Interesting interview with Steve Schmidt by Ana Marie Cox:
Cox: When did you know it was over?
Schmidt: The moment that I will look back at as the moment deep in my gut that I knew, was September 29, when I was flying on a plane with Governor Palin to Sedona for debate prep, watching the split screen on the TVs, because she had a JetBlue charter, and it showed the stock market down seven, eight hundred points; it showed the Congress voting down the bailout package on the other side, and then, House Republicans went out and told the world that the reason that they voted against this legislation, allowed the stock market to crash, allowed the economy to be so injured, was because Nancy Pelosi had given a mean and partisan speech on the floor. And this was their response. And I just viewed it as beyond devastating, and thought that at that moment running with an “R” next to your name, in this year, was probably lethal.
Schmidt goes on to say a number of things which would suggest to me that he is not as dumb as the campaign he ran. Read it, especially the part where he suggest he is unhappy with Prop. 8.
Meanwhile, at the NRO, they are more concerned with rehabilitating Palin. Rather than think about what has happened to the GOP over the past few years, these losers are going to focus on rehabbing Palin, who is merely a symptom of the larger problem. Rather than figure out what is ailing the GOP, it is going to be four years of thinking the media screwed them, and building Palin back up while telling themselves the real problem is they are not, as a party, strident enough about immigration, abortion, and other social issues.
Craziness.
liberatemeiexinfernis
i wonder if Steve Schmidt still got his bonus? the Republicans like to reward men even if the enterprise they preside over fails. Just curious
Pat
ain’t that the truth… Joe Farah @ WorldNetDaily is proof of that. takes over a newspaper in California and makes it into a Conservative paper, it fails and the conservatives give him a shitload of money and he forms WorldNetDaily.
it’s freakin’ wild.
liberatemeiexinfernis
may I add, if the Republicans, and that includes anyone that supported the Iraq war, refuse to see the fact that their party misled them and country into war..if they refuse to do soul searching over that and still believe its America’s God given right to plunder and pillage and bully rest of the world, and if Barack Obama moves the US in a truly positive direction, then the GOP as a party will continue to remain the party of bitter old white men and women
dmsilev
Fascinating:
I like the evasion of that question; instead of talking about how Sarah Palin was a brief hit who turned into a bleeding flesh wound draining credibility from McCain, he spends the entire answer talking about the leaking to the press.
And the idea that the future of the GOP rests on the twin shoulders of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich is, well, amusing.
-dms
Delia
So it’s all Nancy’s fault, because she was a mean girl, and kicked the poor Republicans in their shins when they were feeling poorly? Did she take their lunch money, too? Otherwise Johnny Drama would have won? Do I take poor little Stevie’s meaning correctly?
Well, maybe Stevie should go whine to Rahm if he thinks Nancy behaved badly. I’m sure he can sort it out to everyone’s satisfaction.
kommrade jakevich
I’m sorry, the correct answer is: "Five seconds into my first conversation with Gov. Palin."
Heh. Check out how long it takes him to answer this question:
Smarter than the campaign he ran? Yeah. But I maintain that if he were dumber he wouldn’t be able to maintain basic cardiopulmonary function and walk at the same time.
kommrade jakevich
Hmmm. Hmmm! I say:
robertdsc
Today, I was thinking about the pics I’ve seen of McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman together hanging out on the trail and how much fun they must have been having together, so this bit made me smile just a little bit:
Very nice.
Ed Marshall
At least he has the good sense to bow down in awe at the Obama ground game. I was a flusher in Gary, Indiana and what we did was insane. We knew where every last non-cast Obama vote was and found them and moved them all to the polls. When I say all, I mean 100%. In Lake County, every last registered voter was canvassed, their names were cross-checked in a database to see if they had early voted and removed if they were. Election day we found every last registered voter who had indicated to a canvasser that he was voting Obama and drove them to the polls with 500 volunteers.
The good thing is I can’t imagine Republicans doing this. They are lazy and greedy and by temperment allergic to doing anything collectively.
The bad thing is I can’t imagine the energy level on our side to ever be this high again. I don’t know if we can do it in the future.
mannemalon
OT, but everyone should check for Keith’s special edition Countdown airing today and tomorrow. It goes through the entire classic campaign season and it’s great.
Delia
@Ed Marshall:
So do you think Sarah Palin knows what a community organizer does yet?
BC
On the "not conservative enough" . . . remember, these are the people who think we haven’t won in Iraq because we haven’t killed enough people. Problem solving is not their long suit.
Ed Marshall
I hope not.
Zuzu's Petals
Steve Schmidt ran Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign in ’06 – in fact Maria Shriver supposedly hired him.
So he has seen a pretty good example of how a Republican can win, and govern, from a more inclusive position. But I don’t think he really cares. He is first and foremost a political operative, and in my opinion deeply cynical. He will do what is needed to win.
Amusing that he sees his pick of Sarah Palin (yes, he and Rick Davis evidently foisted her onto McCain) as a turning point for the campaign that would have succeeded had it not been that nasty economic collapse.
Completely ignoring the massive number of endorsements lost because of the "reckless" choice of Palin.
What a sleazy, cynical creep.
PS on his "disappointment" in the Prop 8 results – I believe his sister is a lesbian. In other words, it’s personal, period.
Ed Marshall
Just to expound on that a bit, I don’t know if I’d have taken my vacation time and spent it in fricken Gary, Indiana if not for the Republican Convention.
My local paper had this to say about all their bullshit hating on community organizing:
http://www.rrstar.com/news/columnists/x348020598/Organizing-the-community-to-get-things-done
Irene Marshall was my grandmother who died about ten years ago.
Comrade Stuck
The surly denizens of the Funhouse will be tuned in and turned out for the coming Great Wingnut Conundrum Wars of 2009, and likely beyond. In this corner, we have the inclusive realists who want to make more Goopers for the Trickle Down Party of Wealth, and in the other corner, the fence building Godphile Party of Wingnut Essence. It’ll be like watching endless reruns of the "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", A Funhouse fav BTW
donovong
Mitt and Newt are the future of the party?
Oh, the joy! Be still my heart! PLEASE let it be true. That will make the next eight years all the more fun!
JGabriel
John Cole:
Starring Billy Crystal as Professor Higgins, Jonah Goldberg as Colonel Pickering, Kathryn Jean Lopez as Mrs. Higgins, and Rick Lowry as Freddy Eynsford-Hill.
.
Zuzu's Petals
@Ed Marshall:
I was volunteering in Ohio and saw the same incredible organization at work. The "Houdini" team workers would actually go into the polling place on election day and go over the list to see who had voted, update the database, and direct the canvassers accordingly.
Nothing but awe for those folks.
Comrade Jake
@Ed Marshall:
I just want to say thank you, Ed, for all the hard work!
Ed Marshall
Well, Danke, seeing Indiana go blue was plenty reward enough :D
r€nato
They would outsource it to some big GOP donor’s company who would charge an insane amount of money and do a shitty job of it.
They are only beginning to enter the wilderness… they can’t even acknowledge that that is where they are headed. Good luck to them, they’ll need it.
tavella
@Ed Marshall:
Yeah, that is the bit I do wonder about. Midterms and 2012. Inevitably, he’ll have pissed some people off, and others will be grumpy because turns out to be a mortal man. Still, having the skills in place helps.
And great job with Indiana!
Thursday
Good grief.
Fixed. How is it that these folks keep forgetting that the conservatives are the ones who spend like there’s no tomorrow (because half of them believe there won’t be)? Reagan switched over to a massive deficit economy with his idiotic supply-side beliefs.
r€nato
Good luck prying the GOP out of the hands of the fundies.
LiberalTarian
So over at TPM they are talking about how early voting turned the tide for Democrats. So, of course, the GOP is going to try to kill it.
I think we should fight long and hard for early voting in every township, county and district in the country. So we can beat the GOP? No, so we can fix the GOP.
Look what election day has done for the GOP–turned it into a bunch of batshit crazy base landers and single issue voters. If they have to compete with early voting, they have to move back to the center. Amazing to me for all their purported worship of the free market how little they actually practice market principles.
I agree with the guys who say good government is spawned through negotiation from the right and left. We aren’t going to function well as a country without a functional right, and the wingnuts in charge of the GOP are a far cry from functional.
Then again, maybe that is just liberal me being all altruistic and shit. Maybe we really ought to just crush the GOP and call it good. That seems like a loser though.
Comrade Jake
What I find interesting is how, early on in the campaign, righties were decrying the large crowds that Obama was drawing. They would point to it to suggest that this was just blind adulation, that there wasn’t any substance behind the rhetoric.
Now these same folks point to the large crowds Palin drew for them as evidence that she has a lot to offer. You sort of wonder when and if they’ll grasp that Palin actually is an empty suit, instead of trying to work hard to manufacture cockamamie stories that indicate she’s really a quick study.
Thursday
@25: r€nato –
The last link there is what I was quoting from. Follow it to see how well "going for the centrists" will work…
Joy!
r€nato
not that it’s not expected, but this is just more placing the blame elsewhere. I don’t give Schimdt any credit for that response. Interesting how – when he brings up the bailout negotiations in late September – he fails to mention McCain’s lame-ass "I’m suspending my campaign!" stunt, then going back immediately (not really) to DC… and doing nothing. That sure didn’t inspire any confidence in him. Nope, it was all the House GOP’s fault.
The House GOP sucked balls with their remarkably Newt-like approach to the crisis (‘we’re gonna drive the country into a ditch cuz you were mean to us!’), but really the cause of McCain’s loss lies squarely with the McCain campaign and by extension Schmidt.
McCain picked Palin. McCain was erratic, lurching from one short-term tactic to another. McCain lost every debate, making a serious gaffe in each one. Seeming angry in the first. Wandering all over like a lost Alzheimer’s patient in the 2nd. His horrible answer on the abortion issue in the 3rd. McCain’s campaign reeked mightily of flop-sweat in the last two or three weeks, fighting the 60s culture wars yet again and embracing a staggeringly faux populism without offering any real solutions to a nation weary of culture wars and too frightened for their economic future to care much for standard-issue GOP smear-and-fear campaigns. McCain (like Hillary) ran on experience at a time when Americans had had enough with the failures of our ‘experienced’ leaders.
There’s why McCain lost. What the House GOP did, reflected badly on them (as if they could have been held in any lower esteem). McCain could have risen above it, but he didn’t because his campaign was remarkably tone-deaf and ham-handed. The cause of that always, always lies at the top.
JimPortlandOR
Well, the Repubs have, at best, two withered wings and one viable wing: corpCons, theoCons, and wingnuts.
the corp cons are freaked out by the nuttiness of the GOP campaign, the theoCons are beginning to lose the evangelicals to fatigue and ‘broader social concerns’, leaving only the denialist neoCons/ignorantCons.
There is no more ‘moderate core’ left in the party and no spokesperson/leader of any credibility. Romney (prior to the 08 primary) sounded like a moderate with some promise, but he’s now toast. Gingrich? hahahah. Huck? hahaha. Jindal, too obscure and too out of the GOP mainstream.
Parties do disappear and get replaced. It is more likely that the Dems split into progressive and blue dog parties than the GOP resurrects itself in 4-12 years, if ever. The GOP has become the 21st century version of the Know Nothing party.
Zuzu's Petals
@Ed Marshall:
What an inspiring story. You must be so proud to be her grandson.
r€nato
Of course they are. I predict by next spring John Fund will have a new book out about how Democrats stole the election with early voting, and how early voting threatens our democracy.
It’s the same kind of pretzel logic that led the young Republicans sent to the CPA in Iraq who were drawing up Iraq’s constitution for them, to reject the idea of an independent judicial branch… because that leads to legal abortion.
(really, that was their rationale)
r€nato
jesus fucking christ, I don’t know how many times I have heard this from them. Seriously. Ken Mehlman said it when he was running the RNC, and of course by the time of the next election they fell right back into the same old race-baiting crap they fall back to like clockwork every 2 years.
If the GOP wants to become relevant to black folks again, they need to renounce the Southern Strategy and the dog-whistle crypto-racism.
And they’re going to have to do it for about 10 to 20 years before they gain any credibility, because for so very long they’ve been exploiting racism that I doubt many black folks are going to trust that they’ve really turned over a new leaf, until they prove themselves for a good long time.
Ed Marshall
It’s a great story, and there is a bunch of it missing. When I wrote the guy who wrote that piece and thanked him for remembering my grandmother what he wrote back was: "Irene was the story of the power of not taking no for an answer."
Comrade Stuck
We only lined up steamroller, the American electorate has done the crushing. It’s all a natural progression of a functioning democracy. Albeit one with our own flavor of polar ideologies, and our particular American way of chaotic reckoning. What we found out was even though the matrix of our self governing processes have been stretched to the limit, they have not broken, and can therefore now be repaired.
I think the press did better this time and didn’t let the Swift Boating Merchants get off the ground without real evidence. The wingnuts tried about everything with Tweety (bless his little heart) and most of the rest, and they did not enable for ratings like in 2004, at least to a significant degree. Of course, this is precisely why wingnuts are crying foul and whining themselves into a big hissy fit of liberal bias.
The GOP is mortally wounded, and we can stand by to make sure it doesn’t rear it’s ugly head back up in the same lizard brain way. Which they will Shirley try.
Comrade Jake
A note to our GOP friends:
We understand that our country has something of a penchant for voting out the incumbents. We understand this, and that after Obama has served two awesome terms, you will probably manage to convince enough people that it’s time for a Republican in the White House. You’ll make something up, because this is what you do.
>
All we ask is that, next time, could you find a dude who’s not such an EPIC FAIL? We don’t need that. Thanks.
Delia
Problem: for the past twenty years or so their specialty seems to have been systematically weeding out anyone who is not EPIC FAIL. You have a choice between financial pirate, warlord, or religious wacko. Nothing much in between.
Chuck Butcher
I don’t want to be an asshole or something, but it seems that there’s being an awful lot read into one election, and one that has a lot of very unique aspects. If the black vote goes back to its ordinary splits and level of participation another scenario is in effect. Remove fear of the "black/other" cadidate and something else goes into operation.
I am not denying that this election says something- about itself. I don’t see this as earth shattering without a shit load of follow up. Every success a Democratic administration and Congress creates for Americans needs to be worked like mad. If you’re thinking that this election means that around 30 years of Republican/right propaganda has suddenly been discredited and is dead, you’re setting up for political suicide soon.
When I see something like a 50/50 in Baker County, Oregon I’ll start thinking we’re making real progress. This used to be a Democratic stronghold, and not the Southern Democrats/Dixi-crats version. This is a door cracked open, not a by gad tsunami. McC/O was 64/32 here and don’t bother telling me about racism.
I’m not postulating that the Republicans are a particularly viable force right now, but this is all of a couple days after a pretty serious beating. How powerful would you have told me the Democrats are 4 days after Kerry lost? The only degrees I’ve got in poli-sci are the hard knocks versions but I get paid attention to in this state because I get shit right and I think I’m real right here. I’m not raining on the damn parade, I’m calling for real and concentrated action to turn this into something actually earth shattering.
Ed Marshall
Shortly, the cities have gotten bigger, the suburbs have gotten way more democratic, and no one gives a tin shit what the 16,000 people in Baker County think.
This isn’t to be triumphal, but that’s not where the fight is at. I’d like those people, but they just aren’t important in the national sense.
Llelldorin
Well, at this point a lot depends upon how well Obama and Congress manage the country. In four years we have to be able to run on a platform of "things sucked, and now suck much less." If we can do that, we won’t need the same energy level. If we can’t, I don’t think all the energy in the world would help much.
Ed Marshall
That’s true, and if they find a way to make things suck more in four years they deserve what they get.
Missyme
"the Republicans like to reward men even if the enterprise they preside over fails"
Rick Davis was getting paid while he was providing nothing to Freddie and Fannie. How much more reward should they get?
I don’t know the answer to this but can anyone go back in time to remind me when the last time was the Repubs gave us someone of substance. Yea! Reagan was inspirational but was he an intellectual? Bush father wasn’t that smart because he selected a dummy as VP. This Bush is no smarter than a fifth, no! make that third grader. John McCain??? Well 3rd to last in the class. Bush and John seem to have gotten where they are because of their fathers. Any intellectual Repub around?
kommrade jakevich
In other words, the Republican Party needs to stop pointing at people who don’t look like Joe the Plumber and screaming "Eeeeew!" while at the same time not alienating the people they attracted because they do point at people and scream "Eeeeew!"
Good luck with that.
God, if you’re listening, if you could please nudge the GOP towards grooming Alan Keyes for greatness, that would be cake.
kate r
If they’re going to rehab Palin, they might want to start with the big buying frenzy. Thievery is the norm, but she’s going to have to learn to be more subtle about it.
About Schmidt et al…Salter came across the sanest one on that bus.
Comrade Jake
@Missyme:
I don’t know if anyone would characterize Reagan as an intellectual. But I’m pretty sure he valued ideas. I think Reagan had substance, until his brain started rotting at least.
If not Reagan, I don’t know – maybe Ike?
Deborah
It’s nice to see that odd moment–terrifying Nancy Pelosi intimidates Republicans; they go home to pout, letting the bailout crash–get some more attention.
Today I saw a person on a moderate conservative site solemnly insisting to the other posters that his impression was that Palin was far more available to the press than Biden, did more interviews, had probably done a press conference–surely all candidates do, etc. Not a troll, not a hysteric, just someone who liked her and so didn’t get what his fellow conservatives failed to see in her. With people like that combining with the impassioned pro-Palin base (pro-Palin purges at Red State!), the odds of them coming up with a good strategy by 2012 are slim.
Ed Marshall
had probably done a press conference—surely all candidates do, etc.
Wow, that’s delicious.
pattonbt
Im not convinced the GOP is in the wilderness yet. The ‘elite’ republicans who crossed over this election are not necessarily sold on Obama and the Dems. They probably believe that if some veneer of sanity can be caked on thick enough in the short term they can come back and ‘try and save the party from the inside’. The ‘elite’ republicans dont hold power in the Dem party and would gladly go back to the GOP if they can regain control and weild actual power.
But in the long term, the Republican party, as it is currently constituted, is doomed. They hitched a major leg of their tent to people who want to take the world backwards, are religiously intolerant (while simultaneously religiously ignorant and hateful), worldly ignorant, denigrate and oppose science and education and are xenophobic (not a good trait when when whites become a minority soon). At some point, the bill for the fundie support will come due in full and payment be demanded from the Republican party, and when that happens, it will be officially over.
As someone else noted, the Republican party (or the centrists who actually care for their country in any way) should jettison the fundies now and focus on becoming a modern conservative party, one which doesnt shun science and education, espouses smart well regulated capitalism, strong individual liberties, limited government intervention and be neutral in the culture wars (see the Tories in the UK for a roadmap). The longer they wait, the harder the fall will be and the longer they will spend in the wilderness.
The problem I see for them is, though, that they dont have anyone in the farm system, think tank system or pundit system who is even close to beginning such a wave of change for them. When you lack actual thought, you are in deep trouble.
ThymeZone
Campaign crazy shit has consequences.
The campaign is over, but the debris from this is going to plague us for a while.
The link is via a kos reference, althought, the kos link won’t work.
"Irate John McCain aides, who blame Mrs Palin for losing the election, claim Mrs Palin took it upon herself to question Mr Obama’s patriotism, before the line of attack had been cleared by Mr McCain."
Comrade Stuck
Very true. the POTUS election is always a one on one crapshoot that is largely decided on how good or bad the country is doing during a snapshot in time, and who’s in charge to get the credit, or blame.
However, ALL the indicators are good for dems in general for winning elections, even if things are not all that great at a given election. Big changes in demographics are the main reason. More minority voters, *especially in the intermountain west, that historically trend to dems.Younger voters around the country who are much, much more socially liberal than their parents. And more and more educated white collar type liberals moving to states like Virginia and North Carolina.
Comrade Stuck
I think this is their only route to rebuilding a viable GOP. Right now, the GOP is electorally extinct in New England and becoming so across the entire upper midwest. There are still a lot of Rockefeller Republicans in this area that have moved to the dems. They mostly live in the big city suburbs and are economically conservative, but socially liberal. They can be won back over time with a more tolerant GOP. But right now the fundies and southern ideologues have it in a death grip, and won’t easily let go.
r€nato
Obama will be a staggeringly popular president if he is merely competent.
I mean, there is some seriously low-hanging fruit out there after 8 years of Bush. Don’t follow up one fuck-up after another, and re-election in 2012 is guaranteed.
Jeff
@Deborah: I’ve seen similar posts at another moderate site where she insists Palin is smart (Palin was an honors student in HS), I am intellectually lazy for thinking Palin is stupid and is looking forward to voting for Palin in 2012 along with many of her commenters.
tripletee
You’re right, Steve . . . which begs the question, why in the fuck did you introduce Sarah Palin to the national stage? The GOP can’t appeal to centrists with whackjobs like Palin, and yet they can’t win elections without their base, who are starburst-stuck by Palin. Tricky wicket you set up there, Steve. Nice job.
This is crap. McCain got a convention bounce, probably magnified by Palin, but his numbers were already on the way back down when the economic crisis hit. The crisis probably helped Obama regain the lead faster than he otherwise would have, but McCain would have lost even without the crisis, because his dumbfuck campaign advisors would have found another way to step on their dicks.
Schmidt’s a cynical asshat who ran one of the shittiest campaigns in modern history. Color me unimpressed by his post-mortem CYA attempts.
Chuck Butcher
@Ed Marshall:
You can take this idea and run with it right into the goddam ditch. Obviously our 10.5K registered voters won’t win an election, that is not my point. My point is that if you think getting lucky is a way to run politics; you’re nuts. These people in Baker County are representative, in a somewhat exaggerated way, of a great big slice of the electorate. I’m the damn canary in the coal mine, you start showing up reasonably in Baker County and you’ve got something very real on your hands. Until then you’re FOS with your cities/suburbs model, it won’t hold and I want to hold.
I’m not real goddamned impressed by egotism from the city folk, I’m real impressed by taking advantage of opportunity to make something solid of it. Frankly your tin shit is worth exactly that and you’d better wake the fuck up.
Jeff
This should have the GOP shitting bricks and rethinking their strategy. It won’t.
gwangung
Yeah, I’ve seen people SWEAR Palin did way more press conferences than Biden did.
Rock
I’m surprised not to read more in the blogosphere about Newsweek’s "behind the scenes" article.
Is it just me, or was it a pretty flattering portrait of John McCain? Reading it, I felt the wrong man had won the election…which is odd because before that I certainly didn’t feel that way…
tripletee
@Ed Marshall:
This sounds an awful lot like the bullshit that DLC-drones liked to spout about the 50-state strategy. In fact, p.luk was still pimping that nonsense during the primaries.
I know that’s not exactly what you were saying, but the fact is virtually every area of the country trended more Democratic this election, rural and urban areas alike. That’s an opportunity we should try to capitalize on.
kommrade jakevich
I’ve been wondering why the sad saga of John McPOW and the lipsticked pitbull seems so familiar. Then I realized I heard it in college:
When I woke up late in the afternoon;
She had taken all the things from inside his room.
I found myself naked in the middle of the floor;
She had taken the bed and the chest of drawers.
The mirror, the TV, the guitar cord;
My remote control and my old skateboard.
She robbed us blind – she took all we owned;
And the boys blamed me for bringing her home.
tripletee
@Rock:
I thought it was a pretty flattering portrait too, on a personal level, but it made me feel more than ever that McCain would have been a terrible President. He and Hillary shared the same fatal flaw: poor management skills and a tendency to surround themselves with incompetent shitheels.
Limniade
McCain didn’t get much of a convention bounce. Considering that a hurricane conveniently aimed for New Orleans promptly at convention time, and they decided to "do the right thing" and focus the country’s attention on that instead of on the convention, they were left with 3 days of a bare-bones agenda, instead of a week-long rapture filled with great speeches and media attention like the Democrats had.
Ed Marshall
Maybe it does, but I know damn well they weren’t thinking about pulling down Virginia and South Carolina, much less Indiana. I didn’t say anything about not trying to compete for votes in tiny ass counties, but they didn’t decide the election.
Roger Moore
@ r€nato:
And remember that the "suspending the campaign" stunt came after a week plus of putting out a new theory about the economy every day. One day "the fundamentals of the economy are sound". The next day they weren’t sound anymore. One day AIG should be allowed to fail. The next day they were too important to be allowed to fail. The suspending the campaign stunt was the last flip-flop of the string. The whole thing was EPIC CREDIBILITY FAIL.
First Dude
Eat a dick, Troll.
Brian J
From that blurb alone, I get the sense that he thinks the actions taken by and statements from Republicans during the bailout are incredibly dumb, particularly the idea that it was acceptable to put the kibosh on the bailout package because of allegedly hurt feelings. If I remember correctly, Pelosi criticized the Bush administration, but went out of her way to say nice things about House Republicans. But besides that, saying partisan things, as opposed to professionally unacceptable things, isn’t uncommon in those circumstances. So each time I hear my conservative relatives bitch about Pelosi and they mention this, I’ll just have to bite my tongue and realize that they are, for all of their smarts, absolutely full of it.
But as far as what Schmidt says, it’s extremely easy to tailor your comments to events that already happened. I guess you could say that he ran the best campaign possible, but I really wonder about that. The position McCain was in went he went into the campaign was having the best brand, so to speak, in politics. He wasn’t going to get the conservative bases out in droves, unless he picked a conservative star or up and comer, but he could have easily picked off a bunch of conservative Democrats and Independents. He was also not looking for a big win, but just a win. So I have to wonder whether it would have been acceptable to accept decreased enthusiasm amongst the conservative base. I think there was a decent chance that this would have made the reddest states, like Texas, Utah, and Kentucky, to name three, stay the same, even with smaller margins, but it would have allowed him to focus more on traditional swing areas, even if he would have had to eventually pull out of states like Minnesota and New Hampshire. In other words, I think he could have made up enough of the conservative base with people from the other side to squeak by with a win.
Comrade Stuck
@First Dude:
Chuck Butcher is not a troll. He was stating his opinion in typical BJ saucy terms.
pseudonymous in nc
It’s taken eleven years and four leaders for the Tories to look like they can take back power in Britain. It might be worth mentioning that during that decade, a lot of the bluerinse reactionaries retired or died off — or in the case of John Derbyshire, took their bigotry to another country.
The two-year election cycle in the US provides more opportunities to claw back power, but if the Congressional GOP rump decides on ‘moar wingnut’ before 2010, I doubt it’s going to work.
tripletee@54: if you believe the Newsweek behind-the-scenes, and in this case, there’s no reason not to, even Axelrod seems to think that there was a bit of treading water at Obama HQ after the August foreign trip:
Jim
Ed Marshall and tripletee:
You’re too strong for mere comments on someone else’s blog – I’d like to read each of your blogs. Your arguments are so important – and your experiences – to the national conversation.
Brian J
I realize that the motivation to vote and support a candidate can’t be feigned, but isn’t a big part of the process of building a campaign infrastructure simply getting a list of people who are, for whatever reason, sympathetic to your cause? In other words, isn’t a lot of the point to simply have access to information about potential voters? I’m thinking of John Kerry’s flash drive of millions of names, or whatever it specifically was.
If that’s the case, then perhaps we can credit Obama for merely helping us build voter lists. Perhaps, in 2016, when Mark Warner or Kathleen Sebelius is the nominee, he or she will lose Indiana by six points. But that’s a six-point loss, as opposed to a potential 18-point loss.
gwangung
Once you have the infrastructure, you have to be dedicated enough to maintain it. Hope there’s energy for that.
Jon H
"The bad thing is I can’t imagine the energy level on our side to ever be this high again. I don’t know if we can do it in the future."
2012 shouldn’t be too hard, with Obama running and his people doing their thing.
The real hurdle will be 2016, where it’s a virtual certainty that the Democratic candidate will not be as appealing, inspiring, or talented as Obama.
And if Obama’s 8 years go well, then the country will probably be feeling complacent again, as we did in 2000, and thus easily gulled by the GOP’s bullshit.
At least Nader will probably be dead by then. (Or, at the very least, beyond his campaigning years.)
Chuck Butcher
I know that in OR Obama’s data is not going away, it goes to the DPO, in exchange at least partly for the use of our’s. We’ve had parts of it through the election, but some could not be shared due to finance issues too damn complex to get into in a comment. I can assure you that DPO knows how to not only take care of that data but to expand it and use it. We have an extremely capable data base, I’m very familiar with it, though I am not a tech guy, my access level is total. I have that access because I’m all over the place with Party committments and I make myself damn useful.
I’ve had somewhere around 8 hours of instruction on the thing and while that’s enough for my purposes, it only scratches what can be done.
Jon H
Limniade wrote: "McCain didn’t get much of a convention bounce. Considering that a hurricane conveniently aimed for New Orleans promptly at convention time, and they decided to "do the right thing" and focus the country’s attention on that instead of on the convention, they were left with 3 days of a bare-bones agenda, instead of a week-long rapture filled with great speeches and media attention like the Democrats had."
Nah, that hurricane was the answer to their prayers, and alleviated the problem of what to do with the widely loathed Bush and Cheney. Bush addressed via video, and Cheney didn’t show. It also gave them an opportunity to feign concern about the fate of those in the hurricane’s path, in order to make up somewhat for Katrina.
The worst thing for the GOP would have been if they had been forced to follow the original convention plan and act as if Cheney and Bush were well liked by the rest of the nation.
tripletee
@Ed Marshall:
Understood. Didn’t mean to jump your case, but living in a red state, I’m a little sensitive on the topic.
@pseudonymous in nc:
Yeah, they were on the defensive for a little while there, but by the time period Schmidt was talking about, the momentum was already shifting back Obama’s way in the polls. I just think "it was all the economic crisis’s fault!" is a convenient out for Schmidt that allows him to avoid responsibility for the epically shitty campaign he ran.
@Jim:
Thanks, but there are a lot of other people here who should start blogs before me. I’m more suited to drive-by snark in the comments, I’m afraid.
Brian J
@JimPortlandOR
I’d say that the Republicans need to suffer massive, massive losses for another cycle or two before we can talk like this. I’m talking being down by over 150 seats in the House and at no more than 25 seats in the Senate.
Brian J
@ all those who talked about early voting and the Republicans not liking it
One of my conservative friends said early voting leaves open the possibility of fraud. I don’t see how it does any more than one day of voting, because I don’t see how the sort of fraud that can be carried out over the course of a few weeks is less detectable than that which can be carried out over the course of one day.
But I’m almost willing to give in to this demand…if they can guarantee that nobody waits in line for more than one hour, or hell, even a half hour when it comes to voting. In other words, open up so many polling places and/or expand the number of machines so dramatically that it’s sort of like buying a carton of milk at a convinience store, and we’ll talk. Until then, these people can shut the hell up.
Which brings me to a question: does anyone know of any site or book that debunks very thoroughly the claims about voter fraud made by people like John Fund? I know it’s a less salient topic now that election day has passed, but I’d really like to shut some of my conservative friends and family members up.
Brian J
Oh, I get that. But what I’m saying is, if I had to guess, I’d say that Obama’s team worked very hard at making the lists and other parts of the infrastructure a lot better than they probably were, and that he’ll be giving other Democrats such a leg up in this regard for years to come that the devotion factor behind his candidacy becomes a little less important. I think this particularly holds true for a state like Indiana or North Carolina, but perhaps I’m underestimating what sort of work state parties had done there.
Chuck Balder said above:
I’m going to assume this means that most of the information can be shared. If that’s the case, I think it validates what I said above.
But I am definitely curious, what can’t be shared and why is that? Is it about campaign contributions in the form of time and effort and the limitations on them?
Chuck Butcher
@Brian J:
Not can’t, couldn’t during the election. The issue was the Obama campaign’s stance that they would accept no PAC money. DPO (Democratic Party of Oregon) takes PAC money and as a result had to create within itself a completely separate funding entity that was entirely free of PAC money to deal with Obama but that didn’t affect the status of previously built systems – including our data base, which we sold to them. Yes, actually sold.
Despite our funding arm designed specifically for the Obama campaign the rest of the Party was still infected with PAC money and so that meant our data base was out of the loop other than the stuff that went to SoS anyhow, ie registrations. Our County Party was nixed from direct connection to Obama 08 for the same reason. Not that our Co Party gets PAC money but mess of trying to validate individual Counties was just not worth the hassle for the O campaign.
As a side note, OR is real tough on political entities’ Treasurers and organizations. If your Treasurer messes up you’re in big trouble and expensive trouble. By rights that prick Bill Sizemore should be in a hole he’d never dig out of. I know of one County Party that took years to dig out and it wasn’t really a significant screw up.
That’s the very short version of what was really complicated and generally a pain in the ass. Well, he promised and he kept his word.
pseudonymous in nc
It won’t be. But to put it another way, there’s no way it can be. I said elseblog that Obama has worked harder in some respects to win the presidency than he’ll work as president, just in terms of travel and stumping and cabin air / hotel food / etc. The 2012 election will be based on what he’s done from the White House.
But I don’t think Obama is a cynic who’ll let his campaign infrastructure wither on the vine. The ideal solution is, in some respects, to make it unnecessary, but structural change in the election process is difficult.
There are a bunch of articles and academic papers and the footnotes in the Indiana voter ID case are good too. I’m a filthy foreigner, and there’s no early voting at home, but there has never been a line on election day when I’ve voted. In short, it was always easier for me to vote than to buy a carton of milk at the convenience store, even when walking to the polling place.
My approach would be to provide a set of federal standards for federal elections that the states can sign up to in exchange for the funding to implement them (and auditing to confirm them), underpinned by a non-partisan body like Elections Canada to manage registration.
Chuck Butcher
@Brian J:
Not to pick nits, but a visit to my blog and my photo will reveal that bald and I have nothing in common.
RE: First Dude
Whatever you think about my comment, I will point out to your anonymous ass that I don’t hide behind shit so I have a suggestion for what you can do with that dick you offered up and if you don’t like that I’m easy enough to find at any time – fucktard.
As for the egotism of city folks, I spent half my life living in cities and I live in one of the most geo-politically diverse states and work extensively in a State political party so I may have a clue. Just for your uninformed anonymous self I’ll go ahead an point out to you that I’m on first name basis with a couple US Senators, their staff, and leading State elected officials and most of them are from Metro areas so KMA. There are two reasons that is true, one I’m useful because I’m good at this shit and two the only time I bring anything to them it is good and worth their time and consideration – and generally to their advantage to think about/use.
If you react to me like I’m a neophyte I’ll bite your head off and not look back. I may write a 2 bit blog, but there aren’t very damn many people that play at the levels I do and damn few without a shitpot of money with my access.
rachel
@kommrade jakevich: Does that go to the tune of The Merchant’s Son?
Comrade Glocksman
The problem in states such as Indiana is that there are so many ‘tiny ass counties’.
Add them up, and they are a majority.
Obama won Indiana because of two things his campaign did right.
One is that they made damn sure every urban area voter (I live in Evansville) got at least one call urging them to vote.
I voted early, and when I informed the caller (she sounded young and very eager) of that, she asked if I’d like to do volunteer work on election day. I was very impressed.
Two is that they didn’t ignore smaller population centers and won enough of them to make the difference.
Contrary to popular wisdom, it wasn’t Lake county that won it for Obama, it was the voters in traditionally Republican counties who decided to vote Obama.
As our gubernatorial race demonstrated, there aren’t enough Democrats in Lake and Marion counties to win statewide races unless the rest of the state is at least partially on board.
Obama attracted enough of the rural vote to win.
In states such as Indiana, you dismiss that vote at your peril.
kommrade jakevich
Heh. More to the tune of a sample from LZ’s The Ocean.
Ash Can
@Ed Marshall: Terrific story. And, BTW, I’ve always liked Rockford. M-80 and I made several day trips out there during our carefree dating days to see minor-league baseball and had a great time. Nice old downtown, lovely riverfront park. And you can’t beat Beef-a-Roo sandwiches after a long ride out from Chicago.
@kommrade jakevich: Palin/Keyes 2012 FTFW! Wheeee!
terry chay
@Chuck Butcher: It’s true that tiny rural counties are important (and the DLC strategy of dismissing them has been devastating to the party), but it is also true that they’re increasingly less important demographically, especially since the trending of them red had been inexorable over the last 32 years. I do object to the "cities getting bigger" argument: cities have been big blue balls on the electoral map, but haven’t been getting any bigger or much bluer. It seems the most significant trend has not been the cities or the rural areas, but the the suburbs and exurbs have been getting both bigger and bluer in the last few election cycles—the same group that became “Reagan Democrats” in the 80’s. The growth of this area’s power has permanently removed California and Illinois from their traditional status as a swing state (it’s hard to believe they ever were, but they were). We’re also seeing that Pennsylvania is becoming the same.
Still in nearly every county except the ozarks and appalachia, the trend has been blue this election. This is the same whether that county was city, suburb or rural. Indiana seems like the best example of effective D. strategy for the last demographic. Because of this, I somehow thing that there is a distinct opportunity to see an "Obama Republican" like the "Reagan Democrat” to create a similar three decade sea change.
Finally, regarding funding, it’d be nice if these issues were brought up more (without the emotion). The things on this stuff is very fascinating. Especially, as it relates to voter databases such as Catalist: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&refer=home&sid=aIxU19LXZBa4
I imagine a rule similar to what causes Catalist to be private (vs. VoterVault being public) affected the Democratic Party in Oregon. IMO the Democratic strategy here is more advanced, but such subtle rules and regs do not spell well for public financing, do they not?
In the long term, if the Republican Party is able to re-establish their traditional edge in financing, these political “technologies” (as Steve Schmidt might say) might blowback on the Democratic Party.