John McCain and Barack Obama were going at each other this week and the loser was: Hillary Clinton. It’s not the pledged delegate math, it’s not the endorsements, no it’s the narrative that shows that Hillary is not competing anymore. When you’re not part of the narrative, you’re the tree that fell in the forest that no one heard falling.

McCain and Obama clashed over the GI Bill, but both of course weren’t too concerned with that bill; every narrative line needs a vehicle. Obama kicked off the ball by criticizing McCain’s opposition to the bill. Show ▼

The main theme that Obama was using is the ‘McCain is a Bush replica’ meme. He mentions ‘the president’ twice in the space of just a couple of sentences. Why Obama does this is obvious. McCain keeps this narrative line credible though by doing fundraisers with Bush. The fact is that McCain didn’t appear with Bush in two months, but I am convinced that people’s perception would place this interval much shorter. I believe perception, and not so much reality, would make fertile ground for this narrative line.

The second theme in Obama’s quote is partisanship. He presents himself as the bi-partisan candidate, so he wants to frame McCain as a partisan player. The mention of ‘posturing’ comes close to a character assesment but it is just a minor theme here, so I’ll ignore it.

McCain then responded. Show ▼

There is a lot more to McCain’s response than the unsurprising touting of his military credentials and Obama’s lack of these. There is the mention that Obama would need to do some learning according to McCain — a theme we’ve heard more these days. But the most interesting piece is that McCain’s campaign clearly has taken notice of Obama’s habbit of questioning his opponent’s character and how assertive they deal with this.

As I said, Obama’s ‘political posturing’ claim is a minor one but the McCain campaign picked it out and enlarged it to bigger proportions by branding it ‘impugning the motives of his opponent’. It seems that the McCain campaign is actively using Obama’s practise of assessing his opponent’s character, using it against him, even magnifying it where necessary. And then of course McCain, ironically, goes on to asses his opponent’s character himself, saying Obama is ‘exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions’. McCain takes another leaf out of Obama’s book by making the Democratic senator’s behaviour part of a pattern with ‘as he always does’.

Obama comes back swinging. Show ▼

One hopes that the candidates will care just as much about veterans when they make it to the White House, but that won’t be the case; the veterans are just a vehicle here for the narrative. Obama uses his trademark ‘yet another lengthy personal, political attack’ claim again. Let’s hope that the candidates are going to try some new narrative lines, otherwise this is going to be a campaign with very few dimensions…

Additions to Obama’s Narrative Chart

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Additions to McCain’s Narrative Chart

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Two of the main themes of Obama’s primary campaign often went hand-in-hand. The first theme consisted of charges that the other side was attacking him and this almost always catapulted the second theme: ‘See, my opponent is untrustworthy.’

The Obama campaign often repeated the claim that Hillary Clinton will do or say anything to win an election. This charge contains both themes. There is the reference to her alleged attacks, while at the same time making it something that shows her doubtful character. This radio ad makes the connection between the two elements more obvious:

Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected. Now she’s making false attacks on Barack Obama.

It’s good to mention here that this blog doesn’t analyse the truthfulness of such allegations from either side; it just analyses the narrative. Obama’s narrative during the primaries was riddled with claims that he was being attacked and that this made his opponent distrustful. Show ▼

These two themes in Obama’s narrative have a particular dynamic. He takes one specific incident, staking the claim that this is an attack by his opponent. Then come the two key components. Firstly he makes the incident part of something bigger. With Hillary there were the claims that ‘this is part of a disturbing pattern’, that there was ‘a constant barrage of attacks’ and the subtler ‘once again’ and ‘day after ‘day’. Next he makes the incident about something yet even bigger: his opponent’s character. The Obama campaign labelled Hillary as someone ‘who isn’t seen as honest and trustworthy’ and who has ‘issues around trustworthiness’. To put Obama’s narrative in plain language:

• This Monday morning you deliberately stepped on my toes.
• You are always stepping on my toes.
• What a wicked person you are.

Why am I discussing this when this blog is about the narrative in the general elections? Because it seems that Obama is clinging on to this double-barreled shotgun for the next round and it is firmly aimed at the GOP and by default John McCain.

There’s a video on YouTube from the Tennessee Republican Party. It has clips of Nashville residents talking about why they feel proud of their country interspersed with clips of Michelle Obama saying: ‘For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.’ It finishes with: ‘The Tennessee Republican Party has always been proud of America.’ In a Good Morning America interview Obama responds to this video. Show ▼

On three separate occasions in the interview Obama claims that the GOP is ‘attacking my wife’, which is ‘unacceptable’, ‘low class’ and ‘detestable’ — setting the stage again for the familiar narrative. Then he goes to the next phase: making it part of something bigger. He talks about ‘the kind of campaign that they want to run’ and the ‘restoration of decency to this process’ — equating a video from the GOP department in Tennessee to a campaign and even the electoral process. And then comes the kicker: the character assessment.

I think that the American people also would like to see some restoration of decency to this process. And when you start attacking family members, there’s a lack of decency there.

Especially for people who purport to be promoters of family values, who claim that they are protectors of the values and ideals and the decency of the American people to start attacking my wife in a political campaign I think is detestable.

Obama implies that the GOP is lacking values, bringing his narrative line to:

• The GOP launched a detestable attack on my wife.
• This kind of campaign brings indecency to the electoral process.
• It shows that the GOP is lacking values.

A narrative line like this has to be credible to work though. With Hillary Clinton this was probably simple because Obama was tapping into the widespread perception that she is untrustworthy. And now with the current post-George W. Bush mood we should be expecting to see a lot more of this from Obama in the general election campaign.

Additions to Obama’s Narrative Chart

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