posted on October 28, 2008 11:31:02 PM new
October 26, 2008, 9:30 pm
The Power of Passive Campaigning
by Stanley Fish
In the aftermath of the 2000 and 2004 elections, the post-mortem verdict was that the Republicans had run a better campaign. They knew how to seize or manufacture an issue. They were able to master the dynamics of negative advertising. They kept on message. Now, when many print and TV commentators are predicting if not assuming an Obama victory, the conventional wisdom is that this time the Democrats have run a better campaign.
When did the Democrats smarten up? When did they learn how to outdo the Republicans at their own game?
The answer is that they didn’t. They decided — or rather Obama decided — to play another game, one we haven’t seen for a while, and it’s a question as to whether we’ve ever seen it. The name of this game is straightforward campaigning, or rather straightforward non-campaigning.
We saw it in the 10 days when the activity around the mounting economic crisis was at its height. Henry Paulson alternated between scaring members of Congress and scaring the public. Nancy Pelosi alternated between playing the responsible Congressional statesperson and playing the partisan attack dog. Media commentators went from one hysterical prediction to another. John McCain went from saying there’s nothing to worry about to saying there’s everything to worry about to saying that he would fix everything by suspending his campaign to saying that he was not suspending his campaign and that he would debate after all.
And Barack Obama? He didn’t do much and he said less (O.K., he did say some reassuring, optimistic things), and his poll numbers went up.
Weeks later, the pattern continues, but in an even more intense form. The McCain campaign huffs and puffs and jumps from charge to charge: Obama consorts with terrorists; he’s a socialist; he’s a communist; he is un-American; he’s not one of us; he’s a celebrity; he’s going to take your money and give it to people who never did a day’s work; he’s going to sell out Israel; he’ll cozy up to foreign dictators; he’s measuring the drapes.
In response, Obama explains his tax policy for the umpteenth time, points out that capitalists like Warren Buffet support him, details his relationship with Bill Ayers, lists those he consults with, observes that Senator McCain, by his own boast, voted with President George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, and calls for change.
What he (or his campaign) doesn’t do is bring up the Keating Five, or make veiled references to McCain’s treatment of his first wife, or make fun of Sarah Palin (she doesn’t need any help), or disparage his opponent’s experience, or hint at the disabilities of age. He just stands there looking languid (George Will called him the Fred Astaire of politics), always smiling and never raising his voice.
Meanwhile, McCain’s surrogates get red in the face on TV when they try to explain away the latest jaw-dropping thing Sarah Palin has said, or proclaim that anything can happen in seven days, or respond to ever more discouraging poll numbers by saying (how’s this for a weak cliché) that the only poll that counts is the poll on election day. (I know things are bad when my wife, a staunch Democrat, feels sorry for them.)
What’s going on here? I find an answer in a most unlikely place, John Milton’s “Paradise Regained,” a four-book poem in which a very busy and agitated Satan dances around a preternaturally still Jesus until, driven half-crazy by the response he’s not getting, the arch-rebel (i.e., maverick) loses it, crying in exasperation, “What dost thou in this world?”
Now, I don’t mean to suggest that McCain is the devil or that Obama is the Messiah (although some of his supporters think of him that way), just that the rhetorical strategies the two literary figures employ match up with the strategies employed by the two candidates. What Satan wants to do is draw Jesus out, provoke him to an unwisely exasperated response, get him to claim too much for his own powers. What Jesus does is reply with an equanimity conveyed by the adjectives and adverbs that preface his words: “unaltered,” “temperately,” “patiently,” “calmly,” “unmoved,” “sagely,” “in brief.”
In response, Satan gets ever more desperate; he conjures up rain and wind storms (in the midst of which Jesus sits “unappalled in calm”); he tempts him with the riches of poetry and philosophy (which Jesus is careful neither to reject nor deify); and finally, having run out of schemes and scares and “swollen with rage,” he resorts to physical violence (McCain has not gone so far, although some of his supporters clearly want to), picking Jesus up bodily and depositing him on the spire of the temple in the hope that he will either fall to his death or turn into Superman and undermine the entire point of his 40-day trial in the wilderness. He doesn’t do either. He does nothing, and Satan, “smitten with amazement” — even this hasn’t worked — “fell.”
Toward the end, the poem describes the mighty contest in a metaphor that captures its odd and negative dynamic. Jesus is “a solid rock” continually assaulted by “surging waves”; and even though the repeated assaults result only in the waves being “all to shivers dashed,” they keep on coming until they exhaust themselves “in froth or bubbles.” The power Jesus generates is the power of not moving from the still center of his being and refusing to step into an arena of action defined by his opponent. So it is with Obama, who barely exerts himself and absorbs attack after attack, each of which, rather than wounding him, leaves him stronger. It’s rope-a-dope on a grand scale.
And McCain knows it. Last Wednesday, campaigning in New Hampshire, he spoke sneeringly about Obama’s campaign being “disciplined and careful.” That’s exactly right, and so far the combination of discipline and care — care not to get out too far in front of anything — along with a boatload of money is working just fine. Jesus is usually the political model for Republicans, but this time his brand of passive, patient leadership is being channeled by a Democrat.
posted on October 29, 2008 06:45:20 AM new
Like most opinions of Stanly Fish who has been described as an unprincipled fatalist, we should not be surprised when we read his remark, ""And Barack Obama? He didn’t do much and he said less (O.K., he did say some reassuring, optimistic things), and his poll numbers went up."
Anybody who watched this campaign knows that Obama didn't stand idly by while being smeared by McCain and Palin. Only a passive and unprincipled fatalist like Fish would believe that.
posted on October 29, 2008 07:33:48 AM new
I am not familiar with Stanley Fish but I did find his Satan vs Jesus analogy amusing.
McCain reminds me of the big bad wolf who is huffing and puffing at the little pig's brick house but can't blow it down. He just gets madder and madder and madder. Will he actually go down the chimney into a pot of boiling water before the election?
Obama did not hastily throw his campaign together. It was built brick by brick. This house of bricks has been able to withstand all the crap thrown at it by the opposing party. The strategy inspires confidence and hope. This is not passive campaigning - this is a stroke of brilliance. As it turns out, the American people are weary of the huffing and puffing and most tuned out mid-September when the economic crisis hit.
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posted on October 29, 2008 08:21:30 AM new "This is not passive campaigning - this is a stroke of brilliance. As it turns out, the American people are weary of the huffing and puffing and most tuned out mid-September when the economic crisis hit."
posted on October 29, 2008 11:45:23 AM new
I like the article and I don't think Fish was serious about Obama being idle - he was contrasting him to the erratic and self-destructing McCain. I love George Will's "Fred Astaire of politics". No one doubts the hard work Astaire put in his dancing, but oh, he made it look so easy.
posted on October 29, 2008 12:26:46 PM new
Maybe you're right, Pixia. He seems to make a statement and then contradict his own statement. Maybe an effort to be creative gone awry?
Roadsmith, perhaps we should agree to disagree on this one. Based on what I have read, he gives meaning to the word "maverick" that might even make McCain wince. My opinion is not based entirely on this article.
For example, I just read his parting words before he retired in 2004 titled "Why We Built the Ivory Tower" It brings up an entirely different topic and I only mention it to you to justify my opinion of Stanley Fish.
In the article that you posted, do you believe that his comparison of McCain and Obama to the devil and Jesus is far fetched? Since a good portion of his audience do not use Milton or the Bible as a frame of reference, Fish limits his audience.
