The Ideal Opponent (Obama gets his wish?)

[FlyingSquirrel]

(A look back in time to November 28, 2007)

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_ideal_opponent

As I described in two earlier columns, successful presidential candidates weave compelling narratives around their candidacies. The most successful incorporate their opponents into those narrative as villains or goats, so that their stories paint the candidates as two sides of a finely etched coin, one strong and secure, inspiring and reassuring, the other twisted and ugly -- frightening or pathetic or both.

So who are our potential presidents crossing their fingers for, wishing to incorporate into their campaign narratives?

Clinton: What about the candidate against whom every Republican is already running? Their focus on Hillary Clinton is less because they assume she'll be the Democratic nominee than because nothing mixes up the stew of misogyny, resentment, and plain old hate coursing through the GOP base the way a mention of the woman that a McCain supporter called "The Bitch" does.

In particular, a Giuliani-Clinton race would widen the gender gap even further. Giuliani's simple-mindedness, his sadism (sometimes directed toward women, particularly soon-to-be ex-wives), and his bloodlust in foreign policy are likely to make women voters recoil in horror. Most of all, such a race would be as mean and dirty as they come, and that is a game for which Clinton is well prepared.

Obama: The candidate Barack Obama would most want to oppose is clearly John McCain. Whatever McCain's supposed appeal to independent voters, he is everything Obama is not. Obama's central argument is that he alone can deliver the country from the poisonously divisive culture war of the 1960s; the centerpiece of McCain's story, the fact from which all of his biography and candidacy flow, is that he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Obama could drain the inspiring story of McCain's courage as a young man of all its electoral power, to the point where any time McCain mentioned it, voters would roll their eyes and say, "Enough with Vietnam, let's move on." Obama is young, McCain is old (he'll be 72 on inauguration day, 25 years older than Obama), Obama is fresh, McCain is stale, Obama is the future, McCain is the past. A contest with McCain could be a referendum on whether we put the 1960s behind us or not, one Obama would be bound to win.

Of course, candidates don't get to choose their opponents. But a little over two months from now, both parties' nominees will be determined. What happens in the general election will be in large part a function of which nominee got his or her wish.

Looks like ONE of the two Democratic candidates might get their wish, according to Waldman.

[FlyingSquirrel]

1. .

[anonymous171]

2. Obama has more contrasts with McCain.

[FlyingSquirrel]

3. One thing I like is that Waldman didn't even mention race.

I'm so sick of hearing about that. Young vs old is a more apt comparison here anyway.

[FrenchieCat]

4. I agree.....I'm so sick of that being the calling card at this point,

I saddens me each time someone uses it to make a case against barack.

You will note that the Female issue was largely in the Clinton contrast, even then.