A few months back I wrote a post arguing that the Obama campaign should approach think tanks, academics, and other interest groups to quietly urge these groups to create studies ranking members of the Senate from most liberal to most conservative using methodologies that would land Obama in the middle of the pack. The goal is to rebut the National Journal "study" which proclaimed Obama to be the most liberal member of the Senate. Now that we're in general election mode, this effort would have paid off, more and more we will hear one shoddy study quoted which found Obama to be the most liberal Senator.

Today I'd like to discus the creation of another kind of study, "The Flip-Flop Index." The Flip-Flop Index would take multiple issue areas, say 15-20, and measure how many positions in each area different members of the Senate have flip-flopped on. McCain has changed numerous positions on issues, including gay rights, ethanol, abortion, immigration, Iran, the mortgage crisis, the confederate flag, creating MLK Jr. Day, wire-tapping, the Bush tax-cuts, balancing the budget, and astonishingly, torture. I hope my progressive comrades will fill in more flips and flops in the comments, I know I'm missing several.

The result of this study would very likely show McCain to have the highest rate of Flip-Flop Index of any active Senator and highlight his recent pandering to the right to shore up his base. Such a study would shred what's left of McCain's "maverick" message. Unlike the John McCain of 2000, the John McCain of 2008 is eager to sacrifice principle for politics.

Here is a video and some lists of McCain's flips.

Labels: John McCain, Joshua Roman, message, republican politics, tactics

If I were running McCain's campaign, the classic song "Proud to Be an American" would play him on to stage at the Republican Convention and then be a common theme song/ anthem for rest of the campaign. There is something particularly stirring about the image of McCain with these lyrics:

"And I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today. ‘ Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land, God bless the USA."

This taps into most of the key values that should be weaved together for a winning McCain narrative: nostalgia, patriotism, self sacrifice, honor, experience, toughness, and valor. It also resonates with blue collar voters. It was played heavily following 9-11, and the strong emotional connection some feel to it would subtly reinforce McCain's attempts to focus the debate on national security. Most importantly, whether or not it should, extensive use of this song will make Obama's criticisms of the war a little less effective with some undecided voters.

Labels: John McCain, Joshua Roman, message, music, politics

An email from Augur:

I wanted to share a few quick thoughts in response to McCain's speech tonight.

McCain's speech had a few moments of brilliance. The best was when he said people may see in him an imperfect servant of his country and then he had a nice turn of phrase (that escapes my memory) about how he will always be her servant. A nostalgic appeal to honor and valor should be a central theme of McCain's campaign.

The speech as a whole was a catastrophic failure in terms of its overriding message. His theme was "That's not change we can believe in", a line he repeated probably ten times in the speech. His speech was extremely negative. I came away with it wondering what McCain was for. Obama is like Hillary, direct negative attacks from an opposing candiate don't really land. McCain should always be positive - especially given his reputation as a hot-tempered contrarian, and leave the negative stuff to surrogates.

The main goal of the speech, apart from being a hit piece on Obama, was distinguishing himself from Bush. That's why he held the event in New Orleans. That message was partially lost b/c of the negativity about Obama. He could have painted himself as a happy warrior, with optimism to rival Obama's, but with a greater degree of pragmatism than the green Obama and the incompetent Bush

He did briefly say kind words about Hillary; he should have done that throughout the speech. The more of that he does, the more its going to hurt Obama when he refuses to put Hillary on the ticket. Obama does not want her on the ticket and starting tomorrow the press focus will soley be on whether or not there will be a joint ticket. If I were Obama I would name a VP right away and put that to bed and talk about how he's looking forward to working with her in the Senate and letter (sic) her lead on health care.

She put a slick tactical move on him calling the press conference to say she's open to being VP. She wants to preempt a "cold offer" to increase the pressure on him to make an actual offer.

In terms of delivery, McCain was awkward; his smiles looked forced and fake. He had some prompter slips and is very weak at delivering a canned message, although he's decent extemporaneously and you could tell when he strayed from the script - he started to look natural, but so is Obama.

As an Obama fan, I'm looking forward to these two being on a stage together. Obama will exude vigor, energy and enthusiasm. McCain looks tired and awkward, and like he missed his window.

Labels: John McCain, message

Terry McAuliffe is a happy and tenacious warrior. A true party animal. Throughout this cycle his mendacity has been maddening. I often wonder whether or not he feels like he's lying, whether he actually processes his own spin. Is there a straight face test? There doesn't seem to be. In the mind of Terry McAuliffe, there is no truth; there is only message. Because of his optimism, despite my hating him, I can't help liking him. Very soon Hillary's campaign will be over, and for better or worse (almost certainly better), the showman will be silenced. Below is a video from TPM of various clips featuring Terry the unflappable optimist at his best.

While I would never want to emulate him, we can learn lessons from McAuliffe about tenacity, loyalty, staying on message, and the power of optimism. It will be interesting to watch how this loss impacts his position within the party.

I'm reminded of another lesson from the best teacher at Illinois, Ira Carmen. Professor Carmen once said, "I've never met a successful person who wasn't also an optimist."

Labels: 2008, Augur, Democratic politics, message

Hillary Clinton is arguing that she has overtaken Obama in the popular vote. She counts her margin in Florida and all of her votes in Michigan, she has more votes than Obama. While a semi-reasonable argument can be made for counting Florida, the argument that Michigan should count doesn't pass the straight face test, since Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot. Hillary making this argument is a net plus for Obama because the ridiculousness of counting Michigan reinforces the notion that she is intellectually dishonest and fundamentally untrustworthy.

Obama can use light humor and assert that her math is beyond fuzzy -- it lacks common sense. How do you make an electability argument relying on data from a race in which you were the only one on the ballot?

Obama has another opportunity, and a difficult math problem of his own. The popular vote doesn't include everyone who voted. Many of the caucuses are conducted in a manner that results in those voters being excluded from the popular vote. As you know, Obama has smoked Hillary in the caucuses. Here's my question to the Agora: How should Obama count the voters who caucused for him? Imagine you are his communications director - what approach would you take?

A few options:
(1) for each state where the vote wont count, multiply Obama's percentage of the vote by the best turnout estimate and claim the result as the popular vote. It may help to give this number a name like "the true popular vote"
(2) say Obama won X states where none of the folks are counted in Hillary's popular vote total
(3) just keep saying an estimated X voters are left out of her equation - estimate of total number of voters - and say most of these supported Obama
(4) concoct your own method

A few considerations:

• reminding people of the specific states may remind folks that most of these are unwinnable for dems
• some of these states have small populations
• making up a number might make him look as sketchy as Hillary

Labels: Augur, Barack Obama, communications, message, politics, tactics