Organizing for America | John Cantine's Blog: Why the Obama Campaign Can't Go Negative

Why the Obama Campaign Can't Go Negative

By jcantine - Aug 21st, 2008 at 8:02 pm EDT

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Tags: Generation Obama, McCain, negative campaigning

John McCain's pledge to avoid negative campaigning lasted just as long, it seems, as it took him to raise the money for his first ad. His followers have gone almost entirely negative, blasting Obama for being popular, for vacationing in Hawaii, for not being a real American citizen (ignoring the fact that Hawaii was made a state several years before Obama was born there) and so on.

Which has led to a desire within the Obama campaign to retaliate in kind. Emails and stories are circulating about Cindi McCain, about his military record, about whether or not he actually gave information to the Viet Cong after all, and about his not being a real American citizen (the Canal Zone issue). Many Obama followers, especially long-time Democrats who have seen their candidates smeared unmercifully, want the campaign to unload on McCain the way McCain has been unloading on Obama.

This is standard political strategy: instead of wasting time playing defense and trying to parry the outrageous attacks of your opponent, go on the offensive and hit him with equally outrageous attacks of your own. That kind of negative exchange leads to elections like the last two: a bitter, divided electorate goes to the polls and one side – usually the one who went negative first and better - wins a Pyrrhic, razor-thin victory.

But there is a reason why doing so would be disastrous for the Obama campaign: the rules have changed. The new factor in this election is the huge number of young, idealistic (or not-so-young, formerly disaffected) voters. They've been dubbed "Generation Obama," though they don't all fit the under-25 stereotype. They don't care about the way elections have been run in the past. They're not interested in capturing the White House for the Democrats, or righting past wrongs committed by the Republicans. What they want to is to change the world.

They are the ones who will make the difference. They are the ones who won't be held back by old, ingrained racism or fear of the unknown. If they vote in great numbers, they will overwhelm the old, divided demographic and bring about the change they so desperately want. But they have no patience for "politics," especially negative politics.

By its nature, negative campaigning isn't meant to get more people to vote for your candidate. It's meant to get fewer people to vote for your opponent. That's why it's so central to the Republican playbook: the fewer people who vote, the more power a committed, well-funded group of ideologues can wield. McCain's negative ads aren't meant to encourage Generation Obama to support him; the idea of them following a 72-year-old career politician is self-evidently absurd.

THE IDEA IS TO DISCOURAGE THEM FROM VOTING AT ALL. The more unsavory the political process looks, the less likely they will be to see it as the way to effect the positive change they want. As the campaign gets nastier and nastier, the lukewarm among them will decide that they were right in the first place: politics is for crooks and idiots. And make no mistake: the McCain negative ads WILL chip away at Obama's support.

But if the feeling ever becomes widespread among Generation Obama that he's "just like the rest of them" rather than the inspiring leader we want him to be, the result would be disastrous. McCain can't really do that; only Obama can. To go negative and "play politics" would take the heart out of the Generation Obama movement entirely, and McCain could sit back and let racism and fear deliver the election to him.

I know it's frustrating to be held to a higher standard than your opponent. But remember that it's also an honor. In order to win the election, in order to change the world for the better, we have to absolutely avoid any personal attacks, low blows, or slimy innuendo about the McCains. Instead, we should make sure that we use a positive vision of what America can achieve under Obama to keep Generation Obama "fired up" and "ready to go," as the new chants of the campaign go. Though I am still partial to the original one: Yes We Can.

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