white male consumer

This is the sort of editorial I would write if I had more than fiften minutes to spend on this blog each day. I think Paul Begala makes some pretty salient points, regardless of whether you agree with his overall prognosis. Strip away the editorializing, and this is probably how the election will shape up.

What to expect from McCain, Obama in 56 days
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The party of Reagan — sunny optimism, criticism offered in folksy witticisms and the shake of a head — is gone. This is the party of Giuliani and Palin: sarcastic, sneering, snotty and snide. I don’t know why, but meanness plays with the GOP base.
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So McCain is not going to make this a race about ideas. After all, he actually has voted with Bush 91 percent of the time. Perhaps that’s why his campaign manager said this election was not about issues. McCain plainly wants this race to be about biography. His is actually the campaign built around a cult of personality.
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The flip side of a character-based positive message is — you guessed it — a character-based negative campaign. I hate to say this, but the McCain campaign — and its right-wing allies — are going to play the politics of fear and smear.

You saw it in St. Paul: doughy Republicans scoffing at Barack Obama’s time as a community organizer — even though Obama’s work was the embodiment of the values the GOP claims to believe in: faith-based, family-centered, self-help, hands-on, non-bureaucratic.

If you thought you’d seen it all with Willie Horton, the vicious attacks on Bill Clinton and his family (including John McCain himself cruelly mocking the appearance of then-12 year-old Chelsea), or the “swift-boating” of John Kerry, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Obama’s been maligned from the right as a Muslim, an elitist, a socialist — and that’s just the warm-up act.
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For his part, Barack Obama needs to drill two numbers into the heads of every American: 91 and 134. 91 is the percentage of the time McCain has voted with Bush, and 134 is the number of corporate special interest lobbyists involved in the McCain campaign.

Obama will likely argue that no one who votes with Bush 91 percent of the time is a maverick, and that someone with 134 former or current lobbyists advising, funding or managing his campaign cannot be considered a reformer. If Obama can shatter the image of the maverick reformer, even McCain’s heroic POW story will not be enough to win the White House.

On the positive side, Obama will likely stress the economy, including his plan to cut taxes for middle-class families and small business, as well as his plan for energy independence. The key to success will be connecting with voters.
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