Nixonian Politics, 2008

My daughter recently asked me what the Watergate scandal was all about. Unfortunately, I had a senior moment and all I could remember was a botched break in, something about a lawyer, and claims that Nixon was trying to change the course of an election. Sad…

So I bought Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, by Rick Perlstein, to refresh my memory.

I haven’t got to Watergate yet, but on page 28 I read a passage that feels peculiarly up-to-date. The author is talking about Nixon’s first congressional campaign, in which he ran against a well-loved congressman that many believe was the inspiration for the movie Mr Smith Goes to Washington:

He [Nixon] and Chotiner [Nixon's campaign manager] were chartering the Nixon method. You didn’t have to attack to attack. Better, much better, to give something to the mark: make him feel that he has one up on you . Let him pounce on your “mistake.” That makes him look unduly aggressive. Then you sprang the trap, garnering the pity by making the enemy look like a self-righteous and hyperintellectual enemy of common sense, … inspiring a strange sort of protective love among voters whose wounded resentments grow alongside your performance of being wounded.

Nixon won.

The 2008 incarnation of this method is to just throw out a divisive and patently untrue remark, and let the opposition pounce. You still get the pleasure of watching the opponent being perceived as aggressive and self-righteous. You still garner the protective love of voters who hate to see anyone ‘picked on’, even though you started it. And you still profit from wounded resentments. But you don’t need Nixon’s poker-playing genius to make it work.

Many people are now encouraging Obama to get ‘tough’ and fight back harder. However, that simply plays into the game. Will Obama figure out how to neutralize this strategy? Only time will tell.