The Democrats can't afford to underestimate Palin as they did Bush. Not because of the candidate herself is anything special, but because the RNC knows how to frame the debate, and they don't.

What a disappointing debate. Far from the walk-over that many Obama fans were taking for granted, Biden and Palin seemed to demonstrate just how little the Democrats have learned in the past 25 years.

If we look at the debate in strictly intellectual terms, Biden did as well as everyone would expect. He clearly and concisely defended Obama’s positions on the major issues- most impressively in regards to Iraq and the issue of taxation. Palin, to her credit, appeared to have come a hell of a long way since her disastrous CBS interview earlier this week, showing at least an awareness of what McCain’s positions were. Her answers consisted largely of pre-prepared talking points and soundbites, and were a long way from the grounded, systematically explained arguments put forward by Biden. In intellectual terms, the candidate with the superior experience, background knowledge and education won unequivocally.

But both Al Gore and Kerry were beaten by Bush. And as Biden stood there, reeling off lists of arguments, statistics and policy positions- even going so far as to number them for us on several occasions- Palin stood there smirking, just as Bush did in ‘00 and ‘04, and as Reagan had done 15 years before that.

Despite what the political junkies who have the benefit of background knowledge might think, all those facts, arguments and policy positions just bounced right off her. You could see Biden getting more and more exasperated, desperately searching for a knock-out statistic that might elicit a gasp from the audience or an ‘oooh’ and an ‘ahh’ and send Palin dashing out of the room in tears. And poor guy- he just kept repeating himself; wondering why that killer fact didn’t have the desired impact first time round and saying it again, just in case nobody had heard him clearly.

And know-nothing Sarah, who had been drilled to parrot slogans, stood there smirking. When it got to her turn, she barely talked about the issues, and she certainly didn’t waste time explaining her ticket’s reasoning for holding those positions. Instead, she told us stories.

At every opportunity, she told us little details about herself which made her look human, like a normal person rather than a politician. Sure, both candidates engaged in the ‘When I was in Smallville I met superman and he can’t afford to fill his gas tank/ pay for an operation’ rhetoric, but Palin perfected the art of Bush and Reagan, and took it 10 miles further. “Is it all right if I call you Joe?”, she asked loudly as the candidates appeared on stage.

She constantly hammered home the idea of her and McCain being Washington outsiders, on several occasions completely ignoring Biden, the audience and the moderator, and, the down-home outsider she is, talking directly at the camera, and thus to the American people. For those that understand the seriousness of the debate, it’s easy to scoff at these kind of stunts- after all, they’re pre-planned hogwash, about as far from being spontaneous as it comes. But for a nation which prides itself on defying formalities and talking straight, and which is fed-up with Washington convention, they were stunts that resonated.

When Reagan won his first election, the polls indicated that something funny was going on. The majority of people actually disagreed with his stance on many issues, but intended to vote for him anyway.

They voted for him because, while the Democrats gave them lists of facts, Reagan (a man who, it must be said had little more time in Washington than Obama) sold them a dream- a world-view – a set of ideas. He spoke about a country restored from the ignominy of Watergate and global recession, in which the American spirit of free enterprise and self-reliance would be restored, evoking the spirit of the frontier.

Whilst bare logic said that they didn’t necessarily sign up for Reagan’s platform on the immediate issues- his ability to connect with voters, to communicate a more abstract set of values and a character the voters trusted and could relate to meant that, while they didn’t agree with him on everything, they nonetheless had confidence in his ability to handle the unforeseen.

People like (and vote) for people who are like them- even if they don’t always agree with them. The empirical, rationalist model which says that people will naturally vote along the lines of their own self-interest has been proven to be wrong, time and time again. The human brain is more sophisticated than a mechanical instrument of narrow, self-interested logic, and is designed to make decisions based on more than the facts before us. People will ignore facts that don’t fit into the frame they have chosen to view the World through.

Earlier this year, the Obama campaign, almost uniquely for a Democratic candidate in a long time, showed signs of understanding this. He beat Hillary, not because they differed substantially on the issues, but because voters bought into a story- a wider narrative of a little skinny kid who, from the most unlikely of backgrounds, had forged himself an identity in America, the nation of opportunity, and who would once again restore that opportunity to the nation as a whole. Presidential elections are about selling characters, not issue positions. If the electorate believes in the character, they’ll trust them to handle the issues.

The Obama campaign- as the Bush and Reagan campaigns did too, ran on the reasoning that if voters responded and bought into the ‘Obama dream’, and the values and principles implicit within it, then agreement on the facts and policy positions would follow. Palin, and John McCain, by presenting a story of a pair of mavericks taking on the World, are doing the same thing. The two most successful Democrats of the 20th century- FDR and JFK, did it too- not by setting out specific plans for economic renewal or for winning the cold war, but by embodying the concepts of renewed confidence, youth and vitality, thus winning the confidence of the American people to handle the challenges facing the nation.

Over the past few months though (I suspect due to the increase in the DNC’s influence since he became the official nominee), the Obama campaign seems to have lost its nerve. They came under attack for not talking about the issues enough, and while it was definitely time to have some plans prepared in more detail that could be referred to in rebutting some of McCain’s more outrageous claims, they’ve done this at the expense of abandoning the key ideas and narrative that won Obama the primary.

Which is the reason why Palin could stand there and smirk, ignoring the issues whilst hammering home her personality, life story and what she (at least pretends) to represent. And Biden was doing half the work for her- did anybody count the number of times he said the word maverick? As George Lakoff predicted an in an excellent article at the beginning of this month, the more the Obama campaign uses the word ‘maverick’- even if in order to negate McCain-Palin’s claims to be one, the more they unwittingly re-enforce the concept.

Nixon standing before TV cameras to say ‘I am not a crook’, simply made us all think of him as a crook. Same principle. Yet Biden stood there and repeatedly said that ‘McCain is not a maverick’, and we all sat there and thought of McCain as a maverick. Use any other phrase- call him a ‘Washington insider’ as Lakoff suggested, a ‘friend of lobbyists’, ‘yesterday’s man’ or any other phrase you like- but got goodness sake, Biden should know better than to fall into line and obediently parrot McCain’s own choice of (largely positive) language to describe himself.

In fact, it’s hard to underestimate the importance of, and to a large extent reliance on Roe vs. Wade to the American Right, and in explaining middle-America’s dramatic shift from the moderate progressivism of the New Deal and Fair Deal, which has seen states such as Kansas -once seen even as a hotbed of progressive politics- become one of the most reliable red states in a matter of decades. Whilst middle-America used to gripe about being screwed over by the GOP: the Rich-Man’s Party, the Friends of Big Business, these days they enthusiastically rally against increased spending on healthcare, education, in favour of tax cuts for billionaires, blaming America’s ill’s on the so-called East and West Coast ‘Latte-drinking Liberal elites’, all whilst their jobs disappear off to China and their small-towns are laid to waste.

So the question which follows is, why has so much of America wedded itself to a party and an ideology which clearly does not represent them or their interests, and which has clearly failed to fatten their wallets, failed to secure their livelihoods, and failed to protect their way of life, resorting to the crudest of persuasive methods, the butt of a gun? The answer, is ‘values’.

The Democrats simply don’t stand for anything anymore. Their election strategy for the past 12 years has been to simply cherry-pick the issues which election agents and polls say matter to people. They present election promises almost as a menu, for all the various bases of support to pick something which appeals, and to vote for them accordingly. “Something for the Latino vote”, “Something to keep the Afro-American lobby happy”, “Something to keep the contributions coming in from business”- there is simply no coherence. The Democrats can talk in details about their policies until they go blue in their faces, and often what they have to say makes a lot of sense- but, thanks to the short-term electioneering of ‘flexible’, ‘middle of the road’ politicians such as the much-sanctified Clinton, any kind of ideological basis or narrative underpinning all that has gone out the window.

The Republicans, on the other hand, don’t need complex statistics about tax bands, median rates of income, national product, domestic growth rates or anything else to get their message across- it’s pure and simple. “We’re about values” they say, speaking in broad, all-encompassing terms such as “protecting life”, “upholding the American family”. While it’s often extremely unclear which policies these vague soundbites describe, the soundbites themselves are jarringly clear. The GOP knows what it believes, we are told. Unlike all these intellectual, head-in-the-clouds East coast elites who speak in statistics and with mountains of evidence to support their argument which nobody bothers to read, the GOP speaks the common man’s language; the word on the street. They are, it would seem, now the ordinary man’s party.

So let’s get back to Roe vs. Wade. If we are to see the rise of the popular American Right as part of some kind of ‘backlash’ against these so-called Liberal elites betraying ‘traditional American family values’, then there really can’t be any clearer symbol. You see, Roe vs. Wade didn’t legalize abortion; it was legal in many states already. What it did do, however, was take the decision out of the hands of individual states, and instead forced onto them a decision made, with no vote, no debate- a decision made by a bunch of presumably out-of-touch, arrogant, anti-democratic amoral liberal ‘activist’ judges up in Washington. Whether you agree with that verdict or not, that’s how it looks to the guy on the street, and when the traditional Democrat support rally behind the decision, making it a key part of their platform, that view is simply confirmed.

In terms of abortion rights, Roe vs. Wade has actually achieved very little. All the states which have always opposed abortion continue to do so, and whilst thanks to the Supreme Court no law can prevent you from having an abortion in the Mississippi Delta, in practice, obtaining one there would be little less problematic than 34 years ago. Violence against those who carry out and receive abortions remains, cultural attitudes towards the practice remain unchanged, while states such as Mississippi continue to pass all the legislation they can to make the process as difficult as possible. In effect, Roe vs. Wade, whilst a symbolic victory, has cost the pro-choice lobby considerably more than it has gained.

On the other hand, Roe vs Wade has become the talisman of the American right’s revival. “Forget your economic woes, your lost jobs, your dying towns and floundering small businesses, put your selfish concerns to one side”, the Right need only call, “This is about values!; America’s soul, things much larger than any of our day-to-day concerns”. By appealing to the moral and religious consciousness of Middle America, focusing them on broader issues such as homosexuality, the death penalty, and, at the very top, abortion, -matters which, while not having a direct bearing on your average voter, are nonetheless ‘matters of principle’- the much more personal, ‘bread and butter’ issues of financial security, education, healthcare – all of the Democrat’s traditional issues- become almost irrelevant.

It’s time to call their bluff. It’s time to shift attention back onto the real political issues; the issues which directly affect your average voter, questions like whether they have a secure job without having to look over your shoulder to China, whether they can send their kids to college, whether they have enough money to retire. The question of whether it is right for one man to marry another, or for stem cells to be used in medical research are not political issues which have a direct bearing on the lives of the vast majority of Americans, they are moral ones; matters for prayer and critical thought, resolved through calm, careful consideration and conscience, not the havoc of endless rhetoric, frenetic lobbying, disagreeable disagreement and shameless electioneering.

As long as American Politics is haunted by the ghost of that decision in 1973, it will be impossible for us to move beyond these questions onto the real ones affecting America’s future and that of much of the Western World. By allowing such pressing matters to be eclipsed by the ’smallness’ of the political discourse, Americans are, allowing the Right wing to get away with this, the greatest steal in decades. A steal in which, with the nation transfixed on abstract issues, matters of principle, rather than of politics, unresolvable by any law or politician, they are able to walk off with other people’s money, pollute our cities, ship your jobs abroad, and pawn off your futures to the highest bidder, all without a murmur of dissent.

What has our action in Iraq accomplished, other than to give Al Qaeda time to regroup following our botched escapade in Afghanistan? It has split the nations of the free world, destroying international relations on a scale not seen in decades, disuniting us, and tearing apart the institutions that, however inefficient and weak, offered us the best opportunity of bringing the world together around one table. Saddam Hussein is gone, but where is he? Freedom has been brought to Iraqis, which I agree, they will one day thank us for, if they survive the anarchy and chaos, which, under the leadership of the United States, Britain and 25 other nations (mostly from the developing world, enticed or threatened for the sake of lucrative trading agreements), shows no sign of abating.

Iraq is becoming a Mecca for terrorists. Where Saddam Hussein brought tyranny and security (at dreadful cost), anarchy is prevailing. With the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime gone, and security on the streets a distant prospect, Iraq is fast becoming a place for any young aspiring jihadist. Just as Al Qaeda learned their line of work in the Mountains of Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Iraq is becoming the training ground for the next generation of terrorists. With American soldiers out in the streets, in heavily insufficient numbers, a resentful population, and with no security, Iraq is the ideal target for any young radical who dreams of jihad against America.

The Irony of Iraq is that despite its’ almost self-defeating consequences, it was never a haven for terrorism or a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. Saddam Hussein was not sympathetic to Bin Laden and his religious motives, rather, like most dictators, he was merely motivated by a dangerous lust for power, and all the wealth, guns, and women that came with it. He was the ‘godfather’ of Iraq, running it along much the same lines as a gangster. Iraq was the ‘family business. Besides, Iraq was on America’s agenda long before 9/11, and although I agree that it would have been necessary to confront it at some point, It is wrong to convince ourselves that Iraq ever posed any significant threat through links with terrorism, or to equate the cold, intelligent, ideologically driven Osama Bin Laden to a corrupt, inefficient, and merely power-hungry dictator that remains in Iraq (as far as we know), having it seems, deluded himself into thinking he can one day reclaim power.

At home, too, the War on Terror is having a disastrous effect on our society, as law after law such as the Patriot Act is introduced allowing the government to spy on US Citizens and detain them without trial, slowly threatening our civil liberties, and the very freedom we aim to protect. Our treatment of those suspected of terrorism in Guantanamo Bay has shown how easily the terrorists can corrupt our principles and rights, which apply to all, even terrorists. Even our right to protest against the actions of our governments are being eroded not by the law but by our societies, as our of fear shock, and insecurity, we are being reduced to nations of flag-waving Chihuahuas, forced by those around us to stay silent, to wave our flags and support our government, lest we be accused of support for terrorism. Religious intolerance, one of the causes of 9/11, is being fuelled by our reaction to the war on terror, bringing suspicion, hatred, and fear into our communities of all Muslims and those of Islamic and Arab heritage. We seek to protect our freedom by suppressing it, to fight intolerance while becoming intolerant, to bring democracy while suppressing those who speak out against us, and to destroy those who hate us while caring nothing of what others think of us.

Those that suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order. – John Lindsay

While America, with or without its allies, can destroy all those that hate it, no amount of guns, bombs, and missiles can make people love us. As long as people hate us, there will always be terrorists no matter how many we kill. The War on terrorism is only escalating this hatred, spreading the pain and destruction of downtown New York all over the world. It can win a war anywhere, kill anyone it wishes, and destroy any regime is disapproves of, but as it is painfully learning in Iraq, one thing it cannot do alone is win peace.

Global turmoil, destruction, and resentment should not be the legacy of those that died on September 11th, 2001. Further hatred, war and destruction will only multiply itself, the consequences of which we will have to live with for years to come. Two years of this has brought little that we can be proud of, nor a safer world. The cost of this global crusade is costing Americans more than money, for our future will be shaped less by the events of 9/11 than by our response to it. The future, freedom, and standing of America in the world is being destroyed by reckless decisions made by a government that seems committed not to peace and true security for Americans, but the implementation of policies that prior to September 11th would have been unthinkable. Next year it is time for a new direction, something that only Americans can provide, and for which the rest of the world can only hope.