Opinion: First the flag pin, now the hand over the heart
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Look at it as the modern version of the old political whisper campaign, where rumors and anonymous fliers are used to chip away at perceptions of a candidate’s character (South Carolina knows this tactic well).
Apparently, there’s an e-mail zipping around purporting to show Barack Obama not placing his hand over his heart during a recitation of the ‘Pledge of Allegiance.’ Not so, Obama said. The scene depicted was actually of the candidate during the singing of the national anthem, Obama told reporters. He went on to say that ‘I am not going to be Swift-boated in this race. If somebody comes at me, I am going to come right back at them hard.’
Exactly what he means by ‘come right back at them hard’ is a little fuzzy, though. He addressed the issue after being asked about it by reporters, not as part of a proactive measure, though we’re not sure what else he could do at this point. And his denial was not exactly a hard-hitting comeback.
But it’s clear there’s some targeting of Obama going on out there, from the rumors of an early education at a fundamentalist Muslim school in Indonesia to the squabble over the wearing of a flag lapel pin. And as Lyndon Johnson legendarily taught, the point isn’t the truth of the accusation but to make the candidate deny it.
And the more questions about character/patriotism/fill in the blank that circle in the air, the more doubts they feed in voters’ minds. Not all voters, but enough. Such strategies are rarely all-or-nothing, and in a multi-candidate race it only takes a few votes to tilt a scale.
-- Scott Martelle
