The Politics of Against

With news the GOP has a team of operatives hanging around Denver this week providing "helpful advice" to undecided voters, I'm reminded to once again remark on the exceedingly simple and elegant plan the Republicans have for winning in 2008.

In a very real sense it's the epitome of Rovian cynicism, The Politics Of Against that I was talking about earlier. The Politics Of Against is just what it says: Politics is reduced to reasons to vote against the other guy. That mindset permeates every level of the GOP operation, that you must not vote for a candidate, but against one. You can't vote for the Democrat, because (insert reason here). It doesn't matter if the reason is true or not. It's much easier to convince a person to vote against the other candidate in ignorance than it is to vote for you out of reason. The last eight years are proof of that.

This is a basic truth of humanity. We're social animals. We want to belong to our group and instinctively reject and ostracize those who are not like us. It's much easier for us to be told what to do and how to think than to risk rejection by the group by going our own way. Karl Rove and his crew at the GOP have mastered this principle. George W. Bush wasn't a candidate FOR anything other than George W. Bush. But Karl Rove turned his political opponents into people to vote Against, and he won.

Now in 2008 we see the same principle at work in the McSame camp. John McSame doesn't stand FOR anything other than the continuation of George W. Bush's administration in nearly every facet. In many ways he's far worse. But his main weapon is nothing more than a litany of reasons to vote Against Obama.

What's making this so effective is that the sad truth is there are people out there who are uncomfortable with an African-American as President of the United States of America. It pains me to say it, as like Obama I am a mixed-race individial with a white mother and a black father I never knew. As a baby, I was adopted by a happily married white couple (still married after 36 years this month, thank you) and grew up in a small town in North Carolina.

I know how Barack Obama feels. He is me, to an extent. I know that while I was treated kindly and fairly by many people, by others I was most certainly not. People make assumptions based on appearance, and those assumptions can be very powerful...sometimes too powerful to overcome. It's not just race, it's gender, religion, accent, everything.

For the last eight years Karl Rove's shop has been pushing this as gospel, to the point where people voted in George W. Bush twice. Obama as an opponent must fill him with glee, because he knows that all he has to do to win and get John McSame into the White House is to absolve enough Americans of the sin of racism.

All he has to do is throw enough acceptable falsehoods and prejudices at the voters and let them grab onto one like a life preserver so that they don't have to vote for Obama. Many of them will be convinced to vote against their own self-interest yet again for a variety of reasons other than bald-faced racism: Obama's secretly a Muslim, he's not a US citizen, his wife is militant, he'll raise taxes on the middle-class, he's guilty of misogyny against Hillary, the list goes on.

The Rovian formula is to take a Democrat's most obvious visual trait and turn it against them. In Obama's case, it's the color of his skin. But of course Rove can't say that, so it becomes a contest of sorts to manufacture any reason to substitute for it. You can't vote against Obama because he's black, but if he's a Muslim, or can't bowl, or eats arugula, or beat Hillary, that's okay.

Karl Rove is trying to absolve you of your sin. "It's okay to vote against the black guy. Here are reasons you can use. Just pick one, it'll be fine." For my co-workers, it ranges from "He's going to raise taxes and take my guns" to "Wasn't he raised a Muslim though?"

The funny thing is when asked for a reason to vote FOR John McCain, they give me blank stares and uncomfortable silence. They don't like McCain, they say, he's just like Bush. But they don't like Obama either. They honestly don't believe he'll be any better, because of The Politics Of Against.

There's been a lot of talk about the Bradley Effect, that when it comes to Election Day, 5-10% of Obama's votes will vanish as people not wanting to be seen as racist tell pollsters they are voting for Obama and then switch to McSame in the privacy of the voting booth. With the race as close as it is, that could easily spell victory for the GOP once again. Rove is counting on the Politics of Against to make that as easy as possible for people. Will there be people who do this? Certainly.

How do you honestly reach people like these when they are so firmly set in Against mode? That's the question Obama has to figure out.

And he has less than eleven weeks to do it in.

I don't have the answers. I wish I did. All I can say is I believe in Obama's message of change and hope, and I'm voting for him. In the end the only vote I can truly influence is my own. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't voting for him partially because his story is like mine. But I'm voting for him because of what he says he will do if elected.

As I write this, Obama has been officially nominated as the Dems' candidate. I am grateful and happy.

It's time to be for something, not against.