Oratorical Animal

You Betcha

That's a tough interview, there.

Post-Debate

Wow. It appears that both candidates read the Oratorical Animal and follow his advice. I had, however, underestimated just how annoying the advice I gave Palin could be. She consistently dodged the questions and delivered her set-pieces. It kept her alive, but the artificial flavors and colors that characterized her performance are likely the reasons for the snap polls that gave the decision to Biden. As the race increasingly turns Obama's way (check out fivethirtyeight, for instance), McCain's campaign increasingly needs a game changer. They didn't get one last night. Two other quick Palin points.

First, her lack of knowledge was again painfully evident, although Gwen Ifill's complete lack of curiosity and competence (or her willingness to be intimidated) allowed Palin to cover nicely. But one has to wonder: Just what would John McCain do with her? Honestly, is he going to consult her on key policy positions? Send her to foreign hotspots? McCain's arrogance is clearly evident in this pick; he doesn't need a VP to help him govern. He's John McCain. Sadly, should he be elected, he's likely to find out that he needs one. That's been true of every contemporary president. So, a Joe Lieberman or Lindsey Graham would become de facto #2 from a cabinet post, one suspects.

Second, the Republicans should be clear on this. By picking her, John McCain elevated Governor Palin to that small group who, almost regardless of how the ticket does, will be in the running for the presidency next time around. Unless she truly screws up, she'll be a serious contender. The base loves her. And most, not all, but most VP candidates or VPs in the postwar era become serious contenders themselves: Nixon, Lodge, Johnson, Humphrey, Agnew (pre-felony), Dole, Mondale, Bush I, Gore, Leiberman, Edwards. A couple who did not--Kefauver, Kemp--did not only because they had previously been contenders and aged out of plausibility. One--Cheney--achieved the office precisely because he was not interested in the top job; recall that a Bush brother once waited in the wings.

So, blogos, get used to her. You'll see her a lot, either way.

Debate Prep

Since I'm taking a break from jabbing 100 Cubs pennants into my eyeballs, I thought I'd offer up some debate advice to the two vice presidential aspirants. When I do this, I always keep in mind the saying made famous by the Ragin Cajun: Dance with them what brung you.

Governor Sarah Palin: She's on the ticket because she's what passes for an ordinary woman in the Republican Party these days. She owns a husband, five children, a custom built house by a lake, a plane, a couple of boats, a couple of cars, and an annual income of 250k. Judging by her church, she believes in witchcraft, the laying on of hands, and speaking in tongues. By Republican standards, she's Jane Six Pack. So...

1) Take every opportunity to talk of the struggles of ordinary Americans. Tell specific stories, if she can get them. For one thing, that vamp uses up time. For another, the McCain campaign is cratering because Americans do not believe the Senator cares about people like them. That's what the Governor can do--she can perform compassion as well as the current president did in 2000 and she needs to do so. If she can convince those fabled white ethnics in Appalachia and those by now nearly mythical soccer (hockey?) moms in suburbia that the McCain campaign cares about their problems, then she's done her job. 

2) Run the attack playbook--Obama is a liberal. Biden is a liberal. The media are liberals. Gwen Ifill (the moderator) is a liberal. Harry Potter is a liberal. Parties have playbooks for one of the same reasons that presidents have genres--when you happen upon a rhetorical incompetent, the playbook offers the standard operating procedure to that person. Palin is incompetent. Whether that is due to nature or nurture is not the issue now, but her incompetence has been manifest. So, run the plays. Gwen Ifill: "Governor, what specifically is wrong with the budget process in Congress?" Palin: "It's controlled by liberals, Gwen. We all know that. Those liberals, there, they will spend your money without thinking twice about it." Ifill: "How would you change US energy policy?" Palin: "Those liberals in Congress have hamstrung the president and, believe you me, when you've brought down a moose, you know what hamstrung means! We need to drill, Gwen, and we need...." See what I'm doing? The question doesn't matter; liberals matter. Run the playbook, Governor.

Senator Joe Biden: He's on the ticket because he's the best imitation of Hillary Clinton Barack Obama could find. Obama couldn't abide the real Clinton, and so he went for an experienced US Senator who lost in the primaries, one with policy expertise and a tendency to explain those policies at length, but lucidly, to white ethnic audiences who appear to love the Senator because the Senator somehow talks their language while also presenting 10 point plans. So, Joe, be Hillary...

1) You'll be tempted to match Palin heartstring for heartstring. Don't. That's playing on her ground; she can tell stories all day. Memorize something along the lines of (variations of): "Governor, I appreciate the pain of y, but," or "I've seen the difficulties caused by z, but.." and go on to hammer home the six point plan the Obama campaign has for saving turnip farmers in northern New England or whatever. There's this notion out there that both Clintons got "ordinary Americans" to support them by "feeling their pain." That's only partly true and not a big part. The big part? They could solve the problems that led to the pain. Here's my six point plan. Here are three ideas to make that better. "Yep, Governor, it's hard to live without health care, but the McCain/Palin plan will just make it worse. Here are the three things we'll do that'll actually get people covered." Short, clean, numbered policy answers. Plus, that'll naturally cause the moderator to ask for more specific responses from Palin (Does your campaign support making the health plan open to members of Congress available to all Americans, Governor?) and she'll flounder. People want to trust Obama, but they're not sure he knows what he's doing. Make them know--provide the specifics. They won't care about them except for the all important fact that Obama has them. That's the key. If Biden can get that across, he's done his job.

2) When Biden attacks, attack Bush/McCain. Ignore Palin except for the phrase "Bush/McCain/Palin" as in the "Bush/McCain/Palin policies that gave us FEMA in Katrina haven't changed; some people in Houston still don't have power. I mean, c'mon." At every opportunity, make Bush/McCain the status quo: "Well, Gwen, we could make prescription drugs more affordable if the Bush/McCain bill didn't stop us from negotiating effectively with the drug companies" or "Gwen, let's DO talk straight for a change. The Bush/McCain policy of deregulation means that the foxes are not only in the chicken coop, they own it. Why, Republican appointees in the Interior Department were trading favors for sex. Even I'm speechless when I hear that." And that's an add-on--when Biden attacks, balance it with some self-deprecating humor. Make fun only of yourself, Joe. Only of yourself.

To both: You're running with a 72 year old man with a history of cancer and the first African American nominee. One of you has appeared to be incompetent, and so "the question" will likely be asked, both because of your running mates and your, um, performance. One of you anyway, but both then have to be asked: "What specifically would you do, God forbid, if something should happen to the president?"  Have a lovely, clean, clear, within the time limit memorized response to this. Dan Quayle froze, stumbled and said he'd pray, which led to the quip that the rest of America, even the atheists, would surely pray if Dan Quayle was president. Do not do this. Be ready. Memorize a good answer.

Later Update: According to the latest NYT/CBS poll, President Bush has a 22% approval rating. That's remarkable--I mean, that is an achievement. Barely 1/5 of Americans approve his performance. Wow. So, Joe, say "Bush/McCain" even more often than I had thought.  

We now return to my yearly agony. 

Political Paradox

Generally, this happens about once a campaign season, but sometimes it occurs even more than that. I'm talking about the political paradox, the moment when a campaign realizes that its most effective rhetorical strategy undermines its greatest asset. Often, the candidate who figures out the best way to finesse that problem wins the election.

The McCain campaign has developed the most obvious paradox. For years, John McCain has touted his character as the solution to nearly every American problem. Campaigns are corrupt? How about a lil Straight Talk on campaign finance reform? The economy tanks? How about a lil Straight Talk on the subprime crisis? McCain's argument for election is simple: I possess the character to do the job.

Then, his campaign started to lie. All of the time. About nearly everything. They've determined that, in a bad year for Republicans, they can't win a straight up race. So, they've decided to lie. As the MSM has finally discovered, this campaign is pathological. Yesterday, it claimed that McCain is responsible for the invention of the Blackberry. Somewhere, Al Gore is smiling.

In short, Senator John McCain's primary campaign strategy erodes his greatest political asset. His lies undermine his character. Yet without lying, he won't win.

That move puts Senator Obama into a paradox. Since 2004, Obama's greatest asset has been his transcendence; that is, he rises above partisan squabbles, above red states and blue states, above the Clintons, and above the media. Plus, he makes us feel as if we rise with him. When he talks, America is somehow a better place. It's an extraordinary knack he has, one that only JFK in the last half-century could match. We feel cool and special and wonderful when Barack Obama talks about us. In short, we're good enough, we're nice enough, and doggone it, if we elect him, people will like us.

Except McCain's lies require Obama to punch the senior Senator from Arizona in the kisser. Obama can let the lies ride and preserve his reputation. And he can then lose. Or he can smack McCain and erode Obama's greatest asset--his ability to rise above conflict. His most effective strategy undermines his greatest asset.

I suspect that the winner of this election will be the one who can best work through his paradox and come out the other side. 

Go Cubs Go

The economy may collapse, it may be raining, and McPalin may combine stupidity and success, but Kirt Wilson speaks at Corn U. today and Carlos Zambrano has given the Cubs their first no hitter since Richard Nixon plotted felonies. Happily, the Milwaukee Brewers continue to gag away not only the division title, but also a wild card spot. Next, I imagine, they'll gag away Ned Yost's job.

There's also a nice parable here about greed. The Astros's owner fiddled and faddled while Ike came ashore, not wanting to give up home games for a neutral site and, evidently, not believing the weather service. Don't wanna refund those tickets, y'know. So, his team, which had been playing terrific ball, endured the hurricane, flew out, and arrived in Milwaukee hours before the ballgame. Big Z had great stuff, but the Astros can point their collective finger at their owner for this loss.

It's a good day in Wrigleyville.  

Lingo

James Fallows is a smart man. He notes that Governor Palin doesn't know what the "Bush Doctrine" is and clearly reveals that fact in her interview with Charles Gibson. But what fascinates me about this commentary is the discussion of language. Fallows does as good a job as I've ever seen of explaining the ways in which a person's command (or lack thereof) of a particular vocabulary--sports talk radio is his example--reveals a tremendous amount about that person.

I strongly believe this to be true. I love baseball. I'll sometimes meet a person who claims to be a fan and we chat for a while. As the talk goes on, it becomes pretty clear that s/he is not serious. I mean, you just know. The guys at 283 were serious; some people aren't. CA knows runners; I think it's the discussion of shoes. If they can talk shoes, they're real. If not, they're faking it. 

I've often been struck by the ease and fluency with which President Bush talks about baseball. It's as if he's a different person; the stumbles, the mispronunciations, the errors, the idiocies, they're all gone. And he shows a deep familiarity and understanding of the lingo in a way that he never manages on, say, the budget or national security. Sometimes, I truly believe that when Rove recruited him, we lost a good baseball commissioner and gained an awful president.

Often, I think of this phenomenon when I'm helping graduate students prepare for the job market. For the first time in better than a decade, I'm not running or helping with a job workshop at Dawg U. Believe me, I'm not asking for the job. But I might have given them this link. Graduate education is becoming so specialized that certain rhetoric students can't even speak fluently about other areas of rhetoric, much less social science. It's why I still believe that all grad students ought to take a basic Plato-NATO course rhetorical theory course and basic communication theory. For one thing, it helps when you try to get a job--if you can speak with them, they're impressed. Interviewers do what Fallows describes; they see if you know the language and it's as much feel as anything else. If you don't, you're in trouble. Plus, it's hard to be a good colleague to someone when you don't have the faintest idea of what they're talking about 90% of the time.

Hard to be a good vice-president, too, under those circumstances.

You Betcha

Sarah Palin. Feminist Icon. Heck. It's just rape.

Georgia

No, not that one. In her interview with Charlie Gibson, Sarah Palin endorsed NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. She breezed past the notion that, under Article V, we would be obligated to go to war against Russia if it invaded a NATO ally.

To be fair, this is a criticism of Democrats as well. Beginning in the Clinton Administration, NATO has crept steadily more eastward and Russia has grown steadily more perturbed. Now, Senator Obama also endorses NATO membership for Georgia.

I'm honestly torn about this policy, but I do believe everyone needs to pause and think for a minute. Russia still possesses thousands of nuclear weapons. War with Russia could mean a full scale nuclear exchange and the end of life on this planet. Now, do I think that will happen? No. Then again, I couldn't have imagined what Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld would do as VP and SecDef respectively; I had the weird notion that American officials might obey the Constitution.  

So, as a concerned rhetorician, I think it might be nice for Democrats and Republicans alike to remember the ways in which Eisenhower and Kennedy consistently talked about open war with Russia--tens of millions of burning, bleeding bodies and millions more wishing for death to hurry and arrive. That's what Article V means. So, let's figure out whether Georgia and the Ukraine constitute critical national security interests of the United States in light of those facts. Before we commit to a Ukranian and Georgian nuclear umbrella.

The Original...Seal?

Among Sarah Palin's earmark requests? $3.2 million on seal DNA. Cause, y'know, if an Alaskan seal ever commits a murder and Bones and Booth want to match the DNA, well, then, Sarah Palin is there for them. She'll be sending that seal to the Big House.

But my favorite? $2 million in federal money, my money, for crab mating habits. [Please provide favorite crab joke/pun here].

Your Republican ticket. Fiscal responsibility in action. 

How Low Can He Go?

Quite low, it seems. Realize that we have better than 50 days until First Efforts's birthday, otherwise known as election day. McCain has already sunk to the ol' "he'll give lil kids condoms" gag. Imagine where he'll be by then.

Does he truly want to govern the country he's creating through this reprehensible discourse?