by Cliston Brown | Sep 15, 2012 | Political Commentary
The Romney campaign committed a huge error when it attacked the Obama administration as “weak” in the wake of the killing of four Americans, including our ambassador, Christopher Stevens, in Libya. But the biggest error Romney made wasn’t an error of fact (although it was, indeed, a factually challenged statement).
The biggest error was a tactical one: attacking the commander-in-chief in the wake of a tragedy for our nation. When we are attacked, most Americans rally around the president, whomever that may be. It happened after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
It is generally expected, at such a time, that politicians on either side of the aisle will refrain from attacking or blaming the leader of the nation. If the Democrats had attacked George W. Bush in 2001 for being caught flatfooted on 9-11, they almost certainly would have paid a horrendous political price.
While it remains to be seen how the public will react to this knee-jerk reaction by the Romney team, one thing looks crystal clear: the Romney attacks on this issue appear to be out of sheer desperation. The polling data has been breaking in President Obama’s favor ever since the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Charlotte nearly two weeks ago, and none of the Romney attacks seem to be taking hold.
When it became clear that the struggling economy alone would not get Romney over the top, the Romney campaign began throwing everything it could at the wall and praying that something, anything, would stick. The result has been a disjointed, unfocused, scattershot approach that has not helped Romney move the needle at all. Unless you count moving the needle in the wrong direction, that is.
As each new attack fails, the Romney campaign has placed itself on a hair-trigger setting to jump on every opening that appears like an opportunity to hurt the president politically. The attack in Libya and the unrest in the Muslim world over the ridiculous anti-Islam movie produced by some whackadoodle religious nut gave the Romney team another perceived opening to return to a favorite Republican attack line: that the Democrats are “weak” on foreign policy.
The Republicans have trotted this tired old meme out in every election for nearly 40 years, and they have grown accustomed to this ridiculous attack bearing political fruit. Their messaging on this issue had been so effective that, after 9-11, I heard even Democrats expressing gratitude that we had a Republican in the White House at that moment. (For the record, I was not one of them.)
So they’re trotting out the “Democrats are weak, weak, weak” line because it’s always been their go-to attack line in the past. But there’s a problem: it’s not working anymore.
The Romney campaign has found a lot of things to lie about this election year, and some of those lies have been fairly effective. Team Romney has run advertising claiming that the president robbed Medicare of $700 billion to pay for Obamacare, and that he took the work requirement out of welfare. These ads were nearly as effective as they were false. Romney’s polling improved after launching both of these attacks, even though they were roundly attacked by the news media as completely and provably false. But when it comes to these issues, as well as the ridiculous lies about health care bill (death panels, anyone?), they are so complex and murky that few average Americans even really know the truth. (Even some of the members of Congress who voted for the health care bill didn’t know what was in the thing.) As a result, a lot of average Americans—having no clear and easy proof that these claims are untrue—are susceptible to the lies.
The problem, conversely, with the “Democrats are weak” argument is simple. It’s a hard argument to sell when it is widely known that the Democratic president ordered in the Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden. This would be the same bin Laden, as is also widely known, who eluded President Obama’s Republican predecessor for nearly eight years.
Yes, I know that the right goes apoplectic anytime anyone says “Obama Got Osama,” but it is a fact. He who makes the call gets the credit, as inevitably would have happened had President Bush succeeded in getting bin Laden. The SEAL team went in on the president’s orders, as a result of the intelligence that the president’s team gathered. The SEALs could not have carried out the operation without the president’s order. It was a highly risky operation that included violating the sovereignty of a supposed U.S. ally, Pakistan, and if it had failed, does anyone doubt that it would have destroyed Obama politically? (I think it is clear that same people who refuse to give him any credit for the mission’s success would not have waited half a second to blame him if it had failed.)
To order the mission, against the advice of his own vice president and some other key advisers, took real guts on the president’s part (and of course, it must be said, spectacular courage and great work by the SEALs, who obviously bore far greater risk than the commander-in-chief did).
The mission that killed bin Laden is emblematic of the calm, cool and effective overseas policies of the president. Does anyone remember how he sent in special forces, early in his term, to kill the Somali pirates who had hijacked an American vessel? Or how our quiet leadership in the Libyan civil war resulted in the overthrow of longtime terrorist supporter Moammar Qaddafi?
These three missions all had two very important things in common: 1) they all succeeded and 2) not a single American lost his or her life as a result of any of these operations. If these are the results of a president’s supposed weakness in his usage of American military might, what exactly does it take to be considered strong?
The fact is, the Obama approach to foreign policy and his wise usage of our military—pinpointed, targeted special forces strikes as opposed to massive, scattershot overreactions with heavy losses of life—demonstrates that a cool hand is more effective than a hot head. And people generally know the difference. A measured (one might even call it “conservative”) approach that accomplishes the mission and prevents needless deaths is the smart move. It might not be very satisfying to those who want to go in with guns blazing to make a point. But it’s safe to say that the SEAL team mission to Pakistan made a much greater—and certainly more final—impression on Osama bin Laden than our invasion of Iraq did.
You know, I found it really amusing that the Republicans turned to Clint Eastwood at their recent convention in Tampa. While Clint has always been a tremendous actor and now a spectacular director, the fact is that the composed, cool and deadly upholder of justice he played in the Dirty Harry movies was just a role.
If you want to see a real-life Dirty Harry—the clear-headed enforcer who tracks down the bad guys and ensures they get what’s coming to them—you can find him most days at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
People know the difference between an act and the real thing. Our president, Barack Obama, may be many things, but he is clearly not weak. His results speak for themselves. You could even say he’s got more Clint Eastwood in him than Clint himself.
So, Governor Romney, you’ve got to ask yourself one question:
“Do I feel lucky?”
Well, do ya, punk?
by Cliston Brown | Sep 8, 2012 | Election Analysis, Political Commentary
I returned to Chicago yesterday from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. After 13 hours of uninterrupted sleep, a few observations:
1) The Democrats are finally starting to understand that politics, for most voters, comes from the gut, not from the head. The average voter is much less interested in policy statements than how a candidate or party makes him or her feel.
I was in the hall for two of the three nights, and everything seemed geared toward maximum emotional impact. Michelle Obama’s speech emphasized: I’m a mom, I’m a wife, we’re a normal family, we’re just like you. Most importantly, she sought connection with the overwhelming majority of the voting public along economic lines: without mentioning Mitt Romney’s name, Mrs. Obama adroitly noted that when Barack picked her up for a date, the door of his modest car was rusted through, something we surely will never hear from Ann Romney. And her line about how it’s not how much you earn, it’s what good you do hammered the point home.
When the Democrats brought in Gabrielle Giffords to recite the Pledge of Allegiance on Wednesday night, I nearly cried. I’m sure there were others who shot right past almost.
Everything was perfectly scripted to provoke emotional triggers, and I think it largely succeeded. No high-minded logical arguments, no mind-numbing 23-point plans. If anybody could boil down the key message and tone of the Democratic Convention this year, it was basically this: We’re much more like you than the Republicans are (therefore we care about more about you than they do), and we’re nicer. The red meat for the delegates (and there was plenty, particularly in the speech of former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland) was largely confined to time slots that weren’t widely televised.
And while President Obama’s speech was panned by many pundits (and by me) as providing nothing we hadn’t heard before, its purpose, I believe, has been largely misunderstood. The president wasn’t attempting to impress the people in the hall. He was attempting to restore the emotional connection he forged with the voters in 2008, most of whom haven’t really been paying much attention since. The people I talked to who were in the building unanimously agreed with me that the speech wasn’t Obama’s best and that it was all basically rehashed, old sound bytes. But the people I talked to who saw it on TV really liked it, and that’s what mattered, because they are the people the president needs to reconnect with and win over again. You don’t use a speech to 35 million people to preach to the converted. If the speech was old hat to me and the other people I talked to on the way out of Time Warner Cable Arena, it wasn’t necessarily so to the viewing audience at home.
2) The Democrats won the two-week convention period and did so handily. Polling in the wake of the Republican event in Tampa demonstrated very little of a bump for Romney; to the degree that he got one at all, he went from trailing 49-47 to tied 48-48. While the effects of the Democratic convention will need a few days to fully develop, coming out of the conventions ahead, as he will, is a win for Obama. Very few candidates who aren’t ahead after both conventions are over ultimately win the election. I’d have to do some research to say this for sure, but I think the last one was Harry Truman in 1948. And Mitt Romney is no Harry Truman.
I’ve been saying for weeks that if Romney didn’t come out of the conventions ahead, he would lose the election (barring some unforeseen catastrophe for Obama). I see nothing at this point that changes my analysis.
3) The Democrats will make bigger gains in the U.S. House than people expect. I was fortunate to attend a Democratic briefing on the upcoming House races. Of course, I immediately dismissed a lot of what they said as biased and overly optimistic, and naturally so: you don’t tell a group of potential donors, “Hey, there’s no way in hell we’re going to reclaim the House this year, so you can put your money away, boys and girls.” But they did offer some convincing polling and fundraising statistics that led me to conclude there is at least an outside possibility they could wrest the House from the Republicans. Personally, I still wouldn’t bet a lot of money on that happening (despite their rather optimistic claims), but there are some races that are polling more competitively than anyone expected at the start of the cycle.
I’m not going to say any more, because it was a closed briefing and I don’t want to say anything that could tip off the other side. But I will say that I came out of the room slightly more optimistic than when I entered. I think the battle for the U.S. House will be closer than expected and that the final spread will be in the single digits.
by Cliston Brown | Aug 26, 2012 | Political Commentary
There is something about the liberal character, as it seems to be defined these days, that shrinks away from open political combat, even when it is clearly called for and necessary. Take, for example, the unwillingness of too many on the left to call out Mitt Romney’s recent welfare claims for what they are: lies.
Today, watching the Melissa Harris Perry show on MSNBC, I became positively irate when the aforementioned Melissa—a wonderful host and incisive political commentator—referred to Romney’s claims as “inaccurate.”
No. No. No. A thousand times, NO.
I don’t mean to pick on Melissa here. She’s wonderful, one of my favorite political talk show hosts. And in all fairness, she is not the only person on the left shrinking away from the “L” word. In fact, aside from Jamelle Bouie of The American Prospect, who explicitly called Romney a liar on the welfare issue in the Washington Post on August 20th, I can’t remember anybody on the left actually calling Romney’s welfare claims lies, although they clearly are, and I’ll explain this point further in a later paragraph. (I apologize here to anybody on the left whose public statements to this effect I may have missed.)
Sure, it’s technically true that Romney’s claims are inaccurate, as lies are, indeed, a subset of inaccuracies. But “inaccurate” is the wrong word to use here, and so sickeningly typical of shrinking-violet liberals who are more concerned with being polite than actually winning a damn election.
Here’s why “inaccurate” is the wrong word to use:
If somebody says something that is inaccurate, there could be many reasons for it. It could be, for example, that Governor Romney just misread or misunderstood what President Obama actually did. Poor Mitt, he just blew it.
The problem here is that using the word “inaccurate,” rather than calling it the lie it is, lets Romney off the hook. It implies he might have just made a mistake and that, if he knew better, maybe he wouldn’t be saying it.
The fact is, there is NO WAY Romney could possibly not know better. There is no reading of the president’s actions on welfare that suggests the president ended the requirement, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, that welfare recipients work. Romney is deliberately misrepresenting what happened here. What he is claiming, in multiple campaign commercials, is not merely inaccurate; it is a LIE.
The reason I state this so bluntly is that there is no way Governor Romney could not know that what he claims is not true. In addition to Bouie’s spot-on column in the Post, the Tampa Bay Times, in its acclaimed “PolitiFact Truth-O-Meter” on August 7th, explicitly and painstakingly explained why Romney’s statements were completely false.
There is a wealth of information out there, over the last two-and-a-half weeks, debunking Romney’s welfare claims. It’s impossible that Romney and his team are unaware that their claims are inaccurate (if you’ll pardon, for the moment, my own use of the word).
When it is impossible that you don’t know your claims are inaccurate, and you keep making them, you’re lying. And when you’re lying, you are making an intentional choice to steer people wrong.
It’s not a mistake. It’s not a mere “inaccuracy.” It is a lie, and there is a huge difference between an inaccuracy and a lie that speaks very distinctly about Mitt Romney’s character. If we do not make that case, we on the left hand Romney a gift. It is the electoral equivalent of what is known in sports as a turnover.
I know that we on the left would like very much to be high-minded and polite, and to win through the strength of our ideas and our appeals to the better angels of our fellow citizens’ nature. But in so doing, we allow the other side to resort to tactics, such as Romney’s outright welfare lie, without any consequences.
And lies, if not called out and knocked down, tend to work. Remember the unconscionable Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry that Kerry and the Democrats failed to knock down (and which probably cost him the razor-close 2004 election)?
How many times do we on the left have to get bludgeoned before we finally muster the intestinal fortitude to fight back?
It starts with calling a deliberate untruth what it is: a lie.
by Cliston Brown | Aug 23, 2012 | Election Analysis
Advertising patterns demonstrate that there are really only eight states that are in doubt at this time. Barring an unexpected occurrence between now and election day, President Barack Obama is virtually a lock to win 247 electoral votes on November 6th, and Mitt Romney is a virtual lock to win 191.
With 270 electoral votes needed to win, Obama has a much easier path to victory than Romney does, and in fact could win the election if he just wins the states he is expected to win and also takes Florida. Obama has six paths to victory that involve winning half of the swing states or fewer; Romney has zero paths to victory that involve winning fewer than five of the eight swing states.
Based on where the campaigns are advertising, the eight swing states are: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire.
Obama’s Paths to 270
1) Florida
2) Ohio plus any one of North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa or Nevada
3) North Carolina plus Virginia or Colorado
4) Virginia plus Colorado and any other swing state
5) Virginia plus any two of the following three states: Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire
6) Colorado plus Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire
Immediate Conclusions
Florida can win it for Obama by itself.
Ohio needs only to be paired with one other swing state (except New Hampshire).
Either Virginia or Colorado figure into every path except the shortest one (Florida).
New Hampshire only has the potential to be relevant in three scenarios, and those are dependent on several other occurrences happening. The likelihood of New Hampshire deciding the election is fairly remote.
According to Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight Blog, Obama’s odds in the swing states, from best to worst, are as follows:
1) Nevada
2) New Hampshire
3) Ohio
4) Iowa
5) Colorado
6) Virginia
7) Florida
8) North Carolina
If Obama wins Nevada and Ohio, two of his three best swing states at this time, he wins the election. Therefore, his best path is to focus on Ohio and Nevada.
Either Virginia or Colorado figure into almost every scenario, so these states also should be given top-priority attention.
Iowa figures into as many scenarios as Nevada, but there is only one scenario where Obama needs Iowa if he wins Nevada. Nevada looks like a likelier win, so Nevada should be prioritized over Iowa.
Although Florida is one of the longest shots for Obama to hold, its potential to wrap the election up for Obama, even if he wins no other swing states, dictate that it should be given attention. If nothing else, tying up Romney’s resources in Florida keeps him from spending more money in the more crucial states.
New Hampshire, with only four electoral votes, is unlikely to be decisive, and Obama’s hardest lift is North Carolina. If resources have to be husbanded down the stretch, these two states should be conceded.
In short, the Obama campaign should do as follows:
1) Focus heavily on Ohio, Nevada, Virginia and Colorado.
2) Compete in Florida, but not to the detriment of Ohio, Nevada, Virginia and Colorado.
3) Give as much attention to Iowa as possible without jeopardizing efforts in Ohio, Nevada, Virginia, Colorado or Florida.
4) Give enough attention to New Hampshire to keep it competitive in the unlikely event that it is needed.
5) Concede North Carolina. While it can be won with a great effort, it is too heavy of a lift to justify the expenditure of resources that would be necessary.
The math is much trickier for Romney, who must win at least five of the eight swing states to win the election. He cannot possibly win without taking Florida, and it will be exceptionally difficult for him to win without taking Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia. If Romney loses Ohio, he must win every other swing state. If he loses North Carolina or Virginia, he must win Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and two of the remaining three swing states (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire). If he loses North Carolina and Virginia, or North Carolina and Colorado, he cannot win.
Romney’s Paths To 270
1) Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and any other swing state
2) Florida, Ohio, Colorado, plus North Carolina or Virginia, and any two of the remaining three swing states (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire)
3) Every swing state except Ohio
Immediate Conclusions
Romney cannot win without winning Florida.
If Romney loses Ohio, he has to win all seven remaining swing states.
Losing North Carolina or Virginia would force Romney to win at least six of the remaining seven swing states, including Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado. (However, he could lose Virginia and Colorado and still reach 269 by sweeping the remaining swing states; assuming Republicans maintain control of a majority of U.S. House delegations, which seems likely at this time, a 269-269 tie in the electoral college would mean the election of Romney by the House.)
In short, the Romney campaign should do as follows:
1) Win Florida at all costs. There is no chance of victory without winning Florida.
2) Focus heavily on Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia, as any combination not involving these three states, plus Florida, makes victory a near impossibility.
3) Spend heavily in Colorado, which is his next-best bet.
4) Assume Obama does not spend heavily in New Hampshire and capitalize there.
5) Concede Nevada and focus on Iowa. Unless Romney loses Ohio, he doesn’t need both, and Iowa looks slightly better for Romney than Nevada does.
The Bottom Line
Of the eight states in doubt, there are no scenarios in which Romney can be elected without winning at least five of those states. However, Obama has a path that requires him to win only one of those eight states, two paths that require him to win only two of those states, and two more that require him to win only three of the eight swing states. Obama has six ways to win that require victories in four of the eight swing states or fewer. In short, Obama has a considerable advantage in the Electoral College and can spare his resources by focusing in on four or five of the swing states; Romney must go all-out in at least seven of those states to have a real chance to win.
Only two states are crucial to both candidates: Ohio and Virginia. Television viewers there can count on three more months of advertising saturation.
by Cliston Brown | Jun 6, 2012 | Election Analysis, Political Commentary
Did you hear about the big win for the Democrats in Wisconsin Tuesday night?
I’m completely serious.
The Democrats retook the Wisconsin State Senate on Tuesday by winning a swing district centered in Racine County, in the southeastern corner of the state. Former state senator John Lehman, a Democrat, defeated incumbent Republican Van Wanggaard to reclaim the seat Wanggaard took from Lehman in 2010. The result is that Democrats now hold a 17-16 advantage in the Wisconsin Senate, and Republicans will need to net at least one seat in November—or face the end of Gov. Scott Walker’s ability to do anything without Democratic consent for the rest of his term.
This was a huge win for the Democrats.
But you probably didn’t hear about it, because Wisconsin’s Democrats also made the mistake of trying to recall Walker. And we all know what happened there. Walker, buoyed by both monetary and structural advantages, easily defeated Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett for the second time in three years. The national media have been talking about it non-stop.
Today, Democrats across the country are disappointed and disheartened, and Democrats in Wisconsin have about $4 million less at their disposal for the elections this fall. But hey, there’s nothing much important happening in November—just a presidential race and an open-seat U.S. Senate race that could determine control of Congress.
And, sure, Republicans had to spend $30 million defending Walker from being recalled, but in the post-Citizens United world, does anyone think they’ll miss it, with their wealthy donors ready to spend whatever it takes to defeat Democrats at every level across the country?
This was a victory we didn’t need to hand to the Republicans, but we did it anyway. Why?
Because, as has been amply demonstrated once again, we on the left have absolutely no discipline and no ability to see past our own righteous indignation and think strategically.
For the record, I’m not talking out of sheer hindsight here. I was against the attempt to recall Walker from the start, and I discussed my reasons in an earlier post from May 15. As much as I wish I had been completely wrong, my post shows pretty clearly that I saw this whole fiasco coming. Why couldn’t the Democrats of Wisconsin see it?
Recalling Walker wasn’t necessary, and frankly, we were never going to beat him anyway. The way gubernatorial recalls in Wisconsin are set up give a huge institutional advantage to the incumbent. While Democrats had to go through a primary, and only had a month to regroup for the general recall, Walker had tons of time to raise money and go on the airwaves before the Democrats could even select a nominee. The recall was lost before the Democrats had even settled on a candidate.
What was far more important than getting Walker was depriving Walker of his ability to pass laws. That’s why the legislative recalls that started in 2011 were, in contrast to the Walker recall, a sound idea—but also poorly executed.
Democrats in 2011 went after six Republican Senators, but they never had a hope in hell of beating more than three of them. They did defeat two and narrowly missed beating a third, which would have given them control of the Senate. If they hadn’t wasted resources firing blindly and going after three Republican Senators they were never going to beat, maybe they could have picked up that third seat and won the Senate in 2011.
This year, Democrats went after four more Republican Senators, two of whom they never had any chance whatsoever to beat. A third, Pam Galloway, resigned rather than face the recall and was replaced on the ballot by her predecessor, who ended up being a far stronger candidate and winning. They did manage to beat Wanggaard to take the Senate, a terrific symbolic victory that would have made national headlines—if, of course, the Democrats had not taken on Walker and lost. But aside from the symbolic value, which we threw away, winning the state Senate right now means very little. The legislature went out of session in May and won’t reconvene until after the election. Winning the Senate in 2011, before the 2012 legislative session, would have been far more useful.
So let’s review. Democrats in Wisconsin went after 10 state Senators in two years—five of whom they never had a chance in hell of beating—and ultimately defeated three. In half of those races, they’d have done just as well to set their money on fire. And by losing a race against Walker that they never should have run, they stepped all over what could have been their headline, the headline that could have gotten Democrats across the country inspired and ready to rally for November: Democrats Take Wisconsin Senate. But nobody noticed that in the wake of Walker’s win, and now it’s the Republicans who are pumped up and ready to run through walls heading into the fall elections.
Oh, and by the way, how much harder is it going to be now to beat Walker in 2014, now that he has prevailed and also demonstrated how much money he can raise? Top-tier Democrats may well steer clear of taking him on now. We Democrats didn’t just fail to take Scott Walker out in 2012; we just made him stronger and probably cleared his path to a second term. Brilliant.
I understand why Wisconsin Democrats were angry after Walker and the Republicans gutted public-sector unions in 2011. Democrats everywhere, including myself, were livid about it. But until we Democrats learn to channel our anger—and think clearly and strategically rather than just lashing out in all directions—we will continue to blow opportunities and hand needless victories to the Republicans.
I’m sure a lot of people won’t like what I’ve said here, but dammit, somebody had to say it. If we don’t learn a little discipline and a little strategic thinking, we’re never going to win elections except in years when Republicans screw up so badly (see 2006, 2008) that the country can’t stomach them anymore.
And as we are learning, those rare, lucky victories don’t last long (see 2010). Wake up, Democrats. We need to learn to ask questions first and shoot later.
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