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Meta-Message Death Spiral |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 15 September 2008 |
When a candidate's message becomes about the campaign it forms a feedback loop that often leads to a spiral, the feedback loop becoming tighter and tighter.
As evidenced by this ad .
Obama's campaign has almost always been a meta-campaign and that there were rarely any messages of substance. But now he spiraled deeper into the loop.
When you start blowing thousand of paid gross ratings points (millions of dollars) on messages attacking your opponent's message, all you do is invite a comparison contrast.
In the present circumstance it is Obama inviting the viewers of his ads to compare McCain's criticism of Obama's policy/voting record/ideology, etc. with Obama's criticism of McCain's message.
In my experience, this almost always leads to a death spiral for the meta-campaign. In one campaign I hit my opponent so hard, so many times in a row he spent two weeks with one message, "my opponent is a lying, fear mongering, snake oil salesman of the worst kind."
Rather than get into a tit-tat proving my candidate was right, we changed up issue attacks and hit him harder. He never got back on message, he never got out of the meta-spiral. We criticized him on roll call votes, he criticized our characterization of his roll call votes.
A double down on the death spiral is to use the media--which the public views as in the tank for Obama--as a source of credibility.
The meta-campaign's message becomes tighter and tighter, focused on the campaign and what the opponent's campaign is doing rather than the larger reality.
The McCain campaign started falling into this with the "lipstick" episode last week. It seems to have pulled out.
If Obama can't break out of the meta-message spiral this week, he may never get back on a forward message.
The McCain campaign, rather than get into a tit-for-tat, should change up and hit him again, harder.
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