Presidential Election Campaign 2008: How Democrats Got To This Point and What We Can Learn From It

You can read about the polls, the ads, the closing arguments, and the speculation elsewhere today. I think most of that will be answers to trivia questions sooner than later. Not that there's anything wrong with political trivia.

I wanted to talk about my impressions of where we are in the campaign so far and how we got here. I can't say so much about where we go from here because, well, crystal balls turn to broken glass so easily.

Emotion beats Logic
It's been said that there are two kinds of candidates: those that want to run the government and those that want to lead the nation. The former relies on technical descriptions of how they'll succeed; the latter relies on inspirational messages that describe the way to success. And while everyone likes to say they read the policy papers and they like to say they use Ben Franklin's list of pro's and con's when making an informed decision, even old Ben knew this fundamental thing about human nature: emotion moves people more than facts ever will. Facts and issues are important; but only insofar as they invoke a positive (or negative) emotion about a candidate or their party.

Future beats Past
I was intrigued by McCain's response to Elizabeth Edwards' when she pointed out McCain's "inconsistent" views on government health care by saying that McCain had been on government health care his entire life. McCain shot back (paraphrasing): "Not while I was in that prison camp, I wasn't." I repeated the line to Miss Julie who actually teared up briefly thinking about it. I was taken aback, but then I realized that the core of McCain's campaign is...McCain. Or rather his personal narrative -- his triumph over severe adversity for so many years. (Of course, his campaign narrative pretty much ends with him emerging miraculously from the Hanoi Hilton. But it still packs quite a punch).

That said, Hillary Clinton will not have an easy time dealing with McCain's narrative. The best she's been able to come up with so far is to say (paraphrasing): "Senator McCain has crossed the Commander in Chief threshold and so have I."

"Me, too" is not exactly a winning message.

On the other hand, Barack Obama's narrative packs as much of a punch as McCain's -- and for a lot more people. How so? The median age of voters in 2008 is 44. This means there are far more voters for whom the Vietnam War is a dim memory (at most). To them, McCain is like a character out of the history books already. His best days are behind him -- which is why McCain's campaign narrative usually ends with him emerging miraculously from the Hanoi Hilton. So McCain's narrative is about the past.

Obama's narrative is about the future -- a future where American hegemony is faltering, where global competion from India and China is ramping up, where we find ourselves living in a world where our friends are divided and our enemies, united -- against us. Obama represents a fundamental American approach to this reality: "Yes, we can." Yes we can rise to the occasion, yes we can meet the challenge, yes we can do it. He is saying that we are moving into an unknown future but we can persevere just as our forebears did under similarly difficult circumstances.

It is a forward thinking message, not one that tries to build a bridge to the past. Bob Dole, another old man with an inspirational message rooted in the past, tried to cross the backwards-bridge to electoral victory and and failed. He was defeated by Bill Clinton who said, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow."

P.S. Hillary's problem is that, ironically, her narrative is also backward-looking: "Party like it's 1999." And, because of that, I'll be surprised if she wins the nomination, let alone the election.

Hope beats Fear
Democrats usually discount the role of emotion in moving voters, saying they didn't want to "be like Rove" or they don't want to be "a kool-aid drinking Obamatron" or some such nonsense. What Dems have a hard time "getting" is that hope is also an emotion. And it is one that comes with a built-in advantage. After all, it was one of our best and most successful candidates once said, "If one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you hope." Gosh, even Ronald Reagan understood that, which is one reason so many Democrats voted for him.

Summary
I have no idea what comes next in the campaign and neither does anyone else. But I like our chances.