January, 2007 Archive

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Being Joe Biden

by Patrick Ruffini :: January 31st, 2007 10:47 pm

Here’s what I love about primary campaigns. And midterm elections. And political spectacles where the action isn’t focused on a single person.

You get all comers. You get to see virtually every type of political strategy and persona in action. Everyone gets their day in the sun. Including the kooks and whackjobs.

I am wondering whether Joe Biden doesn’t belong in that category with Dennis Kucinich.

Modern communications strategy tells us that brevity and clarity is everything. A number of people have questioned whether this model is outdated; whether new media gives political leaders the opportunity to engage in a more fulsome dialogue with voters. (There’s a lot of talk about conversation these days.) Don’t we want Presidential candidates who just talk and let the chips fall where they may?

I am certainly sympathetic to these calls … but Joe Biden gives the old school communicators about a century’s worth of ammo in defense of scripting and message discipline. Joe Biden is what happens when politicians just talk. Even in his apology he talks himself into a hole:

Obama, Biden said, “is probably the most exciting candidate the Democratic or Republican parties have produced since I’ve been around. He’s fresh, new, smart, insightful. Lightning in a jar.”

Exciting. Fresh. Smart. New. Insightful. Lightning in a jar. Six ways of saying the same thing. Excuse me Senator, but if Barack Obama is all these things, why don’t you get out of the race and endorse him now?

Joe Biden learned public speaking in the school of hard knocks, and his presence on the public stage is testament to his perseverence. But he has the same problem Kerry had: an inability to distill his thoughts clearly. Why say in six words what you can say in three hundred?

Incidentally, he has the same problem on his Web site. Why have one photo of the candidate in blue shirt and navy blazer when you can have three? All of them probably taken this morning:

Tagged: 2008 joe biden strategy

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A New Trend: Blog Reviews?

by Patrick Ruffini :: January 31st, 2007 8:05 am

I find what Taegan Goddard did here interesting.

If you write a post that touches a nerve, you’ll get a screenful of feedback. But there doesn’t seem to be much of a forum for giving public feedback of a blog from soup to nuts, so that the author can use it to improve. So he has solicited other bloggers to review his blog.

This is something I might try and do down the road.

Tagged: blogosphere

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KLo Jumping on the Rudy Bandwagon?

by Patrick Ruffini :: January 30th, 2007 9:23 pm

I can’t exactly claim KLo as an ally and compatriot in the primary fight. Or can I? Here, she posts this e-mail from a friend who was at the Mayor’s L.A. fundraiser last night:

Said friend says of last night: “I have to tell you the man is very impressive. When he talks about the war on terror he does so more clearly than anyone I have heard including the President. He doesn’t bash the President ever and this was LA where he could really get away with it.”

Rudy did an immigration bit that was “to the right of everyone else except maybe Tancredo. He talked about immigration in terms of national security. He said we needed to revamp our entire system so that we can get good people. He also said that if the twelve million already here expected to get any type of citizenship they would have to prove that they could read, write, and speak English.”

The fundraiser was sponsored by Bill Simon (who worked with Rudy in the U.S. Attorney’s office). My friend, who is the rare pro-life, Hollywood hawk, left wondering if he could support Rudy if it came to that. “We all know where Rudy is on abortion but my question is what does he think of Judges Roberts and Alito? If he says that he would appoint judges of like mind then I think he can skate on the abortion issue because it does come down to the judges.” It was Hollywood though so no one asked about any social issues.

Well, that’s okay. Because the question on judges has actually been answered. Here’s what he had to say on the subject of originalist judges last fall, as chronicled by RedState’s mbecker908:

While in Ohio, Rudy called into the Bill Cunningham radio show. Speaking about the Supreme Court, Rudy said: “Justices Roberts and Alito were both colleagues of mine [in the Reagan Justice Department] - people I worked with and I admire tremendously. I thought that they were inspired choices that the President made - inspired in many ways, because they also were people who had a strong conservative background and strict constructionists.” He added, “Justice Scalia was also a colleague of mine…and he probably would have been my choice for Chief Justice.”

One of the unquestioned assumptions about the Mayor that I find most amusing is that his views haven’t been subject to any real scrutiny. And yet at most of his stops he takes questions from the audience — questions that have given him the opportunity to expound at length on the war, immigration, and yes, social issues. Usually, those at these sessions (like KLo’s correspondent) come away impressed after seeing the unscripted Rudy.

Tagged: 2008 rudy giuliani

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2008: Year of the Frontrunner Online?

by Patrick Ruffini :: January 30th, 2007 9:25 am

The Internet Primary is already in full swing, with the digerati already handicapping who the next Howard Dean is. You can see this at play in this Personal Democracy Forum piece on the Democrats.

I have two overall impressions.

The first is that we are already far ahead of where we were in 2004. Many of the candidates already have established e-mail lists, blogs are a focus from Day One, and new channels like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace allow us to take online politics to the masses in a way that wasn’t really possible before.

The second is that time, unlike in 2004, it’s the frontrunners who seem to have the advantage. In this category I include Giuliani (who is my client), McCain, and Romney for the Republicans, and Clinton, Obama, and Edwards for the Democrats. Anyone looking for the next Dean-like online phenonemon won’t find him or her at the back of the current pack.

Look at this Alexa chart surrounding the announcements of the top three Democrats. The traffic rates are exactly what you’d find in any power ranking of the Democratic field: Clinton (who peaked at 850/million for her announcement), Obama (500/million), and Edwards (180/million). Tom Vilsack? Chris Dodd? They barely register.

The Democrats have the edge in traffic right now. But that’s not surprising. All three Democrats used the medium to make news through an online video declaring their intentions. We used to do this all the time at the RNC — posting Web videos that made news on cable and drove lots of traffic to the site. Part of the difference is timing: the Democrats mostly came out in the traditional January announcement season. With the exception of Mitt Romney, the Republican frontrunners quietly set up their exploratory committees in the immediate aftermath of the November elections, when such a video announcement would have been tacky.

The Republicans are more tightly bunched together, and that’s to be expected given their more modest totals. Still, the Big Three seem to be ahead, even with the flurry of announcements from the back of the field (Brownback, Huckabee, Hunter, Tancredo, Paul). But as with the Democrats we can expect the frontrunner edge to widen when they really start making news on their sites.

One of the most annoying memes I’ve had to swat down in the last two years is that the Internet intrinsically favors dark horse insurgents. That might have been true in 1996 or 2000 or even a bit in 2004 when the Internet was still largely in early adopter phase. (Visiting certain message boards in 1996, you would have thought Libertarian candidate Harry Browne was the prohibitive favorite.) Since then, the Internet has gone mainstream. That means the medium favors people who are popular AND smart about using it. See how Hillary uses her greater earned media pull to overwhelm her anemic numbers in the blogosphere.

Tagged: 2008 online politics

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Testing the Big 3 in New Hampshire

by Patrick Ruffini :: January 29th, 2007 7:15 pm

SurveyUSA has a New Hampshire poll out that limits the field to the Big 3, Giuliani, McCain and Romney. Giuliani, my guy in this race, is out front with 33 percent, effectively tied with McCain at 32 percent, and Mitt Romney rounds out the field at 21 percent. This comes on the heels of a Research 2000 poll that showed a slight Giuliani lead. Clearly, each of the top 3 will be formidable in New Hampshire.

Interesting tidbits from the crosstabs. Giuliani tends to do well with younger voters, leading McCain 44 to 27 percent in the 18-34 category while Romney actually leads in the over-65 category. Ideology isn’t a huge polarizing factor between the top 2, with Giuliani leading conservatives by 3 and trailing with moderates by 5. Likewise, Giuliani leads with Republicans by 3 while McCain leads with independents by 5.

Tagged: 2008 john mccain mitt romney new hampshire rudy giuliani

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I’m Supporting Rudy

by Patrick Ruffini :: January 29th, 2007 12:36 pm

As The Fix reported last week, I have signed on to help with Rudy Giuliani’s presidential exploratory committee.

You can read about the mechanics of this a bit further down. But first, I thought I’d say a word or two about how I came to this point as a proud conservative Republican.

When it comes to choosing our next leader, we could do worse than looking to a strong executive with a proven track record. After 2006, we need an outsider, someone who doesn’t speak the language of Washington. In Mayor Giuliani I see my generation’s Ronald Reagan – a uniquely gifted leader who can both articulate and act on first principles

The War on Terror is the defining issue of our time as the struggle against Communism was in President Reagan’s. There is no one I would trust more to continue this fight. Mayor Giuliani’s understanding of the threat is not theoretical or abstract, not did it come in passing on one terrible day. It is visceral, direct, and rooted in thirty years of experience at the highest levels of Federal law enforcement and as the chief executive of the city on the front line of this war.

I lived near New York City through the early Giuliani years. I watched his winning 1993 campaign and how things seemed to change almost overnight when he took office. Nothing he accomplished in those years came through half-measures or trimming his sails. Even then, it warmed my heart to see conservative ideas being applied so clearly and directly to the toughest problems in America. And best of all, it worked. Second only to President Reagan’s two terms, it was quite possibly the best eight year run of any statesman in the last generation.

If you’re convinced, or even a little curious, I hope you’ll join me in signing up as a supporter on JoinRudy2008.com. This is important.

Going forward, I’ll be working as a consultant on new media strategy. This blog will be one of many places that I hope to carry on this discussion. I’m not being paid to blog – but when it’s warranted, I won’t be afraid to state the case. And I’ll do it in an intellectually honest and rigorous way. Everything I’ll write here is exactly what would I write as a volunteer supporter.

I’m truly excited about what 2008 will bring. This will be the cycle that new media really makes it mark. And I hope you’ll join in. If you’re a blogger who’s interested in joining Team Rudy, please leave a trackback to this post or shoot me an email and I’ll be sure to include you.

Tagged: 2008 announcements rudy giuliani

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Remixing the Newsweek Poll… Again

by Patrick Ruffini :: January 28th, 2007 11:09 am

My post last weekend on the Newsweek poll’s severe Democratic lean was a bit of a hit, so I made a beeline over to this week’s results, with blazing headlines about Presidential approval reaching a new low.

Curiously, Newsweek doesn’t disclose the party breakdown question this week, after a few us made a stink about the Democrats’ 11-point lead. With polls getting more and more transparent about the party breakdown question, this sudden pullback seems odd.

However, the tested Republican candidates for 2008 generally best the Democrats in allegiance among their respective bases, while winning independents. So once again, their 2008 ballot tests — which show Democrats leading — are bogus.

UPDATE: This week’s remixed results are as follows. Again, I use the 38% D, 36% R, 26% I breakdown found in 2006, a Democratic tide year.

McCain 48.1% - Clinton 47.1%
McCain 46.7% - Obama 45.1%
McCain 47.6% - Edwards 46.2%

Giuliani 49.2% - Clinton 46.4%
Giuliani 48.2% - Obama 43.9%
Giuliani 50.5% - Edwards 45.3%

Clinton 53.5% - Romney 40.0%
Obama 52.6% - Romney 33.9%
Edwards 56.5% - Romney 31.0%

Disclaimer, until I come up for a permanent thingamajig for the sidebar: I’ll be doing some work for Rudy Giuliani’s exploratory committee.

Tagged: 2008 newsweek poll

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Against the Pledge

by Patrick Ruffini :: January 26th, 2007 5:47 pm

I am just as disappointed as anyone that some Republican Senators seem so spooked by the last election that they are willing to sign on to the nonbinding resolution.

But I don’t think The Pledge is the right way to go about fixing it.

The reason these Republicans are scurrying around is twofold. One is the difficult situation on the ground in Iraq. The second is the thumpin’. Losing the majority gave these 2008 Republicans the political cover they needed to distance themselves from the President.

The lesson is that elections matter. If you don’t want defeatism on the agenda, then you need to keep the defeatists from power.

One of the reasons we lost the Senate by such a narrow margin was the NRSC was weighed down by Lincoln Chafee, its scattershot targeting (trying to shoot the moon in Michigan, Washington, and New Jersey), and the significant money advantage enjoyed by Chuck Schumer and the DSCC. The election of the extremely capable John Ensign as NRSC Chair is a welcome relief. And we need to give him the space to do what he needs to do to turn the NRSC around, not as some abstract policymaking arm, but as a state of the art political machine that wins elections.

It’s one thing to target one Senator when you’ve got 55. It’s another to be doing this in the minority and undermine at least four Senators up for re-election, whose departure or defeat could leave us with 45 seats. Say what you will about Senators Smith, Coleman, Collins, and Warner — but they are not Chafees. I have a problem with a policy that makes no distinction between Chuck Hagel, who has been consistently wrong on the central issue of our time, and 80% Republicans like the ones The Pledge targets.

I’m sorry, but we gave up this luxury when we crossed from the majority into the minority. Again, the reason that otherwise good Republicans are going wobbly is because we lost in 2006. The answer is victory in 2008. Maybe the base could afford to bail on the NRSC when the Senate majority was thought to be safe — and we now know it wasn’t. That’s not an option this time, not now with a strong leader like Senator Ensign at the helm.

See also Josh Trevino and John Hawkins on this critical subject.

Tagged: chuck hagel john ensign nrsc pledge senate

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