McCain and rhetoric's ugly side

It's a bad time to be a rhetorician.

We have enough trouble already, what with being accused of peddling manipulation skills and sharpening the art of blowing hot air. But the shockingly unethical claims being generated daily from the McCain campaign hit us in a very soft spot--the power of the lie and the willing ignorance of a mass public, the very charges made by Socrates contra teachers of rhetoric.

What is going on here? How can the McCain campaign continue to peddle blatant lies, even when they are instantly rebutted by an increasingly skeptical media?

One possible explanation will require us to think about the audiences he is trying to reach. There are two, the base and undecideds, and neither are likely to hear, understand, or care about the debates over truth and lies. Why? Well, the base doesn't for ideological reasons. This would be true of partisans of any stripe--we rebut the opposition's claims in our own heads, we give leeway or the benefit of the doubt, we cling to the explanations given by our candidate's campaign. Fabrications such as those found in the new sex-ed commercial feed into already existent conservative fantasies regarding liberals, amping up fear and ensuring that on election day megachurches get their members out to the polls. There is also the glee of the smear, that enjoyment that one gets out of tweaking their enemy--it was the great warmth of feeling in Palin's nomination speech as she mocked her opponents. It's the joy that a Republican takes at posting McCain propaganda here and watching the fallout (and this rush of excitement is not limited to one party).

They aren't really what I'm concerned about, because there the Republican base is comparatively small this year. Lots of people can't afford to engage in culture war skermishes.

The problem is undecideds. For the most part, undecided voters at this point in the game are disengaged from politics. They aren't carefully deliberating or weighing their options. They don't read the front page of the newspaper and they certainly aren't reading this. They are the most susceptible to a dishonest campaign, and the McCain people know that. If they can instill a feeling, one of fear of Obama or of liking for "tough talking" Sarah Palin, they've done their job. They are listening for the sound of the voice, not the meaning of the words that voice speaks, in the same way that some of my students will laugh at a sophisticated joke made by Jon Stewart without knowing anything about the political content of the joke because they aren't listening to the content--they are cueing off of the funny face.

Rick Davis is right, for the majority of undecided voters this is not a campaign about issues. If they were interested in issues, they wouldn't be undecided. The constant mindnumbing conversation about "hockey moms" or "security dads" aren't about demographics who have particular needs, they are names for audiences that share a set of commonplaces to be exploited. Use their language, take on their style or demeanor and they will recognize you as one of them, and if you succeed, they are much more likely vote for you. The lies aren't even about their content--they are about symbolically identifying with the audience one is interested in persuading.

Now it's fine to fret personally about the increasingly unethical campaign run by McCain and his lackeys--this is something to be upset about. But we cannot confuse the media and partisan response with a strategy to win over these "impulse voters." They aren't following Troopergate, nor are they concerned about Palin's relationship to the Bridge to Nowhere. They aren't being affected by any potential Republican bias on Politico. They don't care about accountability because they aren't keeping account, and this feeds irresponsible rhetoric, what Kenneth Burke once called "the lugubrious region of Malice and the lie."

My suggestion? Let them go. They are a crowd that Democrats find notoriously hard to please. Keep a focus on the economy and start picking off moderate Republicans who are tired of George W. Bush, the so-called Obamicans who still want to hear about the issues. Use the bait being thrown to the base, the most egregious conservative arguments, to highlight to moderates just how much they have become alienated from their party in the Bush-McCain political era. Find their commonplaces, their style and use it as a tool of ingratiation, in contrast with the party that has become so alien to them.

Know your audience and let the rest remain noise, insignificant battles to be fought at best by surrogates.

Next time: I've been thinking about ads lately...