Friday’s political round-up

October 19, 2007

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Ambinder: “‘Much needed’ and ‘long-awaited,’ Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has hired veteran Democratic strategist John Del Cecato to handle a newly created rapid response portfolio…. [T]he volume of ‘attacks’ and the degree to which they often bumped parts of the campaign off-message convinced the campaign to hire a single senior staffer devoted solely to rapid response.”

* John McCain’s campaign released an “internal” strategy memo from its pollster yesterday, hoping to make the argument that Rudy Giuliani’s “electability” pitch is misguided. Pointing to a Fox News poll, the memo explained: “In a matchup against Hillary Clinton, John McCain is the only Republican candidate neck and neck with Senator Clinton and within the poll’s margin of error of +/-3 percentage points. Rudy Giuliani trails Hillary Clinton by four points; both Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson would lose to her by twelve points.” Yes, McCain’s electability memo points to a poll in which he’s losing to Hillary Clinton.

* Speaking of McCain, the Arizona senator is apparently considering “a seven-figure loan” that would free McCain from having to accept public financing: “Rick Davis, who took over control of the day-to-day operations following a huge staff shuffle this summer, has broached the subject of a large loan to fund the campaign’s activities in early states. The idea was discussed as recently as a phone call this week with senior staffers, according to sources familiar with that conversation.” I guess McCain’s money troubles aren’t getting any better.

* Mitt Romney picked up another religious right endorsement yesterday, when Don Wilton, senior pastor of the First Baptist megachurch in Spartanburg, South Carolina, threw his support to the former Massachusetts governor. “His values are my values — protecting the sanctity of human life, defending marriage and strengthening the family,” said Wilton, who is also the former president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

* It’s an unusual thing to tout in a press release, but Joe Biden’s campaign touted a new poll yesterday that showed the Delaware senator going from 4% to 6%. The headline read, “MOMENTUM +2.” Oh my.

“In a matchup against Hillary Clinton, John McCain is the only Republican candidate neck and neck with Senator Clinton and within the poll’s margin of error of +/-3 percentage points.”

Granted it is very early, yet I find it pretty amazing the Republican field’s leaders are so close to the Dem’s front runner

  • Huh – is Joe Biden claiming that he has, dare I say it, “Joe-mentum” going on here? It certainly LOOKS like an example of the textbook case of Joe-mentum – a movement upward that may be within the margin of error. Use the word Joe – use the word.

    And if McCain is seriously considering TAKING OUT A LOAN to run for President, he should just stop. It’s moved beyond the laughable and into the deeply pathetic. He even rigged the campaign financing game to let him move his Senate money into the Federal arena and he’s STILL losing out to a governor and a mayor who couldn’t move their funds around like he could. Just stop, John – go blow some money at the blackjack table in Vegas instead – it’ll probably get you a better return and maybe the dealers will at least pretend to like you, unlike the GOP base you’re kissing up to now.

  • I find it pretty amazing the Republican field’s leaders are so close to the Dem’s front runner

    I’m not. This is pretty usual stuff. You rarely see real blow-outs in the Presidential; similarly the “generic” ballot question almost always produces a spread much larger than a “named” ballot question.

    The public – notwithstanding the Bush fiasco – appears to have an inherent leaning towards R’s for Chief Executive. In the last 40 years, starting with the election of Nixon in 1968, the only exceptions have been Carter for one term (in a clear backlash to Watergate) and Clinton for two (and he has once-in-a-generation political skills). That is a 28-12 advantage in years of control, a pretty strong suggestion of a built-in preference. Obviously that can be overcome, but it does keep the Dems’ numbers in check.

    A good way to see that is to look at the broader head-to-head comparisons: there is no combination of Clinton/Obama/Edwards vs Guiliani/McCain/Romney that isn’t “closer than one would expect” based on current political conditions. So the closeness cannot be ascribed to a “bad” Democratic candidate or an unusually “good” Republican candidate – the phenomenon is across the Board.

    The big caveat, of course, is that the general campaign hasn’t really started. Dems have a lot more money, and once they use that to point out the record of Republicans generally and the candidate specifically (since they are all deeply flawed), I expect that spread to grow. It wont matter, of course, because on election day the R’s will find a way to pull a Florida or Ohio and miraculously win anyway.

  • Ron Paul wants cash? I here the Chinese are paying top dollar for human body parts. Maybe Ron could sell himself there….

    McCain borrowing money—to finance McCain? Haven’t these lunkheads learned their lesson from the subprime method of financing—yet?

    And I can’t wait for the GOP convention. those folks are going to literally devour each other; they’ll blow their cash on a damaged candidate for the WH, and have nothing left to fill the void that’s forming on the Hill. Early line on the ’08 general—Dems up another three in the Senate, and up another 11 in the House.

  • Comments #1 and #3 point toward a paradox in American politics. Issue by issue, Americans seem to tend toward the progressive, the liberal view. Universal health care is an example. But they consider themselves conservative, and they vote conservatively in the presidential elections, that is, for Republicans mostly. There’s a disconnect here, and a very serious one. They also don’t seem to think it through, that there are enormous implications when they vote for a Bush, in matters of policy, in the courts, and in the Supreme Court in particular. They seem to treat the presidency as some kind of popularity contest, disconnected from anything else, as if it were American Idol or something.

    If this were a rational electorate, the Democrats would win by a landslide in 2008, both houses and the presidency. And yet the polls show Hillary just squeaking by, and the people are really souring on the Congress. Not one is a sure bet at this point.

    Somehow, the Democrats have failed utterly to get out their message, that they are far more likely to do the people’s business than the Republicans. They seem to cower and shrivel up in every confrontation, letting the Republicans frame, and then win every single debate.

  • Z, I hear you on the preference for a GOP cnadidates for POTUS in recent elections, but besides the last two ‘W” elections, most margins were 7 percentage points or greater stemming back to Carter/Ford. The only exception was Clinton/H.W. Bush at 6 percentage points — but remember Perot had a big following that election.

    I guess my point was that if Bush and the GOP have been such disasters over these last 8 years, why aren’t all the Dem candidates polling at least high single digit leads over their GOP counterparts?

  • “Americans seem to tend toward the progressive, the liberal view. Universal health care is an example. But they consider themselves conservative, and they vote conservatively in the presidential elections”

    Perhaps when polled, Americans feel good about touting their support for “Progressive/liberal” issues but in their heart of hearts they are all really conservatives — and that’s why they really vote on the right.

  • I guess my point was that if Bush and the GOP have been such disasters over these last 8 years, why aren’t all the Dem candidates polling at least high single digit leads over their GOP counterparts?

    I think Hark hits on part of it: after the 1994 congressional election wipe out, the Dems seemed to completely lose their ability/willingness to frame or fight. Dems have been tactically outmaneuvered by Atwater (even earlier), Gingrich and Rove at most every step. Part of that is something hard to fault: I think the Dems were caught off guard by how willing “movement conservatives” were to use brass knuckles. Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan had a great personal relationship and admiration, and that is how Dems viewed politics. Dems were truly shocked by things like the R’s targeting Daschle — for decades there had been an unspoken “Gentlemans Agreement” that you just don’t do that. Unfortunately, some of the older members — who are most likely to be in leadership due to seniority (think Harry Reid) still can’t change the paradigm to one of outright partisan war.

    Another reason for that is that “outright partisan war” is anathema to progressive ideals of governance. The movement conservatives dont care about governing – Grover Nordquist and Club for Growth would prefer that no governing takes place. So for them, a scorched earth strategy is very useful. Progressives aren’t willing to go there because it makes it “hard to govern” — since good governance is a progressive objective.

    Really since Vietnam the Republicans did a great job of demonizing the word “liberal.” Over that time, even though polled responses on discrete issues did not move much, identification-by-label moved to the right (convervative over liberal, republican over democrat). Much of that was a triumph of PR, not an actual change of values. You see some movement back to he left now, but it will take as long to undo as it took to do.

    Final thought: even when the Dems ran Congress for 40 years, there were often Republican Presidents. Political Scientists generally attributed that to a view that Republicans were businessmen, best suited to be the executive, and Democrats were “of the people,” best suited to represent in Congress. I think BushCo certainly should have debunked the myth that a Republican is automatically a good CEO (assuming we should have a “CEO” in the first place, a point with which I disagree), but again this instinct will take a while to change – there is always a lag time in shedding long-held memes.

  • Another reason for that is that “outright partisan war” is anathema to progressive ideals of governance.

    I imagine you’re right — this is as good an explanation of what’s tying the Democrats in knots as anything I’ve seen.

    But with the Democrats sailing along on this principle and ignoring reality at this time in history, it’s pretty clear that they MUST be more willing to recognize and act in the real world of politics brought about the by the Bush agenda and tactics, not through the comfort of some ivory tower predeliction.

    I don’t understand why it’s so clear from the outside that America’s Constitution is at stake, while those inside the beltway seem to think they’re in some kind of scripted theater following their valued rules even though the other side doesn’t honor them. They’ve seen it up close, are the loser recipients of Republican tactics. Why don’t they recognize it?

    In order to “progressively govern”, you have to have an environment where you can do that. They must create it first by stopping the vandalism, and that’s going to result in some bloody noses. A futile hope for some “gentlemen’s (or gentlewomen’s) agreement” obviously doesn’t work.

    Furthermore, I think it’s a wrong “framework” for the Democrats to label what’s needed as “partisan war”. There are certainly some Republicans who want to see a Constitutional government restored, too. To my way of thinking, the conflict is between constitutionalists and those whose efforts violate constitutional principles, call them whatever you will.

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