Reagan, Carville and KISS

I think it likely that the 2008 presidential contest will hinge on the ability of one side or the other to reduce the campaign to one simple, clear message. This was the case in two other recent change elections where the underlying dynamics favored the challenger, but the incumbent candidate (or party) attempted to raise voters' doubts about the risks of voting for change. 

Consider Reagan versus Carter in 1980 and Clinton versus Bush the Elder in 1992. The political environment of those races favored the change candidates, but it was only when the challengers reduced the choice to the simplest of terms that they were able to close the deal with the electorate . Voters wanted change but were hesitant to cast their lot with the relatively riskier challenger until the contest was reduced to a single overarching theme. Reagan and Clinton took the White House by exploiting their opponents' most obvious and simplest weaknesses. 

Reagan made it look easy when he asked: are you better off now than you were four years ago? Day after day, speech after speech, ad after ad, Reagan pounded away at Carter with that simple question. Once voters accepted the notion of  a President Reagan, that simple, focused question almost guaranteed his election. In a similar way, Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, James Carville, latched on to Bush the Elder's greatest weakness with a pit bull-like determination. He kept the Clinton campaign focused like a laser on a very simple theme:  It's the economy, stupid! 

Such is now the situation, I think, for Barack Obama. The Illinois Senator has established his presidential bona fides, both on foreign affairs and domestic issues. In order to win this election he must now Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS).  How to do that? In my view the answer is very straightforward: the Obama campaign must tie John McCain, hand and foot, to the failed presidency of George W. Bush.

On jobs, health care, gas prices, energy policy, Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe, China, trade policy, education and every other issue, the message must be clear and relentless: John McCain = George W. Bush.  A vote for John McCain is a vote for four more years of the same. TV ads must have McCain morphing into Bush and then morphing back again.  Day after day, week after week, with no distractions allowed, Obama must run against Senator McSame.

If Obama allows McCain and the Republicans to make this election about anything else, he runs the very grave risk of losing. It cannot be about race, or about Obama himself, or even about John McCain.  The Obama campaign cannot, or course, allow outrageous attacks to go unchallenged, but it must - at all costs - avoid being drawn off its central, simple message of change from the disastrous policies of Bush/McCain.

So, Senator Obama, let's hear it, all day, every day, from now until November: a vote for John McCain is a vote for more of the same. It is a vote for four more years of Bush failure and incompetence.  America cannot afford that; it is the riskiest course of all.