Political campaigns are about narratives.
In most elections, the challenger bears the burden of defining himself before his opponent does it first. The Kerry-Bush race followed this pattern in 2004. In that race, Senator John Kerry was unable to define himself before former President George W. Bush branded him in the public mind as a caviling wimp unsuited for a wartime presidency.
That race, of course, was so much about Kerry because Bush was changing no minds. By the end of his first term, his public image was set. The battle was over the challenger.
In this election, however, the true definitional battle will be over the incumbent, President Barack Obama. The Republicans will choose between many candidates who cannot beat Obama and a few candidates who can.
But the Republican candidate is ancillary to one central question: What does America think about Obama?
So much about the president is still unsettled in the public mind. In part this is because of his relative newness in the public eye. It’s easy sometimes to forget that Obama has only been a national figure for six years.
The fundamental elasticity of the president’s image also contributes to this phenomenon. It is rare for a public figure to defy easy categorization for quite so long.
It’s not only voters that struggle to put Obama in context. The press has flitted back and forth between comparisons to FDR, Reagan, Kennedy and Carter. No comparison has seemed to stick.
Two narratives dominate the conservative conversation about Obama.
One is on display in Dinesh D’Souza’s book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.” D’Souza’s Obama is a radical. He is agitated by race and an inherited rage with the policies of the United States.
This Obama is alien and unsettling. He aims to weaken the country by projecting fecklessness abroad and fomenting economic upheaval at home.
This Obama is dangerous and devious, and his elasticity is a sign of an antipathy toward the history and culture of this country so deep that Americans struggle to believe it exists.
The other narrative is that Obama is a conventional liberal — a statist, not a radical. This Obama was elected on flash and flair, but governs like a New Deal Democrat.
This Obama is motivated not by some nefarious desire to tear at the foundations of the country, but by an urge to build a country that is fairer to its poor and marginalized.
This Obama is a decent man who misunderstands the role of government.
This Obama is miscast for the presidency, which is over his head. Evidence for this image is in his various pivots in policy — not the actions of a man with a sinister plan. This Obama fills out a March Madness bracket because he is clueless about perceptions.
Republicans must choose between the images of Obama as alien radical or inept conventional liberal. They can’t have both.
The truth is that only one narrative can lead to victory. The image of Obama as radical is unlikely, and to depend on it forces voters to believe things that are difficult to prove.
If Republicans depend on this narrative, they will inspire incredible anger at Obama, but they won’t win.
If they can define Obama as a mediocre president, beholden to discredited economics and out of touch with America, then they’ve made him into someone who can lose.
Reach Will at wmunsil@asu.edu
