The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Several months ago the McCain Campaign laid out their strategy. McCain would win by making the election a referendum on Obama. In essence, this wouldn’t be about voting for McCain it would be about voting against Obama.
Hmmm… How’s that strategy worked out for them?
Refresher Course of headlines over the last 2 months: Sarah Palin, the fundamentals of the economy are strong, McCain blows off Letterman, the Charlie Gibson interview, the Katie Couric interview, the Brian Williams interview, 150k wardrobe, “Terrorist” shouts, Palin doesn’t understand the Constitution, SNL, Socialist accusations, Suspended Campaign, dyslexic “B” McCain supporter, call to cancel debate, Palin goes “rogue”, Colin Powell endorses Obama, lots of other republicans endorse Obama, Joe the Plumber, Reverend Wright
I’m sure I’ve missed a few headlines, but my point is that these last two months haven’t been a referendum on Obama at all. They’ve been a referendum on McCain. Message saturation is one thing, but McCain has gone way beyond staying on point. He’s actually diluted every message by overusing them to the point where they’ve lost all meaning. From his POW status to Joe the Plumber he has consistently taken a theme and beaten it to death – even worse, he’s turned them into a punch line. I don’t even flinch when I see a new McCain attack ad. And if I can’t muster outrage over these tactics how is the rest of the country responding? John McCain has become the Boy Who Cried Wolf. No one believes him anymore. Another day, another outlandish smear. Ho hum.
Tags: 2008 Presidential, McCain, Obama, Palin
Thanks for talking me down pandora. When I saw the Rev. Wright ad last night, I went ballistic.
On Wednesday, the world will be a different place.
Obama is black. When the voters learn that I expect them to be outraged.
I think McCain’s problem isn’t that he beat themes to death but that he had too many. He couldn’t seem to settle on a narrative. Obama’s theme was “change.” Everybody knows this. McCain went from “experience” to “change/maverick” to “Obama’s scary” but couldn’t make any of them stick. His constant changing messages fed into the counter-narrative that Obama was doing – that McCain is erratic.
McCain’s biggest problem is that he couldn’t articulate clearly why he should be president. In my experience, the candidate with the more positive message usually wins. It’s not enough to run as “not Obama” (Kerry ran as “not Bush” and that didn’t work out either).
True, UI, but let’s say that once he switched themes he beat them to death! POW, POW, POW, POW, Maverick, Maverick, Maverick, Joe the plumber, Joe the plumber, Joe the plumber – all punch lines now. He overplayed every hand he had and destroyed any impact they might have had.
Nemski, when I saw the Rev. Wright ad I shrugged. Shrugged! Me! Just like the villagers in the Boy Who Cried Wolf – and that’s when it hit me. I couldn’t work up my outrage. McCain has become boringly predictable. Too many “bombshells” only anesthetizes the audience.
I was thinking not too long ago about McCain’s obsession with Joe the Plumber. McCain just reminds me of a lot of really obnoxious people that you know who get totally obsessed with something they think is brilliant but is actually stupid. Then they drive you crazy with their own supposed brilliance. McCain’s like your annoying co-worker.