In the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, the Republican Party had an effective strategy for victory involving several factors:
1. Ground game
2. Framing
3. Cultural Divisiveness
4. Money advantage
5. Disenfranchisement of minority voters
6. Smears
In 2000, this strategy actually lost them the popular vote, which they interpreted as deficits in numbers 1 and 3. Rove decided too many evangelicals stayed home because they weren't as excited about Bush as he wanted them to be, because of a ground game that was good, but not good enough, and because Bush wasn't culturally pure enough. But they managed to steal the election, primarily because of the disenfranchisement of minority voters in Florida and other deceptive practices.
That deficit was fixed in 2004. By then, Bush's speechwriters had written enough evangelical code into his speeches and Bush was promising a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Also, anti-gay marriage amendments were on several state ballots. By then, Bush had proven to be the handmaiden of the radical religious right and so the ground game included a push by many conservative churches and pastors.
By 2004 the smear machine had improved as well. So in 2004, Bush grabbed the popular vote as well as the electoral vote.
All the other elements of Bush's two "victories," including a money advantage, favorable framing of the issues, and disenfranchisment of minority voters (improper scrubbing of voter rolls, and inadequate number of voting machines in minority, Democratic leaning precincts) factored into the 2004 victories.
This time, everything has changed. The Democrats took notice of Bush's strategy and were determined not to let it win out again over what they saw as their superior message.
In 2008 Obama has a distinct money advantage, having decided to opt out of public financing. McCain is criticizing him for it, saying it will lead to corruption, but what McCain fails to see is that the majority of donations to Obama are small, and that therefore the number of donors to his campaign is huge. It's hard to imagine corruption resulting from millions of average citizens donating to a campaign. This gives him an advantage not only in dollars, but also in supporters.
This leads to the second advantage: Obama's superior ground game, with a record number of paid staff and volunteers. Obama is inspiring people everywhere to get out the vote, and so volunteers of all ages and all walks of life (including my daughter who drove from California to Las Vegas, leaving her three children in the care of her husband for a weekend, to "turn Nevada blue") knocked on doors and picked up phones to spread the word.
Obama also has a team of 5000 volunteer lawyers who will be monitoring the polls on election day, and who are even now filing lawsuits to prevent the dirty tricks the Republicans are so famous for. Recently, they helped the Democratic Secretary of State of Ohio in her appeal to the Supreme Court to allow 200,000 new voter registrations. Reports are already coming in from North Carolina and Virginia of voting machine "malfunctions" wherein votes for Obama are recorded as votes for McCain (sort of a techno-butterfly ballot), but the lawyers are on it.
The cultural divisiveness and the smears from the right are in full swing as we all know, but the people seem less vulnerable to them this time. Sure, there is a wing-nut contingent that falls for the demonization of Democrats every time, but fewer seem vulnerable this time. Maybe thinking people in the country are tired of division. Maybe the huge problems facing us are just too important for us to fall for Republican pettiness again. Or maybe Barack is simply too inspirational for the smears to stick. In any case, they haven't yet turned things in McCain's favor.
Finally, framing. George Lakoff has been saying for over four years that the Republicans frame issues and campaigns and the media ends up adopting their frame and dooming Democrats. Even this is different this year. Obama's "change" frame has worked, as has his claim to have the better temperament.
This time, not only do the Democrats have the better message and the better policy prescriptions, but they finally have the better campaign. And that is why Obama will win, in spite of the pockets of racism that still exist, that are actively being exploited by the McCain campaign.
Maybe the divide and conquer strategy Republicans have used since Nixon is finally dying. Maybe the American people are sick of the Republicans playing them for fools and idiots. Maybe they're tired of the hate and fearmongering. Maybe a majority of the American people yearn for a real "uniter" and a nation that gets to work to solve its problems.
Maybe the years of Republicans divisiveness and smear are over. Maybe America has finally grown up.
