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Jewish World Review May 5, 2005 / 26 Nissan, 5765 If you listen to someone in ‘the know’, 2008 is going to be the common-man campaign By Robert Robb
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Political consultants, at least a few at the top, have emerged from the
backrooms and become public celebrities of sorts.
And certainly at the top of the heap these days is Karl Rove, architect of
President Bush's Electoral College victory in 2000, and his victory in both
the Electoral College and the popular vote in 2004.
I had a chance to discuss politics with Rove last week when he was in town
for a fundraiser for Sen. Jon Kyl's reelection bid in 2006.
The influence of political consultants is generally overestimated. Usually,
elections are the result of voters making a decision about the basic
direction they want on a few fundamental issues.
But there is an expertise in marketing political ideas and personas, as
there is in marketing other things. And Rove has certainly earned his
position at the pinnacle by pulling off what was thought to be an
improbable feat: A Republican victory in a high-turnout election.
After the 2000 election, Rove was reportedly struck by the fact that Bush
ran behind what polls indicated would be the margin in many states,
including Arizona.
He fixated on improving voter turnout among Republicans, developing a
volunteer-intensive voter contact program, particularly in the closing days
of a campaign. The program was tested in the 2002 congressional elections,
with good results.
In 2004, Democrats invested more in voter identification and turnout
efforts than ever before. They even somehow obtained a copy of Rove's plan,
as revealed in Bryon York's new book, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.).
High voter turnout is thought to favor Democrats. And Democrats generally
met or exceeded their turnout goals in battleground states. But Rove's
program outperformed that of the Democrats, and Bush won the popular vote
by a surprising margin.
That makes Rove King of the Hill — at least until the next election.
Getting Rove to go beyond spin in discussing contemporary issues is futile,
not surprising since he is one of the designers of the spin.
For example, he says that Bush was "appropriately specific" about his two
top domestic priorities for a second term — Social Security reform and tax
reform — during the campaign.
Perhaps so, if the goal was reelection. But not so, if the goal was a
mandate specific enough to get a reluctant Congress to act, as is being
amply demonstrated by the current Social Security debate.
But on broader political trends, Rove is more effusive.
For example, he does not believe that the country is destined for a period
of closely and bitterly divided politics, as many analysts do. Instead, he
believes that Republicans are already gaining the upper hand, pointing to
the unprecedented gains in Congress for a party holding the presidency in
the 2002 off-elections, as well as the gains in the Senate in 2004.
In Rove's view, this is in part because the Democrats have become the party
dedicated to the defense of the status quo.
That's an interesting prism through which to view, for example, the Social
Security debate. It appears that the President is losing the debate pretty
badly, as support for his signature personal retirement accounts slips in
opinion polls and in Congress.
But, if Rove is right, the Democrats may be hurting themselves politically
in the long run as well, with their all-criticism, no-solutions approach.
After all, when it comes time to choose leadership for the country, voters
may prefer those who are pitching solutions, even if they aren't keen on
all the particulars, to those who have nothing to offer but an
unsustainable status quo.
It's also a useful prism through which to view the debate over
filibustering judges. The American people just don't understand why
presidential picks for the bench shouldn't get an up-or-down vote.
The conventional wisdom among Republicans is that Hillary Clinton will be
the Democratic nominee in 2008. And the conventional wisdom among political
handicappers is that you need a star to compete with a star, which has
floated the names of Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor
Rudy Giuliani to the top of the Republican list.
Rove won't discuss 2008 presidential aspirants. But he does make an
interesting observation about the trend in presidential nominating
politics.
He thinks 2008 might depart from what he describes as the 80s and 90s
model, in which candidates parlay national standing and status into the
nomination. Reagan, Bush I, and Dole were all national political figures
when they began their quest for the nomination.
Instead, Rove thinks there might be a reversion back to what he describes
as the 60s model, in which candidates earn support by grassroots, retail
politicking.
If so, the candidates who will ultimately have the inside track aren't
necessarily those on the talk shows, but those making connections with
party and conservative cause activists.
In other words, those tending to the same political gardens Rove cultivated
to beat the Democrats at the turnout game.
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JWR contributor Robert Robb is a columnist for The Arizona Republic. Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, The Arizona Republic |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||
