Manning Up and the Media Moment

I had never really been horrified by the sheer power of spin-doctors until the reaction to the primaries last Tuesday, the lightning quick emergence of Naftagate and the other burgeoning phantom scandals. It has always seemed sort of harmless in a way, harvesting controversy, journalists and pundits keeping up with me while I refresh my browser during a lunch break, giving Drudge his next 40 pt font headline and Real Clear Politics their early morning edition. The real reason Obama is getting more flack now isn’t just because the media felt bad about soft handling him, or because there’s more reason to criticize him, but because it’s the next logical conclusion in achieving customer satisfaction. People who are reading the news every day like me want a new story every hour on the hour, and if it’s not new, it better darn well deliver somehow. Hillary has been flipped and prodded and fried and served up so many times in her life, and there are only so many ways to cook an egg. But suddenly, like the invention of the omelette, there was a new way to tell that story for a while: Hillary gets shown up by newcomer who shows the world that it can be a different place. She is not just a terrible, corrupt establishment politician anymore-- all the old arguments against her-- now, she doesn’t sing in the people’s key. Because few politicians are very compelling speakers, this was never an issue, but with Obama making women faint at rallies, what a headline this could make!

The fact is, her bad politicking and mud slinging haven't really been given that much criticism, given their breadth. Bad campaigning is old news. But this new critique took the likeability factor to a whole new level: Obama doesn't only refrain from engaging in bad political discourse, but he understands why it is damaging (taking a cue, it seems, from Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire). For a while, right around the time of the Yes We Can video, we “got it” and we knew that Obama “got it”. And we knew that Hillary supporters didn’t get it at all. That was good news. That was a movement Obama had on his hands, the edge he had (as far as the spin went at the time) over Hillary. Of course, then Hillary went on SNL and the Daily Show, and Obama's supporters started coming off as too mindless (will.i.am's Yes We Can was followed up by We are the Ones), his cause too much of a fad, like liking an iPhone.

This hits upon that pundit fave, buyer's remorse. Is voting for Obama like buying an iPhone, too? Malarkey. Any candidate has pros and cons. When comparing the two candidates, people continue to say "No, THIS is what this election is about about," and proceed to make their argument about the make or break factors in this race. In reality there is no bottom line, but in the news, there always must be. The public requires this. This demand creates the spontaneous media moment, the will the public has for drama and the excitement the media has in pouncing. And, as in all theatre, good timing counts. As we have seen with YouTube, the will of the moment is strong and sometimes totally arbitrary. But also, as with YouTube, the moment is contagious, media blitzes work like the flu, working in and then out of the system. Until now, the Obama camp has had an uncanny sense of timing, but part of the reason the Clinton dismembering machine is so powerful is because it has historically struck at the most calculated moments, such as the days preceding the VOTR primaries, where a jab as hypocritical and nonsensical as the 3am ad had just enough time to score Clinton some points.

As for Obama's alleged glass jaw, since the Clintons are certainly showing that they are the horror film which will never end, I tend to agree with Maureen Down when she says that Obama needs to get dirty and dispense, for a while, with his principled restraint. The best part of this psychodrama would be seeing Obama come back at Hillary with the same style that we have seen him demonstrate off the cuff in their last debate. Hillary can try to shellac Obama with inanities, but all the media is really throwing at Obama now is a charge against his assertiveness in the face of opposition or foul play. Obama doesn't need to use a smear campaign that capitalizes on thin information. Hillary's given him loads of ammunition already, whether we're talking cattle futures or Whitewater. Now that we have six weeks until Pennsylvania, it's the perfect time for the Obama campaign to change gears and take a spin in a different direction. Obama getting a little dirty, manning up and taking Hillary into the ring will not only prove that he's got the guts, but it'll get the newspapers begging for more. Now that's some good theatre; and it'll be clear to everyone who the hero is.