Daniel Larison has an insightful and self-critical post about how this fall's election is shaping up not to be an end to the culture wars, but quite possibly a new peak in the ongoing battle. Why? Because both candidates -- this is assuming Obama's the Dem nominee, which I do -- are running so strongly on personal biography, and both are so iconic in that regard.
What I found most interesting about Daniel's observations -- and this is the self-critical part -- is his noticing that so many pundits (he includes himself in this number) get the race wrong because they're geared to see their own critiques of the status quo validated by events. And besides, if you really want change badly enough, you may subconsciously see evidence for that outcome where it really doesn't exist. Daniel says he has long said the Iraq war would kill the GOP, but one of the biggest hawks in Washington got the Republican nomination, and is now leading in the polls. This unhappy (for Daniel) fact forced Daniel to face the fact that antiwar candidates don't win presidential elections during wars:
National polling shows that two-thirds of the country want us out within two years, but this obscures the fact that disapproving of the war does not mean that all the current opponents of the war embrace a thoroughgoing antiwar narrative; many of them certainly would not share my characterisations of the war as immoral and illegal. So, instead of being arguments about policy, they are arguments about “values” and American identity. Simply put, the party that has tended to be antiwar during the last 36 years has also been the party on the losing side of these other arguments, even when they have been right on the policy question, and so they have lost time after time in presidential elections where these arguments are most powerful. An Obama-McCain contest will be an almost perfect test of this proposition.
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The truth is that for the bulk of the voters, Iraq isn't very important. It's an annoyance that pops up on the news occasionally, but as very few people know anyone there, or even anyone in the military, they really don't care very much.
But if McCain wants to get elected he damned well better get his economic act together because that is the one thing the voters really do care about. Disgust with Obama's choice of preachers will only carry so far.
I think it's a mistake to extrapolate right now into the GE. You want to talk about the war's effect on the election, you're going to have to wait until Obama debates McCain and demonstrates just how hollow the entire justification for the war was originally.
60% of the people may want out soon, but 50% of the people also think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Just wait until Obama can hammer in over and over how that's a deliberate lie.
If we had a properly functioning media in this country that would not repeat lies and would actually hold people accountable to their 'six months', if people would actually hear the truth, we'd manage to have even less support for the war, and Obama's about to be handed a soapbox and a bullhorn.
And no one wants to go to war with Iran, at all, and McCain's promotion of that, including his recent completely-ignored-by-the-media accidental-on-purpose linking them with al Qaeda will not be ignored either.
OTOH, Charles Cosimano is completely right about the economy. It's entirely possible that this entire war will be overshadowed by it by then. Of course, all Obama has to say is 'I will end the war and use the money to help people, either via lower taxes or by using that money for something actually useful' to bring it back. Pointing out that without the stupid war we'd have a lot more money to help fix the recession with cannot but help.
And Obama will actually point out that it is completely and utterly irresponsible for McCain to promise to lower taxes (Which I'm sure he will) without cutting spending. Of course, McCain could promise to cut SS spending or something...and Obama is, indeed, smart enough to hand McCain that loaded gun so McCain can blow his own foot off.
If only Hillary would get the hell out of the way and let Obama and McCain start debating. She's already lost, but the media refuses to call it.
"I agree that public opposition to the Iraq war in polls has much more to do with what-it-wrongly-perceives as a high casualty count..."
Well, not exactly. Yes, the 4,000 American military deaths in Iraq are small potatoes compared to the 55,000 from Vietnam. But I think the American public has caught on that casualty counts include the wounded as well as the dead. And if they don't include the civilians and even the other side's soldiers killed and injured, they bloody well ought to, at least for those of us who believe that all human beings are made in the divine image and likeness. Working with those definitions, we're talking about well over a million casualties, which is a lot by anybody's standards.
Like most other campaign "issues", the Iraq Conquest War is largely an exercise in media management and public relations. The current war is even more of such an exercise than in previous eras.
The reasons for this are simple (so simple that even an American can understand them);
1) There is no draft. The 18-42-year-old population that would be theoretically in danger of having to go serve is quite safe. Having no personal risk, they see no need to protest. Recall that Richard Nixon effectively ended the Vietnam War protests by ending the draft;
2) Visual-media portrayals of the dead and wounded have been carefully limited by this Administration. There have been relatively few TV-broadcast arrivals of coffins home from the Middle East, and virtually NO broadcast arrivals of the wounded. Out of sight, out of mind.
3) Media variety. Recall that in the 1960s, there were only three main broadcast channels; virtually the entire population watched at least one of them. The sheer size of the audience guaranteed that the news issues presented would be widely discussed. Today, cable and the Internet have produced a fragmenting of audience and thus a lower number of people who are prepared to discuss current events on any level. Indeed, it is quite possible that, for millions of commoners whose media consumption begins and ends with ESPN, CNN Sports and Entertainment Tonight, the Heath Ledger "story" is more of a focus than the state of the Occupation.
Given that American domestic politics is far more media-driven than it has ever been, these three developments mean that what used to be called "public opinion" can be far more easily molded than in the past. Controlling perceptions of the Occupation will largely be a matter of money and strategic media buys.
The candidate with the best marketeers will win.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
I was so glad to see that commericial the other day of our wounded veterens and other s going around in vans cruisading that the people would just listen to them. They want to finish this war. I am a mother with 2 sons that have been in the servicce and in Iraq more than once. They get so angry at the news we see here at home. They say you only get to see what they want you to see. The cruelness of war. War is to be God appointed soliders. We are not drafting people to go over there like in VietNam. And war is not for everyone. That's why God appoints soliders. The worse thing we ever done was send the media in the war zone. Terrible things happen in war. Not every can or should be able to handle it or understand it. But God says there is time for war, There is time for peace. You have a wonderful country with many oppertunities because war has been fought over and over through the years for the freedoms you have. Check out some other countries freedoms out! Please, listen to the ones over there. They are the only ones who know what's going on!The main debate but you sure won't hear anything about this should be cutting our governmentss, waiste, pay, and why they keep getting paid and their insurance paid even after they are out of politics, or if the family member in government dies their spouse keeps getting benifits and pay. That's what I sure wish some of our companies offered. But no, we now are forcing early retirement so you end up with very little benefits if any. And they sure got everybody to quit thinking about illegals, didn't they. And now they are being offered our social security that we have worked hard and paid into all these years, not them! We can't take care of our elderly or ours without insurance and not even enough money for groceries some months, but have you ever met any mexican without a government food card, we pay all their medical because I don't know how but they can get it. And all this money spent on security from terrorist. Seems to me they would just walk across the Mexican boarder. LOL! Just my 2 cents worth. Terri
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