Politics As High School
Interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post today from Stuart Stevens, who is a partner in a media firm that worked on George W. Bush's presidential campaigns. While he is, quite obviously, pro-Bush, his words are well worth reading.
As far as organizing principles of life go, I've never found anything that beat the theory that all life imitates high school. It's pretty much foolproof and covers almost all of the universe's difficult questions, such as why scientific studies show 82 percent of all males want to punch Tucker Carlson when he wears a bow tie and why some political candidates react the way they do to a president's popularity.
Visualize, if you will, the president of the United States as the ultimate high school quarterback. When the team is winning and he's on a hot streak, all flock to him in the great cafeteria of life. But when the team is losing, suddenly there are a lot of empty seats at his lunch table and downcast eyes as he's passed in the hall. If you're that quarterback, you find out pretty quickly who your real friends are.
Actually, the "life as high school" theory is not at all a new one. I've often noted the same phenomenon. It really doesn't change much as you get older, does it? His point here is that Republican candidates should be running their own races, not get sucked into a referendum on the president. He's quite right. The Democrats want desperately to nationalize the election into a vote on Bush and Bush's policies. Getting sucked into that is not a good idea for Republican candidates for a simple reason: voters are not stupid.
One of the dirty little secrets of politics is that presidential endorsements rarely have any positive impact. In 1986, Republicans went into the off-year elections believing that their strongest card was the popularity of President Ronald Reagan, especially in those red states. It seemed axiomatic to end the campaign by giving the ball to the Big Guy, and race after race closed with endorsement spots of Reagan doing what he did best, looking straight at the camera and suggesting that if you wanted to help him, you'd vote for Candidate X. And then most of those candidates proceeded to lose. In one tight race after another — such as those involving GOP Sens. Mack Mattingly of Georgia, Jeremiah Denton of Alabama and Paula Hawkins of Florida — candidates saw their numbers flatten when the Reagan endorsement aired, then spike downward to defeat. These were all states in which Reagan's numbers were through-the-roof positive, but voters seemed to say, "Thanks very much, Mr. President, it's nice that you're supporting a fellow Republican, but what does that have to do with me?"
The flip side of the marginal positive effect of a presidential endorsement is the limited negative impact that comes from being associated with a president of your own party, regardless of his popularity. It's hardly a secret that if you're a Republican candidate you happen to be in the same party as Bush. If there's a Republican candidate out there who thinks he or she can slip that little factoid past the electorate, well, good luck, and good riddance.
He's exactly right here. One of the facts of politics is that regardless of what voters may think about Congress as a group, most voters feel differently about their own representatives. Trying to run a local campaign as a national referendum is not going to really help either side. But if the Republicans fall into this trap, they may well hurt themselves at the local level. (The converse applies as well. If local Democrats run against Bush instead of against the local Republican candidate, they will likely lose the voter's attention.)
My advice to Republican candidates is that they first must come to grips with the rationale for their own election: Why me? Why now? If in their hearts they disagree with the Iraq war, they should call it like they see it, but without trying to nuance a response seven ways from Sunday in hopes of pleasing all sides. That's French for ending up like John Kerry. Elections are littered with losers who have a need to be loved by everyone.
I think that is sound advice.
By Guy, Sunday, 17 September , 2006 @ 7:50 am
Gaius..For the most part, I agree. However, in 1990 Newt was very successful in nationalizing the congressional elections with the use of the “Contract with America.” Perhaps that cycle was the exception rather than the rule because of all the Clinton shennanigans. But, like you said, throw in the fact that we have, in GWB’s case, a rather unpopular President, nationalizing the elections may be a problem this cycle.
By Gaius, Sunday, 17 September , 2006 @ 7:57 am
I think that was 1994, wasn’t it? Anyway, didn’t it work because the Dems ran against it - in other words they got sucked into fighting that nationalization rather than running locally? I think that is the point Stevens is making here.
By Guy, Sunday, 17 September , 2006 @ 11:19 pm
ou’re right It was ‘94. You make a good point…I had forgotten the Dems actually ran against it.