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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Like a master stage magician’s best “sleight of hand” trick, Ruffini makes MAGA extremism in the GOP disappear right before our eyes.

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A Democratic Political Strategy for Reaching Working Class Voters That Starts from the Actual “Class Consciousness” of Modern Working Americans.

by Andrew Levison

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The recently published book, Rust Belt Union Blues, by Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol represents a profoundly important contribution to the debate over Democratic strategy.

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Why Don’t Working People Recognize and Appreciate Democratic Programs and Policies

The mythology of “Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days” and the Modern Debate Over “Deliverism.”

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The American Establishment’s Betrayal of Democracy

The American Establishment’s Betrayal of Democracy The Fundamental but Generally Unacknowledged Cause of the Current Threat to America’s Democratic Institutions.

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Immigration “Chaos” Could Sink Democrats in 2024…

And the Democratic Narrative Simply Doesn’t Work. Here’s An Alternative That Does.

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The Daily Strategist

March 19, 2024

No Issues, Please

The headline from Jonathan Martin and Jim VandeHei of The Politico says it all: “McCain, Palin push biography, not issues.”

When John McCain’s campaign manager said last week that this presidential election “is not about issues,” it wasn’t a Freudian slip. It was an unvarnished preview of McCain’s new campaign plan.
In the past week, McCain — with new running mate Sarah Palin always close by his side — has transformed the Republican campaign narrative into what amounts to a running biography of this new political odd couple.
In the duo’s new stump speech and their first post-convention ad, the impression campaign strategists hope to leave is unmistakable. McCain is the war hero. Palin is the Every­mom. And together, they will rattle Washington.
Considering the big challenges the country faces — two wars and a wobbly economy, for starters — the focus on personal narratives might strike some as jarringly superficial for the times.

Well, you go to war with the candidates you’ve got, and the McCain-Palin ticket has no policy ideas other than those which are identified with the Bush-Cheney administration and/or the right wing of the Republican Party. I’m reminded of a comment that William F. Buckley once made about a photo-laden biography of his political nemesis, New York Mayor John Lindsay: “If I were commissioned to write a favorable biography of Lindsay, it would consist entirely of photographs.”
There’s a school of thought, particularly strong among Democrats, that says issues “don’t matter” in presidential elections; that it’s all about character, and narrative, and striking the right emotional chords. We are often told that Al Gore and John Kerry lost because they didn’t understand this “truth.”
I don’t buy it, especially this year. Sure, elections are not public policy seminars; many voters are unversed on policy, and/or don’t trust that politicians will do what they promise when in office; and the majority of voters have made up their minds on party ID grounds before any debate on issues occurs. But voters do have concrete concerns that are connected to specific needs, for themselves and their country, and specific grievances about the performance of those in power today. It need not be an exercise in sterile wonkery to point out, for example, that John McCain’s health care plan is a carbon-copy of Bush’s most recent proposal, that would undermine job-based health insurance, drive millions of Americans into expensive individual policies, and make it even harder than it already is for people with pre-existing conditions to get coverage. This argument can and should be made with passion and even anger. But it needs to be made, against the effort by Team McCain to get across the finish line without discussing or defending what the man might actually do as president. (The debates will be a high hurdle for this effort).
Bring on the passionate wonkery, the compelling talking points, the policy debates wrapped in narrative and the needs of “real people!” To a remarkable degree, the Republican ticket is ceding the whole vast ground of America’s future agenda to Democrats. Let’s use it.


Schmavericks

A quick addendum to our two earlier posts today: Hotline‘s got the Obama campaign’s 30-second ad rebutting the McCain-Palin “Original Mavericks” ad.


Cartoons

Our staff post earlier today cited a Tom Toles cartoon as perfectly expressing the absurd “maverick” message of the Republican National Convention.
Barack Obama apparently thought so, too; he quoted much of the cartoon’s script on two occasions today. But he should have gone on to say that the real cartoon is the McCain-Palin ad claiming the ticket as “original mavericks” who are devoted to fighting Republicans and corporate interests. It would have been more credible if Daffy Duck had narrated.


“Original Mavericks”

As expected, the McCain campaign’s addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket is being used to double-down on its highly deceptive claim that it offers some sort of repudiation to the Republican policies of the last eight years.
The latest McCain-Palin ad, dubbed “Original Mavericks,” is a small masterpiece of mendacity. Aside from the fact that it trumpets one heavily documented lie (that Palin “stopped the Bridge to Nowhere”), the idea that McCain and Palin can best be understood as warriors fighting Republicans and corporations is breathtakingly dishonest.
The best response yet made to this whole line of argument was yesterday’s Tom Toles cartoon in the Washington Post. It shows McCain and Palin standing outside the White House, with McCain hurling this threat:

Look out, Mr Bush! With the exception of economic policy and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments and Rove-style politics, we’re coming in there to shake things up!

Rebutting the Republican ticket’s “maverick” claims is the most urgent challenge for Democrats between now and Election Day. If they are truly “mavericks” in any respect, it’s because they’d take the country in an even more extreme direction than the Bush-Cheney administration.


McCain’s Character Flaws Fair Game

Dry wit Sarah Vowell’s cultural commentary is always worth a read. But on Saturday she hit on a couple of political messaging angles Dem ad-makers should think about. Here’s a clip from Vowell’s op-ed in the New York Times:

During a gubernatorial debate in 2006, Governor Palin claimed that if her daughter, then 16, were impregnated as the result of being raped, Ms. Palin would hope that the girl would “choose life,” which is a polite way of saying she would expect a tenth-grader to give birth to her rapist’s baby.
Here’s a not-so-polite fact about the United States: According to Amnesty International, a woman is raped here every six minutes.
Like his running mate, Senator McCain has been a true-blue opponent of abortion rights during his political career. Unlike his running mate, he supports the right to terminate a pregnancy in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. So does President Bush. During a Republican primary debate in 2000, Senator McCain denounced Mr. Bush for being in favor of the exception but not having the guts to push for putting it in writing in the official Republican Party platform that year.
This year, Senator McCain himself didn’t bother to stand up to the right wing of his party to insist that the rape and incest exception be written into the Republican Party platform. Just as he failed to stand up to the right wing of his party in choosing his running mate. His first choice was reported to be Senator Joseph Lieberman, a man who stood up to the Democratic Party to the extent that he isn’t even a Democrat anymore.

Some promising memes brewing here. First. McCain dumps his ‘principles’ whenever he smells an opportunity for more power (see Vega’s Aug. 6 post at TDS for more on this angle). Second, he backs down from political bullies. Third, If anything should happen to 72-76 year-old McCain during his term, President Palin — it’s difficult to even think the words — will appoint Supreme Court justices who favor her extremist positions on outlawing abortions, and perhaps her troubling ideas about book-banning.
As our recent staff post reported, healthy majorities of single women of all races are already tilting toward Obama. Some well-targeted ads (women watch more TV and surf more net than men) could help awaken more single women to the disturbing prospect of the McCain-Palin policies on abortion, and just might cut a little slice out of McCain’s big lead lead among white married women.
And Dems concerned about how the Catholic vote factors into the Palin effect, and anyone struggling with abortion as a personal and political issue, may find helpful our veep nominee’s comments on Meet the Press. As Biden explained,

It’s a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I’m prepared to accept the teachings of my church. But let me tell you. There are an awful lot of people of great confessional faiths–Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others–who have a different view. They believe in God as strongly as I do. They’re intensely as religious as I am religious. They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life–I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.

The entire transcript and netcast of Biden’s Sunday appearance on MTP are highly recommended for illuminating the stark contrast in the gravitas of the Dem and GOP veep nominees — and, more importantly, for what it says about the presidential nominees who selected them.


The Best Sound-Bites and Brief Quotes from the Democratic Convention in Denver

In modern politics it has become increasingly important to be able to present the Democratic perspective in either very brief, one or two sentence sound-bites or short, one paragraph summaries of major issues and perspectives.
The format of many political discussions on television and radio allows each participant to speak only a few words at a time before being interrupted. Many “roundtables” and other print discussions give each individual commentator space for only one or two paragraphs.
In this kind of communication environment, having a set of sharply worded, succinct statements of the Democratic position on major issues becomes critical.
The speakers at the recent Democratic Convention produced dozens of first-rate sound-bites and short, one-paragraph summaries of this kind. TDS has brought together a large group of these quotes in a convenient format for use by Democratic spokespeople, citizen advocates and grass-roots supporters.
We believe you will find this collection quite useful during the coming weeks.
Read more……


Warning: Iraq may be on the brink of renewed civil war – and Democrats need to demand that McCain tell the nation whether he will order American troops into combat to try to control it.

Beginning October 1, U.S. military units have been ordered to begin turning over the distribution of funds for the 100,000 Sunni members of the pro- U.S. Awakening Movements to the predominantly Shia Iraqi army.
There is widespread – very widespread – skepticism that the Iraqi army will actually continue to make the payments.
In fact, in recent weeks there has been growing evidence that the Iraqi army, under Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s orders, now intends to try and militarily crush the pro-US Awakening groups.

(1) A wave of arrests and raids against major sheiks across Iraq has driven hundreds of Sunni Awakening Movement members and many key tribal leaders underground. Threats of a return to insurgency have become widespread.
(2) Top Iraqi government spokesmen have begun to demand that all Sunni militias be disarmed and disbanded.
(3) Leading military figures have increasingly begun to describe the Sunni militias as “cancers” and “terrorists” that must be systematically destroyed. (The documentation for these statements is presented below).

Under these circumstances, America must now face the very real possibility that renewed ethnic and religious civil war may break out in Iraq sometime in the next few months. As a result, it is urgent that Democrats demand that McCain tell the nation now what policy he will pursue if elected.
The critical question is this — if renewed civil war breaks out in Iraq, will McCain order US troops back into combat to try to control it – and even deploy more troops if necessary — or will he order them to stand down and allow events to take their course?
For the next 60 days Democrats should insist that this is far and away the most important question about Iraq in the 2008 campaign and that all the arguments about who was right or wrong about the original invasion, the surge or any other past decisions are now entirely secondary.
McCain will make every effort to avoid answering this question directly. The election may very well depend on whether the Democrats can force him to do so.


Palin Effect on Women Voters Modest in New Poll

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has a new study, “Assessing the Impact of Sarah Palin on the Women’s Vote,” the best data-driven analysis of the ‘Palin effect’ on women voters thus far. The study, conducted 9/2-3 for the Women’s Voices. Women Vote Action Fund, surveyed 1356 women, inlcuding 1295 lv’s. Here’s the nut graph from the executive summary:

After viewing the acceptance speech of the first female vice presidential candidate for the Republican party, there was no positive electoral movement toward the Republican ticket among either married or unmarried women in these groups. Some unmarried women moved toward the Republican ticket, but an equal number moved against McCain and Palin.

The study also found that “unmarried women are much more skeptical” about Palin than married women and “significantly less likely…to believe that she is an asset to the Republican ticket.” Obama’s margin with unmarried women increased from 28 to 36 percent after the Palin nomination, though “largely because of a drop for McCain.” In addition the GQR memo on the survey noted,

Married women are divided (39 percent much or somewhat more likely, 36 percent much or somewhat less likely), while unmarried women are clearly turned off by the Republican Convention (27 percent much or somewhat more, 45 percent much or somewhat less).

The survey found that Obama has a 15 point lead among women lv’s overall, driven by his edge with unmarried women and younger unmarried women in particular. Interestingly, McCain’s slight lead with married women remains “unchanged since July.” Obama now holds a 55 to 32 percent lead with white, unmarried women, while he lags by 15 points among white married women (39 to 55 percent).
Meanwhile a new ABC News poll (505 adults, 4.5 moe), conducted 9/4 found,

Men are slightly more apt than women to say Palin’s experienced enough for the presidency, 46 percent to 39 percent, with more women unsure about it. Seventy-four percent of Republicans say she’s sufficiently experienced; 44 percent of independents and 21 percent of Democrats agree.

Clearly, polls indicate that the Palin nomination has not helped sway many voters toward the GOP thus far. For the Republicans, it’s all about cranking up registration and turnout among conservatives.


Technical Difficulties

This isn’t important in the larger scheme of things, but as a longtime convention worker, I did want to comment on the strange technical difficulties that seem to have bedevilled some of the biggest speeches at the Republican Convention.
Yesterday we were informed that Sarah Palin had to fight a runaway teleprompter that didn’t pause for applause during her speech. The article on the subject cited “new equipment” as a problem (can’t imagine why they’d want to debut it during this particular speech), so maybe the GOPers were using some novel automated ‘prompter. The kind of teleprompters used in Denver, and so far as I know, everywhere in the past, are scrolled mechanically by an operator who closely follows the pace of the speaker. Moreover, in Denver a staffer was always on the podium with a hard copy of every speech, ready to run it to the lecturn if there are ‘prompter issues (that’s what happened briefly with Gov. Ted Strickland). Palin apparently had to rely on an older version of her speech that a campaign staffer happened to have in his coat pocket.
It’s to Palin’s credit that these problems didn’t affect her delivery; indeed, one of her signature lines, about hockey moms being pit bulls with lipstick, was reportedly ad libbed when some sign blocked her sight lines to the ‘prompter.
John McCain also appeared to have struggled with his teleprompter, though it’s not clear whether he had the same issues as Palin, or just hasn’t overcome his longstanding aversion to the technology. As I can tell you from countless rehearsals, some speakers simply can’t master the use of side-prompters, those transparent plates at the podium that many viewers mistake for bullet-proof glass shields. In shorter speeches, we always advise them to stick to the center ‘prompter, the giant screen at the back of the hall, and not worry about turning from side to side. But that gets pretty tedious-looking in a long speech like McCain’s.
‘Prompters aside, a lot of bloggers are having great sport today discussing some of the weird backdrops during McCain’s speech: first of all, a field of grass that in a narrow-frame shot looked just like the infamous “green screen” that drew so much mockery in an earlier Big Speech by McCain; and then, a photo of a North Hollywood middle school that appeared for no obvious reason, and that was apparently used in a West Wing episode.
Beyond production values and podium mechanics, I wondered several times during the Republican Convention about its speechwriting/vetting/rehearsal system. While some speeches were very good (Palin’s, Giuliani’s, and Huckabee’s, by most accounts), and others erratic but at some points effective (arguably McCain’s) there were an unusual number of poorly written and delivered speeches, not just in the bipartisan convention tradition of endless “message” redundancy, but in terms of grammer, coherence, and minimal oratorical competence. Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle’s Wednesday speech, just before Rudy Giuliani’s successful attack-fest, was one of the worst written and delivered convention addresses I’ve ever watched or heard. She paused for applause after virtually every line, and often had to wait a while for it. Democratic speakers are always advised to forget about applause unless it’s thunderous, since television understates ovations. It really did look like Lingle hadn’t rehearsed at all, and that no one with much of an ear had reviewed her text.
There’s a lot of talk today that McCain’s acceptance speech showed signs of massive overworking, with the emotional power of the Mark Salter ending vitiated by the long, boring policy iteration that preceded it. But in addition, I noticed one very simple speechwriting error: in a relatively long and key passage comparing his views to those of Barack Obama, McCain began with his talking point and then rushed into his construction of Obama’s position, eliciting, predictably, a “boo” from the audience. Had he reversed the order, each graph would have elicited a cheer. And that’s what you want when you’re trying to sound like a post-partisan “maverick” who’s fighting “politics as usual.”
Again, none of this stuff matters much in the long run. But it’s worth noting for Democrats who chronically fear that bad as Republicans are at governing, they’re flawless at politics.


Square One

John McCain’s acceptance speech last night really did return his campaign to the same Square One it occupied when he nailed down the Republican presidential nomination so many months ago: a candidate with highly conventional Bushian policy positions on almost every issue, but who asks Americans to accept him as a “maverick” and a “reformer” based on the character forged by his horrific experience as a POW, as evidenced by a few heresies against party that he has largely since foresworn.
The most revealing detail of the speech was that for all the talk about serving country rather than party, and of wanting above all to clean up Washington, the only specific criticism of Republicans McCain could bring himself to make was one from the Right: that GOPers of the DeLay/Bush era came to power, forgot their conservative principles, and spent too much money. While true, the criticism isn’t very comforting to the majority of Americans who would now like their federal government to do more, not less, to deal with a variety of big national challenges, particularly coming from a candidate whose tax cut and defense spending promises would guarantee huge structural budget deficits for a long, long time.
Thus, his plea to swing votes last night to trust that he won’t represent “more of the same” came down almost entirely to his POW experience, which he did indeed talk about in an unusually raw and powerful way. To his credit, he tried to avoid the suggestion that Americans should award him the presidency as thanks for his personal sacrifices. His central argument was that his sufferings in the Hanoi Hilton freed him forever from allegiance to any cause other than country. But that claim runs up against the inconvenient reality that he wasn’t much of a “maverick” in Congress until he ran for president in 2000 against the candidate of the Republican establishment, and hasn’t shown any “maverick” tendencies at all since deciding to run for president a second time.
That’s why the balance of the McCain-Palin campaign is almost certainly going to resemble Wednesday night’s “message” more than last night’s: relentless attacks on Barack Obama. In close general election races, if you can’t occupy the “center” with your policy positions, the next best thing is to push your opponent out by describing him or her as extremist, or as fundamentally untrustworthy–a strategy that has the added benefit of making your own party base very happy. For all the “maverick” self-labeling by McCain and Palin during this convention, the very conventional attack politics of Karl Rove and company is where they are heading between now and election day.