Tag: GOP

What if Obamacare HAD been repealed?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Even with Russian investigation news sucking up oxygen during the last half of the week, Republicans have egg on their faces after swinging and missing on so-called “Obamacare repeal.” After seven years of campaigning on health care, the GOP had nothing to offer on health care.

But can you imagine if they had passed a plan? Over at Medium I point out that the now-endless campaign cycle means the histrionics would have started before President Trump had finished signing the new bill. It would have meant an ugly few years of Democrats essentially accusing Republicans of murder. I bet the GOP wasn’t ready for it. They’re probably lucky the bill failed.

Trump’s answer on data is actually the right answer

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump says his Presidential campaign will be about personality, not data:

In his AP interview, Trump discounted the value of data: The “candidate is by far the most important thing,” he said. He said he plans a “limited” use of data in his general election campaign and suggested Obama’s victories — universally viewed by political professionals as groundbreaking in the way data steered the campaign to voters — are misunderstood.

“Obama got the votes much more so than his data processing machine, and I think the same is true with me,” Trump said, explaining that he will continue to focus on his signature rallies, free television exposure and his personal social media accounts to win voters over.

That’s exactly the wrong answer on an 8:00 a.m. conference call, but it’s exactly the right answer for an interview – which is something many political professionals miss. In the quest to sound smart to industry press, operatives can fall into the trap of talking too much about process. But voters don’t care.

Yes, the data-driven campaigns President Barack Obama ran in 2008 and 2012 were groundbreaking. But people voted for Obama’s message. The data elements helped them vote, but they made the choice, ultimately, based on the message.

In this cycle, polarizing figures with limited crossover appeal lead both major parties. Both presumptive nominees face divisions within their parties. Voter turnout could suffer, which could make the ground game vital. If the race is close, it will likely be the campaign with the better turnout operation that comes out ahead.

But a candidate has three jobs: 1) Ask for votes; 2) Ask for money; 3) Don’t mess up. Chatting about campaign tactics is not on the list.

Maybe Trump has a basement full of nerds chained to computers analyzing data sets to develop the winning turnout plan. Even if he does, it wouldn’t help him to brag about it. Even if the Trump campaign proved to be the most sophisticated data operation in the history of ones and zeros, it would only serve to amplify his message.

Campaign tactics may drive votes, but personality wins voters.

The Jeb we need to see tonight

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Governor Jeb Bush, your country needs you.

When you take the debate stage tonight, you will be in a different position than you likely imagined a year ago. You haven’t come close to victory in either of the first primary states, and your poll performance has lagged for months. Some are calling for you to leave the race. But there is work to be done, and no other candidate seems willing to do it. The mantle of service falls to your shoulders.

Donald Trump needs to go.

You know this, which is probably why this commercial exists. Commercials alone won’t do it, though.

Here’s the real problem: righteous indignation is the most effective emotion a politician can evoke when seeking support. Voters are angry, and they want candidates who are share a controlled version of that anger. Trump’s messages have resonated because of that fact. But there’s another maxim of politics: Don’t get mad except on purpose.

The public doesn’t need to see Trump angry, they need to see him lose his temper and behave like the manchild he is.

Let’s be honest here, Governor Bush: You are probably a long shot for the nomination. Also, you come off like a high school student council nerd frustrated that the class clown got enough people to write him in that he can blow up your weekly meetings. Those two points make you the perfect person to execute this plan.

Step 1: Debate prep

Don’t shave. You need to go into this debate with a healthy fice o’clock shadow. Skip the tie and consider jeans. And – this is important – get a little buzzed but not too drunk. You will need to deliver a coherent message, and slurred speech won’t help. But you will need to loosen up a bit.

Step 2: Show everyone the “New Jeb”

Saunter out on the stage like you own the place. Dole out high fives all around, maybe even to a few people in the front row. Give fist bumps to the moderators. Set the tone that you will be a different person tonight – laid back and at ease. Smirk the whole time.

Step 3: Call out the loser

Make frequent reference to Trump’s long list of business failures and bankruptcies. Trump’s defense so far has been to claim he “uses the system” to protect assets, and to use that as evidence that the system is broken. Call him out on being a glorified three-card-monty player and remind everyone that “using the system” still means you failed. Suggested line: “The only thing you were good at was hosting a reality show where you pretend to be a good businessman. And then your ratings started to suck so you ran for President.”

Step 4: Badger badger badger

This is where you really have to break character. Trump has upended the rules of the campaign, so you have to upend the rules of the debate. Consider interjecting during his answers (“Nope,” “That’s not true,” and or “Wow, that’s a whopper!”) to shake his focus. Laugh in his face. Call him a wimp, a loser, a failure, a carnival barker, and a giant orange baby. (Definitely call him a giant orange baby. Maybe make some cooing and goo-goo noises, too.) Even if it means crashing the debate.

Eventually, Trump will lose his cool and blow up. This would be a good time to have a baby’s pacifier on hand to offer to him as he is melting down. Props are usually a bad idea, but this would make for an excellent GIF.

Remember, Governor Bush, this is a kamikaze mission, so even if you pick up a negative image, it’s ok. But if you succeed, you might find there are a lot of conservatives who are happy you stood up to Trump in a way your father and brother never would have been able to. Maybe there’s redemption on the other side of this. Your current path is certainly a dead end.

Heck, even if you just utter the words “giant orange baby,” you’ll have my vote.

 

 

 

 

Cruz missed an opportunity with “porn star commercial”

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Ted Cruz had pretty good, biting commercial knocking his GOP rivals in the week before the South Carolina primary. Then the Daily Caller noticed one of the actresses in the spot had done some films that were, uh, not exactly family friendly.

The Cruz crew have since pulled the ad off the airwaves and released a statement on how such a thing could have happened. A campaign spokesperson blamed a casting company for not properly vetting actress Amy Lindsay, and said the campaign wouldn’t have let her be in the commercial if it had known about her late-night Cinemax past.

What a mistake.

The ad in question is pretty good. It sets the framework for Cruz to draw contrasts with both Marco Rubio and Donald Trump as the “true” conservative in the race:

Pulling the ad represents a misstep for a Cruz campaign which has been smart and overperformed expectations so far. The error isn’t just in pulling a quality ad off the air, but in possibly missing out on a valuable surrogate or at least a nice message:

Prior to the Cruz campaign pulling the ad, Lindsay told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview on Thursday that she’s a Christian conservative and a Republican. While she emphasized that she did not do hardcore porn and that she also appeared in non-erotic films, Lindsay said she thinks it is “cool” that an actor who has appeared in softcore porn could also appear in Cruz’s ad.

“In a cool way, then hey, then it’s not just some old, white Christian bigot that people want to say, ‘It could be, maybe, a cool kind of open-minded woman like me,’” she said of people supporting Cruz.

Since the ad came down, Lindsay has said she is still deciding where to direct her vote, wavering between Cruz and Trump. That’s a shame.

Cruz’s core audience is largely Christian social conservatives, so you can see why the campaign wants to distance itself from the situation. But in doing so, they are undermining their own message. The ad tells us that, no matter your past, there’s a place for you in the Cruz campaign. (This is also a major theme of Christian teaching.) The campaign’s subsequent statements and actions suggest the opposite.

It seems like some legwork from the campaign could have told them that Lindsay wasn’t necessarily a liability, and in fact identified as a potential Cruz supporter. Now, she’s been very publicly rejected and has every reason to keep this story in the news for as long as the reporters call her.

Post-South Carolina, there figure to be a number of Republican voters looking for a new horse to back, so it’s a good time to lay the groundwork for a message of inclusion. This situation offered the Cruz crew a chance to show their arms are open. Did they ever whiff.

Remember the greatest GOP field in history?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

A year ago, it looked like 2016 would be a good year to be a Republican.

While the Democrats had pretty much resigned themselves to the reality that Hillary Clinton (and baggage which, despite early polling, made her a general election crapshoot) would win their nomination, the Republicans enjoyed an embarrassment of riches. There were seven multi-term governors, most of whom could point to a record of conservative reforms in purple-to-blue states. There was one freshman Senator whose background as the sone of immigrants read like an instruction manual for acheiving the American dream, and another whose libertarian leanings offered a fresh prism through which to view conservatism. A former CEO and a retired neurosurgeon offered unique and diverse perspectives. Other candidacies, especially those of Lindsey Graham and even Ted Cruz, seemed more like attempts to bring certain issues or viewpoints into the discussion. And other candidates, like Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Jim Gilmore, were obvious grasping for book deals or gainful employment.

But a funny thing happened to the Dream Team on the way to Iowa.

The most obvious element is Donald Trump blowing up the race, but Trump is more accurately labeled a symptom than a disease. The Republican Party came down with what the folks at the Mayo Clinic might call Three Stooges Syndrome: There were so many candidates trying to get through the door, no one made any progress among the electorate.

With so many candidates, it has been easy for a loud, celebrity self-funder like Trump to swoop in and make waves. He didn’t have to spend last summer doing the behind-the-scenes organization building and fundraising that keeps most candidates out of the limelight. When Trump roared, he filled a media vacuum and shot to the front of a crowded field.

He wasn’t – and still isn’t – particularly popular among Republicans. The problem was – and is – that so many candidates in the big crowded field had a legitimate shot to win the nomination with just the right breaks. Even now, there are seven candidates left in the race today and all but Jim Gilmore and Ben Carson can honestly chart a path to victory. Sure, they aren’t all particularly likely paths, but until the money runs out why not give it a try? What does Jeb Bush or John Kasich have to lose by hanging around?

The candidate with the most reason to drop out right now, oddly enough, may be Marco Rubio. His debate gaffe is not necessarily fatal, but it makes his climb a bit steeper. As a relatively young guy, there’s time for him to make a second run in four or eight years after rehabilitating his image. At the same time, he has to look at the primary calendar and think – accurately – that he has a better shot than Bush or Kasich.

Meanwhile, look at even a partial list of people who have already bowed out: Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Perry. In another year, those profiles would make for a compelling primary slate on their own.  In this cycle, they are also-rans.

 

 

The coming endorsement from Jeb! Bush

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The Republican presidential field will start to slim down after tonight’s Iowa caucuses and next week’s New Hampshire primary. Over the next two weeks, the would-be contenders will start dropping out and throwing their support behind a former opponent.

How’s that going to work when it’s Jeb Bush’s turn?

Fundraising troubles combined with his respect for the office mean that, barring a stunning New Hampshire comeback, the former nominal frontrunner will be out sooner rather than later. It’s a stunning fall based on the national media coverage of his campaign, but unsurprising to observers who saw no natural path to the nomination for Bush in what was a deep, accomplished, and grassroots-friendly Republican field.

And it means there’s an endorsement coming up. Who wants it?

Other candidates have to be cringing. As they climb over each other to shed the dreaded “establishment” label, what could be worse than having to share the stage with – and get glowing compliments from – an inside-the-beltway brand name like Bush?

Fellow Floridian Marco Rubio is the most likely recipient of Bush’s blessing. After weeks of Bush-aligned super PAC attacks on Rubio, won’t that press conference be awkward? One question his attacks on Rubio’s Senate attendance or immigration stance, Bush would descend into several minutes of stammering, uncomfortable double-speak about “leadership” and “accomplishment.”

What will it be like if Bush opts for Ted Cruz? One can only imagine Cruz forcing an uneasy smile and awkward handshake, all the while worrying about his grassroots support as the poster child for policitcal inside baseball extolled Cruz’s Senate experience in Washington, D.C. But at least Cruz would feign grace; should Bush choose Rand Paul he might find himself getting into an arcane policy debate with the Kentucky Senator during the endorsement announcement. Neither one of those guys seem like they’re okay losing an argument.

Naturally, Donald Trump will take any endorsement, so he’d have no problem sharing the stage with Bush. Bush, on the other hand, might look like a hostage telling a video cameras through clenched teeth that his captors are treating him very very well. Naturally, Trump would praise Bush, speak reverently about the Bush family, and avow his respect for their service.

Then, for old time’s sake, he’d give Jeb a good noogie.

Debate recap and a farewell to Walker

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Beverly Hallberg was super-nice enough to record this week’s Crummy Little Podcast right after the last GOP debate, and you can see some of her predictions are coming true already. She said people would start dropping off, and there goes Scott Walker.

Walker’s abrupt exit still leaves the Republican field crowded, and the big crowd includes a few well-funded candidates. Past primaries have served as surmountable obstacles for early favorites, providing just enough resistance to make the smart-money candidate break a sweat. This time, there isn’t a favorite, and a good chunk of the party finds the supposed front-runner less than ideal.

That’s a recipe for a brokered convention. If any four of Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, and John Kasich come into the Republican convention with a hefty amount of delegates. Trump has a plurality, but there’s no majority. How does that play out?

The easiest answer is the non-Trumps dropping out and throwing their support behind a consensus candidate. And if you want to be that consensus candidate, now is the time to drop out.

None of the candidates have lost any votes, yet – their greatest crimes have been poor poll performance. They could credibly blame lackluster fundraising for their exits (“money in politics” is an effective bogeyman). They can hope that their failures of 2015 are forgotten by the summer of 2016. The two who have dropped out so far – Walker and Rick Perry – boasted very successful gubernatorial records.

Could the busy, noisy, crowded field that drowns out the voices of accomplished candidates be the factor that re-opens the door next year?

Well… no. It’s probably more likely to be a House of Cards story arc than a real-life convention drama. But if there was a cycle where something this bizarre could happen, 2016 might be it.

Crummy Little Podcast Episode 2: Beverly Hallberg

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

District Media Group Founder and President Beverly Hallberg is one of the savviest media professionals in Washington, D.C., and she did a great job previewing the upcoming Republican debate on this week’s Crummy Little Podcast. She also talks about why Hillary Clinton isn’t connecting with voters (and why Bernie Sanders is). There’s even some baseball talk at the end.

Download the podcast here or check it out on iTunes.

The Republican debate is set up all wrong

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

No kidding, right? But there are two big problems with the debate to talk about in this weekend’s post at Communities Digital News.

In reality, fitting a giant candidate field into an hour long debate is a square peg-round hole problem. The networks, sponsors, and even the Republican party are trying to figure out how to handle a historically large field using the same promotion vehicles they used when only a handful of people could afford to mount a primary campaign.

It may not happen every single cycle, but it will happen again. Networks need to use the 2016 primary season to figure out how to handle it.