Tag: conservative movement

Too Conservative to Win?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have tag teamed to dominate the news cycles in recent days.  And as the opinionatti of the punditocracy (or whatever fun little nicknames you prefer) struggle to wrap their heads around what a straw poll victory and a late entry into the Presidential sweepstakes mean, they keep asking an intriguing question: Are these candidates too conservative to win a general election matchup against President Barack Obama?

This is especially true of the coverage of Bachmann; but taken together the Minnesota Congresswoman and the Texas Governor really display why this question is, to use the technical terms, BS.

No serious analyst of the race really believes Michele Bachmann has a snowball’s chance in the current residence  of Iowa native John Wayne Gacy.  If she wins the Republican nomination, she will most likely lose badly to the incumbent – maybe not Mondale vs. Reagan bad, but probably Dole vs. Clinton bad.  Bachmann will simply not resonate with a broad audience of American voters.

If Bachmann loses, it will not be for her views but for her tendency for gaffery.  Aside from confusing 20th century alpha male John Wayne with creepy clown artist/serial killer Gacy, Bachmann celebrated the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death by wishing The King a happy birthday.  For many political viewers, Bachmann’s introduction to the national stage came during a horribly flubbed “tea party response” to the State of the Union address.

The trend line is evident: under the glare of the national spotlight, Bachmann is unpolished, rough, and prone to mistakes.  She is, it seems, an incompetent campaigner.  Audiences who already agree with her message will overlook that, but audiences who need convincing will not.  Those folks will become more accepting of the other, seemingly competent voices who call her extreme.

Then comes the media storyline: Conservative goes down in flames to Mainstream Candidate.

You saw plenty of it in 2010, when tea partiers were blamed for costing Republicans gains in the US Senate. Primary victories by  Sharron Angle in Nevada, Joe Miller in Alaska, and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware were frequently cited as an example of primaries run amok.

All three lost, of course.  Angle and Miller had run-ins with the media that suggested the pressures of the campaign were getting to them; O’Donnell’s campaign was only notable for its ill-advised “I am not a witch” ad.  Meanwhile, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul won their Senate races.  Arch-conservative Ronald Reagan was President; Moderates Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Bob Dole were a half-termer, a one-termer and a no-termer, respectively.

A candidate has to appeal to voters, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum.  Barack Obama may have been the most ideologically-driven to assume the Presidency since Lyndon Johnson; he was also likeable and projected strength.

As he begins his Presidential campaign, Rick Perry will face the same question as Bachmann: Is he “too conservative to win”?  And whether the eventual Republican nominee is Perry, Bachmann, or even Mitt Romney, the Obama campaign will surely try to stick the “right-wing extremist” label squarely on their metaphorical forehead.

Candidates with good, disciplined messages don’t let those labels stick.

Cross posted at PunditLeague.us.

Windows of Opportunity

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones has a great call to arms for anyone – left or right – who is dissatisfied with the debt deal:

Public opinion is everything. Ronald Reagan was successful because public opinion supported him: he wanted to cut taxes and raise defense spending and so did big chunks of the public. He was leading in a direction that they already wanted to go.

But no matter how many times we try to kid ourselves with one poll result or another, liberals just don’t have that advantage. The public is mostly in favor of raising taxes on the rich — though I suspect its support is pretty soft — but on the bigger issues they mostly aren’t on our side. They think deficits are bad, they don’t trust Keynesian economics, they don’t want a higher IRS bill (who does, after all?), and they believe the federal government is spending too much on stuff they don’t really understand. Conservatives have just flat out won this debate in recent decades, and until that changes we’re not going to be able to make much progress.

Drum has a sizable audience: plenty of conservatives are upset with the way the deal shook out and wouldn’t chalk it up as a wind, just as many liberals and leftists would probably share Drum’s dour assessment.

The problem for either side is indeed public opinion.  There are certain policy positions you can and can’t “sell” to the public at large.  The Mackinac Center, a Michigan-based free market think tank, calls it the Overton Policy Window: for every range of possible outcomes for public policy issues, there are a subset which the public is willing to accept at a given time (or, more accurately, what politicians feel the public is willing to accept).

Drum is really talking about the need to move the Overton window in order to win political battles.  That’s a good way to keep activists motivated after a legislative battle that ends with so much dissatisfaction and compromise.

It’s also something good to keep in mind to those addressing Tea Party activists in the coming months.  For example, I spoke to a conservative columnist the other day who bemoaned the fact that while there are plenty of inside-the-beltway organizations eager to use the grassroots muscle of the tea partiers to advance an agenda, there are few telling them that a compromise might be, politically, the best thing that gets passed.  He was technically right about the need for real leaders to provide more a constructive focus for passionate advocates.  That type of communications will always be doomed, though, unless it’s accompanied by a roadmap to better outcomes in the future.  People don’t want their leaders to tell them what can’t be done; they want leaders ready to change the world – if not today, then tomorrow.

As both Republican and Democrat leaders look to keep their respective bases motivated, it will be important to keep this in mind when discussing the recent debt deal.  Instead of portraying the compromise as a victory, each side must discuss the debt issue in terms of reframing the policy window.

Now’s a good time for minority outreach

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

President Obama is winning the majority of the American people with his rhetoric on the debt ceiling crisis.  But polls also show that he’s losing some support among key demographics – namely liberal and black voters, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported by Politico.

If you’re looking for clues, stop right here Sherlock: the unemployment rate for black men is twice that of white men.  Economic policies intended to elevate the less fortunate are failing, leaving certain demographics behind more than others.

The case for smaller government and personal empowerment has never been more clear.  And the polls that show minority voters increasingly distrustful of the President demonstrate that, at least on some level, voters are also in a position to reject the big-government promises they have been sold for generations.

But only if the case is made to those voters, directly and on a person-to-person basis.

With the 2012 elections over a year away, it’s a good time for campaign organizations, party committees, and non-profits on the right to begin trying to make inroads into communities where they haven’t had much success.  It may take the form of voter registration or straight party recruitment efforts.

Imagine if a candidate like Michelle Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, or Mitt Romney took the initiative to sat down with community leaders of black and/or Hispanic groups the way Herman Cain is doing with Muslim groups. It would likely be even more productive, since Cain is reaching out only after he seriously frayed his relations with that community.   The same outreach by key leaders of the conservative movement would be equally valuable.

It will still be low-yield; the cost per registrant will be high in the early going.  That’s the price of ignoring those communities for so long.  This wouldn’t be about volumes of new party voters, though.  Unlike many of the failing government programs that have been used to buy these communities’ votes in the past decades, this would be a legitimate investment in the future.

Cross-posted at PunditLeague.

When is boycotting CPAC the smart move?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 3 Comments

On Friday, Jim DeMint announced he will boycott CPAC.  He joins a host of conservative organizations – including the Heritage Foundation and the Media Research Center – who have decided not to attend this year’s event and Congressman Jim Jordan, head of the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House.

For an inside the beltway conservative organization, CPAC is a place to be seen by activists – mostly students – coming in from across the country.  It’s a rare chance to be face to face with members, participants or supporters of your organization – people you may only communicate with via email or phone.  And because it’s such a rare chance, it costs money – lots of it.  Beyond the thousands in sponsorship and/or booth rental fees, an organization has to put lots of thought and resources into making their booth stand out.  Giveaway items, multimedia displays, and other amenities cost money – to say nothing of staff time.

It’s not a prohibitive or unwise investment, but it is an investment.

On the other hand, for a group with a limited budget, boycotting CPAC can separate you a bit from the crowd.  Articles and blog posts about your boycott will likely get into the hands of activists who care about your issue.  If you are one of hundreds of booths in CPAC’s main hall, you may not be able to cut through the noise in quite the same way.

For the politicians who don’t go, it’s also a win-win.  For DeMint, who has crafted a brand as a gadfly against Republican leadership, bowing out aligns him against an inside-the-beltway professional conservative movement.  For tea party activists who paint the entire Washington crowd with the same brush, DeMint and Jordan become horses of a different color.

And the reality is that the Washington, DC version of CPAC isn’t nearly as important as it was 20 years ago, before communication between outside the beltway activists became as easy as it is today.  In its first decades of existence, CPAC could have helped set the conservative message for an entire year or election cycle.  For conservative activists, CPAC might be a rare time to hear from Presidential hopefuls early on, before their campaign started in earnest. But this is a different time.  The era of 24/7 news means campaign themes and messages for 2012 might not be set until weeks or months before – after all, who would have predicted in February of 2007 that a late financial crisis would tip the scales for Barack Obama in 2008?  (In fact, who would have predicted at that time Obama would be the nominee?)  The shorter news cycles have extended Presidential campaigns – meaning that 2012 contenders will be crisscrossing early target states like New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina within six months.  There will be no shortage of chances to hear from Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin.

CPAC is still important; but in the modern media environment, it simply cannot be as important as it once was.  CPAC may still be the conservative movement’s biggest stage, but it’s hardly the only stage anymore.

The New Yorker: Koch fiend

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This lesson in investigative journalism is brought to you by The New Yorker’s hit piece on Charles and David Koch’s political activities:

1.  Find some fact that isn’t particularly widely known.  Save time by finding a fact that isn’t widely known because it isn’t particularly interesting.

2.  Pretend that the fact is not widely known because of a conspiracy.

3.  Write a hit piece that calls out political activists for their political activism.

Koch industries has issued their rebuttal, and the story will likely blow over pretty quickly, but The New Yorker’s story deserves a second look as a primer on journalism mistakes to avoid.

Most Americans probably don’t know the extent to which federal government activity buoys the Washington, D.C. job market.  In addition to government jobs, there are countless lobbying firms, public affairs shops, and of course think tanks whose existence is based on the fact that the government is so complex.  Both the left and the right have their think tanks, and if you stroll through the halls of similar organizations on either side you’ll start to see similar names on the plaques which commemorate donors.  One of those names on the conservative side is Koch.

The New Yorker article paints David and Charles Koch as clandestine movers and shakers among the center-right, starting sham organizations to debunk global warming theories and government regulations.  The hilarious part about this is that the Koch brothers have never made any secret of their interest in politics – or their willingness to spend money advancing ideas.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve had a few dealings with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.  I’ve had friends who work there, and I’ve spoken to their Associates program (a widely advertised course which trains people to run think tanks) a couple of times a few years back.  In fact, to thank me for appearing, they gave me a Swiss army knife key chain with “Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation” stamped on the side.  If you’re running a secret conspiracy group, you don’t make up key chains advertising it.

Buried in the conspiratorial tone of the story and the apparently necessary examples of inflammatory rhetoric at tea party rallies are a few interesting facts about the priorities of Koch-funded organizations and the priorities of Koch industries.  But lost in the shuffle is the consistency with which the Koch brothers have held to libertarian ideals – ideals which are actually quite rare in the business world.

And then there’s the big story The New Yorker completely whiffs on – that a large, activist government that picks winners and losers will attract attention and activism from large corporate players.

Internet and technology companies are weighing in on policies like net neutrality.  Health care companies were all over the place on both sides of the health care takeover.  Railroad companies are plugging for railroad subsidies; farmers are plugging for farm subsidies.  In fact, the devious “Koch agenda” is unique only in that while most companies are clamoring for their piece of the pie, the Koch brothers are among the few saying “just leave us alone – we got this.”

Had the author not spent valuable mental energy dreaming up the term “Kochtopus” to describe the many tentacles of activity funded by the Koch brothers, she might have had some left over to explore some of the other octopi in the D.C. ocean.

Plus, I’m pretty sure Ziggy already wrote this story.

The last week of Arlen Specter’s political career

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

Sen. Arlen Specter finds himself in the same spot he was six years ago.  He’s a long-term incumbent Senator, locked in a tight primary with a candidate favored by his party’s grassroots, and he’s hoping that support from a President whose approval ratings have dropped precipitously will give him enough credibility with the base to drag him over the finish line.

But there’s a big difference between Specter’s 2010 fortunes and the landscape in 2004 – and no, it’s not the letter next to his name, or that Garry Shandling seemed to spoof the senior Senator from Pennsylvania in Iron Man 2.

In 2004, when Specter squeaked past Pat Toomey in the Republican primary, there were many Republicans who held their noses and voted for him anyway in the general election.  There were also many grassroots activists who deliberately voted against Specter or stayed home.  That was in a year with a Presidential election race, when the GOTV machine that was the Bush-Cheney was dragging every last vote possible to the polls, and when independents tended to break Republican.

This year, the anti-incumbent energy knows no party lines, as Specter and Sen. Blanche Lincoln can surely attest.  It doesn’t help that Specter’s strongest message seems to be based on his incumbency:

“Why would you want to trade 30 years of experience and seniority…for somebody who’s a back-bencher?” is how Specter himself put it in his remarks to the Pittsburgh-area Democrats after he rattled off all the funding he’s directed to the region thanks to his perch on the Appropriations Committee.

Here’s a fearless prediction: Supporters of Rep. Joe Sestak will not be good little soldiers if Specter beats him in the primary next week.  They may vote for him, but they won’t make phone calls, knock on doors, or do any of the other things that have to be done for an election victory.

This isn’t a contested primary along the lines of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008, where the eventual winner could make a credible case for support to the supporters of the eventual loser.  Whether or not Specter pulls out the victory on Tuesday, he may already be a lame duck.  A Sestak/Toomey race would be a battle of ideas; a Specter/Toomey race would really just be about Arlen Specter in a year where incumbents are contributing to the unemployment figures in more ways than one.

South Park at 201 (and counting)

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

South Park got everyone talking last week, but not for the right reasons.

Now thirteen years old, the show celebrated its 200th episode a few weeks ago.  This milestone should have received some more attention than it did: aside from basic longevity, South Park was and is the signature show that put Comedy Central on the cable map.

More significant than that, though, is the unique social commentary South Park offers up from a center-right perspective – and the fact that no other show does that as well.

One episode called out hybrid enthusiasts as presumptuous yuppies who enjoy the smell of their own farts.  Two episodes made the point (using thinly veiled surrogates for Starbucks and Wal-Mart) that big businesses are big because people want their products, not because of some evil corporate trick. A sixth season episode managed to mock lawsuit abuse, political correctness, and draw a line between tolerance and acceptance.  A two-part episode glimpsed into a future without religion and found devout atheists arguing over whose scientific logic was superior.

South Park has been a turn-of-the-20th-century incarnation of an Ayn Rand novel – telling a compelling story while making important and uncommon cultural points.  In fact, a 2005 book about the rise of media-savvy conservative activists was titled South Park Conservatives.

But calling South Park a political show is a misnomer.  Other efforts to become conservative or libertarian alternatives to left-leaning television shows, movies, or other media outlets have failed because those outlets put politics before content; South Park is a funny show that happens to be made by people with a libertarian-oriented worldview.  It would be hilarious either way; the leanings of creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone just make it different.

If you want to learn more about smaller government and individual freedom, Hayek and Bastiat are better philosophers than Parker and Stone.  But it you want entertainment that comes from a different perspective than most of the stuff out there – and that is, despite some shock value jokes and toilet humor, pretty smart – go on down to South Park and have yourself a time.

The coming political apocalypse

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

Start the hand-wringing and eulogizing: 80% of Americans don’t trust the government.  Combined with the fact that some people like to own guns and the calls for rebellion by national policy experts like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are inciting rebellion with seditious rhetoric, the violent revolution can’t be far behind.

Our Republic is clearly doomed.

Based on what I caught on the Sunday Morning talk shows yesterday, here’s what we can expect in the coming months:

Increased antagonism between right-wing ideologues and progressive thought leaders. As experts examine previous social programs – and which new social programs must be implemented to fix them – the tea partiers will grow louder and louder.  Their simple-minded sentence fragments – such as a call for a more reserved and focused federal government which permits society to develop its own mores and guidelines organically to reflect those of the people combined with stronger states which work in harmony with federal officials to ensure that government services are optimized to best serve the needs of the people – will drown out the more educated progressives’ more refined and intellectual plans to pump up program budgets.

More people buying guns and getting violent. As if to gnash their metaphoric teeth in the wake of Tax Contribution Day, a bunch of right wing nut jobs got together in Northern Virginia this past weekend to rally for their Second Amendment rights.  Some even brought their guns to the rally!  In contrast, cooler heads held a rally opposing gun ownership just across the river in Washington, D.C. – where tight restrictions keep out gun violence.

Violent overthrow of the government. These bitter, angry people who distrust government may even coalesce into a bitter, angry mob and try to disrupt the November elections.  Foaming at the mouth and blinded by their hatred of the government, they may descend on local polling places, march in one by one, check in with a poll worker, show necessary identification if required, and then angrily pull levers other than the one with “Incumbent” written in next to it and thus tossing the people in office out instantly (after a careful counting of the votes and a two month transition period).

It wasn’t exactly clear how we’ll get from these initial steps to Beyond the Thunderdome.  We’ll have to tune in next Sunday morning to find out.

3 Ways the Democrats Won on 4/15

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

And that isn’t counting a penny of tax money, either.

Yesterday was a big news day. Tea partiers marched here in DC and elsewhere to define their core principle: that the federal government is too big, that high taxes siphon money out of the economy, and that government programs tend to make matters worse, not better. Overall, yesterday’s messaging seemed positive for limited government activists.

But the opposition was smart, too.  Nationally, Democrats drove three well-timed news stories – two by President Obama, one by Sen. Harry Reid – that added up to a communications masterstroke.

1.  President Obama announced we’re goin’ to Mars (eventually).

This was a good story to grab headlines on the other side of the tax day protests.  Instead of trying to directly engage, President Obama simply highlighted a use of taxpayer money that many folks from both sides of the aisle agree with: scientific research.  The space program specifically creates tons of jobs not only in research but in manufacturing the components of Major Tom’s tin can.

You can’t answer a call for lower taxes with the stance that taxes are just fine.  However, showing a positive use of tax dollars can undermine that message.  It wasn’t a happy coincidence – the Florida trip has been on the President’s schedule for weeks, if not months.

There’s another, more subtle attempt at differentiation here, too.  The announcement of an advanced science program will now be played on the same newscast with footage of grassroots protesters – citizen activists who, in their haste to participate, misspell signs and don’t have a staff of speechwriters to help them articulate their views.  Without actually saying it, Obama gets to present his side as better-educated and smarter than the knee-jerk, anti-tax tea partiers.

2.  President Obama signed an executive order permitting hospital visitation rights to same sex couples.

This is another point of differentiation – and a chance to bait his opponents.  Most of the focus of tea party activism has been on fiscal policy, and many Americans tend to agree with the most conservative segment of the electorate that the government spends too much and spends it wastefully.  For social issues, there is less common ground, and yesterday’s announcement has the potential to begin peeling off moderate voter support from the Republicans.

Making this announcement on a busy news day means that there won’t be much media discussion – unless someone at a tax day rally goes off message, and gets captured in a YouTube video proselytizing about moral codes.  Then it feeds the idea that tea parties are run by intolerant bigots.  It’s a win-win for Obama – either his announcement slips almost completely under the radar, or it’s a chance to take shots at the other side.

3.  Sen. Reid announced that financial reform package will hit the U.S. Senate floor next week.

The Democratic talking points for November are already written: Republicans are the party of Wall Street.  They will attempt to make this distinction with a bad financial services reform package scheduled to hit the floor next week.

Like the other two examples, Reid’s announcement serves to distinguish the Democrats from limited government activists by calling for a larger government for an ostensibly good cause – safeguarding consumers and investors.

There’s also a great strategy in this timing that has nothing to do with tea parties but everything to do with tax day.  The folks who would be most likely to oppose this legislation would be financial professionals, who understand that it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  If they had the time to do it, they might rally their customers and colleagues, making the case that the bill would actually hurt efforts to keep the players in the financial system honest, and mobilize a strong push against the bill.  They haven’t had time, of course, because over the last two weeks, financial professionals have been working around the clock at their day jobs – because yesterday was April 15.  So when the bill hits the floor next week, they won’t be ready to stir up opposition.

Gearing up already?

Passion is important in politics because it helps win over the uncommitted moderate voters; excited activists are the ones making phone calls, dragging people to the polls, and giving one side the image of a winner.  In 2008, then-candidate Obama’s campaign enjoyed demonstrable shows of emotion from his supporters.  In 2010 that excitement is trending toward the right – so far.

But it isn’t to early (or too late) for the President and his allies to begin letting some air out of that balloon.  The further he can create the perception of a gulf between conservative activists and the values of moderate voters, the more Republican chances in 2010 and 2012 will deflate.