http://www.alternet.org/election08/87237/?page=entireObama Signals He Won't Back Down to GOP Smears
By Drew Westen, Huffington Post. Posted June 7, 2008.
Obama made clear that he will not resort to the low road, but he also will not take punches on the chin or below the belt.
Since the rise of television as a major force in American politics, and particularly since Joe McGinnis's extraordinary behind-the-scenes portrait of how the 1968 Nixon campaign, led by a team of advertising men, manipulated the public image of Richard Nixon in The Selling of the President, many have expressed concerns about the extent to which voters can really get a sense of the candidates through the lens of the television camera. Their reasons are well founded. Media campaigns turned George W. Bush into an "everyday guy" despite his wealth, connections, and Andover/Yale/Harvard MBA pedigree; into a "compassionate conservative" despite his record of executing a fellow born-again Christian as Texas governor; and as a steady hand in times of national danger who could lead the country to safety. And the data are clear from 40 years of electoral history and the data from tens of thousands of surveys over the same time frame that people vote primarily with their emotions: they choose the party whose principles resonate with them emotionally and the candidate they feel in their gut they can trust and understands people like them.
But Tuesday night, when Barack Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination, voters saw the three last candidates standing all speak in rapid succession, all of whom revealed important aspects of who they are.
John McCain's appearance an hour before Obama's victory speech itself spoke volumes. For a man who spoke with the word "Honor" on hand-held placards all around him, it was a dishonorable thing to do. Presumptive nominees do not typically deliver primetime speeches just before their rival becomes their general-election opponent to try to inoculate against both his message and his moment. Democratic leaders did not deliver a primetime speech excoriating McCain an hour before he clinched the Republican nomination. As I recall, Barack Obama congratulated him. That's how gentlemen have typically responded to their rivals' ascension to the nomination.
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Finally, Barack Obama showed two aspects of his character, one that has been apparent since the primary process began, and the other that has been less clear but that I suspect many Democrats were relieved to see. The first was his extraordinary capacity to respond calmly, graciously, and judiciously under stress. It is difficult to imagine that any human being could not have been seething with anger after watching both McCain's unprecedented effort to subvert his soon-to-be rival on election night and Hillary Clinton's unwillingness to make the appropriate endorsement that would have given Obama a 10-point lead in the national polls against McCain within days. (He will probably have to wait two weeks now to see that.) And I suspect the relative infrequency of his wide, trademark smile, except at the very beginning of the speech and afterwards while walking through the crowds, reflected that anger. But he didn't show it, and instead treated his ungracious rival with an exemplary grace that signaled not only to Americans but to our allies around the world the kind of man who would be their partner and leader were he to replace George W. Bush next January.
The second was his willingness to strike back at McCain and to show his teeth when attacked. In this election year, with the Republican nominee championing a deeply unpopular war, and with the economy in tatters and the average American growing numb to rhetoric about the wonders of the free market that they know has failed to protect their jobs, their pensions, their health insurance, and their wallets against the skyrocketing prices of gas and groceries, McCain's only path to victory will likely be a relentlessly negative campaign designed to impugn Obama's character and to play on his "differentness" (read: blackness) through questions about his faith, his patriotism, his ability to appeal to white voters, his masculinity, and on and on. Whether McCain does the dirty work himself if the race starts to seem unwinnable for him by September, which I hope he shows the integrity not to do, or whether the task is left to Karl Rove and the independent expenditure organization word-on-the street suggests he will be heading against Obama, Americans need to know that their potential commander-in-chief knows how to put up his dukes. Tuesday night Obama put up his dukes. He made clear that he will not resort to the low road, but he also will not take punches on the chin or below the belt. That was one of the most important messages he could send on the first day of the general election.
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