Style vs. Substance

In the whirlwind of rhetoric and talking points leading up to any election, it is not uncommon to find one side trying to turn around a point often raised by the other side. This election year is no different. We've seen the McCain campaign try mightily to steal the moniker of "change" from the Obama campaign and portray McCain and Palin as the true agents of government reform.

But one rather unnoticed turn has come from the Obama campaign, which has, for some time now, been criticizing McCain for attacking Obama on style, rather than substance. Indeed, this charge has been repeated throughout the left, especially in the liberal media. And yet, whenever the topic of a possible Obama defeat comes up, the only possible reason liberals can come up with is racism. It couldn't possibly be that the American people would look at Obama, disagree with what he says and what he stands for, and vote against him. No, the only reason anyone would ever vote against the Most Merciful Lord Barack Hussein Obama (praise be upon him... er, wait, what?) is that they're evil, backwards racists.

Nevermind that he's half white. Or that the other half is very likely of Arab descent, not African.

But the larger point is that the Obama campaign has, since its inception, been run primarily on style, not substance. The first year or so of his campaign featured nothing but empty speeches and soaring rhetoric, completely devoid of any substantive content. And largely, that theme of campaigning continues today. To be fair, I've been somewhat disappointed that the McCain campaign has not put forth more specific answers to the issues in this election, but how can you criticize someone for attacking Obama's style, when that's basically all he's made of?

Further, almost all of the attacks I've seen from the Obama campaign against McCain have been stylistic in nature. McCain's being too negative, or too personal, or bringing up things too far in the past, or making too big a deal out of Obama's voting record... All of these are stylistic rebuttals, and yet Obama's charge is that McCain attacks only on style?

~Cephas
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