Spinney notes, as have others, that as splendid and soaring as Obama's oratory almost always was, there's not too much "there" there. Both Senators Clinton and McCain failed to exploit the lack of specificity about how change would be accomplished. Instead they tried to wear the Obama "change agent" cloak hoping it would better fit them when clearly both were deeply embedded establishment figures - both were more of the same.
The M&M or Motherhood and Mismatch Strategy was conceived by the American strategist, Col. John R. Boyd. The basic goal of an M&M strategy is to build support for and attract the uncommitted to your cause by framing a "motherhood" position -- i.e., a position no one can object to, like the mythical "motherhood, apple pie, and the American way" -- and then inviting your opponent in to repeatedly attack it and, in so doing, smash himself to pieces at the mental and the even more decisive moral level of conflict. Self-destruction will happen inevitably, if you can successfully induce your adversary into attacking your motherhood position in a way that exposes mismatches among the three poles of his moral triangle, defined by (1) What your opponent says he is; (2) What he really is as defined by his actions; and (3) the World he has to deal with. Whether consciously or not, I believe Obama has an intuitive feel for the moral leverage inherent in the M&M strategy and this enabled him to outmaneuver McCain and his campaign and bring them to the verge of mental and moral collapse. That Obama also did this to Hillary Clinton suggests it is no accident.
The key to setting up a successful M&M strategy is building the Motherhood position, then making it into a moral fortress. This is easier said than done, because it involves defining your cause nontrivially in self-evidently positive terms and then shaping the environment as well as your self-definition in a way that always reinforces that motherhood position. Mr. Obama defined himself initially as a unifier and a change agent for a divided country in which a clear majority of people believed their nation was on the wrong pathway into the future. Who can argue with that definition? To be sure, it is an empty vessel, but it is pure motherhood, and it works like a charm if you can maneuver your adversary into playing by your rules.
Clearly, Obama can talk the talk. But, how will he choose to walk the walk? Spinney suggests that certain political appointments will indicate just how much of an agent for unity and change Obama will be.
But a larger question remains: Does Obama really intend to deliver on his twin promise of unity and change. Neither of his main adversaries in the race for President had the strategic sense or the ability to smoke out how Obama actually intends to fulfill the soaring hopes and dreams that his M&M strategy unleashed. An early indicator of his real intentions will become clear when he name his Treasury Secretary and Defense Secretary. If he picks one of the democratic apparatchiks or ex-Clintonites who magnified existing problems that Bush made worse, Obama's presidency will become just another step down the slippery slope that got its first real greasing by the guns and butter decision-making style of the Vietnam War.
