Cobb offers a cute strategy with a little under two weeks left. But what if he’s got the frame all wrong?
GOP elites have to be familiar with the same numbers I am. They show clearly that Obama has a close to $40 million more than McCain (taking the GOP and DNC contributions into account) and that he’s only a few electoral college votes away from a victory just looking at solid blue states. McCain would have to get every toss up state available even though he’s had to write off a few of them because he doesn’t have the loot.
That’s why I came up with the list remember?
So the “he’s a socialist” screed that McCain has unleashed isn’t really about McCain winning. But rather it is about something else entirely.
I think he’s adopting a scorched earth policy. In a normal circumstance bankrupting the government would be enough to ensure that liberal policy proposals are shot down–by the Dems themselves no less. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Being in debt won’t prevent Obama from suggesting spending on infrastructure and other issues, given the state of the economy. So another set of tactics are required. Their best option here given the electoral slaughter they are looking at, is to get the population upset enough about the prospects of a liberal government that they will exert enough pressure to serve as the type of check on government that the deficit use to serve as. To the point that Obama can’t govern.
This is why I think it's so important for progressive critics to get used to the art of dissembling and using Obama as they would a Trojan horse to advance their desired agenda. Who cares that Barack doesn't talk confrontationally about race and class if he is the best available option? The unvarnished reality is that it is a marker of political weakness, ineptitude, and delusion when pols speak forthrightly like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.
The error that Cobb shares with progressive critics of Obama is thinking that the president is selected primarily because of the laundry lists of policies that s/he carries. The truth as Jeffrey K. Tulis has written is that ever since Woodrow Wilson the chief executive has been chosen on the basis of their rhetorical power.
Of course, the appeal of the rhetoric depends on how much it advances a corporate interest and encapsulates the asprations of the masses. Carter had done this but ran into trouble with the military industrial establishment. In the post Vietnam, stagflation era this was provided by Ronald Reagan. He gave voice and the benign face to a right agenda.
From the Archives: The GOP End Game–Go Out BLAZING http://t.co/g3tRdgaO
From the Archives: The GOP End Game–Go Out BLAZING http://t.co/g3tMFG1E