Political Quote of The Day: Silent Majority, Obama-Dewey, McCain-Truman?
The Political Quote of the Day comes from Peggy, who in a Wall Street Journal column (that should be read in full) wonders whether what’s shaping up for Presidential election 2008 is Democratic Senator Barack Obama as losing 1948 overconfident Republican Presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey, Republican Senator John McCain as underdog-winner Democratic Senator and the bulk of voters as 1968 winning Republican Richard Nixon’s “silent majority:
Is Mr. Obama’s self-conception in line with his gifts, depth, wisdom and character? That’s the big question, I suspect, on a number of minds.
As for Mr. McCain, I think he had the best moment of the month this week at the big motorcycle convention in Sturgis, S.D., when he was greeted with that mighty roar. And his great line: “As you may know, not long ago a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day.” Oh, that was good.
There’s a thing that’s out there and it’s big, and latent, and somehow always taken into account and always ignored, and political professionals always assume they understand it. It has been called many things the past 50 years, “the silent center,” “the silent majority,” “the coalition,” “the base.” The idea of it has evolved as its composition has evolved, but the fact that it’s big, and relatively silent, and somehow always latent, maintains. And watching that McCain event—vroom vroom—one got the sense it is perhaps beginning to pay attention to the campaign. I see it as the old America, and if and when it reasserts itself, the campaign will shift indeed, and in ways you can even see from 10,000 feet.
Some initial reaction to this:
1. It is now become a truly tiresome cliche that every time a candidate who has been perceived or is behind in polls or early votes and then seems to gather strength it’s suggested that we are seeing a repeat of 1948. It’s always possible but the polity, economic conditions, country’s polarization hubris and countless other factors make the context of the vote far different. Still, 1948 was a case of overconfidence versus buoyant happy-warrior fighting. Who will emerge as the campaign’s true happy warrior? Who will emerge as the one who was overconfident? And will whoever wins have more than 50 + 1 in terms of a governing coalition? Remember: Truman’s 1948 victory did not exactly usher in an era of good partisan feeling. Will whoever wins simply sit in the White House as the polarization wars continue? Or will their campaign allow consensus building?
2. What has indeed changed is the “given” that it’s the Democrats’ year for the White House.
Perhaps it is a “given” to pundits, but the voters so far do not seem to agree. The Demmies will have to fight for it — and fight smart and hard.
3. I noted in a post earlier this McCain quote. It was definitely home run. And you realized: if McCain can keep recapturing that moment and the way he said it — be sure footed, score his points but without all the silliness, bitterness and talk-show or blog-troll-like polemics — he will have a better chance in peeling off some voters without turning off others who might have been warily considering him.
4. You still get the feeling that the Obama campaign’s strategists are being outperformed by McCain’s. Is this because the Clintons are not on board and the Democrats are missing part of the party’s machinery that should be involved in all phases of the campaign? In recent weeks, you also get a feeling that Obama can’t keep up with McCain’s energy and growing pizazz on the stump and in sound bites. Obama will reportedly have a big buy of commercials on the Olymics.
McCain has to keep his base but continue to emit the vibes that he is still the 2000 McCain who many felt was a Maverick. Obama has to look serious and Presidential but he needs to recapture some of the charisma that was so evident in the primaries that helped him jump to the head of the Democratic pack. Is he still being compared to JFK or has that changed in recent weeks?
If you look at the sound bites on all the cable networks and broadcast TV, Obama’s arguments and counter arguments are quite good but he needs to recapture The “WOW!” Factor. Is all of this overconfidence — or just the need to put his campaign operation and his own performances in terms of content and style up a notch more?
A NOTE ON SOUND BITES: It isn’t oversimplification to say that sound bites increasingly matter. Why? It could be argued that only X people watch a given show. But we are now in an era where daily newspapers are closing, shrinking, or becoming bland and/or not even trying to compete with broadcast or the Internet anymore. Many young people don’t read newspapers but watch cable news from time to time. Meanwhile, print media and Internet media all monitor news and programs dealing with politics. The influence of these images matter. News line producers must pick and choose what they broadcast. Which then has great..and growing… influence.
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21 Responses to “Political Quote of The Day: Silent Majority, Obama-Dewey, McCain-Truman?”
Wasn't this the opposite of conventional wisdom just last week?
I think Obama and his people are not responding as they should due to sheer exhaustion. You saw on Obama's overseas trip that they were really looking like they could use time off.
McCain had the luxury of several months of easy campaigning and rest. Obama went from the most brutal primary in over a generation straight into the general. And with a party that needed to be brought together, ect.
The pundits kept the Hillary faction thinking this was neck in neck months after she lost so, she stayed in long after she should have bowed out. As a result, the Obama camp is running on empty right now.
Look for a change after Hawaii.
It is not 1948 that keeps getting dragged out. I have head enough about 1960, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1992.
No candidate and no election is like any other. It's all individual and stands on it's own without being similar to any other.
Enough comparisons.
Enough poll obsessions. polls will bounce around. It's summer. No one is paying attention much.
Peggy: “I see it as the old America, and if and when it reasserts itself, the campaign will shift indeed”
Maybe so, but if this shift takes place, we'd better keep in mind that the “old America” she is talking about will be composed in large part of the same brilliant and discerning minds that helped bring us Bush 00 and Bush 04. I submit that the “old America” she is waxing poetic about exists only in remnants, and has been mostly replaced with indecisive and analytically challenged voters.
“There’s a thing that’s out there and it’s big, and latent, and somehow always taken into account and always ignored, and political professionals always assume they understand it. It has been called many things the past 50 years, “the silent center,” “the silent majority,” “the coalition,” “the base.”
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This time around the base is speaking out. Intelligence usually sits by, observes and makes a decision. The level of corruption in the flow of information necessary to make informed decisions has changed that.
I'm reasonably certain I am the world's worst campaign strategist, so it would be well to take what I have to say with a grain of salt. But I have a couple of observations for what they're worth.
The folks in Sturgis were there for a biker rally. It wan't a McCain rally. And while the “roar of 50,000″ Harleys” was a great line, the interviews I heard and read about weren't exactly brimming with enthusiasm for McCain. I suppose that's to be expected — my experience is that bikers as a whole, while generally a conservative lot, don't give much of a rat's ass about politics. Less even than the general population. But I do agree about the importance of sound bites.
The fact that Obama's enthusiasm index ebbs and wanes is hardly surprising. It would be absurd to think that a fever pitch can be sustained for months on end. I think he has to carefully titrate the “WOW factor”. He can't burn it out too early.
If Democrats think this election is going to be a cakewalk I suspect they have another think coming. Obama has too many negatives, and McCain has so far exploited them with masterful subtlety. Nonetheless, I think that Reps have to keep in mind that Obama has a massive and well-disciplined ground game. Frankly, I've never seen anything like it in a Democratic candidate. And it appears to me that he's working it like he worked the primaries — to concentrate less on the overall popular and more on the electoral vote, much like he concentrated on the delegate count. I suspect it will come down to who most successfully gets out their vote.
Then again, what do I know?
I thought the best part of her column was the generational distinction where she pointed out that young people 'don't know what they don't know.' Even when I myself was young I somehow sensed this, that even though the older generation didn't know everything but their advantage was in knowing what they didn't know. I'm not sure that today's younger generation sees that or not- I think there's been a huge erosion in the respect for the wisdom of elders and the appreciation of experience. But it's possible that part of the Obama fatigue now setting in is on some level a recognition of this factor.
Silhouette: “The level of corruption in the flow of information necessary to make informed decisions has changed that.”
Sure, that's a factor, but I believe that group who “sits by, observes” etc., is also composed, to a fairly large degree, of lazy voters who don't do their homework and therefore wait for the simple reason they haven't figured things out. I sympathize with thier challenge – to a degree, but also sometimes wish they would stay home rather than go and “guess”.
CStanley: “I think there's been a huge erosion in the respect for the wisdom of elders and the appreciation of experience.”
I agree, but where does the “blame” for this erosion lie? This “wisdom of elders” has been MIA over recent years if you ask me – and I say that from the standpoint of a 50-something.
It's the August silly season of a highly atypical cycle. I expect things to stay very close until after conventions when they start debating. Maybe I'm wrong here, but unlike the Dem debates where policy distinctions were finer, there are real differences. I don't think middle America, either already victimized or under threat by the mortgage crisis, will be as amenable to the small government/you're own your own philosophy.
Also, I think some of the fatigue has to with the fact that we're hearing about Obama constantly and the brouhaha of the day, but we're not getting the real policy insight we need on a regular basis. Particularly the voters who aren't political junkies. We just get the media doing its Don King impression. People are scared; they're sick of the bs.
The concept of the wisdom of the elders came about in a time where things didn't change significantly from one generation to another. We now live in a world where things change drastically in half a generation. The Republican Party and its candidates represent those who haven't caught on to just how rapidly things change and a strong belief that virtually every problem can be solved by the same approaches that worked decades ago. Sorry. Not so.
CStanley, at different points in US history, my elders would have advised me that interracial swimming, let alone interracial marriage, was unnatural; women in pants and in the workplace were unseemly; homosexuality is a sin and/or mental disorder. You must always respect your elders, but you should use the morals and skills they taught you to make your own choices, sometimes much to your elders' chagrin. It's how our dynamic society keeps changing.
janinedm, you're reading too much into my statement (and missing that I already said, 'the elders don't know everything'.) It's not that we should blindly follow the elder generation, or that we shouldn't seek progress or learn to adapt to a more rapidly changing world, but just that we shouldn't abandon the wisdom of the 'knowing what you don't know' perspective that the older and more experienced among us have.
And the point I'm trying to make in regard to this election is that current conventional wisdom has it that Obama's youth stands out as a great positive in contrast to McCain's age. I dispute that it's necessarily so, and I think there's a part of all of us that recognizes that there's at least potential value in both youthful exuberance and seasoned experience.
A few people have mentioned that one reason we no longer give respect to our elders is that the current crop haven't earned it; I agree with that to some extent, but I also blame our youth obsessed consumer culture.
CStanley: And the point I'm trying to make in regard to this election is that current conventional wisdom has it that Obama's youth stands out as a great positive in contrast to McCain's age. I dispute that it's necessarily so, and I think there's a part of all of us that recognizes that there's at least potential value in both youthful exuberance and seasoned experience.
That, I think, is the essential dynamic. I do, however, question Noonan's assertion that the Obama campaign “'don't know what they don't know.” It's possible, but I wouldn't say it's a given. It seems to me that Obama has to string a very difficult needle. In a sense they both do. But in Obama's case any misstep, whether real or imagined, is attributed to youthful naivete. Never is it just a mistake. Likewise, any misstep on McCain's side, whether real or imagined, is attributed to excessive age. Never is it just a mistake.
“Nonetheless, I think that Reps have to keep in mind that Obama has a massive and well-disciplined ground game. Frankly, I've never seen anything like it in a Democratic candidate.”
I can only observe from here in Virginia, but the ground game comment is dead on here. I am hearing he is continuing to recruit huge numbers of new voters with registration efforts in Virginia. It appears to be the same in other states as well from the news. That could be the big groundswell under the surface that shifts things significantly at the finish line.
CStanley: And the point I'm trying to make in regard to this election is that current conventional wisdom has it that Obama's youth stands out as a great positive in contrast to McCain's age. I dispute that it's necessarily so, and I think there's a part of all of us that recognizes that there's at least potential value in both youthful exuberance and seasoned experience.
To be determined. The debates are going to be decisive in this election. If Obama owns McCain or McCain has a senior moment like Lieberman in his ear, election is over. If McCain is solid and Obama hems and haws like the last Dem debate, we may have President McCain.
Ricorun- I certainly agree that the narratives get overplayed (as they do in all elections) but the point is that until now the age factor played only against McCain and now the flip side of that is starting to creep in as a negative for Obama. It could be a turning point because it's occurring right at the same time that he's also facing the difficulty of recasting his positions for the general election instead of primaries (having to shift to center), and his positions on oil drilling and the surge have now put him at odds with many voters, and he's also becoming a victim of overexposure and excessive fawning by some in the media. I can't predict the future any more than anyone else can, but right now it does appear that these things are creating an opening for McCain that he hasn't had previously.
Agree, Gilchin, and I also agree with your comment about the importance of the ground game. It's looking like the polling is going to remain pretty tight and as usual in recent elections, the outcome is going to be determined by turnout as much as anything else.
CStanley,
Barack Obama's campaign may be filled with youthful energy, but the man is 47 years old. I turn 35 today and can now legally be elected President. I am quite a bit younger than Obama, however. I have experienced much less of this world than Obama has, eve
though I am now eligible for the White House.
McCain has attacked Obama not on his youth but on his supposed vapidity and inexperience. Now, it's indisputable that Obama has less experience than McCain. But the deeper charge is that Obama is a puffed-up dandy who doesn't know anything about policy. And that, I suspect, is a big mistake because it lowers the bar for Obama in the debate the way Carter's attacks on Reagan's Hollywood persona made the debate in 1980 that much more defining.
Another point: nobody is paying attention until the convention. Insults back and forth these days will not move the electorate. Negative ads won't do a thing right now.
Unless one of these candidates pulls a John Edwards and admits to an affair, this campaign will remain static until late August.
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It's too soon to call this. Obama has stumbled but he retains the support of the naive youth (of more than just young ages). McCain still is not that appealing.