September 23: About That House Republican Agenda
I’m certainly old enough to remember lots of these pre-election “agenda” documents, and couldn’t help but mock the latest one at New York:
In Thomas Pynchon’s 1965 cult novel The Crying of Lot 49, a character who has taken too much LSD decides that if everyone on earth repeats the marketing phrase “rich, chocolatey goodness,” it will represent the voice of God. With or without drugs, a lot of people in politics have a similar delusion that getting candidates to make the same noises like chirping cicadas will produce electoral victories. It’s a particularly strong belief among congressional Republicans, who share the dubious conviction that Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” is what flipped control of Congress in 1994.
With the assistance of Gingrich and former Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, the House Republican Conference has released a new “agenda” document, entitled “Commitment to America.” The document, clearly designed for online consumption, has lots of bells and whistles and factoids about the hellish reign of Joe Biden and his “Democrat” Party. What it doesn’t have is a whole lot of specificity, unlike the unfortunate “agenda” that Republican Senate Campaign Committee chairman Rick Scott released earlier this year to the near-universal horror of his colleagues, who don’t want to be identified with the proposed sunsetting of Social Security and Medicare.
The relatively anodyne character of Kevin McCarthy’s pet project doesn’t mean it is entirely useless. Candidates mouthing the approved pieties will presumably not be expressing their pithy views on Jewish space lasers or repeating QAnon slogans.
Still, it’s hard to take seriously an agenda for the nation that does not mention climate change, Russia, or extremist threats to democracy — or one that suggests the sole cure for inflation is to cut “wasteful government spending” without explaining what that means (in the indictment of Democrats that accompanies the agenda, there is much criticism of direct stimulus payments, which Donald Trump preferred to virtually every other form of government spending).
Most interesting was how House Republicans handled a red-hot issue they dare not ignore completely, given the obsession it commands among a very big chunk of the GOP party base: abortion. You have to look pretty hard to find it, nestled as it is under the unlikely heading of “A Government That’s Accountable,” and the downright misleading subheading of “a plan to defend America’s rights under the Constitution.” And it simply says Republicans will “protect the lives of unborn children and their mothers.” So they checked off a box for anti-abortion activists in the manner least likely to draw curious or unfriendly attention to the extreme abortion views so many of them have expressed, which don’t poll well. Perhaps voters will be too mesmerized by the overall party message to notice. Repeat after me: rich, chocolatey goodness.
Kerry needs to discuss the Bush administration’s inept response to information that was given to them before 9/11 concerning terrorist activity in the US. People need to understand that “our great protector” and his administration was given information about possible terrorist plots (ie plane hijackings) and they failed to act on the information! How can someone look at Bush in the same positive light knowing that he failed us back in 2001? And then, he was initially against the Homeland Security Department. Security is a BIG concern in this election. I see nothing that indicates to me that Bush has made us more secure. Another thing, most people I know, regardless of political affiliation, are not happy with the way things are going. People are stressed out! Kerry needs to speak to these people. There are a lot of us. Life is difficult anymore and there is no empathy coming from the Whitehouse. Kerry needs to address this.
Joe
Dan,
I think you are correct on the media buying. I have said this before and will repeat – in the final analysis many folks will not be able to pull the B/C lever or whatever method of voting available. I suspect you need to select one or two polls and stick with them while filtering out the others.
Who are the Republican pollsters and who are the Democratic? I subscribe to Rasmussen and also follow Zogby. I was a Zogby junkie in 00. I have regaining confidence.
There is an arrogance about the B/C crowd. Also things are looking mighty grim in Iraq.
Jody
If you look at the states that K-E are not buying media in at this time, they are all competitive Senate races, except Arizona. If Demos want to allow the Senate candidates to establish themselves you cut down on K-E buys in September, pour money into the Senate race and then buy in October when B-C is buying and the K-E ads do not tie the Senate candidate to the national ticket.
Arizona is a special case because any early push there provokes a McCain response. In October that will not be as big a problem as McCain will be busy supporting the Arizona down ticket candidates.
In other words, there is a rationale that shows careful planning and not hysteria. I have been growing in my confidence that K-E do think through what they do.
Yet listening to Juan Williams on NPR this morning you would think the Kerry is ready to concede Missouri. Really, what the heck are we going to do with the mainstream media. What is with NPR?
Well, all I can say is “figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” I have seen the Gallup guy on TV with his so called groups. I saw a biased republican partisan. And the media is just as bad. So why should I believe the polls when I no longer believe the media. It was just tooooooooooo convenient.
From Missouri—-
I am seeing support for K/E in places where you should not expect it, given the demographics.
Missouri is winnable although it will be close. B/C are taking it for granted. It’s critical to get Edwards in key outstate areas to hold down the GOP vote and Kerry is needed in StL and KC, especially in the labor-oriented suburbs.
Please don’t give up on us. Strategic media buys in October can be critical, especially when the Cardinals are in the World Series.
This is the first time that I’ve been to this site, and I find it far better than the others. I did some research os SurveyUSA on their website.
The good news is that they are usually pretty accurate in their pre-election predictions. The bad news is that they usually, but not always, err on the side of the Democrats.
I also find it interesting that Bush went down in Newsweek but up in Time. Zogby stayed the same; Rasmussen is back to 1 point. Do the pollsters really know what they are doing or is it possible that there are more undecided voters than is commonly believed?
I want my W.rong For America! T-shirt and bumperstickers!
Kerry people are you listening??
I agree. Don’t give up on Missouri or other states in middle America. Independents and moderate to conservative Dems are looking for a reason, any reason to vote for Kerry. They don’t like Bush, but they remain undecided after the Repub convention. Maybe put together a commercial showing Kerry skeet shooting and talking about his joy of hunting. Is Carville on top of this? It works!
Reports are that Kerry’s campaign has pulled all advertising from MO. This now seems terminally dumb if this poll is even close to correct. Gore pulled out of Ohio assuming he was way behind when in fact he was closing. How do we keep Kerry’s folks from premature surrender in key battlegrounds like this? T.J.
Ruy, what is your opinion on SUSA’s methodology? They seem to have as good a record as anyone else based on past elections, but the Hotline for one has a real problem with them and won’t include their results (or Rasmussen’s, for that matter) in their polling summaries.