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The Victimhood Ticket

by: elwood

Sun Aug 31, 2008 at 18:58:46 PM EDT
The central theme of the 2008 Presidential campaign is now clear. It will be: "Waaaahhhhh! They're picking on us! Unfair!"

That's been going on for many months with John McCain. What's that? Why yes, I did know that he was a POW for five and a half years.

Now it will go on for the Vice Presidential nominee too. Mention that she's a wee bit unqualified, that she flip-flopped on the Bridge to Nowhere, that this is an affirmative action stunt, that even her supporters just say, "Well, maybe she isn't qualified today, but it's only the Veep slot" - say any of those things and you'll be attacked for picking on a woman.

Defending their own positions and records is too tough for poor John McCain because he was a POW. It's too tough for poor Sarah Palin because she is a woman.

You just knew that this was coming, after they started talking again about "personal responsibility," didn't you?
elwood :: The Victimhood Ticket
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The Victimhood Ticket | 3 comments
I'm offended you would even bring this up (0.00 / 0)
It is weird. I do have to say, the Obama campaign set the tone, at an admittedly much smaller scale, with Obama being "above" every "insult" -- while pushing oversold horror about offhand comments through backchannels with reporters and through surrogates.

Of course that level (and subtlety) looks quaint by comparison. What's off limits has become increasingly ridiculous. The Republicans have really raised the bar on this. You want to say raising a family shouldn't really count as a bullet on the resume for the Presidency? How dare you attack Palin's decision to have five kids! How dare you say that mothers can't be leaders! Stop smearing her!



I still disagree (0.00 / 0)
Especially re: Obama, but we already scheduled our caged match on that one.

But this is nothing new for Republicans. They feign outrage over EVERYTHING. And the only reason it works is because reporters don't know what to write when the interviewee makes them part of the story, so when the GOP shoults "You're biased! You're unfair to me!", that has to go in the story.

And that said -- the bottom line should be GOOD for us. Keep the campaign on issues. She could have 10 kids and be a PTA vice president, I don't really care -- but she loses me when she tries to ban books.


[ Parent ]
The Obama situation is different (0.00 / 0)
but I'm not clear on just how. I don't even know just how it has worked.

The suggestion that racism was involved in somebody's analysis of his campaign, or in some McCain ad, would appear quickly - but it would almost never be traceable to Obama. In many cases those complaints were entirely independent of the Obama campaign - I blew the whistle myself once or twice, unbidden.

I wondered throughout the primaries whether this defensive action was useful or not. It was going to be pretty easy to get Democratic candidates to back off from the slightest appeal to racism - but the same complaints would not stop a Republican machine, as we  have seen in past elections. Perhaps the complaints during the primary made the media more attuned to racial subtexts.

We need to learn how to speak of a candidate's strengths, weaknesses, and qualifications independently of his/her race and gender. I think we're getting there in Obama's case. The complaints about Obama's relative inexperience are generally fair and uncolored by a racial subtext. (It's the backhanded compliments for "eloquence" et cetera that are still problematic.)

[ Parent ]
The Victimhood Ticket | 3 comments
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