Narrativewatch: Sarah Palin releases 'mom awakening' political broadcast

via telegraph.co.uk

Sarah Palin's new "mom awakening" TV spot has sparked a fresh round of speculation that she will run for president in 2012.

The spot is a clever piece of political narrative, based firmly on the "rot at the top" archetype. Palin warns of a "fundamental transformation of America", with her country's children and grandchildren under threat from an unnamed enemy within.

To ram it all home, she compares America's 'awakening mom' to a grizzly bear protecting her cubs - a cultural story that everyone can understand.

The spot packs a powerful emotional punch, without saying outright what the threat is. Some images used suggest that the danger comes from the Democrats' healthcare reforms, but you can't be too sure.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

Narrativewatch: "Barack Obama has lost focus"

I think it’s safe to say that there is a new narrative on President Obama: that he is trying to do too much when he should be focussing his efforts on stabilising the financial system.

Of course, this is not what the president is telling us. But one of the main rules of narratives is that politicians don’t get to decide what they are.

Mr Obama is being criticised for trying to act quickly on the wider agenda of healthcare reform, new investment in education and tackling carbon emissions -- and for trying to suggest that are all part of a plan for long-term prosperity.

The new narrative is well summarised in a major article in the latest issue of TIME, which starts off:

"Barack Obama's big reform agenda won't get off the ground unless he fixes the banks first. The case for doing one thing at a time."

Without endorsing it, the FT’s Clive Crook has summed up the new “conventional wisdom” about President Obama: “he has far taken on far too much” and may outstrip the system’s capacity – administrative, legislative and political – to deliver.

It should come as no surprise that conservatives are telling this “lack of focus” story. They oppose President Obama and have no truck with his policies. See, for instance, George Will on the president’s economic plans and Michael Barone’s (weird) views about global warming.

But some Obama supporters are also calling on the president to focus on the economy – or, in some cases, to avoid embarking on an FDR-style New Deal too quickly, in order to avoid a policy car crash.

Warren Buffett has accused the administration of having “muddled messages” on the economy.

David Brooks, a “moderate” writer for the New York Times, has said of the Obama administration: “I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well.”

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius has called on the president to avoid “financial giantism” and to focus on “reconstructing our broken financial system.

The risks of overload shouldn’t be brushed aside. Michael Galston, writing last week in the liberals’ house journal, the New Republic, made another case for caution. He drew a number of distinctions between the situation faced by Barack Obama and Franklin D. Roosevelt, a previous president facing a depression, and trying to take forward a big political agenda. Galston reminded us that FDR concentrated on fixing the financial system and delayed unrelated structural reforms until he was sure that he had Congress and the public onside. He concluded:

“In sum, our circumstances are not (yet) as dire as they were in 1933. In part for that reason, the people are not prepared to give the president and his party the degree of deference that Roosevelt and the Democratic congress enjoyed at the start of the New Deal--all the more reason for Obama to distinguish between short- and long-term measures at least as carefully as FDR did.”

And the veteran Washington Post columnist David Broder – usually cast as non-partisan and “centrist” – declared on Sunday that President Obama’s honeymoon is over. Broder set out the risks for the administration in having such a sweeping policy agenda; and, in particular, that its health and education programmes will get bogged down in Congress.

We shouldn’t forget that the “loss of focus” storyline is a clever political gambit for conservatives to follow. The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes gave some of the game away when he wrote that the president had a big “grandiose agenda” and that he was right to “go for it now”, while his popularity ratings are still high and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate remain strong. The longer he waits, this argument runs, the more likely Obama’s personal ratings are to sag, with Democrats in congress becoming more worried about the 2010 elections.

Clive Crook explains:

“The prospects for Mr Obama’s agenda depend on his ability to marshal political capital and spend it wisely. In the simplest terms, he needs to stay as popular as he can for as long as possible. Once his approval ratings slide – and they show the first signs of doing so – he is sunk. This is why the “overload” critique is so significant: not because it is correct on the merits but because it is plausible and bipartisan and will erode his standing with the electorate.”

Even if he doesn’t buy the whole “Obama overload” story, Clive Crook regrets what he sees as the president’s failure to play to his strengths with centrists and to rise above left-right rancour.

If the “taking on too much” storyline sticks, his opponents will have succeeded in undermining one of President Obama’s strongest personal narratives: that he’s a positive, new force for real change who can put the “old politics” behind. Another embattled president, suffering falling poll ratings and seeming to play cynical games in order to advance an agenda that is too big and too “radical” can’t do that.

Or, as a very tough politician I worked with years ago told me, if you want to destroy your political opponents, you have to destroy their myths.

Yes, he can -- if he wants to. The Obama opportunity

Like many people, I was a little bit emotional in the early hours of this morning. It wasn’t just that Barack Obama had made history, and proved what can be done in American politics. Or the sight of scores of African Americans, thrilled and excited at their new sense of opportunity. Or that the world’s eight-year long nightmare, the presidency of George W. Bush, is about to end.

There are two reasons I am especially pleased.

First, we may now see American leadership – and the promise of real progress - on addressing the climate crisis.

President-elect Obama is committed to bringing America – the single biggest source of carbon emissions – back into the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This follows years of denial and intransigence from the Bush Administration. A post-2012 global agreement is now a possibility, at least.

Obama has also said that launching an “Apollo project”, to invest £150 billion over 10 years, to build a new alternative-energy economy, will be his “Number 1 priority” in office. His main priorities will be accelerating the commercialisation of plug-in hybrids, promoting renewable energy, encourage energy efficiency and investing in low emissions coal plants. He would “invest in America’s highly skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centres”, so that they can pioneer green technologies. [For further details click here.] Obama wants this “new energy” to replace cheap credit as the turbocharger of the economy. (He opposes building more nuclear power stations and, while Obama did not oppose oil drilling, he talked about its drawbacks.) If these changes come off, they will bring massive changes to energy markets and the politics of energy.

Obama proposes climate-change legislation centred on a “cap and trade” mechanism that sets a ceiling on emissions that declines over time. Businesses and institutions that cannot hit the targets must buy permits from those that achieve bigger cuts than required. Obama’s proposals are tougher than McCain’s would have been: he proposes to cut emissions by 80 per cent of their 1990 levels by 2050, (McCain said 60 per cent) and to auction off all pollution permits from the start, forcing polluters to pay for the damage they cause. This will help to facilitate a reliable carbon price – the cornerstone of any policy framework on climate change.

Of course, there’s a big difference between a promise and action, especially when he the Senate must agree to a new climate change treaty, by a two-thirds majority, as well as approving cap and trade any scheme. Obama’s proposals have their flaws. But this is the impressive energy programme ever produced by a leading US politician.

Second, we may see a new kind of politics.

What Rick Perlstein calls Nixonland, the ruthless use of culturally-based wedge politics, has been vanquished. The Republicans tried that toxic brand of campaigning against Barack Obama and they failed, miserably. After the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and the economic turmoil of 2008, Republican tactics were no longer credible. American voters have been more focussed on their wallets, their fuel prices, their jobs, their mortgages - and embraced a political message based on “hope” and “change”.

Barack Obama can truly claim to embody and represent real political change. This is partly about his race, his inclusive rhetoric and his personal narrative. All have been well covered on this blog. It’s about his age too. Obama represents a new generation of leadership – the late baby boomers -- "Generation Jones" – who, as Jonathan Alter says combine residual '60s idealism mixed and the pragmatism and materialism of the '80s. (I am biased here, having been born in 1962) So Obama can credibly promise to “turn the page” from BushClintonBush and from the culture wars of those years.

But there’s more to it than that. Late in the campaign, Michael Gershon, a former speechwriter to George W. Bush, rejected suggestions that Obama is either a closet radical or a born-again moderate. He sees the new president as something else altogether.

"From his days at Harvard Law School, Obama has combined progressive political views with instincts of reconciliation. . . Obama does not appear to view himself as a lapsed radical. He sees himself as the reconciler of opposites, the seer of merit on both sides, the transcender of stale debates. He is the racial healer who understands racial anger. The peace candidate who prefers a more aggressive war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The outsider who surrounds himself with reassuring establishment figures.

“During the presidential debates, Obama reinforced this image as an analyst, not an ideologue -- the University of Chicago professor, not the leftist community organizer. His entire manner douses inflammatory charges of extremism.”

Gerson notes that one of Obama's favorite philosophers is Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian of conflicted humility. He believes that this might translate into an administration focused on achievable goals, run by seasoned, reasonable professionals reaching out to Republicans in the new Cabinet and avoiding culture war battles when possible.

But it’s here that my two main hopes for Obama may crash into each other. Gerson questions whether avoiding culture wars and a sense of conflicted humility will be enough to make a strong, decisive president, who can stand up to his own party. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones, on the other side of politics, has made a similar observation. He asks whether Obama will deploy the skills that have got him into the White House for an even bigger, more demanding purpose: persuading people to support his energy and climate plans.

It’s a good point. There’s a big difference between uniting people and building voter coalitions in support of far-reaching and diffficult changes. “Selling” big changes to people, than mean they must change themselves, is always hard. And appealing to a party’s sense of values is different from leading it into a new brave new world, especially when money is involved. Former advisers to Bill Clinton have spoken of the dominance of real-time distractions, the inability of Congress to deal with more than one big issue at a time, and the basic limits of influence even from the White House.

The public may be ready for “change” and “green jobs” is a great slogan. But Obama’s energy plan isn’t just about green jobs. His cap and trade legislation would push up fuel prices. Who wants to cope with that, in these tough times?

Some of Obama’s energy and climate change measures are technical and detailed. The medium- and long-term benefits will be hard for anyone to explain to people. A host of surveys show that most Americans remain doubtful, disengaged, or confused about the basic science pointing to human-made climate change. They do not get that stabilising concentrations of emissions mean that emissions have be reduced [see here].

That all sounds like a tough sell to US senators and representatives. Bill Clinton has stressed that moving forward on climate policy involves overcoming obstacles in both parties. He sees it as not a Democrat / Republican issue, but a coal-state issue.

Obama is going to need a new narrative, aimed at persuading American voters to support the Apollo project for new energy and “send a message” to Washington.

It may come down to what the new president really wants to do and the extent to which he is willing to move beyond public opinion, and take the public with him. In short, will he take the risk?

But right now, there’s no-one who can tell the new energy story than Barack Obama – if he really wants to, that is.

"Accidental genius" and the secrets of Barack Obama's success

The reasons for Barack Obama’s success – and John McCain’s failure – have been succinctly summed up by, of all people, George W. Bush.

[Before you say “yes, but Obama hasn’t won yet”, fear not – I learnt the hard way about the difference between political chickens and eggs, some 25 years ago. My point is, Obama is ahead and is clearly winning the official campaign.]

Over the weekend, the New York Times Magazine featured this fascinating article, by Robert Draper, on John McCain’s continuing failure to find a compelling narrative for his campaign. It focuses heavily on the role of his chief campaign strategist, Stephen Schmidt. He was in charge of rapid rebuttal on Bush’s 2004 campaign. Schmidt recalls a meeting with Bush at a stage of the campaign, when things weren’t looking too good. Still, the president remained very confident.

“There’s an accidental genius to the way Americans pick a president, Schmidt remembers Bush saying that day. By the end of it all, a candidate’s true character is revealed to the American people.”

A bit later, Draper explains:

“What campaigns peddle is not simply character but character as defined by story — a tale of opposing forces that in its telling will memorably establish what a given election is about.”

The gruelling campaign of 2008 has given both candidates plenty of opportunities to tell and to live their stories, so that the voters can work out or, perhaps more accurately, gain an intuitive sense of whom they want to see in the Oval Office.

In promising “change”, Obama has found the ideal narrative for a disgruntled, discontented electorate, whose demographics are changing and shifting. A post-baby boom, biracial first-term Democratic senator certainly represents a new face, a new direction, a new sense of possibilities. (For instance, he promises that an “Apollo project for energy independence” will be his first priority in office.) His “change” story meets the needs of the voters he seeks. Obama has stuck to his story all year.

Whatever has been thrown at him, Obama has held his nerve. Time magazine’s Joe Klein, has written an insightful piece on Obama’s campaign and why he is winning. He describes how Obama has developed over this year, becoming more confident and steadier in his gut instincts. Klein concludes:

“Obama has . . . remained levelheaded through a season of political insanity. His has been a remarkable campaign, as smoothly run as any I've seen in nine presidential cycles. Even more remarkable, Obama has made race — that perennial, gaping American wound — an afterthought. He has done this by introducing a quality to American politics that we haven't seen in quite some time: maturity. He is undoubtedly as ego-driven as everyone else seeking the highest office — perhaps more so, given his race, his name and his lack of experience. But he has not been childishly egomaniacal, in contrast to our recent baby-boomer Presidents — or petulant, in contrast to his opponent. He does not seem needy. He seems a grown-up, in a nation that badly needs some adult supervision.”

McCain, by contrast, has failed to present a coherent, consistent story. Is he the straight-talking, maverick Republican senator who used to travel outside his party’s comfort zone on issues like taxes and global warming? Or the true conservative, who did a U-turn on Bush’s tax cuts?

McCain should have had a better chance when it came to telling a story about “true character”. McCain’s personal story, the reckless flyboy who was a POW and then a courageous patriot, has been part of American folklore for at least a decade. But Draper explains in detail how his campaign has agonized --and failed -- over how to turn the McCain “metanarrative”, into a winning campaign story. Why America should elect (as opposed to simply admiring) McCain?

Draper dissects the five – yes, five - McCain campaign narratives over the last year and says:

“In constantly alternating among story lines in order to respond to changing events and to gain traction with voters, the “true character” of a once-crisply-defined political figure has become increasingly murky.”

The campaign has seen some big dramatic set-pieces in which candidates have been able to act out their “true characters” – their integrity, temperament and judgement.

First, their choices of vice-presidential running mates. McCain’s hasty choice of Sarah Palin demonstrated his weakness as a potential president. As Draper tells it, McCain’s advisers were looking for a media celebrity; they did not stop to consider her inexperience or lack of knowledge about the issues. McCain met with her only briefly and seems to have fallen into the same traps. By contrast, Obama’s decision to go with Joe Biden was made quietly and carefully.

Palin put McCain into the lead in the first two weeks in September. [click here]. But she is now a drag on the Republican ticket. ABC’s pollster Gary Langer reported yesterday that 52 percent of likely voters now say that McCain's selection of Sarah Palin makes them less confident in his judgment.

Second, the way the two candidates handled the financial crisis at the end of September. McCain suspended his campaign, threatened to scuttle the first debate and caught a plane back to Washington to work with administration and congressional leaders to resolve the crisis. McCain’s advisers promised that their man would thrash out a solution -- and thereby advance his “character” narrative. But McCain’s contribution was risible. Says Draper:

"Scene by scene, McCain failed to deliver the performance that had been promised. ... [Given] a chance to show what kind of president he might be, McCain came off more like a stymied bystander than a leader who could make a difference."

To the consternation of some leading Democrats, Obama insisted on debating, as well as participating in the financial talks. McCain demurred. Klein says that:

“Obama’s gut steadiness . . . won the public’s trust and quite possibly the election.”

[See my earlier blog on how the cool, calm and disciplined Obama faced up against the “hot” and frenetic McCain]

Klein may well be correct. The financial crisis appears to have been a major turning point in the campaign. The RCP Poll Average of ratings shows that, at the end of September (when the crisis broke), Obama was just 2 percentage points ahead of McCain. This followed a difficult summer and McCain’s brief ascendancy following his convention. Obama’s lead climbed all through the first part of October to reach 7 per cent, dipped a bit in the third week, and is now back to 6 points.

RCP also shows that, over summer, Obama’s net “favourable” rating was between 18 and 21 points. After slumping in the second half of September, it recovered at the end of that month and has been on the up for most of October. His net “favourable” rating now stands at a steady 22 points.

McCain also had a net “favourable” rating, of between 16 and 20 points, over the summer. But at the end of September it collapsed, to 11 points. McCain’s net “favourable” rating has kept on falling and now stands at just 8 points.

Last week, the ABC’s Gary Langer also showed how voters seem to have become convinced about Obama’s character and competence, whilst McCain’s negative politics has failed to have the desired effect. Yesterday, he found that likely voters give Obama a 4-point lead on whom they trust more to handle an unexpected crisis, compared to McCain’s 17-point advantage after the Republican convention. Obama also has a big lead for having the best personality and temperament to be president; but then he has had big leads on that one all year.

The “accidental genius” works in Westminster-type elections too – even though it may be called “comparative credibility”. And our elections are becoming more “presidential” all the time. In 1992, British voters sensed that Neil Kinnock and Labour were not quite ready to govern. Tony Blair was unpopular in 2005 but still more credible than the main alternative. The same test worked for Australia’s John Howard, at least twice. Howard lost in 2007 when he lost touch with the electorate on the big issues and the Australian Labor Party found a credible leader.

Big long list of policies, anyone?

[Thanks to my sister Louise and my friend Redmer for putting me on to the NY Times Magazine article]

The difference that Sarah Palin makes

Sarah Palin has been one of the political phenomena of 2008. On the one hand, she energised the Republican base, for a time. Someone had to do it. On the other, liberals - my side of politics – initially did not know how to respond to the youthful “hockey mom” with kooky views about global warming and much else. Some of the commentaries, from both sides of the Atlantic, were simply embarrassing.

What the voters think matters more. Today, syndicated columnist Froma Harrop explains the impact that Sarah Palin has had on her. Ms Harrop is an “independent” -- that’s a non-aligned or floating voter, for those in Westminster-type countries. She supported Hillary Clinton, had doubts about Barack Obama and, over the summer, considered voting for John McCain. Now she’s backing Obama.

"What happened [?] Sarah Palin happened.

"Independents like me wanted two things out of a McCain running mate. (1) A capable leader who could step into the top job should something happen to the not-very-young No. 1. (2) Someone who would temper McCain's recent efforts to woo social conservatives. They got neither in the Alaska governor.

"Sure, Palin gave him a bump in the polls right after the Republican convention. She gave a rousing speech, written by a crack speechwriter. But once on her own, she quickly displayed a shocking ignorance of world affairs and a general inability to talk coherently on policy matters. Her habit of dividing America -- even individual states -- into good and not-as-good sectors comes off as downright weird."

Froma Harrop uses Real Clear Politics poll averages to show that she’s not atypical of voters like herself. The drop in McCain’s ratings started in September, straight after he named Governor Palin as his choice for Veep and before the sharemarket crashed. Ms Harrop says:

"Independents tend to be fiscally conservative, socially liberal and strong on defense. They were McCain's natural constituency and in mid-September gave him a 13-point margin. That lead has since flipped over to Obama, and Palin is a big reason."

Ms Harrop is correct in identifying the Alaska governor as a Republican liability, though the full Palin effect may have taken a little longer than she suggests. According to MSNBC yesterday, fifty-five percent of respondents say Governor Palin is not qualified to serve as president if the need arises, up five points from the previous poll. For the first time, more voters have a negative opinion of her than a positive one, by a nine point margin. In September, she held a 47 to 27 percent positive rating.

The Palin effect may be more about competence and credibility than issues. ABC News polling analyst Gary Langer says that, in a survey taken on Monday, 52 percent of likely voters said McCain's pick of Palin has made them less confident in the kind of decisions he'd make as president. That’s up 13 points since just after she was picked. Public doubts about Palin's qualifications (well-expressed by former secretary of state Colin Powell on Sunday) have grown. Just 38 percent say it makes them more confident in McCain's judgment, down 12 points.

MSNBC found that Sarah Palin’s qualifications to be president rank as voters’ top concern about McCain’s candidacy - ahead of continuing President Bush’s policies, enacting economic policies that only benefit the rich and keeping too high of a troop presence in Iraq!

And having Sarah Palin on his ticket has clearly not helped McCain to win support from women. Yesterday, ABC’s Langer reported that 50 per cent of male voters support Obama, compared with 46 per cent for McCain. But women favour Obama by a 57-41 per cent margin.

What a choice John McCain made.

An end to Nixonland?

If Barack Obama wins the presidency, he may put an end to one of the most significant and malevolent political phenomena of our lifetime.

In his brilliant book, Nixonland, Rick Perlstein explains how Richard Nixon came "to power by using the anger, anxieties, and resentments produced by the cultural chaos of the 1960s." 

He defines Nixonland as the state of total political warfare over class and cultural conflicts.

A disgraced Richard Nixon left the White House in 1974. But Nixonland, pitting the “silent majority” vs. the “liberal elites”, ramming racial and cultural wedges through the electorate, remained a staple of American politics for thirty-odd years. Ronald Reagan told stories about welfare queens. In 1988, George H.W. Bush used convicted rapist Willie Horton as a metaphor to depict his Democratic rival as soft on crime.  John Kerry was swiftboated in 2004.  In each of those cases, Nixonland worked.  And conservatives have set the American political agenda for the last four decades. Democrats have occupied the White House only three times since 1968. Bill Clinton worked with this grain, not against it, especially on big policy issues like welfare reform.

Let’s not be too morally superior over the Americans. Nixonland has also oozed its way into the politics of other countries with which I am familiar. Margaret Thatcher shrewdly played the immigration card in the late 1970s. Later, she used crime and defence as wedge issues. (The Conservatives’ 2005 campaign was a case study in dog whistle politics.) 

Another long-serving prime minister, John Howard, tapped into Australia’s cultural divides. These tactics came to a head with the Tampa election of 2001. False reports that asylum seekers were throwing their children overboard in an attempt to blackmail their way into Australia, prompted Howard's notorious campaign slogan: "We decide who will come into this country." 

New Zealand readers may recall the National Party’s 1975 election campaign. For part of their tv ad on the cities (really about immigration), click here. The Nats’ (narrowly unsuccessful) 2005 campaign was also made in Nixonland.

Back to the US election. Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries marked another signpost. Nixonland cannot be separated from the politics of her 1960s baby boomer generation. It takes two sides to fight a culture war, after all. And Hillary Clinton played with the fire.  She told 60 Minutes that Obama was not a Muslim, “as far as I know”. Her “3 a.m. phone call” ad reframed the Texas primary as being about national security. 

Now Obama gets to take on the real thing. The New Republic’s Howard Wolfson says:

"John McCain, raised in Nixonland, calls Senator Obama a socialist, trots out a plumber to stoke class and cultural resentments, and employs his Vice-President [sic] to question Obama's patriotism by linking him to terrorists. Nixonland 101 -- and if its rules still applied, Senator Obama would be in trouble."

 

Wolfson argues that the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and the economic turmoil have shattered the foundations of Republican dominance. America’s demographics are very different from Nixon’s time. 

"The old tactics aren't working and the American public is ready for change. Senator McCain seems old, and tired, as if he is speaking an ancient language."

With American conservatism in retreat and the baby boomers seeing their time passing, Barack Obama could have a unique opportunity to change the face of American politics. His speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention gave some early clues as to what his new politics may be about:

"there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America." 

So did his major speech on race in March. Writing during the summer about Obama’s victory over Senator Clinton, Gail Sheehy said:

"Hillary’s campaign had failed to understand that America was in the midst of a national passage from the old-style confrontational politics of the boomer generation—a divisiveness perfected by both the Clinton and Bush administrations—into a new style of Netroots politics, open-sourced and inclusive, multi-racial and multicultural."

We can but hope.

McCain vs. his narrative - a quick update

Here’s a quick update on John McCain’s sterling efforts to wreck his own brand. To use the lingo, he no longer embodies his narrative – and he’s done it all by himself.

McCain was the meant to be the straight-talking, non-partisan breath of fresh air. Lately, he's looked more like a risk-taking, negative-campaigning Republican.

The original, "good" McCain seemed to turn up for most of the second tv debate. The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne jr. asked:

"Who is the real John McCain? Is he the man who used to tout himself as a problem-solver, or is he the desperate candidate who lurches from attack to attack?"

But since then ABC’s pollster Gary Langer has found that voters, by a 24-point margin, say that McCain is more focused on attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues. In August, that margin was just 3 points. And voters, by a 42-point margin, think that Obama is mainly addressing the issues, rather than going negative. Rasmussen Reports has found that Obama is seen more favourably than McCain.

The new figures follow McCain’s harsher attacks on Barack Obama and Sarah Palin’s accusations that the Democratic nominee has been “palling around with terrorists”.

Jafapete summed it up earlier this week when he invited the embattled Republican nominee to take a reality check.

"You’ve managed to screw your own brand, without so much as smudging your opponent’s. You were supposed to be the straight-talking, independent-minded, tough, honourable one, remember? The war hero who could keep a cool head in times of crisis. When people are losing their jobs, homes and pension savings, they expect a little more than vague fear mongering about rather tenuous associations with a couple who never actually harmed anyone, a long time ago. The voters think that you’re more interested in personality attacks than policies. And they’re right."

Cool Obama, Hot McCain

The importance of personal heuristics (mental short cuts) based on

presidential candidates’ (for which read, party leaders’) character and narratives is being highlighted yet again. Character and narrative are helping to tilt the presidential election contest Barack Obama’s way.

Just after the first presidential candidates’ debate – and McCain's abrupt and somewhat weird foray into Washington's negotiations
over a Wall Street bailout bill, followed by his unsuccessful attempt to postpone the debate -- E.J. Dionne jr. observed:

“McCain, once the candidate of tested experience, must now battle the perception that he has become the riskier choice, a man too given to rash moves under pressure. Obama, whose very newness promised change but also raised doubts, has emerged as the cool and unruffled candidate who moves calmly but steadily forward.”

The New York Times’ Patrick Healy has explained the two candidates’ actions over the bailout bill like this:

"Mr. McCain, who came of age in a chain-of-command culture, showed once again that he believes that individual leaders can play a catalytic role and should use the bully pulpit to push politicians. Mr. Obama, who came of age as a community organizer, showed once again that he believes several minds are better than one, and that, for all of his oratorical skill, he is wary of too much showmanship."

Some commentators who are less sympathetic to Obama have reached similar conclusions. Charles Krauthammer has noted that, with all the fundamentals favouring the opposition, McCain has little choice but to “throw long”. Each time, it has failed.

“[McCain’s] frenetic improvisation has perversely (for him) framed the rookie challenger favorably as calm, steady and cool.

“In the primary campaign, Obama was cool as in hip. Now Obama is cool as in collected. He has the discipline to let slow and steady carry him to victory.

Krauthammer’s key point is that:

“[Obama] understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well.”

Since the convention Obama has altered the tone and style of his campaign, to be moderate in policy and temper; acceptable, be cool, and reassuring.

Barack Obama’s new persona carries some risks. For instance, he may not appear to empathise sufficiently with the deep anger and anxiety that many Americans feel about the economy. And McCain’s approach may yet be vindicated. Jafapete notes that McCain’s campaign director Steve Schmidt, who learnt his dark arts at the feet of Karl Rove, is a believer in the Boyd cycle, an approach to military engagement that seeks to overcome a superior opponent by means of rapid movements that disorient and confuse, and cause him to over-react or under-react. September may have been Obama’s month, but August was McCain’s.

There’s still a long way to go. As Jafapete says:

"Expect to overdose on fear and smear in the coming weeks. The celebrity ad worked a treat, and there’s plenty more negative ads where that came from."

Right now, however, both candidates have shifted the centre of gravity of (but not rewritten) their narratives – John McCain from warrior-in-command towards a feckless risk-taker and Barack Obama from unfamiliar outsider to calm, thoughtful decision-maker.

Myths, legends and why Churchill and Thatcher may be Nick Clegg's biggest challenge

What interesting times we live in! One thing that many voters say they don’t like about Gordon Brown is that he’s been in office too long. Now the PM says that “experience” is a good reason to trust him and many people seem to agree. David Cameron has spent nearly three years trying to be everyone’s little friend. But in yesterday’s conference speech, he presented himself as a Thatcher-style conviction politician, ready to take tough, unpopular decisions.

What’s really going on here is a lot of myth-making and story-telling. Well, it’s more than that. Both the Labour and Tory leaders are trying not to be “out-mythed”. And they are both trying very hard to change their narratives.

Check out this fascinating article by Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University. He writes about America’s “true” election campaign . . .

“. . . the deep campaign, the subsurface campaign, which concerns not just what the candidates say but who they are and what they represent -- what they
symbolize.

“The candidates become, in a sense, walking archetypes. To warm to a candidate is to align not just with a person but with a myth, an ideal.”

What makes the 2008 contest so intriguing, says Gitlin, is that it pitches against each other two archetypes: one familiar, one unfamiliar. John McCain is the rugged, plain-spoken, straight-shooting; a John Wayne, take-charge, warrior-in-command –type. Republican-leaning voters like that. Remember Ronald Reagan and both Bushes.

According to Gitlin, Barack Obama is the quintessential exotic outsider. He hails from exotic Hawaii, foreign Indonesia, “elegant Harvard” and “down-and-dirty Chicago”, all at the same time! He is also, in some respects, an intellectual and, yes, a celebrity. He scrambles the stereotypes, jumbles up the myths and symbols and represents the unfamiliar.

“So that’s the clash. McCain, the known quantity, the maverick turned lawman, fiery when called on to fight, an icon of the old known American story of standing tall, holding firm, protecting God’s country against the stealthy foe. Obama is the new kid on the block, the immigrant’s child, the recruit, fervent but still preternaturally calm, embodying some complicated future that we haven’t yet mapped, let alone experienced. He is impure — the walking, talking melting pot in person. In his person, the next America is still taking shape.

“The warrior turned lawman confronts the community organizer turned law professor. The sheriff (who married the heiress) wrestles with the outsider who rode into town and made a place for himself. No wonder this race is thrilling and tense. America is struggling to fasten a name on its soul.”

British politics may seem more sophisticated, the discourse more party- and policy-oriented and less personal. The voters are probably less credulous than their American cousins, their prevailing myths and legends more subtle and refined. Perhaps: the British sense of shared identity may be clearer, making the “culture wars” less important (amongst the dominant groups) than across the Atlantic.

We shouldn’t brush aside the power of archetypes too easily though. Previous prime ministers have evoked mythical symbols. Margaret Thatcher did Elizabeth I and Churchill at different times. John Major morphed from decent guy next door to hapless, almost comedic man-out-of-his-depth. Tony Blair was the charming, youthful, urban family man who would renew Britain; later, he was the doughty war leader, the Christian soldier who would boldly defend his island nation. And leaders are surely now more important than ever before in shaping voter perceptions of the UK parties.

If Gordon Brown has evoked any myth over the last year, it’s a dismal one: the stolid, over-serious, long-serving number two and pretender to the throne who finally becomes the king and fails utterly to rally the nation. You are more likely to find his archetype in Greek or Shakespearean tragedies – or perhaps, TV dramas and comedies -- than in the nobler pages of political history. People see it though: why else did Vince Cable’s “from Stalin to Mr Bean” gibe work so well?

David Cameron’s personal narrative has been remarkably similar to Blair’s. He has posed as the youthful agent of change who has made over his party and promises to do the same for the country. But many people still don’t see the plan, the end of the story. Nor is there a well-understood story of political struggle. Whereas Blair took on his party and won, with a symbolic triumph -- the end of Clause IV-- Cameron’s old Tory dragon has not been slain so much as chloroformed out of choice.

Since the nightmare on Wall Street, Gordon Brown has seized the opportunity to convert his existing narrative into a new archetype: the wise man; stead hand at the tiller, the calm and experienced manager of a crisis. The PM invited people to compare that with the “novice” David Cameron. (What a frame!) The ComRes poll in Tuesday’s Independent suggested that his new gambit could work, at least for a time.

Cameron tried to share some of the neo-Churchillian glow by looking stern and serious and publicly offering to help the government where he can. After all, Tony Blair’s original “have it all ways” brand of politics was born of good times and would be little use in a recession. But if all Cameron does is follow Brown, he risks becoming irrelevant and also closing off his political options for the future. His narrative could leave him behind meaning that a new one was needed. So, in his conference speech, Cameron evoked the myth of Margaret Thatcher, claiming that he has the judgment, character and leadership skills to rebuild Britain’s economy and society. The Tories loved it.

Whether that works for Cameron or not, Nick Clegg needs to gain a good part in this morality play. When it comes to archetypes and symbols, his options seem pretty limited. Past Liberal heroes? Even if they fitted, the likes of Asquith and Lloyd George wouldn’t be much help. A century on, most voters aren’t familiar with their myths or their rhetoric. Vince Cable, the party’s plain-speaking, well-respected authority on economic matters? Nick Clegg can’t plausibly claim to be someone else who is still very active in politics, though Vince is becoming part of the Lib Dem brand.

Nick Clegg’s best (and, I suspect, most likely) persona could be as a kind of outside, independent voice in the system, who looks out for “ordinary people” and demands financial policies that put them first. There is a parallel with Obama, in that’s not a familiar archetype. It could mean taking a few calculated political risks, but without stumbling down the path of cheap, anti-banker populism. What I am suggesting is that the Lib Dems should combine speaking up for ordinary people with sound thinking and straight talk on economic policy.

If you think that sounds too clever, remember that empathy with “ordinary people” is becoming central to the party’s brand once again. It also seems that Nick can embody such a narrative, with Vince Cable doing the same for the party’s economic credibility. And after all, something similar ending up working well for Charles Kennedy on Iraq (though Charles did not know that before he took the position he did). Maybe there’s a Liberal Democrat political myth, an archetype in the making. One vital, positive point is that we believe it.

After all the glitz, US voters don't get the full story

So, the Republicans and Democrats have finished their conventions. Which of the candidates, John McCain or Barack Obama, is telling the strongest story?

The answer is, neither.  That may explain why they are, in effect, tied in the latest opinion polls.

Since he first ran for the Republican nomination in 2000 – and got wasted by the Bush-Rove attack machine – McCain’s narrative has been about a straight-talking, maverick Republican who took on his own party, over taxes, campaign finance reform, climate change, environmental regulation, stem cell research and immigration. The message is that he could rise above party and clean up Washington.

By the beginning of this year, however, McCain had moved back to the right, for instance on oil drilling, to immigration to tax cuts for the wealthy. Hardly surprising, that’s where the votes were in the Republican primaries. Over the summer, the new, conservative McCain took on some of Bush’s team and got nasty, trying to paint Obama as an out-of-touch, elitist, snob – not “one of us”. This sort of toxic politics oozed through the Republican convention. McCain’s gang continued to play on what they see as voters’ resentment at liberal political elites who seem to look down on them. Paul Krugman has brilliantly dissected the sheer cynicism of this Nixonian ploy.

Then, in his (mediocre) convention speech on Thursday night, Americans mainly saw the old John McCain, speaking with quiet civility about fighting corruption, acknowledging that the Republicans “had lost the trust” of the American people and deploring “the constant partisan rancour that stops us from solving” problems. Senator McCain promised to reach out to “any willing patriot [and] make this government start working for you again” to use "the best ideas from both sides" and "ask Democrats and independents to serve with me.”

As E.J. Dionne jr. points out, the Republican nominee no longer embodies this narrative:

. . . because McCain has capitulated to the very Washington he condemned [on Thursday] and is employing the very tactics that were used ruthlessly and unfairly against him when he first ran for president eight years ago.

McCain is trying to run with these two different narratives by, in the words of the New York Times, “talking loftily of bipartisanship [while] allowing his team to savage his opponent.” The latter will be Sarah Palin’s one of main jobs, with her deliberate distortions of Barack Obama’s policies, eloquence and record. (McCain also questioned his opponents’ patriotism and Obama’s position on energy.) The logic is a bit strained but this gambit worked – just - for George W. Bush. How’s that for cynicism?

There’s more: McCain and co. will also try to bridge these two narratives by using an even bolder one: “reform”, which became the watchword of the Republican convention, appearing no fewer than 11 times in McCain’s own speech. They are trying to steal Obama’s “change” narrative. 

Where the story runs aground though is that it’s not exactly clear what McCain’s “reform” means. Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post says:

"In McCain's attempt to fire up the Republican base without losing his "maverick" image, calls for reform have come to mean a pledge to "change" Washington -- with little explanation of what that change would be or how that change would take effect. "

Is “reform” in Washington about programmes, systems, or governing style?  We haven't been told.  And:

"It does not appear to have much to do with campaign finance reform, immigration reform, reforming the selection and confirmation of judges -- all issues that McCain had something to do with and have helped define his career in the Senate."

The reason is obvious: these issues would drive wedges between McCain and the conservative voters, lobbies and dollars that he needs. And what would he do for people struggling with rising bills and worried about losing their jobs?

That leaves McCain’s story only half built. Successful narratives aren’t just about personal stories and records, which McCain’s speech emphasised. They are also about issues and policies, framed these days as “solutions”. The two need to work together, with the candidate’s (or party’s) persona making the policy narrative more authentic.

Obama should have the edge. His promise of change is more credible. He can embody that narrative. [click here] He is new to Washington, unlike McCain, and the Democrats have been out of the White House for nearly eight years. But his economic narrative has still not struck a chord with voters.

The conservative pundit Michael Barone believes that both candidates have a problem:

"The Obama convention contended that the Democratic nominees understood people's woes from personal experience and that their programs would provide economic security. But the substance of those programs -- refundable tax credits (i.e., payments to those who pay no income tax) and a national health insurance option -- are unfamiliar to voters, and their details can be hard to explain.

"The McCain convention's thesis is that higher taxes on high earners in a time of slow growth will squelch the economy (this was Herbert Hoover's policy, after all).

These assertions, too, are unfamiliar to voters. And, up to this point in the campaign, neither party has set out its programs clearly (or characterized the other side's fairly)."

On energy, the other big issue of the campaign so far, this is playing out in the much the same way.

Neither Obama nor McCain will prevail until they have got their narratives together, the policy and the personal.

Still, supporters of political parties in the UK shouldn’t be too judgemental. None of them has got the story mix right. Despite the progress that’s been made on policy stories this year, that includes the Liberal Democrats.

If you read only one thing about Barack Obama or John McCain or Sarah Palin this week, make it . . .

. . . this piece by Drew Westen, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

Westen makes some pertinent points about the Democrats' need to create a brand for the McCain and Palin, before the Republicans put their own brand into voters' minds. And he provides some useful expalanations about how narratives and counter-stories change voters' perceptions.

Westen describes the 2008 Democratic Convention as “simply stunning, with multiple-base hits by many of the players and triples or homeruns by all its superstars.”

At the end of a highly excited summary of what happened in Denver, he says:

"In my book, The Political Brain, I argued that if you do exactly what the Democrats did last week--both inspire voters with your vision of what could be and raise legitimate anger or concern about what your opponent and his party have done or likely will do--you win elections. . .

"The convention reversed the momentum of a dreadful July and August campaign that made every standard Democratic error outlined in the book, starting with the campaign's stubborn refusal to brand McCain before he could brand himself or to respond to his successful efforts to brand Obama--as other, different, empty celebrity, uppity, narcissistic, and elitist."

But then Westen worries that Obama and the Democrats may fail to be tough enough with McCain and co. They need to fight fire with fire.

"We are supposed to be the party of science, yet we constantly practice political creationism.

(Ouch! Does that remind you of anyone you know?)

"A case in point is the way the Obama campaign appears poised to respond (or, more accurately, not to respond) to McCain's choice of a running mate, which they need to do immediately, before the start of the GOP Convention. Paul Begala has described how the narratives that sway the electorate are like constellations of stars in the sky. If your opponent picks and chooses just the right stars to place in the sky (and which ones to leave out, because they get in the way of the story he is trying to tell), he can create a constellation that shines like stars on a crystal clear night, whether that constellation is one designed to make his own stars twinkle or your candidate's stars flame out or obscured by cloud cover.

"It's a campaign's job to put the right stars up in the sky to create the constellations that tell the story it wants to tell about both its own candidate and its opponent. In the language of neuroscience, a campaign needs to connect the dots for voters to create networks of associations--an interconnected set of thoughts, images, ideas, metaphors, and feelings--toward each candidate that tell a compelling story about each, and to repeat that those stories enough times and in enough ways to make them "stick."

Westen explains:

"It is much harder to change an accepted narrative, particularly an emotionally compelling one, than to undercut it before it can take hold in the popular imagination. You don't want to let the other side blaze a neural trail in the wilderness (in this case, defining a political newcomer) that becomes the trail voters' minds naturally follow and then resist deviating from because it is the first and only story being told, without offering a counter-narrative that creates very different associations and activates very different feelings toward the candidates (in this case, toward both McCain and Palin).

"The constellation McCain would like to project this week is that this was a bold move of a maverick reformer, an effort to break the glass ceiling for women, an effort to bring executive experience to his team, and the elevation to prominence of a young, socially conservative reformer with a moving story of her commitment to the crusade against all abortions."

Westen offers three, hard-edged counter-stories to break McCain's constellation. And then comes the hard stuff.

"Palin may be a woman, but she does not share the agenda of any woman who voted for Hillary Clinton (and Democrats should speak out against the implication that she is picking up where Hillary Clinton, a woman of tremendous stature who could have assumed the role of commander-in-chief in a heartbeat, left off). Rather, the position she and others on the right have articulated [on abortion] gives every rapist the right to pick the mother of his child. That position is tantamount to a Rapist's Bill of Rights, which privileges the rights of rapists and child molesters over the rights of their victims. Those are McCain-Palin's "family values," and they are not mainstream American values. "

Later, he concludes:

"Palin's nomination is one that should put the nails in the coffin of McCain's candidacy in the wake of the extraordinary success of the Democratic Convention. It exposes both a poverty of judgment and a surfeit of hypocrisy and pandering to both the religious right and to the female center. But if the Democrats do not act before the GOP Convention, McCain's reckless move could become transformed by the media and then the public into the bold move of a straight-talking maverick with the foresight to catch a rising star.

"That's a story that should never be allowed to reach the moment of conception.”

Personal stories, truth and the art of political war

Leading Liberal Democrats heading to Denver, Colorado for the Democratic National Convention will be able to see how Barack Obama uses his personal story to present himself as the man of destiny, part of America’s unfolding history and, importantly, the man with a vision for America’s future.

The American political pundit Michael Barone notes Gallup poll data showing that nominees got a 5 percent or better opinion poll bounce from 14 of the 16 national conventions between 1976 and 2004. Bill Clinton got the biggest bounce (30 points) in 1992, but John “reporting for duty” Kerry actually lost ground in 2004.

No, personal stories aren’t just a schmaltzy American thing. Remember Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter from Grantham and then John “the boy from Brixton” Major, in the run-up to the 1992 election.

The interesting thing is how the stories will stand up under heavy fire. Barone thinks that:

"The Democrats can usually depend on the mainstream media accepting their narratives uncritically, while the Republicans can expect them to punch holes in their storylines."

He goes on to list aspects of the Obama narrative that the media may like to scrutinise.

Fair enough. But they also may like to take a more careful look at the personal story being spun by John McCain, whom the New York Times columnist Frank Rich has dubbed “the candidate we still don’t know”.

McCain’s story is that, on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the religious right and sleazy influence peddlers, the hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton has stood up as rebelliously in Washington as he did to his Vietnamese captors.

But Rich says that with the exception of his imprisonment in North Vietnam, “every aspect of [McCain’s] profile in courage is inaccurate or defunct”. This extends from McCain’s carefully assembled image of the Republican maverick who criticises the Bush Administration to his links to the intolerant religious right and to the fact that “McCain’s top officials and fund-raisers have past financial ties to nearly every domestic and foreign flashpoint, from Fannie Mae to Blackwater to Ahmad Chalabi to the government of Georgia.”

So far, McCain is getting away with it, with very little media scrutiny.

Let's assume that Michael Barone is correct and Obama is also getting a free pass. Don’t worry, the Republican attack machine will not be so generous. In a brilliant piece in the Washington Post, Michael Kinsley shows how they do it:

"Most amazing among the principles of the Republican Way of War is: Don't waste much time and energy probing the enemy's weaknesses. Go directly to his biggest strength. "

In 1988, the Republicans turned Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, who came from humble beginnings, into an elitist and George H.W. Bush, a privileged, preppie Ivy Leaguer, into a “good old boy”. In 2004, they attacked John Kerry’s war service in Vietnam, despite the fact that George W. Bush, not only had avoided Vietnam by joining the National Guard but had avoided much of the National Guard. In both cases, the media helped, if only through negligence in some case.

Kinsley suggests that in 2008, they will turn their guns on Barack Obama’s charisma and eloquence:

". . . as if popularity itself were a disqualifying factor and whoever draws the larger crowds is by definition the lesser candidate. "

This type of counter-story telling happens in the UK too. The Liberal Democrats are often accused of being “all things to all people”, lacking in real beliefs, and worse. The Lib Dems have been unequivocal on big issues – see Iraq, ID cards and nuclear power – and opinion leaders in others, such as Europe and climate change. The “wishy washy” tag often comes from Labour, who have been all over the place on nuclear power and the Conservatives, whose behaviour on Iraq gives cynical politics a bad name. But it works.

Obama’s fate may well depend on how well he responds to the attempts to cut down the centre pole of his personal narrative. Perhaps Nick Clegg and co might pick up some tips from Obama’s advisers?

One more thing: McCain machine is better than Obama’s at telling lies. If you don’t believe me, take a look at factcheck.org, sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Hey, why don’t we have something like that it in the UK?

Wanted: not one political story, but four

There’s a lot more talk about the art of political story-telling at the moment. For instance, CNN.com has an article by Paul Willis, who says that the US presidential election will boil down to whose story voters prefer, even more than where the candidates stand on the issues. And within the Liberal Democrats, there is more interest. A few local parties are inviting me to speak to them and run workshops on narratives and storytelling.

Two questions keep coming up. I suggest that both are really false dilemmas.

Paul Willis asks:

"Do you think you could be persuaded by a politician's story over their policies?"

I don’t agree that’s the choice you need to make. If it works, a politician’s (or party’s) own story should work with their stances on issues (or policies), to engage both the heads and the hearts of the public. The personal story will make the policies seem real and authentic; the policies (framed correctly) will provide the substance and exemplify the story.

That’s what Margaret Thatcher succeeded when telling her political story. She argued that the solution to Britain’s economic problems was based on hard work and thrift, with government limiting its own spending and borrowing; England’s middle classes would thrive when freed from the bonds imposed by state socialism and the trade unions. The grocer’s daughter from Grantham worked all hours and played the frugal housewife.

For all his strengths as a personal storyteller, this is what Barack Obama is not doing now. Drew Westen, author of the acclaimed book The Political Brain, says:

"Barack Obama has told one story: that he will bring change and hope. Many have argued, from early in the Democratic primary season, that his was a campaign of soaring rhetoric and words without substance. That charge has "stuck" in the minds of many voters, who say they don't really know who Obama is and where he stands. It's a peculiar charge for a candidate who has laid out detailed plans for every issue of our time. Try going to his website or listening to his wonkish policy addresses.

"But whereas the standard Democratic response is to throw more plans and positions against the wall and hope that they'll stick, that's missing the point: that Obama hasn't yet told a coherent, consistent narrative of who he is that weaves together the themes of his campaign with his own life history. The result is that he has left his race, his exotic history, and the smear campaigns aimed at defining him as "not one of us" to resonate with voters."

The other false choice is: whether to tell a positive story about yourself or a negative one about your opponents.

Drew Westen’s brilliant article explains why this is a blind alley. He discusses why many American voters still have an uneasy feeling about Obama and says:

"His campaign needs to understand why that happened, because it's the same thing that happened to Al Gore and John Kerry. It's about narratives.

"There is a simple fact about elections that has eluded Democrats in every presidential campaign they have lost in the last 40 years: that as a candidate, you have to focus first and foremost not on a litany of "issues" but on four stories: the story you tell about yourself, the story your opponent is telling about himself, the story your opponent is telling about you, and the story you are telling about your opponent. Candidates who offer compelling stories in all four quadrants of this "message grid" win, and those who leave any of them to chance generally lose."

Westen argues that Al Gore didn't tell any of the four; John Kerry told just one and lost when he failed to respond to the two major stories told about him: that he was a flipflopper and a fake war hero. Neither campaign told a coherent story about George W. Bush.

He goes on:

"John McCain is telling a story about himself--that he's a man of courage and conviction who loves his country. He is telling a story about Obama--that he's a man of none of those things . . . After watching Obama enthrall the rest of the world and the troops McCain claims Obama doesn't support last week, he is now in full attack mode, trying to tell a story about his opponent's greatest strength (that Obama is someone who can inspire people, and can even do so on a world stage, where McCain's master narrative had claimed a decided advantage). So now he is telling the story of Obama as an arrogant, uppity, empty celebrity."

Westen says that, like Kerry, Obama has offered American voters one story (“change and hope”) when he should have offered four. And he wants Obama’s team to be much faster and more forceful when in making a counter-response and to do more to define McCain so as to drive up his negatives (that is, tell a story about him).

Westen’s story quadrants apply in British politics. In 2005, for instance, Tony Blair told a story about himself and his government: that the economy was strong, public services were getting better and it was no time to risk a change. He had a story about the Liberal Democrats: that we were irresponsible and unrealistic in our spending promises. When we took Blair to task over Iraq, he told stories based on his personal courage (“the right thing to do”) and fears about world security. And when we called ourselves “the real alternative”, he claimed that, in voting for the Lib Dems, people could let the Tories in. All of these worked, to various degrees.

Now, two (related) questions:

Do the Liberal Democrats (nationally or in your area) have stories for all four quadrants of Drew Westen’s message grid?

And do our story about the party (and Nick Clegg) and our policy stories match with and embody one another?

More on that soon.

Barack Obama: not "one of us"

During the primary season, Barack Obama gave us an object lesson in how political narratives work, engaging both the heart and the head.

Now, after a slow start, the McCain campaign shows us how counter-stories really work; in the process, they might be proving something thoroughly unpleasant about American politics.

McCain’s latest slogan, “country first,” implies that Obama puts something else (himself? his race?) ahead of the nation. McCain charges that Obama “would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” His “Troops” spot claims that Obama, while in Germany, “made time to go the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops—seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.” Then there’s the “Celeb”spot, with its intercut images of Obama in Berlin, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears. Framing Science has put up a McCain ad suggesting that Obama is the anti Christ!

New York magazine’s John Heileman explains it like this:

"The strategy behind all this isn’t hard to discern: Drive up Obama’s negatives and render him unacceptable to pivotal voting blocs. Thus the depiction of him as too young, too feckless, and too pampered to be president . . . the portrayal of him as precious, self-infatuated, and effete [and] the emphasis on Obama’s rock-star persona, designed to engender envy and contempt among the swath of Middle America for which hipness is no virtue but a sign of pretension."

In portraying Obama as a self-centred, elitist meritocrat, the Republican campaign has seized on lingering concerns about him. This is much more about emotions and instincts than words and policies.

Steve and Cokie Roberts say that the election will be decided over how Americans answer the question, is Obama one of us?

"As Peter Hart, a Democrat who conducts the Wall Street Journal poll with Republican Neil Newhouse, puts it: "Voters want to answer a simple question: Is Barack Obama safe?" The answer to that question draws on more evidence than years served, jobs held and positions taken. Voters want to know about a candidate's character, judgment and temperament. They want to sense his scars and his seasoning. And they learn these things through narrative, the stories leaders tell about their lives and troubles.”

They also point out that:

". . . to many Americans, Obama is still a stranger, an exotic and mysterious stranger with an odd name, a dark face, a weird pastor, a cheeky wife and a brief past."

The right-wing pundit David Brooks says that American voters cannot “place” Obama in any familiar social context. He paints Obama as a man who has always “lived apart” from American society. His advice to the McCain campaign:

"In the short term they have to try to define him [Barack Obama] as someone who thinks he's above everyone else."

So, the McCain people are saying that Obama isn’t “one of us”. That’s a powerful frame in politics: “us”. Normal. Acceptable. Part of the “mainstream”. Having the correct values. Patriotic. Like me. Not like “them” who are none of these things. And, yes, white. The notion of “us” can’t be separated from race.

David Gergen a spin doctor who has worked for Republican and Democrat presidents, from Nixon to Clinton, says:

"There has been a very intentional effort to paint him as somebody outside the mainstream, other, 'he's not one of us,'

"I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' "

Last week, Democratic strategists were worried that Obama didn’t have a big enough lead over McCain. Now, they are worried that the election is a dead heat. (Jafapete has more details)

Obama urgently needs to take back control of his narrative. Part of the answer lies in re-telling his personal story, just like Bill Clinton, the “boy from hope”, did in 1992. Obama would do well to emulate Clinton’s mix of economic populism and embracing change.

But Obama has undermined his own story too. In the words of Dana Milbank, he has seemed more like a presumptuous nominee than a presumptive nominee over recent weeks. Obama connects best when he promises change and a fresh start and looks and sounds like both. New narratives on the economy and energy would help to show what change would mean.

Getting American politics: The Age of Reagan

Every so often, people ask me for suggestions for the best books to read about modern American politics. For what it’s worth, I usually refer them to the efforts by E.J. Dionne jr. and Godfrey Hodgson to explain the crisis of American liberalism and other big themes in US politics over the last 40 years. Then there is another suggestion, that usually takes people by surprise: to read just about anything that is well-written about Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan.

Following my own advice, I am currently reading Nixonland, a brilliant new work by Rick Perlstein. He explains the secret of Nixon’s electoral success, articulating the resentments and rages of the "silent majority", and describes his toxic political legacy. In bringing the America of the late 1960s and early 1970s to life, Perlstein provides a stark insight into the underlying divisions of modern US politics. He traces the brutal, vindictive and over-personalised nature of much of its political discourse back to Nixon’s campaigning. We should also remember that over the last forty years, forms of this cynical brand of wedge politics has oozed across to the UK, Australia and New Zealand. (Remember the 2005 Conservative campaign? The 2005 NZ National Party campaign? John Howard?) Still, Americans do not live in the age of Nixon: Watergate saw to that. And the politics of race and gender have moved on significantly.

So, on to my other suggestion: the importance of Ronald Reagan and what he achieved. In the almost-twenty years since he left the White House, most analysis of Reagan has been heavily partisan. Now a liberal historian and active Democrat, Sean Wilentz, has produced The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008. This marvellous, incisive book focuses on presidential politics and argues -- convincingly in my view – that, Reagan is the dominant, defining figure of modern American politics. The main contours of policy - tax breaks for corporations, a “unitary executive” theory of presidential power, welfare cuts, a federal judiciary heading rightward –date from the Reagan years.

Wilentz says that Reagan "cemented the alliance between social conservatives and economic libertarian conservatives" and thereby completed the enlargement of the conservative movement. Such was the basis of his two landslide victories. The same movement enabled both Bushes to win the White House. Bill Clinton won two elections but from 1994 on, he faced a conservative Republican Congress, which made for a presidency that was very different from the one he may have planned. Clinton had to duck, weave and, yes, triangulate with this new conservatism. He did not fundamentally alter Reagan’s legacy and in some ways managed and extended it. (See: Welfare Reform Act 1996). The right has also consolidated its power by politicising the process for appointing federal judges. B This year, John McCain, along with all the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, claimed to be the true heir of Reagan.

Wilentz explains in detail how and why Reagan cast aside the old wisdoms regarding nuclear warfare and the Soviet Union and began to end the cold war. Along the way, the book demolishes some conservative myths. America's renewed militarism after 1981 did not bring about the end of communism. The Soviet economy was already collapsing and could not pay the massive defence bills that the cold war demanded. Reagan had high ideals that the nuclear arms race had to end (partly fostered by films like The Day The Earth Stood Still!) and, when Gorbachev arrived on he scene, he seized the opportunity to act on them.

UK readers, who live in the Age of Thatcher, will see some familiar parallels in the way Reagan reshaped the guiding assumptions of economic policy. (So will NZ readers, living in the Age of Douglas.) For example, thanks to largely to Reagan, the idea that reducing taxes on the rich will cure all economic ills has moved to the mainstream of American political thinking; so has the theory of economic deregulation. His abilities as a communicator enabled Reagan to win elections and prevail in the battle of ideas. Yet he was not a popular president by historical standards.

Wilentz puts Reagan’s success down to his "distinctive blend of dogma, pragmatism, and, above all, mythology". His conservative followers have carried on telling and building on these stories, thereby keeping control of the political debate.

On top of that, the right have played hardball politics. Another theme in Wilentz’s book is the number of politically-charged constitutional confrontations that America has seen since Watergate. In the Iran-Contra affair (in which, he is sure, the president was always a key conspirator) Reagan’s henchmen threatened to launch "an ambitious, permanent secret military operation, which would allow the White House to pursue every variety of covert operation completely free of congressional scrutiny or any constitutional constraint" [Oliver North]. In the fight against “communism”, the ends would justify the means. But Reagan ultimately got away it, partly because of blunders by Senate Democrats.

The right’s ruthless determination to win, if not to change the political order was also seen with the Clinton impeachment and the Supreme Court’s highly dubious decision to halt the effort to learn who won the 2000 election. In neither case was Reagan present and Wilentz may be going a little far in claiming that the right’s zeal had its roots in Reagan’s triumphs. Also, the age of Reagan has not seen liberalism routed altogether; the truth is that Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes all faced big shifts in their political fortunes. So have their causes. Wiltentz shows how on the Clinton impeachment, Newt Gingrich and co over-reached and lost both the trial and the political battle. Yes, in 2000, Republican justices effectively handed the White House to George W. Bush. But Bush II has revived liberals’ political fervor.

The reasons for Reagan’s ultimate victory were about economics as much as politics. Wilentz is less strong on economic, financial and social policies than on other areas. Still, he shows how Reagan’s drive to cut taxes (for the wealthy) while massively increasing military spending came at the expense of social programs. The American economy revived under Reagan but that was mainly due to the policies of Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve (appointed by Jimmy Carter). And the wealthiest Americans benefited most from the new prosperity. Meanwhile, most of Reagan’s deregulation policies ended in tears, especially in the banking sector. His successors had to deal with the savings and loan disaster.

Above all, Reagan left behind massive fiscal deficits. Wilentz argues that “Reagan’s fiscal policies left an enduring legacy to future lawmakers” that is, Democrats – “who might wish to build any new social programs even remotely resembling those of the New Deal or the Great Society”. Sure enough, George H.W. Bush had to raise taxes, which arguably cost him the 1992 election. Bill Clinton’s record in social policy was severely constricted by Reagan’s fiscal legacy. And Barack Obama hardly promises an FDR-style New Deal.

Wilentz discusses the domestic policies of George W. Bush only briefly and depicts them as a reheated, radicalised form of Reaganism. They may also be the last gasp of an old new order. With his own massive deficits, failures on social security reform, scandals, mishandling of Hurricane Katrina and, of course, the credit crunch, Bush has disgraced Reagan’s legacy and placed it in real danger. OK, Wilentz shows how the legacy started to unravel in the 1990s and I have seen many predictions that the age of Reagan is about to end. (I recall some from 1982!) For all the Republicans’ problems, the 2008 election is still up for grabs, the way ahead unclear. But as E.J. Dionne jr. argued on Friday, the core assumptions that have dominated economic and financial policy debates for thirty years are falling away in the wake of the Great Panic -- even if the media don’t fully realise it. The script is about to be rewritten. But who will write it and what will they say? I wonder what Barack Obama thinks about that.

The Age of Reagan A History, 1974-2008. By Sean Wilentz.

Illustrated. 564 pp. Harper/HarperCollins Publishers.