Political Strategy: The Horse Race Begins genre: Just Jihad & Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation
The following posting is the eigth entry in a continuing Thought Theater dialogue on political strategy. The first posting, Political Strategy: The Opening Dialogue, can be found here, the second posting, Political Strategy: Beyond Extremist Labels can be found here, the third posting, Political Strategy: The Numbers Speak can be found here, the fourth posting, Political Strategy: Splitting The Baby can be found here, the fifth posting, Political Strategy: Examining Potential Outcomes can be found here, the sixth posting, Political Strategy: Voter Mobilization can be found here, and the seventh posting, Political Strategy: Bad Math & Inconsistency can be found here. In addition, other related postings can be found here, here, here, and here.
The political gallop to the November finish line is heating up and the race is certain to tighten. Get ready folks, we’ve just rounded the final turn and we’re now headed into the homestretch and that horse making a big push on the Democrats’ right flank is none other than the GOP’s Secretariat, Karl Rove. With his legal troubles apparently behind him, Rove seems to be focused like a laser on once again wearing the floral blanket. In his most recent public appearance in Ohio, Rove reiterated the talking points of the strategy upon which the GOP intends to run.
Mr. Rove, a White House adviser and the architect of Mr. Bush’s winning presidential campaigns, peppered Democrats on taxes and national security, invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and called the Iraq war “the heart of the battle" in a global war against “Islamic fascists."
The 20-minute speech echoed Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign themes. He said Mr. Bush would not abandon the war and said of terrorists to the audience: “Who thinks if we come home, that they’re not going to follow us?"
The important thing to note in the 2006 strategy is a minor, though significant, shift in the GOP framing…a technique that has been the hallmark of their success. This week the President gave a candid answer to an oft asked question…on a topic that has been the source of repeated Democratic criticism. He was asked what Iraq had to do with 9/11 and he quickly replied, “Nothing"…but then went on to explain that he believes the lesson of 9/11 was that we must take threats seriously before they materialize.
Herein is the shift. Republicans realize that the conflation of Iraq and 9/11 is no longer the viable tool that it was during the 2002 and 2004 elections. In a classic counterintuitive Rovian shift, they have taken the Democratic strategy for 2006 and incorporated it into the GOP’s new framing. When Bush uttered “Nothing", the revised strategy was revealed. Simply stated, the new GOP strategy is to incorporate the Democratic message into their revised rhetoric. This isn’t the first time that the Bush administration has co-opted the message of the opposition when it became apparent that they were perilously close to a position of checkmate.
Not only do they now want Democrats to make voters consider leaving Iraq, they will take it a step further and insist that voters consider the potential consequences and risks…once again invoking the power of terrorism in order to create voter doubt…all the while framing the Democrats as the object of that doubt. The goal is to make the doubt about leaving Iraq (the terror threat) greater than the dissatisfaction about the conduct of the war. Forcing voters to move beyond the GOP’s past poor performance is essential and can be achieved by refocusing voters on other more ominous potentialities.
Is there any doubt that the rhetorical question asked by Karl Rove, “Who thinks if we come home, that they’re not going to follow us?" is strategically brilliant. As much as I despise the underlying objectives of Karl Rove, it is folly to ignore his strategic intellect…a statement that will anger many Democrats but a reality worth admitting in order to outmaneuver the GOP. Rove’s genius is seen in his decision to frame the Iraq dilemma in the form of a question. Doing so immediately removes all signs of defensiveness…the trait most frequently associated with deception. Invoking voters to use their judgment avoids the need to explain the administration’s failures while making voters assume responsibility for their own safety and security.
While some may prefer to discount the validity of my argument, I would recommend that they review recent polling on these underlying issues and note how the way in which the questions are posed is critical to the answers received and thus the polls outcome…a phenomenon that is being routinely demonstrated by seemingly erratic and inconsistent data gathered during very similar timeframes. It simply points out how important framing the debate and therefore each voter’s subsequent determinations and discriminations will be this November.
I contend that this current GOP approach is fully consistent with the formative assumptions found within “Terror Management Theory"…a topic previously discussed here at Thought Theater. The theory argues that we frequently act in ways that are intended to minimize the terror (fear) associated with our uniquely human awareness of our pending mortality. Positing the Iraq situation in the form of a question serves to maximize that awareness.
Here’s the Republican equation. They will not focus on aggressively defending the Iraq war…and to that end we have seen the President express frustration with the situation as well as concerns about the ongoing sectarian violence and even sharing a veiled insinuation that the new Prime Minister may not be up to the task. The uncertainty and chaos are beneficial to the revised strategy.
They have already ceded the poor execution of the war and will allow the Democrats to make the case that we were misled and that the war was mismanaged. The goal is to actually encourage and enable Democrats to criticize the war. While the GOP is allowing Democrats to make those points again and again…Republicans will begin to request that voters answer questions that seek to discern if the Democrats have any solutions beyond their criticism.
The GOP will point to the Connecticut primary to raise doubts as to the direction the Democrats may take the country if they are put in power…arguing that not only are Democrats weak on security and terrorism; they can’t agree on a plan and may well be willing to acquiesce to the anti-war left which, Republicans will argue, simply wants to leave Iraq. They need to create voter hesitation and they will do that by asking the carefully and appropriately crafted questions.
The fact that they won’t endorse their own Republican candidate in Connecticut is also part of the strategy. They actually want voters to conclude that Republicans are objective enough to set aside partisanship in the interest of national security. They stand to benefit each time a voter ponders exactly what would compel Republicans to accept Joe Lieberman over their own candidate. Each instance that a Democratic politician defends Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman will be used to demonstrate that Democrats place more value on partisanship than the national interest.
Further, if Ned Lamont continues to be vague on the handling of Iraq, the GOP will again argue that Democrats are only focused on winning elections by playing on people’s dissatisfaction with the Iraq war…all the while doing so at the expense of a favorable outcome in Iraq and therefore a safe and secure America. They will play Lamont against Lieberman in order to highlight the uncertainty within the Democratic Party…the messier it gets, the better it will be…and Lamont and Lieberman (assuming they both remain in the race) will have no choice but to attack each other in order to win.
Lastly, the more Lamont is forced to distinguish himself from Lieberman on the war, the more ammunition he will provide to Republicans to discredit the anti-war agenda and reinforce what the GOP will present as their own fully objective evaluation of the Iraq situation…one they will assert is motivated by nothing more than national security and the best interest of all Americans.
Mr. Rove criticized the New York Times for disclosing a government program to track terrorist finances and a Detroit judge for ruling against a federal government warrantless domestic surveillance program. He said that program, if in use at the time, could have prevented the 2001 attacks.
He referenced Osama bin Laden extensively and said al- Qaeda leaders view the Iraq war as the “central front in the war on terror."
Again, note the shift in strategy. They are no longer defensively pushing the argument that Iraq is the focal point of the war on terror; instead they will ask Americans to determine if al-Qaeda thinks it is the “central front in the war on terror". While Democrats will seek to focus the voter on making the election a referendum on George Bush and the Iraq war…attempting to frame it as a yea or nay on keeping Republicans in power, Republicans will step beyond that framing and ask voters a series of questions intended to raise doubts and shift the focus to a hypothetical equation…can Democrats protect America and do they understand what is really happening in Iraq and in the minds of the terrorists?
In essence, they will be asking voters to step beyond issues of manipulation and mismanagement; invoking them to consider their own personal safety. I would summarize it to be an attempt to make voters choose between two bad alternatives…make them ponder the following – “We Republicans may have screwed up…but we still want to protect you…and there can be no doubt that the world is still a dangerous place and terrorists still want to harm America…think about that before you vote. …you may think its bad now…but don’t let this election be about partisan politics…we’re simply asking you to please take a moment to imagine what it might be like if you give the Democrats control…do this for your own personal welfare…please."
Unless the Democrats want to be caught flat footed again, they will have to find the wherewithal to listen intently to the carefully crafted Republican rhetoric and be prepared to make rapid strategic adjustments. If they fail to do so, they may well find themselves eclipsed by a familiar nose at the political finish line.
Daniel DiRito | August 24, 2006 | 4:56 PM
Comments
1 On August 25, 2006 at 11:06 AM, Lemming Herder wrote —
Rove and Mehlman are masters at the use of talking points.
Posted by the Lemming Herder from Don’t Be A Lemming!
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