Is incoherency the Republican ticket?
Lots of questions this week on why John McCain is ditching his green credentials and environmental strategy to deliver a mix of messages to the American public.
Earlier in the week Grist and Politico both commented on the launch of McCain’s new environmental TV ad coming on the same day as his call for the lifting of restrictions on offshore drilling (this to an audience of Big Oil in Houston). Commenting on this, Lester Feder at the Huffington Post suggests that:
McCain’s wholesale abandonment of a month-long environmental PR strategy is more than a knee-jerk response to a new peak in oil prices. It is a sign that the McCain campaign’s efforts to define the 2008 election narrative are in disarray.
And Feder quotes a number of political commentators who see this reversal as McCain “grasping at straws” to re-focus his campaign on the economy, in line with American voters’ views.
But I wonder if, at some deeper lever, McCain and his campaign are ingrained into an incoherency (it’s in the title of Feder’s article) that won Bush the last (two?) elections. Is incoherency a card the Republicans have become too used to playing in sowing doubt in the minds of the voting public? Read more
U.S.: Mixed messages = mixed-up audience
Some notes from the US. Lots of coverage on John McCain’s two faces today: 1) the climate change campaigner in his new 30-second TV ad ‘Global’, and 2) the five-gallon hat friend, talking to Big Oil in Texas about his plans to lift restrictions on drilling for oil and gas.
The ad goes out in New Hampshire and a number of other states. Not Texas. So, as Grist suggests, there are mixed messages. But actually, not quite. There are two clear, uncomplicated messages–they’re just targeted at two different audiences. (David Cameron is having a lot of success over here at the moment with the same tactic. During the Crewe & Nantwich byelection, no mentions of climate change. But “in a speech to environmentalists” (who esle?) Cameron promised he won’t drop green policies.)
Watch the ad here:
So what affect is this mixing up of messages having? Read more
