Obama's "Terrorism" and the Last Presidential Debate

As stated in my last post, the realities of our economic crisis snuck up on the McCain campaign and undermined McCain's strategy to make national security the central issue of this election. As a result, McCain's tactical use of Bill Ayers lost its surrounding strategy and unfortunately took a center role in McCain's campaign. Without a larger argument, the repeated reference to Obama's middle name and Palin's likewise repeated assertion that Obama "sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists" have played on racial fears to the point of producing verbally aggressive mobs that even McCain felt the need to censure.



The national-security strategy would have encouraged McCain's supporters to see Obama as a failed Commander and Chief--in other words, as someone who views terrorism as inevitable and thus as something he accepts living with, even on the level of his acquaintances. Instead, many interpret McCain's assertions to signify that Obama is a terrorist. In other words, some of McCain's supporters are vocally responding to the singular tactic because there's no strategy to contextualize their response.

Even if McCain had wanted to back away from this strategicless tactic, the Republican National Committee won't let him. This is their new ad:



Not all Republicans agree with this strategicless tactic--in part because it doesn't hold water. The only government Ayers rebelled against was Nixon's during the Vietnam protest era, and since being acquitted, Ayers has worked tirelessly to give back to the community. Bill Ayers is neither a wanted criminal nor recruiting members for terrorism. For the entirety of Obama's adult life, Ayers has been a state-hired professor, now Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois. He founded the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society. His list of awards includes one for his being "Champion of the Public Interest." He won the MacArthur genius grant six times. In response to McCain's attacks, 2853 educators have signed a recent endorsement of him. And with each day, McCain's tactic increases the likelihood of someone making an attempt on Ayers' life.

Obama's association with Ayers was a temporary one that had to do with their shared interest in reforming Chicago's education system. McCain's attempt to associate Obama with such "terrorists" originally didn't have to hold up under scrutiny, but now that this tactic has taken center stage for the McCain campaign, its flimsy reasoning embarrasses a lot of intelligent Republicans. Some Republican candidates who are up for reelection run ads that associate them with Obama, not with McCain.

My question is, Which direction will McCain take in this week's debate? Will McCain submit to the Republican National Committee's decision that he should pursue flimsy guilty-by-association arguments? Or will he try to initiate a new strategy that brings order to the chaos of his campaign and supporters?

Obama has all of Al Gore's states from the 2000 election, and some of Bush's states. Excluding toss-up states, Obama has 277 of the 270 electoral votes that he needs to win the election. That's right: if you threw out the states where the race was within 5%, Obama still has more than enough electoral votes to win the election. If you were to count the toss-up states according to the average of how they're polling now, Obama has 353 electoral votes. In other words, he would win by 83 electoral votes.

McCain has to swing all eight of the toss-up states to his favor, but that alone can't win him the election. In addition to that, McCain needs to win in a state like Virginia, with its 13 electoral votes, in order to win the election. Currently, according to the average of the polls taken there, Obama's winning in Virginia by 6.3%. It is possible for McCain's "Obama associates with terrorists" tactic to work in a state like Virginia.

But would it work in all of the toss-up states?

Florida is one of those toss-up states. Obama's currently winning in Florida by 3.8%. In order to win in Florida, McCain's attack on "Obama's affiliation with terrorists" has to avoid any form of nativist tone. Otherwise, McCain will lose the much needed support of Cuban Republicans. In other words, he can't allow another Florida sheriff to refer to Obama as "Hussein," as if Obama's foreign name were an indication that he's "not like us" enough to be president. That argument is not going to fly with Florida's Hispanics. Nor can McCain allow a crowd member to refer to Obama as an "Arab," as if Obama's foreign ancestry precluded him from being a "real American." In fact, the whole "un-American" claim treads in dangerous waters, and with Florida's having 27 electoral votes, McCain can't expect to lose Florida and then easily make up the votes with other states that are more firmly in Obama's corner.

The RNC's new ad puts McCain in a difficult position. Will he continue to tell his supporters that they shouldn't fear an Obama presidency? Or will he go where the money tells him to go and run the risk of one of his supporters' making an attempt on Bill Ayers' life? Or on Obama's or his family's lives? Can the McCain campaign tie Obama to "terrorism" without emitting a nativist tone that will lose him Florida?

Or will McCain transition to an actual strategy that diminishes the role of Bill Ayers in his campaign?

Only Wednesday's debate will tell.