By KARL ROVE
August 21, 2008
What must Barack Obama and John McCain achieve at their conventions? Conventions are the best, most controlled opportunities left for the candidates. Only the debates come close in impact, but they are unpredictable and not susceptible to the choreography available at the conventions.
Mr. McCain's handlers must achieve three things. First is a greater public awareness of the character that makes him worthy of the Oval Office. Mr. McCain's warrior ethic makes it difficult for him to share his interior life, though his conversation with Rick Warren did provide moving glimpses into it. To win, Mr. McCain will need to show more.
Al Gore's 'bounce' wasn't high enough.
Mr. McCain's second goal is to persuade Americans he can tackle domestic challenges. Voters trust him as commander in chief. The doubts are whether he understands their concerns about their jobs, their family's health care, their children's education, the culture's coarseness, and their neighborhood's safety.
Third, Mr. McCain must show voters he remains a maverick who will, as president, work across party lines as he has as senator. Naming a Democrat or two he will draw into his cabinet would remind people of his bi-partisanship.
Mr. Obama, on the other hand, needs to reassure Americans he is up to the job. Voters recognize he represents change, yet they are unsettled. Does he have the experience to be president? There are growing concerns, which the McCain campaign has tapped, that Mr. Obama is an inexperienced celebrity-politician smitten with his own press clippings.
And is there really a "there" there? Besides withdrawing from Iraq, it's not clear what issues are really important to him. Does he do his homework or is he intellectually lazy? Is there an issue on which he would do the unpopular thing or break with party orthodoxy? Is his candidacy about important answers or simply about us being the "change we've been waiting for"? Substance will help diminish concerns about his heft and fitness for the job.
Mr. Obama's performance this summer has added to voter doubts, putting a large burden on his acceptance speech. There are challenges in a speech staged with 75,000 screaming partisans at INVESCO Field. Will it deepen the impression that he's more of a rock star than a person of serious public purpose, or can Mr. Obama have the serious conversation he needs to reassure Americans?
Neither candidate will be well served by making their principal focus the demonization of the opposition. True believers inside the halls and loyalists in front of their televisions will demand a certain level of abuse of the other party. But more Americans are undecided than have been in nearly 30 years. Voters want to learn more about these two men, their personal values and their public vision. Every possible minute should be spent on these.
Conventions are mini-dramas made for news coverage. Every hour, especially in the evening, is carefully scripted. Voters understand conventions are theatrical productions performed for their benefit. They grasp candidates are showcased as perfect as speeches, films, staging and flackery can make them.
But even well-scripted productions fail if they are seen as phony. Plays that don't ring true, actors who don't seem authentic, and storylines that seem contrived all fall flat. So too for political conventions. They succeed when candidates are seen at their natural best. "The Kiss" worked for Al Gore while "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty" did not.
How will we know if the candidates achieve their goals? Perhaps by observing the convention bounces -- the jump each receives in polls the week after their conventions. Professor Tom Holbrook of UW-Milwaukee says history suggests the candidate thought to be running ahead of where he should be (Mr. McCain) will get a smaller bounce, while the candidate generally thought to be running behind expectations (Mr. Obama) will get a larger one. Mr. Holbrook also finds the earlier convention gets the bigger bump, another Obama advantage.
Even then, the size of the bounce alone isn't determinative. Barry Goldwater and Al Gore got large bumps and lost, while Presidents Reagan and Bush in their re-elections received small bounces and won. The real question is durability. Are there lasting changes in how a candidate is perceived?
The day is long past when conventions were spontaneous and dramatic. It's hard to envision anything today like the riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention or the Dixiecrat walkout in 1948. It's unlikely we'll see again dramatic floor fights as at the 1964 GOP convention at San Francisco's Cow Palace, or the 103 ballots it took Democrats to nominate John W. Davis in 1920. But conventions still shape voters' understanding of the men who want to be president. And because they do, conventions can still shape, and maybe even alter, an election.
Mr. Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
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