Now I'll Bore You

Hot Stupid has some advice for the McCain campaign re: the tire-inflation gibberish:

Jim Geraghty has a note to McCain surrogates: explain the gag.

Yes. Yes. There is no more surefire way to explain a punchline's hilarity than to dedicate the entire resources of a presidential campaign to explaining precisely why it's funny. This procedure is also guaranteed to enhance a particular witticism's political efficacy.

Shazam!

Comments

[DrDick]

Teh stoopid it buuurrrrnnnzzzz.
Yep. Properly inflating your tires and regular tune ups as a way to fight high gas prices is absolutely hilarious. Why the US Energy Information Administration estimates it only has the potential to lower gas prices by a mere 3.3% compared to the stunning 0.4-1.2% decrease that drilling offshore can provide. Stupid liberals.

[actor212]

I dunno.

It seemed like a really silly comment for a Presidential candidate to make, hearkening back to the Jimmy Carter "Turn your thermostats down and put on a sweater" fireside chat, which while accurate and wholly positive, was correctly ridiculed.

That's the sort of thing you need to hear from the host of your local news broadcast. Obama ought to be about bigger ideas.

When he talks about those, he soars. When he starts scolding us for being wasteful, he loses.

[shawn214]

In the context of pointing out how little McCain's idea to increase off-shore drilling will help to reduce energy expenses, Obama's comment seems perfectly reasonable.
I guess that problem. Maybe he should talk about space elevators and drilling on Saturn instead.

[SamFromUtah]

...the Jimmy Carter "Turn your thermostats down and put on a sweater" fireside chat, which while accurate and wholly positive, was correctly ridiculed.

I disagree. Simple, everyday stuff like that has a certain populist charm, as far as I'm concerned. It's also advice that's immediately applicable and much more useful for the ends both candidates claim they want to achieve. Keep in mind that the McCain camp will attack everything Obama says or does, so he might as well say and do useful things.

[actor212]

Yea, but Sam, Americans do not like to be lectured, no matter how noble the cause or effort. They want to be hand fed a general solution that makes them feel good about being pigs.

[SamFromUtah]

I suppose I do have a rosy view of how well people take advice. Could it be a simple matter of marketing? Like, instead of Carter's fireside, pitch it like the WWII newsreels glorifying recycling and gardening?

Only without the war part.

[actor212]

Sam,

If you think back to those days, that's precisely how common sense advice was given by the government: the Buy Bonds posters, the little filmettes starring Ronald Reagan and John Wayne, stuff like that.

Of course, we actually had a reason to make sacrifices, at least so we believed. I think that's the big problem with the energy crisis: people can wrap their minds around gas prices, but they just figure those would go up eventually, and adjustments have to be made and little things like inflating your tires won't make that big a difference when gas prices are rising far faster than the few measly percent better gas mileage it might give you.

OK, that was a run-on sentence. I hope it's readable.

[Jay_B]

First of all, it was part of a package of basic, helpful things Obama suggested -- IN ADDITION to the big picture Earth-changing stuff coming down the road. A "Broken Windows" approach to fuel-efficiency if you will.

Secondly, it's not like "putting on a sweater" because it's not basically saying "tough shit".

Lastly, everyone should do this -- and it's utterly uncontroversial. If nothing else, it'll help Obama with the AAA vote.

[actor212]

Jay,

It was idiotic and whoever put that comment in his head ought to be fired.

Period.

[Jay_B]

He did:

I was asked by a voter if there was anything I can suggest for individuals to do to help improve the energy situation. So I suggested that each person can inflate their tires to the recommended levels among other things.

Then he said:

1. They know it is NOT the central part of my energy policy. They know they are lying.

2. They are making fun of an idea that a lot of experts have also recommended and suggested it could reduce our energy consumption by about 3%, which is more that John McCain's idea of drilling [he then pointed to his toes mocking McCain talking about drilling for oil "right here and now"] can ever provide.

I don't know what else a guy can do. When political opponents decide to purposefully misconstrue what you say (and have a compliant media who won't challenge it), you are left with two options:

1. Not say anything
2. Keep talking and punch back.

[Me]

Keep talking and punch back.

Which he's already doing, as you point out above. And he's also come out with a pair of fairly hard-hitting commercials the past couple of days, including one today which mocks McCain's absurd "maverick" pose.

This campaign isn't fucking around. This is already 10 times better than the flaccid Kerry campaign ever did, and it's only August. Yeah, you can't control the talking heads, but if you've got the money for airtime, there's not a station in the country that'll turn you down.

[actor212]

I thought Obama was this master craftsman with words?

I thought he understood soundbites as well as the next guy, particularly after the Wright debacle?

It was a stupid thing to say and opened him to ridicule and he should have known better. History alone would have taught him that ("Malaise", anyone?)