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BREAKING THE MESSAGE MACHINE.
Zephyrus made a comment on my post yesterday that made me laugh, and also made me wonder about what the Republican message machine will do with the latest development in continued analysis of Barack Obama's religion. The tension:
Obama is a covert Muslim, a double agent in the clash of civilizations! err... Obama is a radical fundamentalist BLACK Christian! err, sorry, wrong memo... Obama is an elitist Marxist who hates all religion!
The religious allegations have already run the gamut, and I'm also envisioning what the message will look like if Obama's the nominee. Now that William Kristol and Joe Lieberman are jumping on the Marxist meme, that will surely be the next go-around of allegations. Unfortunately for the right, "Obama is a radical Muslim angry black Christian atheist" just isn't that marketable.
--Kate Sheppard
COMMENTS (8)
"Unfortunately for the right, "Obama is a radical Muslim angry black Christian atheist" just isn't that marketable."
No, but "Obama is a radical Muslim angry black liberation theologist/ socialist" may be.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 15, 2008 11:31 AM
Kate, your 100% right that the accusations don't make sense when you line them all up (even throw in the fact that they will continue to point to his pastor at the same time they do all this). But, i think you miss the larger import. Even if he is none of those things, and that together they make little sense, that's all that counts. The overall message is not that he's a Marxist or an atheist or an elitist or a Muslim. It's that you don't know who he is, do you? he could be any of those things. we just don't know who barack obama is. And, that's going to be the message the viewer hears, even if that's not what all the pundits are saying.
Just as Mark Schmitt wrote here on TAPPED that Hillary's biggest ally in the primary is uncertainty about just how far behind she is, it may be that John McCain's big ally in the general is uncertainty about who Barack Obama is.
Posted by: josh | April 15, 2008 11:35 AM
Are you kidding? It's totally marketable. Nobody ever said it had to make sense. It's about the whisper campaigns and the subtle insinuations, not the TV ads.
Posted by: Brodysattva | April 15, 2008 11:54 AM
KS, I'm sorry but you just don't get it. Not only does it not have to make sense, it isn't supposed to "make sense." None of it makes any sense. Ordering orange juice in a diner makes you elite, effete, effiminate, and out of touch? Not being a good bowler makes it impossible for the average person to envision you as president? Wind surfing makes you a fairy? Having two purple hearts and a silver star makes you a traitor and a coward, while snorting cocaine off a hooker's ass while you're supposed to be evading military service in the National Guard makes you a manly hero?
Sense has nothing to do with it. Logic is so over. Get with the modern age.
Posted by: cervantes | April 15, 2008 12:25 PM
Time for the right to trot out Krauthammer to diagnose Obama as schizophrenic.
Posted by: Chuck | April 15, 2008 2:28 PM
in today's LA Times jonah goldberg writes that the problem with obama is that he's a yuppie! really.
Posted by: dj spellchecka | April 15, 2008 3:18 PM
of course it's marketable.
why do lefty pundits assume cognitive dissonance is an obstacle for the GOP? or hillary clinton for that matter.
this is lizard-brain territory: throw so many scary things at the voters they rush into the arms of their GOP overlords.
Posted by: mencken | April 15, 2008 3:34 PM
Everybody knows that Obama is faking his religion (whatever it is) just like all the other pols. He got some serious cred from Rev. Wright and some strokes to his ego. He'll sail on through to the WH.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 16, 2008 5:05 AM