Poplicks has been running an insightful and articulate ongoing analysis about McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin. Their latest entry takes a look at how in the current election the two presidential candidates "have been subject to considerable narrativizing," which are distilled for the public into something quickly digestible:
Obama = the history-making, biracial next JFK. McCain = former P.O.W. turned straight-shooting maverick.
And against this landscape, the problem with Palin is that she doesn't have a narrative. Sure, she has a narrative as the "hockey mom of five who likes to hunt and eat moose burgers" that establishes her character, but that is distinct from a narrative about her qualifications. And it this "qualificative" (I know, I made up that word-Just pretend I'm Thomas Friedman...or not.) narrative that she lacks which is the larger issue driving the media scrum, argues Poplicks.
So back to Palin: the problem with her narrative isn't that it's not a good one on paper...it's that she's such a blank slate for everyone (Republicans included) that it was unreasonable (if not deluded) to think her story would stick once anyone bothered to start digging. In other words, it's one thing to offer a script but it takes a lot more than just repeating bullet points to make it believable for people.
The blank slate has made it easy for Dems to create a competing counter-narrative about Palin to fill the vacuum. However what is also occurring for McCain is that his own tightly controlled "simple one-line pitch" narrative is being altered by forces out of his control, as a byproduct and an unintended consequence of the Palin nomination, which is "creating a really viable, new storyline: what was McCain thinking?"
Read more here.