybe is Edwards would be specific about health care or Obama would be specific about immigration, then people would not be forced to fill in the blanks.
My guess is that their advisors know that they will lose many more votes by make specific campaign proposals than they will lose due to caricatures.
Caricatures are used on both sides. Republicans only appear to be more viscous because since they used to have the upper hand they didn’t feel the need to be discreet about their vilifying. Within my limited capacity, since I’m not a conservative, I will attempt to guess the caricatures for the republican candidates:
John McCain: Above all, the theme will be a hypocrite, a “flip-flopper”. We’ll get endless ads where he’ll be shown to say something and then shown to say something completely opposite the next year.
Mitt Romney: He will be portrayed as both as a closet liberal (to conservatives) and a raging rightwinger (to liberals). It’ll center on his old liberal stances “As my opponent Mitt Romney said in 1995, guaranteeing the rights of Gay and Lesbian women is key”. Very subtle but also unmistakable jabs at his being Mormon, mostly through proxy groups “in no way connected” to the DNC (like the swiftboaters weren’t connected to the RNC) will also be included.
Giulliani: Where do I begin? He will be portrayed as believing in Big Government, being pro-gay, pro-choice and pro-gun control. There is endless video material to prove this. Swift boating will include wheeling out angry 9/11 firefighters and families (who are untouchable) and “good natured” (NOT) playing of his multiple clips wearing womens clothing.
My intuition tells me that most caricatures are going to be directed at republicans, both for dems and for repubs. Caricatures for Clinton Obama or Edwards (in a national election) would be directed to republicans to encourage them to vote for the republican candidate. Caricatures for McCain, Giulliani and Romney would likewise be directed at republicans to encourage them to stay home on election day. The only democrat directed smears I could see as directed towards democratic voters would be ones for Giulliani, since he’s the only republican candidate who has a snowballs chance in hell of getting democratic votes.
err, that would be “Gay or Lesbian people” sorry LOL