Yesterday, we saw the Republicans launch their first attempt to negatively brand one of the contenders for the 2006 Democratic presidential nomination. Regardless if you are a Hillary lover or Hillary hater, anyone who is a Democrat should have their antenna up as a result of the RNC Chairman's statement that "Hillary looks angry." Republicans are trying out a narrative that will scare most Americans: the specter of the "Angry Woman."
If this strategy seems eerily familiar, it's because it is. It's been relentlessly used in the last two presidential elections and it's known in political circles as the "negative master narrative." What it means is that Republicans test out different negative narrative threads about Democratic candidates in an attempt to caricature some minor trait - real or imagined - that they have determined American voters will reject. Reporters latch onto the caricature because they like themes. Before you know what happened, the average American voter is claiming John Kerry seems "French" (read: not like me) or that Al Gore lies and exaggerates and claims he invented the Internet (which he never said).
For Kerry, the dreaded "French" smear was really just a warm up. Where the Republicans really went to town was in calling Kerry a flip-flopper. Once they established in the media that Kerry was a flip flopper, every thing that happened was fit into that paradigm. So if Kerry dared to express a nuanced position, presto! He had flip flopped again.
And they don't just do it to specific candidates, they do it to Democrats at large. Recently, the Republicans were out in force again accusing the Democrats of being too European...or as they called it, the "Davos Democrats." Said RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, "After stating an unwillingness to support a filibuster, it looks as though the Davos Democrats were able to twist Reid's arm enough to switch him from 'filibuster ... not me,' to 'filibuster ... oui, oui,'. Schmitt later accused Senator Dianne Feinstein of a "Flip-Flop: Davos Style" and accused the California lawmaker of having bowed the "Davos Democrats."
Most Democrats find these accusations silly and tend to not realize how detrimental they can be once they are lodged in the minds of voters. Referring to "Davos Democrats" seems especially ridiculous considering the Republican Titans of Industry and Bush Administration officials who attended the annual confab in Davos. But the point that Republicans seek to make with these attacks is that Democrats are elitists who aren't like the average American. Voters like to vote for people who they think are like them (even though they rarely are). So the they think George Bush is a Budweiser drinking Everyman, when in fact he's as elite as they come.
So, beware as Republicans test out a new narrative thread on Hillary. If it sticks they will use it relentlessly. And when they find another Democrat threatening - Mark Warner or Russ Feingold or Tom Vilsack - you can be sure they will start testing out a negative narrative thread for them. We should not make the mistake of thinking it doesn't matter, because it does, even if the person they are attacking isn't your candidate of choice.