The Republicans' Socialism Smear will be a Short-Term Failure

The McCain campaign, through its VP candidate Sarah Palin and campaign surrogates, are beginning to use the so-called "S word" to describe Barack Obama's fiscal platform. Republicans hope that the word can still raise hairs on the back of the American electorate's neck, making it seek comfort in the familiar economic dogma of Ronald Reagan (or Mitt Romney, circa 2012). In the short term, this electoral strategy will fail.

First off, McCain cannot count on swaying many Obama voters to his side this late in the game, no matter what his strategy. If he pulls off an upset victory this November, he will most likely do so by grabbing up support among undecided voters. The low-IQ and/or ADD-afflicted legal adults who are currently responding, "Duh" in presidential polls respond best to attacks that are easy to grasp. The Berlin Wall is no longer recent history--we are, after all, three wars deep into a new historical struggle. Socialism is just an abstract idea now, and as such is beyond the mental pale for undecideds.

McCain could colorize these attacks by painting Obama as Cuban, Venezualan, or North Korean in his spending proposals, but even he isn't that hysterical. Perhaps he knows that the media, Newscorp. included, would close the book on him if he went that batshit. McCain has thus lowered his symmetrical sights, decrying Obama's programs as similar to the spending of our NATO allies (yes, the same whose currencies are destroying us). These attacks will fall flat because they invoke viable First-World alternatives to Bush America, and that's what this election is about, after all. And who in God's name would not want to live in Paris or Toronto?

Just as McCain's new strategy will not influence undecided voters, it will energize the perhaps tiring base of Obama volunteers and activists. In an election where "ground game" is constantly singled out as the difference between winning and losing in swing states (or all states, given the deadly Bradley Effect), energizing the Obamaniacs and first-time volunteers will be key. As Obama pulls ahead and presumably tries to plant himself in the center, these people might hang up their campaign spurs early. Perhaps McCain's long-spewed message (video), now abandoned, that Obama's "Change" platform is political corn syrup has gradually sapped the base's motivation.

But now Obama is "dangerous," "radical," even "anti-American," like Roosevelt, RFK, and Ali. He's not just offering a middle-class tax plan, now he's offering a Brave New World. This ought to give Obama '08 the extra historical momentum his active (and, in pockets, socialist) supporters need to propel them through the finish line. McCain's accusations of socialism has made this a major election, and campaigns, from top to bottom, compete harder the more important the larger the prize.