Romney playing DC insider game … well!

January 24, 2007 – 8:06 am

Mitt Romney’s announcement of former Speaker Denny Hastert’s support points out something that I’ve been thinking for a while. Mitt Romney is running an insider campaign in Washington, and this has a bunch of interesting implications. This is actually part of a series in which I’ll look at how the campaigns are playing out in each of the states (for which I have good information)

First, let’s look at the dynamics. DC is very conventional-wisdom and money oriented. Therefore, DC money goes to the frontrunner or frontrunners. In addition, I would argue that McCain’s positions — and ways of expressing them — on campaign finance reform, pork, and ethics reform have all significantly alienated a number of lobbyists and (self-imagined?) kingmakers in Washington. In general, Washington could well be more anti-McCain than the rest of the country. If for that alone, the list of Lobbyists for Mitt will be much longer than Lobbyists for McCain. Furthermore, one of Romney’s most important advisors is DC-based super-lobbyist Ron Kaufman, who is also the National Committeeman of the Massachusetts. A friend (and reporter) recently told me that "Ron K. could kill almost any man with his thumbs". I agree.

Now look at Romney’s House people. First, there is Hastert, who, Matt Lewis has pointed out, has hated McCain for a long time. Romney will acquire a lot of support for that reason. Second, he has Jim McCrery, the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee. In that position, McCrery is the House GOP’s Deputy Earmarker-in-Chief, behind Jerry Lewis. In general, many of the people on the "powerful" (= good fundraising and lobbyist contact) exclusive committees will end up with Romney. I would use a similar analysis with Rep. Dave Camp. In addition, Camp has been around Michigan long enough to have strong links to the Romney family. Other significant pickups have personal connections of some sort such as Tom Feeney (was Jeb Bush’s 1994 running mate and a significant part of the Jeb Bush operation appears to be lining up with Romney) and Buck McKeon (a fellow Mormon).

I expect that McCain will find many of his Congressional allies in the fiscally-conservative part of the Republican Study Committee and some Republican Main Street members. Arizonan RSCers John Shadegg and Jeff Flake, who Boehner recently kicked off a presitigious committee for "bad behavior", are likely more typical of the support McCain is likely to get. While they are rarely called mavericks, they share McCain’s tendency to stick fingers in the eyes of leadership (Boehner, Hastert, etc.) for ideological reasons. And on a number of fiscal issues they have worked quite closely with McCain. I also expect that McCain will get significant support from Main Street, whose members McCain has worked with in the past also.

One of the most interesting questions will be how the social conservatives break. Senator Brownback takes a leading role in the Senate’s Values Action Team and his House allies may just support him if they don’t believe Romney.

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How bad is “The Surge” for McCain? What about the Dems?

January 8, 2007 – 9:57 am

In recent weeks, there has been interminable talk about how John McCain’s Presidential hopes could be over because of his position on Iraq. While I see that McCain’s position on Iraq could be a threat to his candidacy, I think that the Democrats are between a rock and a hard place.

President Bush is clearly telegraphing what his proposal will be. And the Democrats are clearly responding. But not coherently. This issue will split the Democrats. Democrats running for Pre sident must oppose the surge. The base will kill them in their cribs if they don’t. Just look at the blogs (here, here, and innumerable more). This issue defines the Democratic party today. And opposition to the war is the most credible explanation of what happened November. And stories about more years being required in Iraq, are exactly the sort of thing that feeds the base. The New Yorker has a great story on the problem for the Democrats.

But let’s be clear about something. If the President pushes it, there will be votes. At this point, Iraq is the Bush legacy. And his legacy will bad if he doesn’t start sharing ownership on this. And Congress, and that means Democrats now, are the obvious people to start sharing ownership with.

It seems that the Democrats have 3 options:

  1. Allow the surge with open support. The Democrats shatter. John Edwards or Al Gore win the nomination. Maybe Feingold gets back in.
  2. Stop the surge. Then all the Dems have is an (old) issue. But Bush and the Republicans can claim that the Democrats gave up on the war. Anything bad that happens, at that point, GOPers can blame on the Dems. But Iraq will be gone. We might even pull out.
  3. Allow the surge with extensive and skeptical oversight. This gives the Dems the highest chance of success. But that means that the Dems will have to vote for more money. They have will to go along with the President — and John McCain. And John McCain will be the GOP leader in the consensus oversight process of Iraq, the most important issue facing America.

That’s why the Democrats are trying to kill this policy in its bed:

I’m not sure that in my over 20 years of involvement in politics and media have I seen as disastrous a pre-launch of a major policy initiative as what the President will propose this week for Iraq.

So back to McCain. What’s the impact on him (or the rest of the GOP)? Hard to tell. But if the surge is blocked, then we will likely start pulling out. There’s simply no other option. And Iraq will become less of an issue. But terrorism will re-emerge as the major foreign policy issue in the election (helping Rudy Giuliani and McCain), along with a stronger Iran, problems with (Romney’s "family oriented") China, and international trade.

If the surge goes on, it will be because the Republican Party unified behind McCain’s position, but attempts to stick it on McCain will be much, much harder because it will have passed with many Democratic votes. And the base will say, "The country sent Dems to Washington to stop Bush and they kept collaborating."

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What really happened in CT Senate and MI-7?

August 10, 2006 – 8:18 pm

The “insurgents” ran very good campaigns. But we learn very different things from them. First, CT Senate.

Ned Lamont, the darling of the lefty blogosphere, had a lot of good campaign ideas. People have talked about all the blog stuff and YouTube stuff (NPR/Slate on this). But, perhaps more to the point, he ran a great ground game. WaPo has the full story (H/T: Matt Lewis). Some tasty bits:

One early move was to launch a primitive Web page seeking 1,000 volunteers in all 169 of the state’s municipalities, building on the strength of local Democratic organizations. They began a voter-history project to track down people who voted in every obscure local primary and referendum — information that was not available in statewide rolls.

And they borrowed Dean/MoveOn strategies:

“Their voting techniques are on the cutting edge of politics,” said Matzzie, whose organization, MoveOn.org, is a pioneer of the house-party model.

In other words, the insurgent ran an incredible grassroots campaign utilizing all the tools of modern campaigning. At the same time Lieberman tried to sleep walk to reelection. Lieberman even sat on $2m. That money might have been able to produce another 10,000 votes.

As for MI-7, Walberg also ran a great campaign. We know less about his campaign, but Hotlineblog gives us a morsel. They used careful (modern) targeting software to identify precincts and voters. And then Walberg, the former minister, got the RTLers, homeschoolers, etc. out to actually ID the voters. At the same time, Schwarz, by all appearances, ran a lousy campaign. He had virtually no ground game. There are news reports that he spent a lot of money upfront on mailers that were not that effective.

At the same time, everyone has to ask a question about Schwarz. Could he have found another 4,000 votes in this district if he had the organization to do it? I cannot imagine that the answer is “no”. But he didn’t.

What is the lesson in this? In CT, a well-armed insurgent was able to defeat a complacent incumbent. In MI, a complacent incumbent never got his campaign off the ground.

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