The Flack

Sympathy for the McCainiacs

Greg Veis — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:09:00 GMT

For weary McCain staffers, the campaign is not over. Now comes the after-campaign, the period following a high profile loss when each failure is hashed and rehashed in the press and everyone with a score to settle goes on background with reporters to settle them.

Did McCain attack too little or not enough? Was the choice of Palin a success or a disaster? Why didn't McCain respond better to the fiscal crisis? Was the campaign even winnable?

The circular firing squad actually formed weeks ago, even before the campaign officially ended, when McCain aides were quoted trashing Sarah Palin, and the firing hasn't stopped since.

As a recent participant in one of these time honored Washington, DC rituals, I can attest to how brutal and debilitating they can be.

So the McCainiacs have my sympathies. It's hard enough to lose. The blame game is like rubbing salt in the wounds. So in the midst of all this criticism and finger pointing, let me say something nice about Team McCain, not just because they could use it but because they have earned it:

Steve Schmidt is one of the best war room operators of all time, with an uncanny sense of how to control a news cycle.

Nicole Wallace is one of the most effective public spokespeople for her candidates I have ever seen. When I went up against her in 2004 I knew I would be lucky to win a draw.

Mark Salter is a loyal warrior for his guy, and a gifted wordsmith with the ability to tug at the deepest chords of the American spirit.

Bill McInturff put his own credibility on the line in the end to accurately predict that the vote margin would be narrower than some polls were predicting.

To each of them the following advice:

Don't read the papers and the postmortems. Take a long vacation, presumably out of the country.

You can look me up if you are in London this weekend.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at GothamAcme.Com

Claim the Mandate, Part II

Howard Wolfson — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:57:00 GMT

The battle to define Tuesday's expected outcome has begun.

As if on cue, Craig Shirley and Tony Fabrizio have an op-ed over at Politico, claiming "Millions of Americans have come to erroneously see Bush as a conservative when nothing could be further from the truth. This election will more accurately be a referendum on Bush's 'Big Government Republicanism,' and not Reagan conservatism, not our conservatism."

Claim the Mandate

Howard Wolfson — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:59:00 GMT

Here are two predictions:

On Tuesday night Barack Obama will be elected President, and on Wednesday, if not before, Republicans will argue that his victory didn't mean anything -- that America remains a center-right nation and that Senator Obama's victory was not a referendum on conservative principles.

How Democrats respond to this spin will be critical in shaping Barack Obama's first two years in office. Much of his agenda will hang in the balance. Democrats must claim the mandate that the public is about to bestow on our party in order to bring about the real change that Senator Obama ran on.

The policy changes that Senator Obama has promised have been put before the public in real detail -- energy independence, health care reform, and economic stimulus have been part of the public debate between the two campaigns for months. The public knows what it is buying -- and it is buying progressive change.

Republicans will argue that the election results were merely a referendum on John McCain's campaign or on George Bush. Nonsense. If this election was merely a referendum on John McCain or George Bush, or even just on Barack Obama, we would not see the gains that Democrats are about to make in Congress.

Democrats should reject this argument -- success in this election, coupled with Democratic victories in 2006, signal that the public has rejected the tenets of modern conservatism -- pre-emptive war, deregulation, trickle-down economics, and cultural division in favor of core Democratic principles -- engagement with our allies abroad, broadly shared prosperity at home, and health care for all.

But in order to deliver Democrats will have to seize the moment -- and that begins with the battle to define what Tuesday's outcome means.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at Gotham Acme.

Money Well Spent

Howard Wolfson — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:36:00 GMT

Let's quickly dispense with the silly spin from the McCain campaign and the notion that Senator Obama's infomercial might somehow be overkill or extravagant--there isn't a campaign anywhere that wouldn't want to be able to afford thirty minutes of network time a week before the election to make a final pitch to undecided voters.

And this ad was clearly aimed at those voters still deciding--it effectively interspersed geographically and ethnically diverse tales of middle class hardship, narrated sympathetically by Barack Obama, with specific policy details about how an Obama Administration would address the problems confronting American families.

The first time we see Senator Obama in the ad he is in an Oval Office-like setting--Presidential and authoritative. He then walks towards the camera and begins telling, in effect, the story of America today, as embodied in the lives of four families profiled for the piece.

Two white families bookend a hispanic teacher and a retired African American couple, all struggling to make ends meet in a difficult economy. All speak poignantly and effectively of their difficulties.

Senator Obama is particularly reassuring on taxes, making clear that everyone earning under $200,000 will get a tax cut when he is President. Obama emphasizes tax cuts first, knowing that the McCain campaign has chosen to close on this issue in the hopes that they can tag him as a tax and spender.

We also hear about Senator Obama's own story--more reassurance for voters just (literally) tuning in that Obama's biography is uniquely American.

This ad won't win Senator Obama the election--he was going to win in any case. But it was a highly effective, well-produced and well-executed closing argument. And at a time when the McCain campaign is doing everything it can to knock Senator Obama off his game, it's another example of how and why that task is so difficult.

The End of Nixonland

Howard Wolfson — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:44:00 GMT

Rick Perlstein's Nixonland brilliantly covers a period that is finally coming to an end.

Perlstein's book focuses on Richard Nixon's runs for the White House, beginning in 1966. Democrats, facing a voter backlash over rioting, crime, and the Vietnam War lost 47 House seats in 1966. Nixon rode that revolt into the White House two years later and exploited it while in office to win re-election in a landslide in 1972.

Perlstein correctly states that Nixon came "to power by using the anger, anxieties, and resentments produced by the cultural chaos of the 1960s," and defines Nixonland as the state of total political warfare over class and cultural conflicts.

Nixonland, the book, ends in 1972, but Nixonland, the place, endured, through the 70s and 80s, up until George W. Bush's re-election in 2004. Welfare queens, Willie Horton, Swiftboats; all Nixonland tactics, all designed to cleave Americans along racial and cultural lines. Perlstein writes, "What Richard Nixon left behind was the very terms of our national self-image: the notion that there are two kinds of Americans. On the one side the "Silent Majority"...On the other side are the "liberals."

The politics of Nixonland proved very successful for the Republicans, if not for America. Of the ten Presidential elections between 1968 and 2004, Republicans won 7. The only two term Democrat elected in that period was hamstrung for three-quarters of his Presidency by a Republican Congress. In Nixonland conservatives mostly set the agenda and framed the debate. When Bill Clinton famously declared "the era of big government is over" in 1996 he was conceding the obvious -- in fact it had ended at least a decade earlier.

Nixonland was fought over by World War Two Veterans, and their children, the baby boomers. Among Bill Clinton's talents was a particular ability to understand Nixonland's rules, and in 1992, to win despite them Running as a "new kind of Democrat," Clinton grasped the need for Democrats to move to the center on crime and welfare. By the time he was re-elected in 1996, they had.

In retrospect Clinton's ability to take two of the hottest button issues away from Republicans began to signal the end of Nixonland, but it was not until 2006, when Democrats won 31 seats in the House and six in the Senate that the period that began with a Republican rout 40 years earlier came to an end.

Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic convention in 2004, where he proclaimed that "there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America" was a direct challenge to Nixonland and demonstrated an early understanding that its politics were waning.

John McCain, raised in Nixonland, calls Senator Obama a socialist, trots out a plumber to stoke class and cultural resentments, and employs his Vice-President to question Obama's patriotism by linking him to terrorists. Nixonland 101 -- and if its rules still applied, Senator Obama would be in trouble.

But they don't.

Between the Iraq War, and Katrina, and the collapse of Wall Street, the underpinnings of Republican dominance have been knocked away. Pre-emptive war and deregulation have been discredited. Republican bankers are practicing socialists, begging for direct government intervention in their businesses. The most popular General since Eisenhower has endorsed Senator Obama.

And America looks different: in 1970 84% of Americans were non-hispanic whites -- today that percentage is 68%. The nation is more diverse and more tolerant.

The old tactics aren't working and the American public is ready for change. Senator McCain seems old, and tired, as if he is speaking an ancient language.

Barack Obama is headed for a big win, and he will be able to work with large majorities in the Senate and the House. Nixonland is dead. Obamaland, anyone?

Howard Wolfson also blogs at GothamAcme.

Does Advertising Matter?

Howard Wolfson — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:47:00 GMT

Does advertising matter? Just ask the Obama campaign.

A Washington Post article yesterday suggested both that John McCain's negative ads had been ineffective (true) and that advertising in the Presidential contest just wasn't all that important:

"As the presidential candidates open their war chests in the campaign's final stretch -- spending a combined $28 million on television ads in the week that ended Oct. 4 -- political pros are mixed on whether they're getting their money's worth. Obama, who faces no fundraising restrictions because he declined to accept public financing, is outspending the senator from Arizona on the air by a 2 to 1 margin.

"But some analysts say neither side's spots are changing the campaign dialogue. This has been particularly true, analysts say, during the recent financial crisis that has at times overwhelmed the campaign itself."

But as The Politico points out today, someone forgot to tell the Obama campaign that the ads aren't having an impact:

"In the first three weeks of September, Barack Obama ran 1,342 television commercials in the Washington media market that reaches heavily populated and contested Northern Virginia.

"According to The Nielsen Company, in the same period and market, John McCain aired just eight commercials on broadcast stations."

Advertising may matter less on the Presidential level than it does for House and Senate candidates, who receive considerably less attention in the press than Presidential candidates do. But make no mistake -- all the wonderful bio ads that the Obama campaign has been running have had an impact by allowing the campaign to impart critical information about their candidate that voters would not now otherwise be hearing or seeing.

In effect, the Obama campaign's financial advantage allows it to have a separate, independent, and critically important conversation with the American public about a topic of their choosing.

Senator McCain's ads may have been ineffective -- but that doesn't mean Senator Obama's have been too.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at GothamAcme.

A PreMortem for The McCain Campaign

Howard Wolfson — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:24:00 GMT

The economic crisis dealt the McCain campaign a fatal body blow. None the less, the choices that Senator McCain has made during this race will impact the margin of his defeat and the fortunes of other Republicans on the ballot. Today it's worth considering what Senator McCain could have done differently. The usual caveats about hindsight apply.

1) Avoid Faustian Bargains.
Campaigns don't begin on announcement day and Senator McCain's most fateful decision predated his. Following the election of 2000 John McCain enjoyed a national reputation as a moderate maverick who was willing to challenge the voices of intolerance within his own party and work across the partisan divide. After 9/11 Senator McCain changed course dramatically and yoked his fortunes with President Bush's. This strategy clearly helped Senator McCain capture his party's nomination -- but it left him poorly positioned to compete in a general election in the current political environment. The John McCain of 2000 would still be giving Senator Obama a run for his money -- unfortunately for him that John McCain no longer exists.

2) A Second Act for Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin's introduction to the American public was a strong one. She helped to rally the Republican base and drew interest from blue collar voters and some women who might not have otherwise given John McCain a second look. Since then her performance has been poor. Her interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric were embarrassments and instead of rallying swing voters she spends her days on the campaign trail engaged in increasingly vitriolic attacks on Barack Obama. What if Gov. Palin had instead spent September engaged in a series of round table discussions with families struggling to balance work and family and unveiled innovative family friendly policies designed to appeal to those blue collar women who had served as the backbone of Hillary Clinton's campaign?

3) A Different VP Choice Entirely.
The choice of a VP speaks volumes to the American public about the candidate making it. Given her performance on the trail it's hard to argue that Gov. Palin has helped Senator McCain. What if he had chosen Gov. Tom Ridge, a pro-choice former Governor or former Senator Joe Lieberman instead? Either would have burnished Senator McCain's bipartisan credentials in a way that Gov. Palin did not. Would the choice of Mitt Romney have helped credential Senator McCain on the economy? At least Romney could discuss the economic collapse with some degree of knowledge.

4) Distance from George W. Bush.
George W. Bush ends his second term in office as the most unpopular President in the last fifty years. Once Senator McCain had secured his party's nomination he should have been out every day trying to find a high profile way to demonstrate that he would be a very different President than Bush had been -- especially on the issue of the economy. Instead he allowed Senator Obama and Democrats to define his prospective first term as President Bush's third. The last thing the American public wants is four more years of the last eight. Senator McCain never made a compelling case that he would do anything differently. In 1992 Bill Clinton ran as a "different kind of Democrat." in 2000 George W. Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative." Both men sought to distance themselves from unpopular associations with their own parties. That approach was arguably more important this election cycle and Senator McCain never even made a serious attempt to implement it.

5) Attempt to Define Senator Obama Earlier.
Senator McCain's efforts to hang Bill Ayers around Senator Obama's shoulders are totally irrelevent to the current mood of the country and only serve to reinforce how out of touch he is with the real concerns of the American people. They are also much too late to do any good. The swiftboating of John Kerry began in August of 2004. If John McCain had wanted to tag Senator Obama with Mr. Ayers he should have begun months earlier.

6) A Coherent Response to the Economic Crisis.
Senator McCain's response to the economic crisis -- first lauding the economy, then suspending his campaign to pass a bill that failed on its first try, threatening to skip the first debate -- was lurching, incoherent, and tone deaf. This was a critically important test in the campaign; an opportunity for voters to assess the actions of both candidates in the midst of a real time crisis. John McCain failed this test. A high profile, bipartisan summit with a mix of economists, business leaders and ordinary Americans to consider and articulate solutions to the crisis would have served Senator McCain much better.

What am I missing?

Howard Wolfson also blogs at Gotham.Acme.

John McCain's Ineffective New Ad

Howard Wolfson — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:38:00 GMT

On Monday I argued that the McCain campaign's strategy of using Bill Ayers to attack Barack Obama would not work because the economic crisis trumped all. Today, the McCain campaign has tried to link Obama's association with Ayers to the economic crisis in a new ad.

Will it work?

No.

The ad is practically schizophrenic. The first third attacks Obama's "blind ambition" for "working with Ayers." The remaining two-thirds is about the housing crisis and an attack on "Congressional liberals" for letting it happen.

The connection between Ayers and the housing crisis? Who knows? The ad makes no effort to explain it.

Which more or less proves the point -- there is no connection between Ayers and the economic crisis.

Instead of focusing on Ayers Senator McCain might have chosen to spend a day outlining a comprehensive solution to the mess we are in. But that would require an understanding of the problem and an idea of how to fix it -- which John McCain clearly does not have.

Right now the McCain campaign is having a conversation with itself and the Republican base, while the rest of the country -- and Barack Obama -- is focused on the greatest economic meltdown since the Depression. It's not a good place for John McCain to be less than a month before the election.

It's Over: Why Bill Ayers Won't Save John McCain

Howard Wolfson — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:41:00 GMT

Perpetually fretting Democrats will not want to accept it. The campaigns themselves can't afford to believe it. Many journalists know it but can't say it. And there will certainly be some twists and turns along the way. But take it to a well capitalized bank: Bill Ayers isn't going to save John McCain. The race is over.

John McCain's candidacy is as much a casualty of Wall Street as Lehman or Merrill. Like those once vibrant institutions, McCain's collapse was stunning and quick. One minute you are a well-respected brand. The next you are yelling at the messengers of your demise as all around you the numbers start blinking red and stop adding up.

McCain's road was difficult to begin with: the President of his party has had record-low approval ratings for two years and the number of Americans who say the country is heading in the wrong direction is stratospheric. He also had the misfortune to be pitted against an exceptional candidate running an extremely well-executed campaign.

Still, before Wall Street's collapse Senator McCain was ahead. His approval ratings remained high, his VP pick had generated excitement and interest, and his campaign operatives were capable, on any given day, of winning news cycles and giving their opponents fits. And then the underpinnings of American capitalism begin to sink -- and with them sunk McCain.

An election dominated at its inception by the war in Iraq is now overwhelmingly focused on the economy. More than half of voters in polls say that the economy is their top concern and Senator Obama enjoys double digit leads among voters asked who can better fix our economic mess. Put simply, there is no way Senator McCain can win if he continues to trail Senator Obama by double digits on the top concern of more than half of voters.

State polls are beginning to reflect this. If the election were tomorrow, Obama would win all of the states John Kerry carried and add Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio and Florida. Barack Obama is campaigning in Indiana, which last went for a Democrat in 1964 and North Carolina, which has gone for a Democrat only once in thirty-four years. At the same time John McCain has pulled out of Michigan and Sarah Palin has been forced to visit Nebraska.

This dynamic is very unlikely to change. John McCain's goal in the first debate was to discredit Senator Obama as a credible Commander in Chief and elevate the issue of foreign policy and national security. He didn't come close. Absent a domestic terror attack the economy will remain the number one issue in the race, and there is little Senator McCain can do to make up his gap with Senator Obama on it. Oh, Senator McCain will try to make issues of Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko and Rev. Wright, and that might hurt Senator Obama around the margins -- but it will not prevent him from winning. The economy is simply bigger than the rogues gallery that John McCain is conjuring up.

Why is this? Why won't the swiftboat tactics work this year?

Its easy to lose sight of it in the day to day coverage, but the collapse of Wall Street in the last weeks was a seminal event in the history of our nation and our politics. To put the crisis in perspective, Americans have lost a combined 1 trillion dollars in net worth in just the last four weeks alone. Just as President Bush's failures in Iraq undermined his party's historic advantage on national security issues, the financial calamity has shown the ruinous implications of the Republican mania for deregulation and slavish devotion to totally unfettered markets.

Republicans and Democrats have been arguing over the proper role of government for a century. In 1980 voters sided with Ronald Reagan and Republicans that government had become too big and intrusive. Then the economy worked in the Republicans' favor. Today the pendulum has swung in our direction. Republican philosophies have been discredited by events. Voters understand this. This is a big election about big issues. McCain's smallball will not work. This race will not be decided by lipsticked pigs. And John McCain can not escape that reality. The only unknowns are the size of the margin and the breadth of the Democratic advantage in the next Congress.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at Gotham Acme

Related:

The Resentments of Sarah Palin by Noam Scheiber

Howard Wolfson on the Palin-Biden Debate

Live From St. Louis, It's Thursday Night

Howard Wolfson — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:53:00 GMT

"Live from St. Louis, it's Thursday night!"

Gov. Sarah Palin isn't likely to open the debate that way, but the public could be excused if they expected her to. After all, in the last week we have seen more of Tina Fey's "Saturday Night Live" imitation of Sarah Palin than we have of the Governor herself. That will finally change, when Gov. Palin steps out on the big stage and debates Sen. Joe Biden.

What must Gov. Palin do to make Americans forget Fey's send-up and demonstrate she is ready to lead? What must Sen. Biden do to avoid gaffes of his own and win the debate, as he is expected to?

The short answers: Gov. Palin needs to demonstrate a real understanding of complex issues. Simple talking points won't cut it. She needs to make clear she grasps the difficult policy challenges that the next administration will confront. if she doesn't the debate will quickly turn into her own version of Thursday Night Live.

Sen. Biden's burden is the opposite. We all know he understands the issues. Instead he has to connect with Americans, making the case against John
McCain without condescending to Gov. Palin and angering female voters. (He will not, for instance, be calling her "Sarah")

Gov. Palin's debut on the public stage was very strong, especially her convention speech. Americans found her biography appealing and liked what they heard about her tenure as Governor. Most importantly, they related to her and concluded she understood them.

Since then, as style has given way to substance, it's been all downhill. Her media interviews have been lackluster at best, embarrassing at worst, raising serious questions about her ability to step in as President if tragedy were to strike Sen. McCain. She is at risk of becoming a permanent caricature.

Even conservatives have begun raising doubts about her. As a result the McCain campaign has sequestered her in preparation for the big night.

To have a chance, Gov. Palin must first do two things: Demonstrate that she is ready to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency and aggressively make the case against Barack Obama. Neither will be easy: She will have to demonstrate a facility with issues that she has thus far been lacking, and will have to attack Sen. Obama without invoking the issue of experience, since it's not exactly a strong suit of hers either.

If Gov. Palin clears those two hurdles, passing a third would score the trifecta: Getting under Sen. Biden's skin and forcing him to act obnoxiously towards her.

For his part, Sen. Biden doesn't need to prove he is ready to step in as President - voters don't have any real doubts about that. His challenge is to resist taking Palin's bait. Sen. Biden is too smart to appear angry with Gov. Palin - and, as he has said repeatedly, he's comfortable debating strong women, including my former boss Hillary Clinton. So he is unlikely to charge her podium waving and yelling at her like Rick Lazio did to Sen. Clinton in 2000.

He will need to work harder to avoid eye rolling and condescension when Gov. Palin claims geographic proximity to Russia as a foreign policy credential. He will have to let the public make up its own mind about her performance. Instead, he should train his fire on McCain - remembering that his goal isn't to disqualify Sarah Palin (she may welldo that on her own) but to make the case against a McCain presidency.

Both should be ready with some self-deprecating humor. If Gov. Palin is asked about all the jokes at her expense she can say: "Well, you should see my imitation of Tina Fey." Joe Biden will no doubt be prepared with a quip about his own verbosity.

Perhaps most importantly overall, they both need to explain the economic crisis gripping America and what their ticket would do in the White House to solve it. Gov. Palin's explanation of the crisis in her interview with Katie Couric was nearly as painful as the meltdown itself. She needs to redeem herself. Sen. Biden needs to avoid Senate-speak and break the problem and the solution down for average voters.

Americans are hungering for leadership in these very tough times. So far they have gotten it from Barack Obama. Whoever succeeds in providing it tonight will have gone a long way towards winning this pivotal debate. Here's betting that it's Sen. Biden -- both on the merits of the case and the ability to deliver it.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at GothamAcme.com

McCain's Loss

Howard Wolfson — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:14:00 GMT

Good thing that John McCain suspended his campaign and rushed back to Washington with a flourish so he could round up Republican votes and pass the bailout. Who knows what might have happened had he not interceded on the bill's behalf and put his own credibility on the line for it. The markets would have tanked, our allies would have lost confidence in us, and...oh, never mind.

Last week Senator McCain looked goofy by coming off the campaign trail and interposing himself into the legislative process over the bailout. Today he looks like a loser -- his credibility and prestige diminished by the bill's failure. And worse -- these wounds are self-inflected. Senator McCain didn't need to own this debacle -- he chose to interpose himself into the process, raising questions about his erratic judgement once again.

Last week I argued that the McCain campaign's strategy of chasing news cycles was a very risky one. Today we see why. The McCain campaign won an initial set of headlines by announcing that the Senator would suspend his campaign and return to Washington to help pass the bailout bill. But there was never really any plan to do so: Senator McCain proposed no measure of his own, sat silently at the White House summit he engineered, and was clearly unable to convince enough conservative House Republicans to go along with the bill.

Senator Obama knew better than to take ownership of a process that he couldn't really control and probably didn't want to. Had Senator McCain been succesful in his efforts he could have claimed a real victory -- instead he is left owning a defeat he could have avoided.

Now we are back to the drawing board. A weakened and ineffective President, unable even to rally his fellow Republicans in the House will work with Congressional leaders on a new plan. You can bet John McCain will be staying far away from Washington while they do so.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at Gotham Acme.

The Danger of Chasing News Cycles: Or Why a War Room Isn't a Campaign

tnr1.com — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:17:00 GMT

John McCain's reversal of his pledge not to attend tonight's debate unless there was an agreement on a Wall Street bailout illustrates the dangers of chasing news cycles.

McCain's decision to suspend campaigning must have seemed like a good idea at the time--his poll numbers were falling and his campaign was getting hammered by the press for its lobbying ties.

The move was guaranteed to dominate the headlines, change the discussion and in so doing "win the day."

And it did.

But then the next news cycle began, and Senator McCain was boxed in by his pledge.

He attended a summit that he had called for and had nothing of substance to add or say. Worse, the collapse of a tentative deal among lawmakers on a bailout has been attributed to his presence there.

Now, forced to choose between ducking the debate or breaking his promise not to attend absent a deal, he has decided to go back on his word.

This is a campaign flying by the seat of its pants, chasing news cycles without a real plan once it has caught them.

The Obama campaign gets up every day and asks themselves how they can make the case for change vs more of the same, just as they did yesterday, and they will do tomorrow.

The McCain campaign wakes up and figures out how to try to win the day.

Its the difference between strategy and tactics, between a message and a war room, and it is among the reasons why Barack Obama, and not John McCain, is the clear favorite to be our next President.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at GothamAcme.com

George W. Bush: Our Hoover?

Howard Wolfson — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:44:00 GMT

Let's take the briefest timeout from our discussion of Barack Obama and John McCain to focus on our President.

Remember him? You could be forgiven if you don't. His name is George W. Bush and in the last several days he has cemented his legacy as the worst President of the last hundred years.

For over a year he and his Administration ignored the clear warning signs that our financial markets were headed for deep trouble. He missed every possible opportunity to address this problem earlier, when it could have been arrested at less cost to taxpayers and ordinary investors.

Finally, last week, when the cost of inaction became catastrophic, he remained on the sidelines, outsourcing the job of selling a fix to his Treasury Secretary and the Chairman of the Fed. He initially made no effort to court public opinion, even as it turned against the deal and began to make its passage less likely. His televised address to the nation was too little and too late. There is no evidence he has personally interceded with rank and file lawmakers, especially House Republicans, to get them on board.

And, shamefully, he went along with John McCain's stunt and interjected Presidential politics into the process, calling a useless summit at the White House that seemed only to make a deal less likely by retarding progress already made. At this point we expect Senator McCain to grasp at every straw to turn around his flailing Presidential campaign -- but a moment when the nation faces financial calamity, our President should have resisted the temptation to play along.

My bet is we get a deal today, and certainly by Monday. But when we do it will be in spite of Presidential leadership, not because of it.

During the Kerry campaign we used to invoke Herbert Hoover's record on the economy when discussing the Bush record. Who knew that he would end his time in office, four years later, making Hoover look good?

During this campaign Senator Clinton used to say that it really matters who's President. It still does.

Howard Wolfson blogs at GothamAcme.Com

A Risky Stunt

tnr1.com — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:50:00 GMT

Given the way the race has been going lately, if I were John McCain I'd want to suspend the campaign too.

DC insiders will likely see John McCain's call to stop campaigning and postpone Friday's debate as a stunt designed to arrest his recent slide in the polls and turn the attention of the press away from his campaign's lobbyist ties.

And it is.

The more important question is how the larger public will react.

The economic crisis has completely dominated the news over the last week. In this climate a debate on foreign policy seemed oddly incongruent even before Senator McCain's move to postpone it.

And, as my colleague in the Clinton campaign, Phil Singer, reminds us, the two candidates are Senators and Congress does have a role to play here.

But make no mistake: there is a reason that the guy behind in the polls did this. Calling for a summit is a risky stunt, motivated by declining poll numbers and a need to shake up the race.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at Gotham Acme.Com.

Forget About the Debate. Focus on the Spin.

Howard Wolfson — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:07:00 GMT

Forget about the debate. Focus on the spin. What really counts is who wins the debate over the debate.

Ok--not really. The actual performances will matter--but just as important will be the post-debate spin that shapes public perceptions of who won, who lost, and why.

This week, as the candidates prep for their on-air performances, their teams of rapid responders, communicators, and researchers are prepping for their critical roles behind the scenes. Their work will get comparatively little attention from the media this week--but they will be crucial in determining who becomes our next President.

Do you remember the Clinton-Lazio debate in 2000? That was the one where Rep. Lazio invaded her space. Remember anything else?

How about the first Bush-Gore debate? Al Gore "sighed and lied." What else do you recall?

Clinton-Bush in 92? George Bush looked at his watch.

These takeaways don't just occur in a vacuum--campaign strategists make instant decisions during the debates themselves about what to highlight and focus on in the minutes, hours and days after the debate ends--and will relentlessly deploy research, surrogates, and even advertising to drive that narrative home.

It begins with the post-debate spin rooms--much derided by the media but still well attended by reporters--in which operatives from each side rush out to to shape the immediate coverage. It continues on conference calls to give hundreds of surrogates across the nation their marching orders. And it plays out for days as candidates and staff weigh in on the stump and on cable tv.

We were stunned in 2000 when Rep. Lazio blustered over to Senator Clinton's podium and waved a piece of paper in her face, bellowing that she sign it. We were even more surprised when it became clear that reporters watching thought Lazio had won by staying on offense. We were in danger of losing a debate that we had won. During the next 24 hours we worked hard to make Lazio's actions a negative--press conferences were scheduled around the state featuring outraged women condemning his actions. Surrogates and staff went on tv to say that he had looked menacing by approaching her. By the end of that week the consensus had shifted: It became clear that Lazio had lost and done himself immense harm.

The Bush campaign worked just as hard in 2000 to convince the public that Al Gore had lied and acted obnoxiously during their debate. That was not the immediate takeaway when the debate ended, but a relentless focus on Gore's misstatements and sighing proved devastating to the then Vice-President. In 2004, turnabout was fair play, as the D.N.C. produced a video overnight that was released the morining after the first Bush-Kerry debate that focused on President Bush's obvious annoyance at debating Senator Kerry. Called "faces of frustration", it helped ensure that the public credited Kerry with a win.

Of course spin can backfire too. We released a video called the "politics of pile on" after the Philadelphia debate of 2007 that featured Senator Clinton's opponents repeatedly invoking her name--and were roundly criticized for "playing the gender card."

Friday's debate will have a huge audience and that group of voters will make a judgement based on what they actually see and hear. An even larger group will form their impressions of the debates from the news in the days to come. And even the group that watched the debate will have their judgements tested and challenged by the media's analysis. This means that voters may decide that one candidate won the debate on Friday morning and have concluded by Monday that the other guy was actually victorious. That's why both campaigns will be doing everything they can from the opening bell to win the debate over the debate.

Howard Wolfson also blogs at Gotham Acme.Com.