The narratives on McCain are also revealing. McCain is disliked because he is a republican, because he is close with Bush, and because of his views on Iraq. While the main punchline on McCain these days is his age, only 7% of those opposed to McCain listed his age as the main reason. It is essential that the punchline be changed to his views on Iraq and general desire to continue Bush policy. Instead of being portrayed as old, McCain needs to be portrayed as psychotic–the crazy old relative who wants to bomb everything and let God sort ’em out. Instead of being portrayed as a reformer, McCain needs to be portrayed as more Bush during an election when 70% of voters want something new. The “old” narrative against McCain is insufficient: we need to turn him into a Bush-loving, bomb-Iran, Iraq fo-ev-ah version of Grandpa Simpson. While I love the “Iraq is hurting the economy” line, when it comes to branding McCain, a psychotic Abe Simpson seems to be the way to go.
The author has endorsed Barack Obama — the high-minded candidate who’s going to bridge the partisan divide and usher in a new type of politics. I suppose that every once in a while, you have to toss principle overboard to do the right thing. Just as an intellectual exercise though, what would happen if conservative bloggers tried to change the punchline on Barack Obama from utterly unqualified to…fill in the blanks.
