[Analysis]: "Strawman" McCain or attacking the POW card

One thing that I really like about this particular forum is that not only can we discuses news from the race but we can also propose strategies ,which I would think, the adept Obama internet team peruses and might find something useful for the campaign. That hope is what makes me (and I hope others) want to contribute some ideas about ways to attack and define McCain. In that spirit, I'll be posting some ideas on how the campaign might do this (as time/schoolwork permits)




There's increasing evidence that McCain is invoking his experiences as a POW in "tangential" situations to steer the stasis of a discussion/conversation back to his perceived "strength". Contrary to some opinion, I believe that democrats CAN go after this, as long as they do it specifically and with message dicipline.

What do I mean by that? Here's an example, yesterday on Jay Leno, the host asked John McCain a specific question:


LENO: Welcome back, Sen. McCain, for one million dollars, how many houses do you have?

MCCAIN: You know, could I just mention to you, Jay, and a moment of seriousness. I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, without—I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair. And I spent those five and a half years, because—not because I wanted to get a house when I got out.

A key phrase to look at is McCain's "You know could I just mention to you", at least by my understanding of the English language this suggests that he is going on a tangent from the question which was originally asked, which has a VERY simple and numerical answer (I would reckon anyway). He appears to be using a straw man to deflect the question ( a question which in its derivates have created multiple problems for him). I think an ad can effectively question why he hasn't and didn't, in this case, provide a direct answer to the question and others like it?

The next thing that can be done is to present multiple examples, of him (and his campaign) doing answering in the SAME non-answering way to other questions, over and over and over again, until we develop a narrative for Sen. McCain. A narrative of deflecting CURRENT hardships by evoking sympathy from PAST hardships. Arguably this would fall under the "Appeal to Pity" logical fallacy depending upon the specific wording of his/their statement, but I would say it is almost certainly a rhetorical strawman and an Appeal to Tradition as well.

I don't think we even have to directly declare what McCain is thinking, just highlight ALL of the strawmen that McCain puts up and show the pattern of the POW issue being the man of straw in several instances and clearly present it for the voters to decide. Is this how we want him to deflect problems once he's in the white house? I think (and hope) if we just show that things are 2+2 then people can realize that it equals 4, and it means less time defending McCain counter attacks on "demeaning" his service. Let his OWN words damn him, and the obama campaign sets up the frame work for this. I don't see this as being "weak" but as being the potentially "right" way to specifically highlight trends without relatively nebulous phrasing or hard-to-quantify judgment on his character. I'd leave that for the voter to decide after "we" set everything up.

Bottom line suggestions for an ad:


"His experience gives insight to his character and his AT THAT TIME.

It's not an answer for how many houses you have NOW

It's not an answer for the claims that you are out of touch NOW

It's not an answer for the millions of Americans that need assurances that the president"

Now one thing I'm not sure about is should this be gone after now, or saved until October the chips are down at that time. I think the strategy can work , but it can have blowback if it's not executed correctly and it may be a very tight rope.

P.S. Please forgive any misspellings or grammatical mistakes, it's not that I don't respect you but rather that I have to get to class soon and would hope to see some critiques on my thoughts afterward, thanks!

"I didn't have a kitchen table" claim. He said "Oh YES HE DID have a kitchen table, but he didn't want IT or his seriously injured wife and child when he got home!"