REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #13: What John McCain Underestimates
Does The Leader Have The Troops?
By Robert A. Hahn Posted in 2008 | McCain | Redstate Roundtable — Comments (32) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
This Roundtable concerns Mark Halperin's piece concerning What John McCain Underestimates.
Thomas Crown: The "Major League vs Little League" difference between Obama's infrastructure and his own. This is the only one that worries me. Obama's actually a fairly crappy politician from any standpoint but organization. McCain is actually a pretty good politician from any standpoint but organization.
Moe Lane: He's an organizational god? Then why didn't he win California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, or Massachusetts?
Thomas Crown: No, he's not crappy at organization. There's a difference. He's not Bush in 2000. He's Clinton in 1992.
More...
Moe Lane: Clinton was able to win the Rust Belt.
Obama's spent the last three months pissing off every faction of his party besides overeducated, liberal guilt whites; and African-Americans. If he's going to be the nominee, it's because Howard Dean broke the first Hidden Rule of DNC Chairs ("Do NOT let the McGovernite win!"). He doesn't think well on his feet, there's an excellent chance that members of his staff will be led away next Fitzmas Day, his wife is precisely the sort of person that many white people want to have a frank and full discussion of race about, and he's a liberal peacenik. And they have to manipulate the poll sampling data with a cement trowel to get him six points in a national contest.
Organization only takes you so far. :)
Thomas Crown: You are talking about a different facet of being a politician than that to which I refer. I agree that in many ways, Barry is badly, badly overrated. But in organization, he is leaps and bounds less bad. Organization is messaging, it's GOTV, it's field offices, it's lower-level press contacts, it's a thousand different things that Kitten doesn't personally touch.
Moe Lane: Even if that's true about him - and so far, the only thing that he seems to be decent at is in manipulating caucuses - if he doesn't hit majorities in 270+ EV's worth of states, his organization doesn't mean bupkis on the Presidential level.
Thomas Crown: I completely agree that if this isn't a turnout war, all the organization in the world isn't gonna help Kitten. If it is...
blackhedd: I'll wade in here with some trepidation because retail politics is something I don't know nearly as well as the rest of you.
There's often a qualitative difference between young organizations that are staffed with seasoned pros and those staffed with inexperienced young people who are fired-up true believers. I've seen this quite a bit in young entrepreneurial companies. Obama's crew seems to be the latter, as was Clinton's in 1992. If you're disciplined, methodical, and you don't waste any time, you can make up the rules as you go along. You have to be able to learn from your mistakes. (It's just as hard to be *willing* to learn from your mistakes, but that's a problem you have some control over.) And having a large number of young people willing to walk through fire and water for you makes this possible.
Often you'll start out in a new venture with nothing but a gut feel, and you'll make a set of operational decisions that, because of lack of information, are essentially coin-flips. If they pay off, everyone says you're a genius, and you move to the next level. If they don't, no one ever learns how to spell your name.
From the stories I've heard, Axelrod in particular seems to have done something like this with the primary process, and they won big. In particular, they seem to have motivated a large army of volunteers who went out into the trenches for them with the fervor of the converted. My question would be, can they keep that up in the general, and (more importantly), is that the key to victory?
The fact that they're running a revival movement rather than a political campaign seems like a tremendous advantage. Obama is selling himself as The Redeemer Who Will Wash Away White America's Original Sin. McCain really has nothing to sell but "America has voted against Obama's ideas again and again," to which the obvious, easy rejoinder is "Well, what we're doin' now ain't workin', is it?"
I have an acquaintance who is a serial entrepreneur. She's an incredibly motivational manager. She has this uncanny way of inspiring true belief, and her people would walk through fire for her. I've often thought that she would have been perfect to lead the October Revolution. Great character and true belief enables you to sign up quite a few rounds of venture capital, and even a handful of real customers and partners who buy the vision.
The problem of course is that there's no ability to lead talented professionals who aren't necessarily drinking the Kool-aid, but who do have the ability to execute the million things you have to get right every day. So she's never really hit a home run with any of her companies. And additionally, her raw star power (she's been on the cover of Forbes) hides some serious insecurity and some truly evil character flaws that eventually end up pissing off everyone she touches.
I think of this woman when I see Obama, and my question is, can he become President on star power and atmospherics, abetted by a huge crowd of star-struck grassroots volunteers? Or is the inevitable moment of reckoning on this side of November 4?
Moe Lane:
- "The problem of course is that there's no ability to lead talented professionals who aren't necessarily drinking the Kool-aid, but who do have the ability to execute the million things you have to get right every day. So she's never really hit a home run with any of her companies."
An electoral campaign is designed to do one thing: hit a home run. This doesn't always mean "winning:" Dennis Kuchinich is actually one of the best professional politicians out there, because he always accomplishes his personal goals when he "runs" for President. So the idea of Obama as a startup actually reassures me: most of those ventures fail on their own. The ones that succeed usually hadn't faced a rival organization willing to personally target their leaders, reputations, and ability to raise money, then broadcast it all on national television.
Dan McLaughlin: First of all, a reminder that Obama needs 269 electoral votes, while McCain needs 270, because if this goes to the House, the Democrats control a majority of the delegations.
Second, there are five main things that matter in a political campaign.
- The candidate. The candidate's essential nature, personality, experience and worldview is (or should be) basically fixed by the time of a campaign, and will necessarily put a floor and ceiling on the campaign. Both candidates in this race have significant strengths and significant weaknesses.
- The terrain. The Obama camp can have the world's best campaign in Utah, or the McCain camp in DC, and still get slaughtered. Much of the GOP's hopes this cycle rest on the idea that key parts of the electoral college are still located in places that are poor terrain for an ivory tower liberal academic, a peacenik, a Chicago machine pol, or an African-American with radical, race-baiting friends, let alone a candidate who is all four.
- Control of the agenda. Halperin notes that the media loves Obama and wants to sell a story about him and one about the failing economy and losing Iraq War. But Obama, with his vague rhetoric, has actually shown remarkably little facility for driving the agenda - he wants today's story to be about the wonderful fabulousness of Barack Obama, and tomorrow's to be about the fabulous wonderfulness of Barack Obama. Even the media gets bored with that eventually. Message discipline requires that there be a message.
I agree with Ambinder http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/domestic_v_foreign_... and Douthat http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/defining_the_narrati... that McCain needs to keep the focus on foreign policy, where he constantly makes Obama look like an amateur. McCain wants to do that and is comfortable doing it, but I also agree with streiff http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/deja_vu_all_over_again that McCain needs to get out of his comfort zone and hit Obama on social/cultural issues and on Obama's shady or radical associations.
Conversely, Obama needs to swallow his pride and not keep taking the bait - he *thinks* Iraq and foreign policy are his areas of expertise and "judgment," he *thinks* his supporters are all like the netrooters who want him to fight every "right wing frame" on Iran and FISA and the like root and branch, and so he keeps falling into McCain's trap. Instead, he needs to follow Clinton's "it's the economy, stupid" dictum. Obama's problem is that unlike Clinton he may be too proud to call himself "stupid." - Control the turnout. This, as noted above, is what worries me: Obama has money and enthusiastic acolytes to burn, and he beat Hillary very largely with a good turnout operation in the small states, plus he now inherits the support of the machines in places like Pennsylvania that had backed Hillary. McCain also inherits a great but demoralized organization from Rove and Mehlman. It remains to be seen if his decentralized approach can keep that organization running.
- Events, dear boy, events. And none of us can predict what those will be. Events from 2000-January 2005, with the exception of Abu Ghraib, repeatedly moved the environment in favor of the GOP; events from February 2005 until now have mostly been doing the opposite. A good organization can *make* some events happen (e.g., political discipline in the Congress, good opposition research helping break a scandal), but for the most part, these will be out of everyone's control.
To add one more thing, and this is a key one, Halperin ends his list with this:
How forcefully Obama will now move to the center as a mainstream, optimistic candidate celebrating both change and America's greatness.
I have yet to see evidence that Obama will do this. To the contrary, he seems quite firm about *not* moving to the center on the war, on taxes, on health care, on the courts, on social issues...it's true that he need only nod slightly to the center and the media will declare him the greatest bipartisan stateman since George Washington, but I don't know that anybody will trust his media coverage by October. While it's true that people mostly don't vote specific issues, the overall picture of his unyielding left-wing radicalism is going to come out.
Ben Domenech: I agree completely on that point, Dan. What's more, it's the lack of such movement that I think will make the Flight of the Obamaconchords so short lived.
Doug Kmiec is not a trendsetter, in other words. We're still waiting on that rejection of the NARAL endorsement.
Adam C: Some data to back you up.
- Both of those are good news for McCain.
- You forget that McCain's brand ID - war hero, Iraq hawk, spending hawk - goes to what a fair number of people think of as core conservative values. And unlike Bush he's never had the residual drag of George H.W. Bush.
- That 67% is great - after the second Bush-Kerry debate, Kerry got that pushed up from 49% to 55% in one night after Bush called him a liberal repeatedly, while Bush pushed his own conservative/very conservative number to 65%:
Is Obama very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal or very liberal:
% Liberal or Very Liberal
Dec: 47
Apr: 54
June: 67
And the "very liberal" number is now 36%.
I should note in fairness a similar shift on McCain:
% Conservative or Very Conservative
Dec: 31
Apr: 41
June: 67
The "very conservative" number is still low at 19%.
Ben Domenech: Interesting that McCain is viewed as conservative by a higher margin than Bush ever was. This makes sense, of course, if you believe that voters only get stupider.
Dan McLaughlin:
http://baseballcrank.com/archives2/2004/10/politics_droppi.php
In other words - and granted, this is just comparing one 2004 poll to one 2008 poll - McCain's already done the work it took Bush all year to do in terms of drawing ideological contrast with Obama. Not bad.
Robert A. Hahn: Apropos the discussion about Carter, shouldn't we be concerned that so few people have actually seen a liberal president? The last serious Big-Social-Program liberal was LBJ. Are we sure people are sufficiently scared of liberal Democrats that they won't elect one two generations later? I'll bet most people today think Bill Clinton was a 'liberal' Democrat. He at least fired a cruise missile up a camel's butt. Kerry would have gone over there to kiss it.
Adam C: If it makes you feel any better, despite people thinking McCain is right-of-center and Obama is solidly leftist,* Obama still leads McCain in most polls and the current RCP average is 47-43. And in case you didn't see where this was going.... the moral of this story is that having an R after your name in 2008 is about as helpful as it was in 2006. People in the abstract are more in line with McCain's policies. In fact, he may be "in the middle" to an extent that few recent candidates have been. But the anti-GOP sentiment in the country is big and hard to overcome. He may do it but it's an uphill battle.
*Aside, this is further evidence that group voter dynamics do tend to be rational as both "voter impressions" are broadly accurate. There is evidence otherwise, but this piece of data is definitely good news if you like democracy.
Thomas Crown: So, assuming arguendo this is 2006 redux, as Bob notes, our loss is along the margins? Good criminy, this really is good news.
Adam C: No, assuming this is 2006, McCain's loss is along the margins. The SEN and REP races look much uglier if the current trajectory doesn't change. It would be about 56 D Senators and 245 D Representatives with President Obama winning by 3-5 (i.e. Bush's margin in 2004). In 50/50 states like NM, McCain keeps it 50/50 but the SEN and 3 REP open seats look more like 57/43 for the Ds. McCain looks to be outperforming down ticket Rs right now. Hopefully he can have "coat tails" but I'm not bullish on the prospect.
Thomas Crown: Whoah, whoah. Republicans lost every district in 2006? Seriously? How do we have any Rs in Congress at all? Was there a coup, and I owe a lot of self-abusing lefties an apology?
Adam C: I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe I missed something. 2006 was bad. Right now 2008 is shaping up to be worse.
Thomas Crown: McCain is running in a national election. No Republican ran in a national election in 2006. McCain is running on a State-by-State basis. Only some Republicans did this in 2006. McCain starts out with 8 years of built in gooshiness, which no Republican enjoyed in 2006. McCain might lose some of the margin he would otherwise enjoy. I'm not remotely convinced that he gets blasted, or even squeaked. Your analogy to 2006 is inapposite.
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REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #13: What John McCain Underestimates 32 Comments (0 topical, 32 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
This was my favorite Roundtable by lightyears and I definitely needed the laughs and the inicisivness.
The thing that freaks me out about Obama is that he strikes me as the Liberal Democrat version of Reagan, particularly Reagan in his first term. He seems to have this teflon coating that nothing seems to stick to, no matter how caustic or goopy it is and no matter how much it *deserves* to stick. He goes on TV and says a few dismissive words and the criticisms -- even on very serious issues -- just evaporate like they were zapped by God's Own Laser.
I'm also furious because Obama should have been identified as the Presumptive Nominee for 2008 back in 2002 if there were more Rs from Chicagoland who were paying close attention to what was going on. I count myself as one of the people who didn't do enough to inform the world, and I herewith apologize. I considered it a long shot at the time, but that's because I was listening to misinformation. IMHO he's the biggest Made Man in the history of American politics, and I should have been screaming about it to anyone who would listen. Water under the bridge now, I suppose.
McCain has to make a very, very solid VP choice who can bridge the generation gap and also his Conservative Street Cred gap, IMHO. And Republicans are going to have to be tough as nails and abrasive as diamond-impregnated emery cloth on Obama from this moment forward. And that's fine, because it'll get them ready for the kinds of things they're going to have to do in the Congress come 2009.
There's nothing like epochal adversity to help "redefine the brand" and focus the mind, and we're going to have so much adversity we won't be able to give it away.
We also have to recognize that McCain is going to continue to say some things that are not going to sit well with the wannabe Thought Police of this party: he's going to make statements to advance his campaign that will make some people cringe, and he already has. Such is the state we're in that McCain has to appeal to Hillary Clinton's disgruntled voters. Betcha never thought you'd be courting those folks, but welcome to 2008.
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On McCain's VP choice: according to my way of thinking, John McCain will do himself and his campaign and the party an immense service if he chooses someone who is a public speaker of unusual skill without sounding like a motormouth wonk or a dilettante. I am one of the people who think that John Kerry actually ooscrayed himself by selecting John Edwards, who every time he opened his mouth reminded me of a B-school lightweight with a pretty face (which is why Kerry picked him). I used to think of Edwards as Miss Congeniality, myself.
McCain needs to pick someone of extraordinarily high quality as his VP choice, and that means in stand-up-and-think-on-your feet situations. Someone with gravitas who can help McCain aim the guns and fire, and look and sound good while doing it.
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that back in 2002, some Republican should have been able to figure out that a black state senator whose name sounded eerily similar to the most hated man in America at the time would be the presumptive nominee in 2008?
The short answer is: "Absolutely." The evidence was very clear to me as early as 2002 that Barack Obama was the odds-on favorite among the liberal intellectuals in Illinois and that the road was being carefully prepared for a Presidential run with a side-trip through the United States Senate after the collapse of the Republicans in Illinois following the George Ryan "licenses for bribes" scandal, the election of Rod Blagojevich, and the summary defenestration of Jack Ryan's senatorial campaign after revelations from his Star Trek actress wife that he liked S&M clubs.
It's difficult to overstate the zeal with which certain groups of professors, civic leaders, philanthropists, and other hangers-on and assorted leftist groups had for Barack Obama. Even though his name wasn't known widely outside of Illinois, the buzz about Obama was simply electric. Hillary Clinton wasn't seen as a viable nominee, and the Democrats were furious about losing the Congress and the Presidency. Obama's Presidential campaign is no less than the culmination of more than 6 years of work to move him to the top of the American political pyramid.
Republicans were too preoccupied with other matters both inside and outside Illinois to hear what was coming down the tracks. I wish I could retroactively leak some of the email and personal conversations I had about him and his candidacy with people at the highest echelons of academia. Too late now.
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I believe that the candidate who wins will be the one that better gathers the sections of his base behind him. Obama will have loads of help from the MSM to try to get the white women & blue collar voters "back in the fold." I worry that McCain & his team are not seeing the need to get their disaffected base members - conservatives & values voters - supporting him. The MSM will continually expound on the divide, I pray that McCain & his team will go over the heads of the MSM to the base, to get them energized for his candidacy. Bush tried this too late in the game in 1992; I again pray that McCain does not make the same mistake. Let me also say that energizing the base will not work if it's heavily focused on why to not let Obama win - it must be solid reasons to elect Sen. McCain!
but I still say Obama is a puppet.His radical liberalism and arrogance is just a plus. Find his puppeteer and expose them/him/her and the veil will be lifted.
Maggie, I believe at least early in his career the Obamessiah was a puppet, and this blog and the article referenced within it describe how. Basically, it says that all those accomplishments that TO supposedly had in his early Illinois legislative career were not his doing; rather, they were the result of manipulation by his political "kingmaker," Emil Jones, Jr.
More details in this Times of London article and this item.
Frankly, I don't know why the Emil Jones thing hasn't blown up on him like Rezko and Wright. To me, the Jones thing is even worse, as it points out what a phony he is.
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just look at the IN primary as example A. All the groundworkers he had in the state were beaten by Rush who only had a 3-hour radio show and a website to organize operatives for Operation Choas. Talk radio pounding away at Obama will make up for whatever organization gap there is between the two. Also Obama's organization while large is going to have a big tasks in trying to get groups who support Obama, but are usually apthectic to the poltical process get to the polls to make up for the amount of "FDR Democrats" that will crossover to McCain
McCain '08
Always a pleasure to see you, Thomas.
You guys are going to finally get what you've asked for. This year the Dems have elected to field real liberalism instead of triangulation, or in the absence of that, "war hero." (Don't get me started on Kerry).
It's probably a good year for that, at least the best one in, oh, 40+ years. R brand is down, conservatism in general is down, thank you very much George W. And yes, I recognize the thought that President Bush didn't govern as a "true" conservative, but that's almost inside baseball for the average voter.
The point is, we have the wind at our back, at least for now. Obama is clearly running underneath the generics, and behind many of the Dems in competitive districts, but he's strong enough. This year, the triangulation is on you, but lucky enough for team R, you have one at the top of the ticket.
Obama will beat McCain in GOTV, and in fundraising. The RNC may try to continue the Bush-Rove microtargeting, but I have the sense with morale down and key players out of the mix, the machine needs some serious oiling to get back to 2000-2004 standards.
Obama can also top McCain in the sort of charisma-American Idol game that the electorate plays these days.
So what can McCain do? Keep close to his corner, throw the jabs on policy watching for Obama to drop his guard and say/do something truly colossally stupid, and capitalize. I sense one group of people wanting to like Obama but not there yet, and another wanting an excuse to not like Obama but not there yet, either. McCain has to give them their reasons.
Plus, he needs to avoid a meltdown himself. Obama could, if the moment really comes together, swamp the Rs this year. He could also absolutely implode and suck the party down with him. I've never seen so much upside coupled with so much downside.
Speaking of that fundraising advantage... Has Obama released his May numbers yet?
At least, the Democrats were using it as one in 2002 and 2004. Mind you, we did the same in 2006. :)
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
...now YOU'RE being way too obscure. "Apotropaic?" Where on Earth did you find that word? Even my Firefox spellcheck is thinking better of that word. Wait, wait, what does this mean?
ELITIST!!!
That said, GOTV is always the non-partisan prophylactic boogieman against admittance of failure when your vote isn't being gotten out. Even when "your vote" doesn't actualy exist. Especially then.
Of course, I'm probably broken in the head. I read bits and pieces of the dictionary and encyclopedia when I was bored as a kid.
--
This too shall pass.
I still consider most of my education to have come from supplemental sources.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
...you're not a World of Warcraft/Everquest person, are you? If so, don't you realize blogging is only the political version of a massively multiplayer online game? You don't need those other people! Stop messing around on us!
..Congressional votes, Supreme Court decisions, and fractional points awarded when one wins media cycles. But you have to be in the game to understand the scoring. Scary stuff.
for the transition period, the confirmation hearings, etc.? Or does that begin a new game?
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
This place is rather short on Gauss Rifles and Eldar, I think.
...I do own an Ogrethulhu.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
It's a bad year for counting chickens.
--
This too shall pass.
As a Californian, I think I have seen this movie before, and I don't really like it. If John McCain becomes President and spends all of his time "reaching across the aisle" he will become as big a clown as Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I hate 2008 already.
If you can find past examples of McCain being like Schwarznengger was before the recall (referring to conservatives as 'right-wing crazies,' or to the impeachment of Clinton as 'an embarassment') then I might buy that.
The warning signs were there about Schwarzenegger. I don't see them for McCain, that he's some sort of stealth lefty.
That's just it. Schwarzenegger is a lefty. McCain is a rightists who just happens to go 'maverick' on select issues.
Really? THERE's a shocker. Not to spend too much time re-living what should have been -- only this one shot, because some people deserve to get poked by sharp sticks fairly often for the next 5 months.
All us dumb, misguided people who had McCain as our last choice, that's because the way things are playing out now, is pretty much what anybody could have predicted who spent one minute thinking about it.
-- our nominee unable to get an effective ground game going, because flipping off the party for 8 years has an effect on the party faithful, who make up that ground game.
-- our nominee bolting even more center-leftward as the campaign goes on, taking aim at big oil, big carbon, big success, big investor, big Republican.
-- our nominee trying for civil discourse with the enemy, while saving his live ammo for his own party.
-- and NO COATTAILS. What GOP candidate for Senate or House can possibly use the line "vote for me so I can help enact McCain's vision for America"?
Those who did not see this coming, where we have a decent shot at the presidency but no hope whatsoever of having 45 Senators or 200 House members, should not be in positions of influence.
And you know the magic name.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
In anyother presidential election year, Obama would be toast. But with the anti-GOP tide and Dem momentum, the left figure this is their best shot at electing a hardcore leftist for a long time.
They will pull out all the stops and use everything they have...and sadly that is quite a lot.
Organization doesn't matter so much.
Obama lost states he was well-organized in and well-funded (through organization) in. A good ground game in the election -- as opposed to caucuses -- might be good for some margins in a few swing states, but overall it will prove inconsequential. It's a correlation, not a causation: if Obama wins then it will be because he has a message that both achieves a great grassroots organization AND gets votes, but those two "effects" will not cause each other.
New: (-1.50, -5.33)