1. The party’s superstars are coming of age.... Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) — all of whom have significantly more star power than Romney....On #4, I still remember the Newsweek cover that followed the 1964 election: a sick/dying/beaten-up elephant in bed. Having supported Goldwater and grasped something of the value of conservatism, I found the image truly disturbing. And I was old enough to think somewhat deeply about it. Conservatism would never get its message across now. LBJ would distribute endless gifts and the people would never be willing to hand them back. And yet, 4 years later, Richard Nixon, the loser from 4 years earlier, would arrive — the "new Nixon" — and he seemed fresh, a source of hope.
2. There are a historic number of GOP governors.... [including 2 Hispanics]...
3. The electoral map is bad, but not that bad....
4. History is on their side. Presidential politics in the post-World War II era tend to be defined by the pendulum effect....
One aspect of The Post that particularly irks conservatives is the columnists who appear in print and online in news positions (as opposed to those on the editorial and op-ed pages and the online Opinions section). With the exception of Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza, who cover politics in a nonpartisan way, the news columnists almost to a person write from left of center.Balz and Cillizza are nonpartisan? That assertion screams liberal bias.
Is it any wonder that if you’re a conservative looking for unbiased news — and they do; they don’t want only Sean Hannity’s interpretation of the news...They. That's telling.
... that you might feel unwelcome, or dissed or slighted, by the printed Post or the online version? And might you distrust the news when it’s wrapped in so much liberal commentary?Yeah, they need to get a lot of conservative columnists if they want to get away with doing the news liberal-style. Isn't that the Wall Street Journal method?
There’s also a less partisan explanation. That is that people tend to struggle to imagine someone other than the current occupant of the White House as the president until he, well, isn’t anymore — even if they don’t like him or don’t plan to vote for him.Yes, we do have a way of picturing things continuing as they have been. And no one is really good enough to be President, but the incumbent is already President, so our resistance to picturing a person as President doesn't come into play.
Portman is not exactly Mr. Exciting. (When your calling card for charisma is a chicken impersonation, it’s pretty slim pickings in the personality department.)Must everything be about chicken? I would invite everyone to read "15 Genuinely Interesting Things About Rob Portman." The "great impression of a chicken" is in there, and in fact, there's another one with chickens:
He assembled a chicken coop for his wife's Christmas present this year and he gave her four chickens that live in their backyard. They lay four eggs a day.To be fair to Cilizza, he also wrote a column about why Portman would be a great pick. In that analysis, boringness was a plus:
The rap on Portman is that he’s a boring guy who no one knows. That fact virtually ensures that if Portman is the pick the narrative that will emerge will be along the lines of “he’s more interesting that you might think!”. It’s just how these things tend to work.I see that column links to the "15 Genuinely Interesting Things" that I remembered.
The sad man who lives in fear of seeming to be uninteresting brought to mind the classic Bugs Bunny lines:Now let's dip our patties in the water!
My, I'll bet you monsters lead in-teresting lives. I said to my girl friend just the other day, 'Gee, I'll bet monsters are in-teresting.' I said. The places you must go and the things you must see -- my stars! I bet you meet lots of in-teresting people too. I'm always in-terested in meeting in-teresting people. Now let's dip our patties in the water!
Now I don't need no WaWaIN THE COMMENTS: t-man said:
And I know how sweet life can be
So I get myself free... of WaWa
I don't need no WaWa
Wawa is the best convenience store chain in the country!...Yes, there's no internal capital W. I checked the company's website. I was carrying over the error made a the WasHington PoSt website.
Also, it isn't WaWa, that would be ridiculous. It is named after the town of Wawa, Pennsylvania.
[W]hile it is true that midday cable television viewership is low, that rationale completely disregards the media world in which we live, where even the smallest comment can be amplified into a national headline in minutes....And he's right that Obama's remark — "the private sector is doing fine" — is most useful if Romney can "sell" it as "a window into what the president really thinks."
Then there is the reality that gaffes such as the one Obama made Friday are quickly — and, usually, effectively — used by the other side to score political points....
[Obama's] remark plays directly into the story that Republicans are trying to tell about him — that he is a big-government liberal who thinks the answer to all problems is expanding the federal bureaucracy and who lacks even a basic understanding of how the private sector works.It's not a matter of Romney using an out-of-context remark to "sell" a "story that Republicans are trying to tell." Put the supposed "gaffe" phrase back in its context — including the follow-up context in which Obama explained himself. I did that work here. Obama meant to say what he did, and he stood by it. He is pushing a bill in Congress that would lavish federal money on state and local governments which, he said, have laid off 450,000 workers. He told us the private sector is doing fine 3 times in his original statement, because that proposition is a fixed point in the argument for pouring more money into state and local government employment (not "expanding the federal bureaucracy" as Cillizza put it).
The majority of Democratic strategists we spoke to over the weekend, however, insisted that the combination of Obama’s personality (and that of his political team) as well as the unique dynamics in the Badger State lessened not only the likelihood of a presidential visit but also its potential efficacy.That's too vague. What's wrong with "Obama's personality" (and the "personality" of his "team") that would have been bad for Barrett?
“If a recall race becomes purely partisan, there is a strong backlash from independents,” said Steve Murphy, a leading Democratic media consultant. “Obama was smart to stay away, for both himself and Barrett.”
Thanks, anonymous Democrat. Thanks for the insight. Obama shied away from Wisconsin because of the white men. But I thought it was all about turnout. His lack of ice-cutting with white men wouldn't have prevented him from stimulating the women and minorities.
Another Democratic operative who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategy said that polling suggests “Barrett’s problem is is white men, lots of them union members, and Obama doesn’t cut much ice there.”
“Everyone knows how risk averse Obama is,” said a senior party strategist. “At least he’s consistent.”...
In the end, Obama, like all of us, is shaped by his own experiences. And roughly two years ago, Obama gave in to pleas for him to make a last-minute campaign stop for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (D), who was struggling to hold the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Obama’s trip changed nothing. Coakley lost to now-Sen. Scott Brown (R), and the president had to endure a series of stories about whether he had lost his mojo.So, basically, don't help Democrats who need help. Stop by for some win when they are already winning. But I'm not going to criticize Obama for not associating himself with the recall calamity. It's enough to hide the anger that surely must be there about the way the Wisconsin recall is hogging the political spotlight, draining donation money that might have gone elsewhere, and providing a ripe opportunity for advertising the success of conservative policy.
Seen through that lens, Wisconsin looks like a no-win situation for Obama. As one Democratic consultant closely following the race put it: “From his point of view, (there’s) not much to gain and something to lose.”
[T]he last two Democratic presidents have not been of and for labor. Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) during his presidency and many unions leaders have expressed frustration about President Obama’s willingness to stick his neck out further on labor priorities like the Employee Free Choice Act....
It’s hard to see what happened in Wisconsin as anything short of a miss for an organized labor movement that had hoped the recall elections would be read as a sign that unions still carried significant political power in the country.This reminds me of a line of questions I pursued with a few of the protesters over the past few months here in Wisconsin: Why are you protesting? (For the workers.) Who are these workers? (Teachers, etc.) Do you think these workers have better jobs — considering pay and benefits — than the average Wisconsin taxpayer? (Better.) Why are you protesting for the economic upper half? (???!!!)
He had the worst possible situation for a politician seeking reelection: he was both universally known and not at all well liked by Nevada voters....Cillizza is impressed by Reid's acceptance of the reality that he couldn't make himself more popular. He saw what he had to do — grimly tear down his opponent — and he did it.
From the moment Angle officially won the Republican nomination, the Reid team began a systematic negative campaign against her that will go down in history as one of the best ever. Angle was constantly on defense in the fall -- trying to beat back Reid-generated stories about her comments on Social Security, Medicare and just about everything else.
The strategy reflected the simple reality of Reid's political predicament: his only chance to win the race was to turn it into a "devil you know versus the one you don't" choice for voters.
The withering and often personal criticism of Milbank and Cillizza exploded Friday afternoon after the liberal Web site Talking Points Memo posted and criticized the latest video. Both men, who frequently appear on television, became high-profile targets, particularly among left-leaning bloggers but also on such outlets as Twitter.Yeah, and you shouldn't be such a pussy either. You don't have the monopoly on public discourse that you would like, so you whine that it is "brutal" and "feroci[ous]." But you were given a huge mainstream media platform for a comedy routine and you did bad comedy. You wanted to be big professionals and big amateurs at the same time. You deserved a takedown and you got it. Man up. It was you not the bloggers who lacked standards.
"It's a brutal world out there in the blogosphere," Milbank said. "I'm often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn't be."
1. The Republican Party suffered a death blow....Cillizza invites us to supply more myths. Here's one: Obama won because Americans were inspired by a new kind of politician with a message of hope and change. (I think that Obama won because: 1. he got out in front of Hillary in the caucus states, and 2. he was the Democratic Party candidate.)
2. A wave of black voters and young people was the key to Obama's victory.... Exit polling suggests that there was no statistically significant increase in voting among either group. ...
3. Now that they control the White House and Congress, Democrats will usher in a new progressive era. ... The fact that roughly a third of the Democratic House majority sits in seats with Republican underpinnings (at least at the presidential level) is almost certain to keep a liberal dream agenda from moving through Congress. The first rule of politics is survival, and if these new arrivals to Washington want to stick around, they are likely to build centrist voting records between now and 2010.
4. A Republican candidate could have won the presidency this year....
5. McCain made a huge mistake in picking Sarah Palin.... For skittish conservatives looking for more evidence that McCain understood their needs and concerns, Palin did the trick. It's hard to imagine conservatives rallying to McCain -- even to the relatively limited extent that they did -- without Palin on the ticket. And without the base, McCain's loss could have been far worse.
In interviews with more than a dozen operatives -- many of whom are rightly classified "Drudge-ologists" for their intimate study of the likes and dislikes of the man and the site -- two major reasons are offered.So the reporters are now all obsessed with Drudge. Read the whole article and cringe at the vast power that has been ceded to that man.
First and foremost, is the depth -- and the quality -- of Drudge's readership. Drudge's number of unique visitors is regularly touted but what is more important, in terms of his ability to drives news cycles, is that every reporter and editor who covers politics is checking the site multiple times a day.
Phil Singer, former deputy communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign and now a Democratic consultant, called Drudge's "elite readership" a key to his influence. Singer added that a walk through any press filing center at a debate reveals every other laptop, at least, has Drudge's website up on its screen.
The second major reason for Drudge's influence, according to the Fix's informal poll of Drudge-ologists is his ability to sniff out a potentially big story when others -- including reporters -- miss it at first glance.
"He can identify what's a big deal even when the reporters who actually cover and report on an event don't realize what they have," said one GOP strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. "He scoops reporters' scoops."
The McCain campaign is playing a dangerous but necessary game here. Poking holes in the idea of "hope" was tried -- unsuccessfully -- by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primary.I think McCain is doing something different. Hillary was saying Obama's idea of "hope" is insubstantial. McCain is trying to trump hope with something more substantial. And Hillary couldn't — as McCain does here — try to associate Obama with hippies, because she was more easily portrayed as a hippie than he was:
Time and time again, the New York senator sought to make the case that while Obama talked a good game, that flowery rhetoric alone would not bring about the change needed for the country. And, time and time again, Obama pointed to his accomplishments in the state senate and decried Clinton's "old" attack politics.
What about the blogs?Please don't regurgitate into the IV.
We had to set up a whole new apparatus to deal with the challenges they pose. Are they real journalists? ...
... If one of those journalists-turned-bloggers, Chris Cillizza, e-mails you to say he needs an interview, and at the same time one of the Post’s print reporters—say, Dan Balz—e-mails you and says he needs an interview, and you can do only one . . .
Balz.
Because the print edition of the Post has more of an impact?
Because Balz is on multiple platforms. He’s booked more easily on television. He’s read by more people. He influences people a bit more. Now, the question might not be as much Chris versus Dan as maybe, “Is it Dan Balz or one of the guys at [the conservative blog] Power Line?”
Yeah, or what if [conservative blogger] Hugh Hewitt called?
That’s when you start going, “Hmm . . .” Because they do reach people who are influential.
Well, they reach the president’s base.
That’s what I mean by influential. I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.
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