How The Obama Campaign Bungled the Palin Phenomenon.
By Texas Hill Country on September 9, 2008 at 3:59 PM in Barack Obama, DNC, Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Sexism
With the explosion of support that McCain is seeing in the last week, there can only be one explanation… Sarah Palin. She, at once, unified the evangelical base, small town America, and offered centrist and Independent women another option.
And it scared the bejesus out of the Obama campaign.
The total shock that the media and the Obama campaign clearly experienced at the naming of Palin as McCain’s VP pick showed their arrogance and close mindedness. She had been on McCain’s radar for months. As a matter of fact, even I, a relatively casual observer of the McCain VP search, knew that she was on the short list (and was rooting for her btw).
And so, without having paid attention to the crime fighting small town girl that loves her church and her guns, the media and the campaign surrogates had to start coming up with information from zero. They grasped at straws and started throwing out information without any real vetting or fact checking.
First were the vicious rumors about Trig not being Sarah’s baby, but her daughter’s. Then came the horrendous reports that Palin and/or her husband had committed adultry. And finally came the questions about what kind of a mother Palin would be if she were Vice President… an incredibly sexist sentiment and something that would never had been asked if she was a man.
All of these “reports and rumors” were echoed by Obama surrogates and repeated by campaign spokespeople, though not Obama himself.
Once they realized that the personal attacks were backfiring, the attacks on the “issues” began… only the attacks were far off the mark. First came the reports that she cut funding for Teen Pregnancy programs, but a quick internet search showed that she actually increased it by 300%. Then came the reports that she cut funding for special needs children, but in actuality she had increased it by 200%. And my personal favorites were the reports that she tried to get books banned from the library, which is patently ridiculous. The”facts” were clearly flawed… they had to find something else.
And then came the wedge issues…. They said she was anti-contraception, which is not true. Then they said she was anti-sex education, which is not true. And all of this was followed quickly by attacks on her religion (a religion shared by a good number of high ranking DNC and Obama Campaign officials mind you), nevermind the fact that she has never once shown any propensity to incorporate religion into any of her policy decisions, much less push for things like school prayer and having creationism taught in schools.
At the end, even Obama himself began to join in, calling her “the former mayor,” making fun of both the size of the town she was mayor of, and the size of the state she is now governor of… nevermind the fact that Biden, Dean, Sununu, Patrick, Kennedy and several other top North Eastern Democrats come from states with a similar population size to that of Alaska.
Diminishing the accomplishments of an impressive woman was not the smartest thing the Obama campaign could have done, especially considering the deep division in the Democratic party over the way Hillary Clinton was treated. For many of the centrist democrats and Hillary supporters, the attacks on Palin were like the attacks on Hillary Clinton but in fast forward and on steroids.
The attacks were backfiring, but could Palin withstand the storm was the big question.
Palin exceeded all expectations, striking back with amazing strength and a smile that killed. Palin hit Obama hard, making fun of Obama’s claim to fame as a Community Organizer and attacking him on his experience, sending the Obama campaign reeling.
That one joke did 4 things…. It highlighted Obama’s inexperience, brought up the question about what a community organizer does exactly because most of America probably doesn’t know, it painted Obama as an urbanite that is out of touch with rural America, and it painted Obama as a rabblerouser and a trouble maker… a sort of 60’s era radical. None of these images are particularly appealing to rural and small town America.
Stupidly, the Obama fell into the trap and began to compare the experience level of Obama to Palin… an incredibly dumb move that both diminished Obama and bolstered Palin. Comparing the top of one ticket to the bottom of another is never a good idea. It only served to put a spotlight on the experience gap between McCain and Obama.
Now Obama must climb out of the hole that his campaign, the media and himself have created. The fact that Obama is anywhere from dead even to 10 points behind in all the national polls has served as a wake up call and thrown them into panic mode. The media is on high alert and the narrative is slowly changing.
We shall see if Obama and his campaign keep insulting small town America and those who cling to God and their guns.
We shall see if they keep diminishing the accomplishments of women.
We shall see if they continue to make the same mistakes. Over and over. And over.
This is cross-posted from my blog Texas Hill Country
by Ronald Scott
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