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Archive for the 'Republicans' Category

Inside the Ron Paul Machine I: Slow But Steady Wins the Race?

Published by William Beutler on May 24, 2007 in Fred Thompson, Online Polling, Republicans, Ron Paul and White House '08. 13 Comments

Earlier today, the GOP Bloggers GOP Straw Poll for May went live. Yes, it’s a little late, but it still beats the Pajamas Media poll, especially for including Candidate Acceptability, sorting by voters’ inbound link and offering lefty trolls a chance to identify themselves. (It’s modeled after the old Ruffini poll, which explains a lot.) I still think unscientific web polls should be taken with a pinch of salt, but if you’re going to offer one, this is the way to do it.

In recent polls, Gingrich and Giuliani duked it out for the lead for a few months, only to be decisively overtaken once Fred Thompson was added to the mix. Now for the first time, Ron Paul is being tested against the field. Gee, what do you think will happen?

Here’s what the top tier looked like early this afternoon, after the first thousand or so votes (when I was still on my PC at work):

GOP Bloggers May Straw Poll (before)

And here’s what it looks like this evening, about 9 hours later (from my temporary iBook):

GOP Bloggers May Straw Poll (after)

The Ron Paul online effort may be effective, but it does take them a few hours to get organized. And they still face an uphill fight against Fred Thompson’s (presumably more organic) fanbase. But organized they are, so don’t count them out yet.

For my next post: the Ron Paul Machine at work.

The Benchmark Poll: Leif Larson

Published by William Beutler on April 10, 2007 in Advertising, Brick-and-mortar consultants, Republicans and The Benchmark Poll. 3 Comments
Benchmark Poll Logo (small)
Previous Editions
Margie Omero (D)
Jordan Gehrke (R)
Ezra Reese (D)

Leif Larson is a senior vice president at Jamestown Associates, a national political consulting firm, where he advises clients on strategy and oversees print, television and radio production as well as media placement. Past and present clients include Reps. Patrick McHenry, John McHugh, Mary Bono, John Campbell, John Shimkus, College Republicans and the NRCC. His work has been recognized by his peers, earning him a national Pollie award from the American Association of Political Consultants. He graduated from The George Washington University with a BA in Political Science and resides in Alexandria with his wife Janine and their 1 year old son, Angus. He’s also the subject of our latest Benchmark Poll:

How do your parents’ politics compare to your own?

My Dad is very economically conservative and my Mom is very much a social conservative. My Grandmother was very much like P.J. O’Rourke’s in that she was so conservative she wouldn’t even say the word “Democrat” — she just refereed to them as “those bastards.”

Did you run for class office in high school or college? Did you win?

No, I never ran for office while in school. I did support a candidate in college who ran on the platform that if elected student body president he would abolish the student government.

When you first moved to the District, what food did you miss most from home?

In-and-Out Burger! Best burgers in the world. A Double-Double “Animal Style” with fresh fries and a large lemonade….ahhhhhh.

Once you were here, did you work any non-political jobs did you work to get by?

I came out with some money saved up from working some campaigns so I didn’t have to but I had some applications for bartending. Some days I wonder if I wouldn’t have been happier bartending. The guys at Sequoia make a killing!

What’s your favorite bar in DC? Favorite outside the Beltway?

Well this is a little “Old Skool” not sure how many people will remember the “Crow Bar”. What a great place. Depends how far outside the Beltway. I enjoy the Clarendon Ballroom scene but the BEST bar ever was in Santa Barbara, California Jimmy’s Oriental Garden.

Whether in a campaign or in government, you’ve surely had to work with someone who drove you crazy. What were they like?

A former boss of mine. Smart, knowledgeable and good at what he does but he used to have a temper. You never knew if he was going to laugh or freak out on you. I remember him telling a campaign worker, “I’ll see you working in a Tijuana whorehouse before you work in politics again.”

If you had your own blog, what would you call it and what would you write about?

If It Ain’t Scottish It’s CRAP! All things Scottish and Republican Politics.

So, who do you know? That is — who is most responsible for you being where you are in politics now?

Two college professors, Dr. Peter Haslund and Dr. Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar.

If you could be or any politician, past or present, for one day and one event, who and what event?

This is a tough one. Winston Churchill was such a statesman and warrior but I would have to go with our own T.R., Teddy Roosevelt the 26th President.

To be him making the decisions to build the Panama Canal and position the United States as one of the worlds super powers would be great.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Doing what I am doing now but on a beach in California… if my wife will let me!

Honorable Mentions II: Where the 2008 Candidates Stand Today

Published by William Beutler on April 3, 2007 in Barack Obama, Charts and Graphs, Democrats, Elizabeth Edwards, Fred Thompson, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Trend Tool and White House '08. 2 Comments

Two months ago, Blog P.I. ran searches on the names of the top-contending 2008 presidential candidates through the Trend Tool at blog search engine Icerocket to see how often a candidate’s name appeared in blog posts over the previous month. We weren’t counting the positive or negative mentions, so this didn’t tell us how popular or unpopular a particular candidate was — but it did give a pretty good idea how intense was the interest in one candidate relative to the others.

Today we’ll update that, covering the time elapsed. We’ll start as we did before by comparing the top three contenders for both party. Although there has been relative movement among them, nobody new has clearly broken through or fallen out of each trio. Then we’ll get to the dark horses and mix things up a little.

Last time we started with the Dems, so let’s switch it up and begin with the GOPers:

Giuliani vs. McCain vs. Romney

Giuliani vs. McCain vs. Romney

McCain may not be the frontrunner any longer, but he apparently remains the most talked-about candidate. For the life of me I couldn’t remember what was happening with McCain during the spikes recorded here, so I went to Google BlogSearch, which lets you isolate search terms by date. The first spike was certainly nothing good — mostly posts about about his slipping support. The second spike coincided with his semi-unofficial announcement on the Letterman show, where comments ran a little better — but it also occasioned his slip of the tongue about lives “wasted” fighting in Iraq.

Being the new frontrunner, Giuliani only had two short-lived leads in early February and March. The first peak coincided with his statement of candidacy, and pales compared to McCain’s; the second appears to match up with the New York firefighters union — the Swiftboaters to Rudy’s Kerry? — releasing a letter opposing his bid. Otherwise, he seems to run consistently behind McCain and about even with Romney.

Romney’s first spike? His announcement at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. His second spike was the CPAC conference — which explains why Giuliani actually saw his highest absolute mark for the period here as well, and perhaps why McCain experienced another short peak — much of which was probably about his decision not to attend. Actually, that may have been for the better — because as we all remember, the whole event was overshadowed by Ann Coulter. So let’s make a brief detour and look at how Coulter stacks up for the period against the candidates she appeared with:

Ann Coulter vs. Mitt Romney vs. Rudy Giuliani

Coulter vs. Romney vs. Giuliani

Yeah, that looks about right. How about the Dems?

Hillary vs. Obama vs. Edwards

Hillary vs. Obama vs. Edwards

When we last measured, all three candidates were just beginning to pick up serious attention, Hillary for her campaign launch and Obama for his exploratory announcement. But where Hillary was the slight leader last time, now she is clearly underperforming relative to her name ID. The huge spike for Obama centered around the weekend of Feb. 10 and 11 represents his more-official kickoff and the launch of his newfangled campaign site, which drew a good deal of positive notice. He commanded plenty of attention in the weeks after, but lately appears to be no more or less interesting to bloggers than Hillary. This could be a sign that the initial rush of attention has subsided, and he’s just another candidate in contention.

Oh, and that peak they share a week and a half after Obama’s announcement? That’s the argle-bargle started by David Geffen’s anti-Hillary comments to Maureen Dowd.

The Edwards spikes require no Googling: The first was Ann Coulter’s aformentioned braindead attack, and the second was the announcement that Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer had returned. Both have clearly earned him a good deal of attention, making him arguably the most interesting candidate of the Democratic field right now. On the other hand, while that attention has been positive, both instances are predicated on bad news — not exactly sustainable, or something you would want to sustain, anyway.

Now, onto more arbitrary comparisons:

Thompson vs. Gore vs. Bloomberg

Thompson vs. Gore vs. Bloomberg

As long as reputable pollsters are putting Al Gore into the mix, who am I to say they’re wrong? Likewise with Bloomberg — as long as respectable newspapers are writing stories about the possibility of a self-funded bid, who am I to leave him out?

Now, Gore just picked up an Academy Award for “An Inconvenient Truth” (as if you didn’t know what that huge spike in late February was about). And Fred Thompson, well, perhaps he’s just entertaining himself right now (but at least he did appear on a Sunday show recently). For these reasons, and because Bloomberg has a mighty populous city to run, I decided to append the word “president” to each search, just to keep things on topic. It didn’t change much.

That appearance was March 11, but interest has sustained relatively well until surging last week for no reason I can divine from patterns at the Blogsearch — but I’m guessing it has something to do with the first round of polls showing him with some credible support.

Bloomberg is still waiting for his surge. He may be waiting awhile — that near-flatline does accurately represent the (lack of) interest in such a campaign. For mirror-opposite reasons the same is true of Gore: he is larger than life, and if he did run, it’s not implausible that he could — as his former boss was always said to do — suck all the oxygen out of the room.

Edwards vs. McCain vs. Gore

Edwards vs. McCain vs. Gore

So here we compare the relative leaders in online mentions among the Democrats, Republicans and dark horses. (Yes, overall Obama has run stronger than Edwards this period, but let’s go with Edwards, who is closer-watched/has had bigger spikes lately — even if he has fallen into third in just the past few days.)

Clearly Edwards cannot compete with Gore’s Oscar — apparently only Coulter can do that — but aside from that, he doesn’t run too far behind. And McCain is at least competitive. He doesn’t have those huge spikes, but he has led Edwards several times (and upon his Letterman announcement, even Gore, briefly).

Hillary vs. Giuliani vs. Thompson

Hillary vs. Giuliani vs. Thompson

So how about those underperforming frontrunners, and the next-most-popular dark horse? Well, Rudy is no match for Hillary. This does seem to show that while he leads the traditional polls and has appreciable support among bloggers, he is not really the “rightroots” candidate — Thompson has been doing almost as well since his announcement. Their mentions rise and fall together enough to be worth mentioning, suggesting that the two are being compared against each other. Hillary’s mentions, however appear to be completely unrelated, and that makes sense as well. Even at their best, neither Giuliani nor Thompson have bested Hillary in blogger mentions this period.

Once again, we’re just measuring mindshare, and with the exception of Bloomberg, all of the candidates here have demonstrated the ability to capture it. So who knows whether it’s good to be a leader in these charts or not. Maybe that’s another study, for another time. For this time, we’ll leave it right here.

The Next Lieberman?

Published by William Beutler on March 28, 2007 in Chuck Hagel, Internecine Battles, Lamont v. Lieberman, Primary fights and Republicans. 4 Comments

Nobody would confuse Sen. Chuck Hagel with a loyal Republican. It’s not that he’s a “maverick” like John McCain. It’s worse — he’s a turncoat. What’s more, Hagel has broken with his own party on the same issue as his mirror image in the Senate, the Iraq war’s number one fan, Joe Lieberman.

His ruminations on impeaching President Bush this weekend and decision last night to cross party lines and vote with the Democrats to set a timeline for an American troop withdrawal from Iraq only underscores this perception, and could hasten a process that Swing State Project’s DaveSund envisioned earlier this week:

Like Lieberman, he’s a staple on the Sunday morning talk shows, advocating a war strategy that is diametrically opposed to his own party. But if you lined them up side-by-side, I doubt that you’d find many issues which they’d agree on. Their similarities begin and end with how they are reviled by the rank-and-file of their own party. … So, just kind of picture this: Nebraska Republicans, increasingly upset at Hagel’s continued criticisms of Bush, line up behind Bruning. Not elected Republicans, of course. The Nebraska Republican establishment will be firmly behind Hagel. [Attorney General Jon] Bruning, surprised by the enthusiasm of his supporters, preempts Hagel’s late summer announcement by announcing that he will, indeed, run for Senate regardless of Hagel’s intentions. Hagel decides to run, setting up a showdown in May of 2008.

A lot has to break just right for this scenario to play out. First, Hagel has to decline a presidential bid — it’s hard to see how he could run as a Republican, more plausible but no less quixotic to assume the (still theoretical) mantle of Unity08. Lieberman is Hagel is LiebermanThen he would have to decide to run for re-election, which is not guaranteed. Then Bruning would have to renege on his promise not to challenge Hagel for the GOP nod. And finally, the Nebraska GOP establishment would have to stand by their incumbent. But it sounds like it could happen, even if only because it’s happened before.

Now, I don’t think Hagel is disliked by conservatives as much as Lieberman is disliked by Democrats. For one, conservatives have had their way on the war — except for everything after the invasion, of course — and Hagel has been an irrelevant nag. Until now, of course. Conservatives may be unhappy with the direction of the war, but it’s very unlikely a significant number of them will move in Hagel’s direction, and less likely still they would reward Hagel for being right, even if he is.

Right or wrong, Hagel is a prime target for Republican ire not just in his own state but nationwide: he sold out the party and sold out on the war. If he gets primaried, Bruning could be the next Ned Lamont. Well, almost:

There is one key difference, of course: if Hagel loses the Republican nomination, he can’t run in the “Nebraska for Hagel” party. Nebraska law expressly forbids running for the same office after losing the primary.

If anything, this makes a primary challenge only more likely. If the intraparty fight could extend from May to November, Bruning and other Republicans may decline to prolong the split as the party aims to unify and focus on the presidential election. Assured that no matter what, it would be over well before the national conventions, what’s the downside?

The Benchmark Poll: Jordan Gehrke

Published by William Beutler on March 27, 2007 in Direct Mail, Republicans and The Benchmark Poll. 3 Comments

Benchmark Poll Logo (small)Last week Blog P.I. inaugurated its first-ever weekly series with The Benchmark Poll — a getting-to-know-you Q&A featuring political consultants in their 20s and 30s — featuring pollster Margie Omero. This week we press on with our second installment and first Republican.

Before we get started, a request/announcement: if you know of a political strategist who should be included, or if you are a political strategist who should be included, please let us know. So let’s get started.

·      ·      ·

Jordan Gehrke is Director of Business Development for BMW Direct, a national direct mail fundraising firm, where he also leads their voter contact mail division. Past and present clients include Sen. David Vitter and Reps. Jim Ryun, Geoff Davis and Robin Hayes. Gehrke previously led the Internet activism division at Eberle Communications Group. He often provides political analysis for political publications including National Review and The Weekly Standard, and can be reached at jordan@bmwdirectmail.com. He’s also the subject of our latest Benchmark Poll:

1. How do your parents’ politics compare to your own?

My parents were both very socially and fiscally conservative, although I’m probably a bit more libertarian than either of them. My dad had a rather large populist streak that I think effected me though. One of my favorite memories is the time years ago that my dad described himself as being a “Nader Republican.” I asked him what he meant by that, and he said, “Well, I think it just means that I’m pro-life, and I want my taxes low, but I hate The Man.” My dad put the idea into me real early that for instance, while unions can be out of control and need to be checked, unions aren’t inherently evil, just like companies aren’t evil, or that while lawsuit abuse can and does happen, that the idea of people being able to sue large groups that are more powerful than an individual is one of the most important tools Americans have to level the playing field. So I think that the idea of being conservative while still being mindful of the little guy was something that I learned real early from my parents.

2. Did you run for class office in high school or college? Did you win?

I never ran for any sort of class office, but I was heavily involved in campaigns throughout my high school years. My aunt and my grandmother were both staffers for Republican legislators. My dad was an elected official, and I had a grandfather who was always very involved to the point of recruiting and delivering votes for candidates. Politics, if not the family business, was at least the family hobby. I think I began my first internship working one day a week at the Capitol when I was 12. I ran my first campaign not too long after. In addition to giving me experience at a young age, I also formed friendships that I still have to this day.

3. When you first moved to the District, what food did you miss most from home?

There’s this great place back home called Olga’s. It’s basically a great place to get a gyro, and granted, they’ve got those here and they’re very good, but they sure ain’t Olga’s. Something about the sauce I think. I’ve forced family and friends to drive miles out of their way when I’m home just so I can go there. (No, I don’t own stock. They’re not publicly traded. Yes, I’ve checked.)

4. Once you were here, did you work any non-political jobs did you work to get by?

When I got here I went to work for Eberle Communications Group running their Internet division. It taught me a good deal about e-activism and how the web works as we face a new generation of voters that are using it to make decisions. I met a lot of good people there who taught me a great deal. From there I worked a series of political jobs and have been blessed with some very patient and helpful bosses who have allowed me to do what I am doing today.

5. What’s your favorite bar in DC? Favorite outside the Beltway?

I love Cap Lounge, was very sad to see it burn and was thrilled to see it reopen. Not to rip off Margie Omero from last week, but I’m a big fan of Wonderland Ballroom too; any place where you can get Marvin Gaye and The Shins in the same play list has my respect. Also, Margie, hey there, I’ve never seen you there before, but come by and say hi sometime, I’ll buy you a drink. Who knows, you’re a D, I’m an R, maybe the music will be right, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow” could be on, (you Democratic girls love that stuff, right?) you’ll glide across the room, and I’ll say something very Humphrey Bogart like, “Uh, hey.” Or not. And then maybe we could get a Carville-Matalin kind of thing going. Or something. I mean, opposites attract, right? Right?

What am I doing? Wow, this is pathetic. Gosh, I am so lonely. I’m really sorry, everyone. Sorry. Back to the interview.

6. Whether in a campaign or in government, you’ve surely had to work with someone who drove you crazy. What were they like?

I had a candidate who was a total egomaniac. They hated fundraising and looked for any reason to avoid it, so as a result, they would constantly invent crises in other areas of the campaign in order to distract from what they were really supposed to be doing. Now, a candidate not wanting to fund raise isn’t new to me, it was the deliberate starting of fires that I couldn’t take. It drove me nuts.

7. If you had your own blog, what would you call it and what would you write about?

If gambling online were legal, (which it’s not, so I don’t ever gamble; you kids at home, don’t gamble) I’d have an NFL gambling blog and call it The Degenerate. It would be a haven for losers to gather together and tell their stories of love, laughter, loss, and divorce. But I won’t ever have that blog, because the Republican Congress in their wisdom decided after selling conservatives out for years, that it would get them a few extra points in Red States if people like me were not allowed to take Green Bay minus 3.5. Fortunately for the GOP, it was the silver bullet issue they were looking for, and that’s why the Republicans still control Congress today.

8. So, who do you know? That is — who is most responsible for you being where you are in politics now?

Probably my dad. He was a few years out of law school, underfunded, and took on a three term incumbent. If he came to me today as a potential client and said he wanted to run, I’d tell him to have his head examined. But he ran even when people told him he couldn’t win. I’ve always admired him for that. Still do. It taught me really early that believing you’re right, working your tail off and taking your message to folks and looking them in the eye counts for a lot. When the votes were all tallied around midnight, Dad had won by 53 votes. The memory of that election night as a nine year old kid is something I’ll never forget. I was hooked forever. From a young age I knew that all I wanted to do was to win and keep on winning There’s just no other feeling like it.

Of course the same can be said for losing. Later on, Dad did that too. I think the whole experience really shaped who I am as a consultant; when I see a candidate and a family that I’ve worked with, bonded with, and fought with, have it all come crashing down in the space of a single Tuesday night in November, I know that it forever alters their lives. And I think it makes me fight harder for my clients. Because I’ve lived it too.

So yeah, I guess you can blame my father for my career path.

9. If you could be any politician, past or present, for one day and one event, who and what event?

I’d be Arch Duke Ferdinand in 1914, and I would duck.

10. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Five years is 2012, right? That’s still a presidential year? So yeah, I guess I’ll still be doing this stuff if they’ll let me. I’m not much good at anything else.

Hey, This Rudy Giuliani Site Isn’t Half Bad

Published by William Beutler on March 27, 2007 in Facebook, Online Campaigns, Online Fundraising, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Web video, Website Design and White House '08. 3 Comments

The new website for Rudy Giuliani went live last week, and what was an attractive if perfunctory placeholder has now become an attractive and functional website. This shouldn’t be too surprising — when Bush-Cheney ‘04 blogmeister Patrick Ruffini announced in January that he was joining the Giuliani ‘08 team, that was a good sign the campaign would have a pretty decent website. And it is more than that — but it’s also not without flaws. So let’s take a look:

Join Rudy 2008 The Buzz

Is The Buzz is just a round-up of favorable coverage? Sure, but unlike the news feed from every other top-tier candidate, here the MSM and blogs coexist as equals. Romney’s page does link to favorable blog posts, but segregates them from the proper journalists; the others don’t link to bloggers at all. The Buzz also includes a quasi-Digg counter keeping track of how many times a story has been clicked. I assume this is imported from Ruffini’s 2008 Wire. Neither feature prevents a single user from clicking on a story multiple times to artificially inflate its relative significance. That’s a flaw on Ruffini’s own site, but not so much here.

Join Rudy 2008 widget

A fundraising widget? Now we’re talking. Other candidates will let you sign up to become a fundraiser, but only the Giuliani campaign makes it as easy as cut-and-paste. In contrast, the Romney campaign makes you join TEAM MITT before they’ll let you at their fundraising tool, the cumbersomely-titled QuickComMITT. Hillary wants you to sign up before you can send your friends e-mail pitches, and while I haven’t completed the Obama sign-up page, I get the impression it’s an updating thermometer akin to the old Howard Dean “fundraising bat.” All of these campaigns want to keep tabs on their individual fundraisers, but the Giuliani team can do that through this Flash-based widget, too. But most importantly, if you can put a YouTube video on your page, you can raise money for Rudy Giuliani.

Join Rudy 2008 social bookmarking

Ruffini is no great fan of the social bookmarking buttons that litter the bottom of many a blog post, but if the Giuliani campaign is using these ones, he must have decided these are the ones that work. That, or he was overruled. Regardless, Giuliani’s is the only campaign to make these tools standard across the website.

Join Rudy 2008 talk radio
Considering how important talk radio is to the Republican base — and to the Giuliani campaign — this is a good idea. And nobody else has one. Yet the execution and experience leaves something to be desired — the boxes are small, the “Select City” box is unused, and the final readout doesn’t tell you what time the radio programs are on or on what station. Perhaps a prospective caller should already know this, but if so, why bother with this feature? Bottom line: If you want people to volunteer on your behalf, it helps to connect the dots for them.

And now, onto the less-good:

Join Rudy 2008 clutter

So it’s not perfect. I keep getting this dotted outline whenever I click on links from this panel. Not a big deal, but it does disrupt the browsing experience.

Join Rudy 2008 video problems

Now, this is a bigger deal. I got this message at home last night and again at work today. Both connections qualify as “broadband,” I’m on a MacBook Pro and using the latest version of Firefox. What’s a guy gotta do to watch some video around here? Actually, once I finally got the error message to go away (I was starting to wonder if Amazon’s one-click patent was written into McCain-Feingold…) the video worked just fine. On the other hand, it took too long to load. On the other other hand, the now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t controls worked like a charm.

And the best-laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley, but this is still kind of embarrassing:

Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani’s campaign hurriedly fixed its official Web site late Monday to remove a dangerous design flaw that could have allowed hackers to expose personal information submitted by volunteers. The vulnerability affecting Giuliani’s site, http://www.JoinRudy2008.com, could have exposed confidential information stored in the campaign’s databases. The Web site failed to block commands that can instruct it to improperly display sensitive information, a popular hacking technique known as “structured query language injection.” … “Anybody who knows anything about security could have found these problems in two seconds,” said Marc Maiffret of eEye Digital Security Inc., a researcher who examined Giuliani’s Web site at AP’s request.

Aren’t you glad they didn’t make you sign up to fundraise now? I kid, I kid. So again, it’s a work in progress.

It’s also worth noting what isn’t included. Notably absent are any of the front-page social networking icons that most of the other candidates include. Before My.BarackObama.com and McCainSpace I wouldn’t have thought to mention that there is no social network, but there isn’t one. And there is no blog. A Facebook button wouldn’t kill them, but the one place they really need one is in their social bookmark toolbar — and it is. Meanwhile, a campaign probably doesn’t need to bother with their own blog unless they have a compelling reason to do so. And while I do think a Giuliani-based social network could succeed (call me crazy) it certainly is no requirement.

All in all, not bad. And I bet as the campaign goes forward, it’ll get even better.

You Better Start Deleting Emails Now, Guys…

Published by Not Paul Begala on March 26, 2007 in E-mail and Republicans. 0 Comments

Cause if the Dems get a hold of six years of RNC emails, you’re all screwed. Royally:

Multiple congressional investigations have uncovered evidence that White House appointees regularly communicate using email accounts provided by the Republican Party. … Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) issued letters to the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney ‘04 Campaign directing them to preserve all emails by and for White House officials, and to meet with the committee about the legal issues involved in conducting official government business using partisan email accounts.

They will get those emails. The National Journal article (which the above-quoted blog post is based on) says it’s an untested question, but courts have long agreed that Congress must be able to investigate in order to exercise its legislative function. The only people that tend to get away from Congress’ reach are constitutionally-protected branches of government: SCOTUS, White House, the states, or protections built into the Bill of Rights (i.e. attorney-client privilege).

So RNC people, better start purging. It’s infinitely better for someone go to jail for a few years on a charge of obstruction of justice than whatever they may find in those messages. Somebody will take care of you and your family when you get out.

Let this be two important lessons to all you burgeoning politicos: Check politics at the door when you govern, and never, ever write something in an email you don’t want the whole world to see.

If You Want Something Done Right…

Published by William Beutler on March 20, 2007 in Blog Consultants, Brick-and-mortar consultants, Online Campaigns, RedState, Republicans and White House '08. 2 Comments

A big story of the 2008 cycle will be how the GOP catches up to the Democrats in online organizing — or how it doesn’t. That the left has a more effective online infrastructure and activist network scarcely needs demonstrating, but whether the Republican party realizes that this matters is an open question. In fact, it’s not even clear that most conservative bloggers realize this. Since the beginning, conservative blogging has been marked more by punditry than activism — 9/11 was the starting point for the right-blogosphere, compared to Howard Dean for its counterpart — and most are content to keep on doing just that.

But there is a growing realization, in some quarters, that they need an answer to the Dem-leaning netroots, and that it won’t happen by itself. This is exemplified by a recent diary user-submitted blog entry — “The Difference Between Daily Kos and Red State (hint: Not favorable to Red State)” — asking whether conservative bloggers would organize to support a candidate for retiring Rep. Marty Meehan’s Massachusetts seat:

This is why the Left Netroots are killing us. They actually mobilize and work to get their candidates elected. Whereas on most Conservative sites, all you get is the same-o same-o. … The Dems and Left Netroots have no fear of supporting (quite strongly) candidates in the reddest of seats. We need to contest this special election.

The commenters were certainly responsive, and it’ll be interesting to see if they actually carry through. As of now, Republican bloggers have no game plan and few connections to state and local parties. Their predicament resembles that of the Democratic netroots circa 2003 — and they famously went oh-and-something before backing a slate of winning candidates in 2006.

All of which raises several interesting questions, most of which I’m not prepared to analyze here. But the thread following the post raises a few. One is whether the online right is willing to make ideological concessions in the name of winning seats. Here’s one comment to that effect, from the blogger behind My Election Analysis:

For all their many, many faults, Kossacks are actually willing to accept a significant amount of ideological diversity in their caucus to win these types of districts. This is actually one of Kos’s main points. Stephanie Herseth has a lifetime ACU of 49. That’s in the range of Arlen Specter’s rating, but they would never dream of primary-ing Herseth with someone from the far left of the party. Sure they primaried Lieberman in blue Connecticut, but they wisely let the Nelsons (lifetime ACU 53 (NE) and 41 (FL)) of the world have a pass. If a Republican is going to win this seat, he or she is going to have to be a fairly liberal Republican. There is simply no way that a pro-lifer or a candidate who isn’t pro-civil-unions at least is going to win a federal election here. And he or she will probably have to be a Christie Whitman wishy-washy personality overall. But are we really going to tolerate them, or are we going to have a Club For Growth candidate challenging them after their first term?

That is an excellent question; after all, it was only a few months ago they were going about unseating liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee (and hounding the NRSC for supporting him).

This leads to another question: The Dem-leaning netroots have a much more contentious relationship with their party’s existing operatives than do the nascent rightroots (aside: eventually today’s netroots should be called the “leftroots” and “netroots” can become a catch-all term for online political activists, but we’re not there yet). But if online Republicans do step up and ask for a bigger voice in their party’s campaigns, will there be similar acrimony to what happens on the left? Here’s R.E. Finch, in the thread:

I’ve harped. I’ve cajoled. Last January, I worked for a couple of weeks to develop a really sharp template proposal for a Conservative-based netroots program, then tailored it to the needs of some GOP candidates. I had it looked over by some of my more campaign-savvy associates, then tweaked it and pitched it. What happened? … [T]his idea was a non-starter. I sensed a strong aversion on the part of the GOP apparatus to engage any people-intensive tool over which it cannot exercise complete control. The thought of adding a netroots coordination section to a GOP campaign plan scares some of these people in a herding-cats sort of way. Maybe right now that isn’t an unreasonable position to take. … But for the long-term I doubt the GOP can shun coming up with its own ways to use this new medium’s people resources to its advantage.

Surprising? Not hardly, especially if you take Mike Turk’s experiences with Bush-Cheney ‘04 and the RNC into account. Maybe it won’t be acrimony per se — for example, it’s hard to imagine Erick Erickson and NR getting into it like Markos Moulitsas and TNR — but estrangement instead. That’s the status quo, and there are few signs of change ahead.

Ultimately, it may be up to Finch, the RedStaters and their allies to take on Internet party-building projects themselves; the Republican establishment will only “get it” once everything has been done for them. That seems to be David All’s conclusion:

I continue to read about the success of ActBlue, and I’m tired of waiting for something to emerge organically which will help our guys out in the field. If you’re interested in being a part of a Republican counter-part, send me an email. I will head up the development/implementation effort if you will financially support its development. Only serious replies. We don’t have much time.

It’s a start, maybe. Republican bloggers can build an infrastructure without Republican consultants. But that brings us to another question: Can they do it without Republican money?

Fred Thompson Has His Answer

Published by William Beutler on March 11, 2007 in Fox News, Fred Thompson, Republicans and White House '08. 12 Comments

This morning on Fox News Sunday, Fred Thompson delivered an Obama-like confession that he was thinking about running for president. Pressed to explain how he’ll decide whether there’s sufficient interest for him to get into the race, Thompson said:

This day and time, it doesn’t take long to learn what people think.

Very true. So what do people think about him as a potential candidate? Though the really interesting responses so far come from the left, let’s start with the right, whose support he would actually need to get the nomination.

Mark Kilmer, RedState:

The portion of the transcript with his answers to Wallace’s “lightning round” questions … looks pretty good. He gives some specifics and explanations, and others would have to come, but some conservatives might be about to find their man for 2008.

Falcon, Hang Right Politics:

If Thompson does decide to enter the GOP field, as a mainstream southern conservative, he would instantly become the front runner.

Rick Moore, Holy Coast:

Thompson was very, very good, and this interview could help kick start a move to get him in the race. If he got in, he would be the most solidly conservative (and consistently conservative) candidate in the field and would be a very strong candidate.

Liberally Conservative:

Thompson is a viable candidate who won’t have to backtrack and change positions on his voting record or positions, will be able to withstand scrutiny and is articulate enough to present his stand on issues in debate. Thompson may be what the Conservative base is looking for in a candidate and will be able to sufficiently challenge others.

If you want a Draft Fred Thompson sticker for your blog, Gribbit’s Word has one for the taking.

And how is the potential candidacy being received on the left? Without a doubt, Thompson seems to be the candidate they respect and fear most:

Cenk Uygur, The Huffington Post:

I have to admit that I was impressed by Thompson. Sometimes when you meet someone you get a sense of whether they are real or fake. And sometimes you are taken in by an amiable, charming person you might not otherwise agree with.

Room Eight:

Lets not kid ourselves, Fred Thompson is a Tennessee version of Ronald Reagan, he’s a winner. The GOP gets Mr. Law and Order to run and they have somebody who can get elected President. He’s one guy Hillary, Obama and Edwards don’t want to have to debate on tv, because he’s– like Reagan– trained as an actor. As a democrat, his potential candidacy worries me like no others.

WoodyG’sGuitar, a commenter at Eschaton:

fred thompson is a logical candidate for somebody, given his ubiquity through the L&O series as the ultra-conservative, real-politiking, pragmatic DA… if they put him up, he’d be hard to beat, in the media-saturated culture of the age, with his senatorial experience, and his name recognition…

Quentin Compson, from the same thread:

Fred Thompson on Faux Noise looks like he lacks the health and vigah required for a presidential run. Good, probably.

Indeed, this wasn’t Thompson’s best appearance — and his appearance wasn’t the best, either. Fred Thompson, Law & OrderHis hair was thinner and some of his answers were oddly abrupt. Shouldn’t a television actor be more charismatic than this? The picture at right comes from NBC’s official “Law & Order” site; I’d say he seems to lack “vigah” in that one as well. If you only read the transcript, chances are you thought better of the interview.

Meanwhile, Influence Peddler argues that he should be getting in now, while Romney and McCain are stumbling, and late last week Tom Bevan questioned whether Thompson wanted to challenge his good friend McCain, and whether really wanted to do the work necessary to win. Thompson himself said today:

One advantage you have in not, you know, having this as lifelong ambition is that if it turns out that your calculation is wrong, it’s not the end of the world.

And just last month Marc Ambinder reported:

A source close to Thompson said that Thompson will not run for president, period.

If all this seems like it’s coming fast, maybe it seems like that inside Thompson’s camp as well. But if all that stands between Thompson and a presidential campaign is the determination of interest, it seems like this question has already been answered.

What the Media Can’t Do for Mitt Romney

Published by William Beutler on February 25, 2007 in Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Internecine Battles, MSM, Mitt Romney, Oppo Research, Primary fights, Republicans, Rhetoric, Roe v. Wade, Rudy Giuliani and White House '08. 4 Comments

The Romney campaign has to be pretty happy with liberal historian Rick Perlstein this week, or about as happy as they could be with anyone accusing them of winking at anti-Semitism. On Wednesday TNR Online published an article in which he argued that media reports highlighting complaints about Mitt Romney’s Henry Ford Museum announcement speech will help him connect with skeptical conservatives.

The thrust of Perlstein’s argument is that identity, or “tribal” issues, matter in partisan politics, and the more critical stories about Romney that appear in the elite media, the better he is likely to do with the Republican base. As he summarizes: “Get branded such a villain by our liberal elites, and you also might win a Republican primary.” The logic is sound enough, but Perlstein ascribes too much power to this phenomenon. Just because the “liberal media” is antagonistic toward a Republican candidate is not enough to change the fundamentals, and Romney’s fundamentals are bad.

Let’s start with this passage from his article, where Perlstein turns to the Internet to substantiate his point:

Consider the sarcastic reflection of this denizen of the right-wing website Free Republic:
    Allright, an AP hit piece! The MSM has more acute RINOdar than we. Real RINO’s don’t get rinky-dink MSM hit pieces such as this. This proves that the MSM believes Romney is a conservative, and therefore must be roughed up.
Translation: I used to suspect that Romney was only a “Republican in Name Only.” But now I realize: He bugs the liberal media. By the tribal logic of right-wing identity politics, that is enough–Mitt Romney now can be called a conservative.

This interpretation is overly reductive — even Newtonian. As Perlstein would have it, for every action on the part of the media, there is an equal and opposite reaction from the conservative base. Leaving aside the fact that the Henry Ford story is less a flap than a blip — only the National Jewish Democratic Council made an issue of it, and Media Matters has pronounced the story “ignored” — it assumes that conservatives are captives of their distrust of the mainstream media.

Perlstein’s suggestion that dubious media attacks on Romney could bolster his support on the right almost certainly gets it backward: politicians who enjoy notable support in this regard have already bonded with their base. Presidents are frequent recipients; as the headlines got worse for Clinton and Bush through their two terms, the base rallied around them (although Bush seems to have exhausted that reserve of goodwill). Galvanizing candidates, such as Howard Dean, also can receive this kind of support. Unfortunately for Romney, he is neither.

Perlstein buttresses his case by comparing Romney’s announcement to a controversial 1980 campaign speech by onetime liberal Ronald Reagan. According to Perlstein, Reagan benefited from “all that outrage” over the location: Philadelphia, MS, site of the infamous 1964 Klan murders of civil rights workers. But there are several problems here. As noted above, the outrage about Romney’s speech was very limited and even treated like a joke. As even Perlstein admits of Ford’s Nazi sympathies, “Those memories no longer exist–except to the hair-trigger sensitivities of the likes of the NJDC.” Additionally, those Klan murders are the only reason anyone outside of Mississippi has heard of that particular Philadelphia, whereas the Ford musesum is pure Americana — technological innovation and nostalgia for what technology has made obsolete. And by 1980 Reagan was already a conservative hero, which of course Romney is not.

Perlstein also misses a few things about conservative “tribal” identity. Early in the article he asks:

Some observers wondered if perhaps [spotlighting noted anti-Semite Henry Ford] wasn’t intentional: If you want to prove to conservatives you’re no liberal, what better way than to announce on the former estate of a man who, as the NJDC also pointed out, was “bestowed with the Grand Service Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle by Adolf Hitler”?

“Nazi” is an epithet hurled at Republicans by liberals; it’s not a badge of honor and not a term that is available to be “reclaimed” like “bitch” or “queer.” Considering evangelical Christians’ close alliance with conservative Jews, their support of Israel above the Palestinians, and the growing perception that the “new anti-Semitism” is a liberal disease, there’s no percentage (in the polls or otherwise) in such a strategy. Bank shots are risky; bank shots that contradict your own beliefs are doubly so. Bank shots opening oneself up to charges of bigotry are dangerously stupid.

Not to mention, I’m not even sure that the Free Republic quote really says what Perlstein thinks it does. The comment at once suggests that the AP can accurately identify fake conservatives, and then implies that the media thinks Romney is a true conservative. Perhaps this commenter agrees with the media, but most Freepers do not. At best, Romney’s conservative credentials are a matter of debate. For example, check out the Free Republic thread responding to this exact same Perlstein article, where one finds a few Romney apologists, but others saying things like:

Strange that he was really pro life after professing to be pro-choice since 1970. And that he thought since Roe V wade was already decided, we should “sustain and support it”. Plus he’s a gun grabber who is now trying to kiss the NRA’s butt. At least with rudy you know you’re getting a liberal. With romney you’re getting a used car salesman who will say whatever it takes to get elected. In 2004 we called that ‘flip flopping’ when a certain democrat did it.

Flip-flopping is a charge Democrats would love to be able to throw back at Republicans in 2008, and Romney is the most susceptible. Romney has made the mistake of trying to persuade social conservatives that he is one of them, despite well-publicized past statements to the contrary. Like John Kerry, he may have flopped in the “correct” direction — but also like John Kerry, he can’t find the words to adequately explain why.

Contrast this with Giuliani’s approach: he too was elected by a left-leaning electorate, is openly pro-choice, and has similar hurdles to overcome. But so far at least, he isn’t trying to sell himself as a Bush-style social conservative. By downplaying his personal beliefs while promising to appoint strict constructionist judges, he’s selling himself as an ally of Bush-style social conservatives.

Even if we do accept Perlstein’s Newtowian politics, there’s so much more dirt out there about Giuliani that all those negative stories would surely generate more reactive reactionary reinforcement for him than Romney. And unlike Romney, Giuliani has never publicly disavowed Ronald Reagan. Among tribal issues, that will matter much more than anything the MSM can say.