Monday, November 12, 2007 - Posts
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Rudy Giuliani got the memo about the importance of early primary states. He's just choosing to ignore it.
While Iowa and New Hampshire are crucial states for most Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani thinks of them more as a nuisance. Giuliani's campaign told reporters today that they think Giuliani can lose the first three contests in the cycle and still win the nomination. They essentially conceded defeat in Iowa and New Hampshire to Mitt Romney, who has double-digit leads in the polls and has poured millions into radio and television advertising.
Instead of the traditional strategy, Giuliani is hoping that Feb. 5 is a second Christmas, one where he'll be given hundreds of delegates wrapped inside a Romney concession speech. According to his campaign manager and strategy director, Giuliani can come away with delegates from January primaries in Florida and Michigan, where he leads in polls. Then on Feb. 5, the campaign figures, Giuliani's popularity in the New York region will guarantee him at least the 200 delegates from Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, plus many from the other 16 states that hold contests on "Tsunami Tuesday."
This strategy borders on hubris, but it also wisely lowers the bar. If the press starts railing on Giuliani for poor showings in the first two contests he can just say, "I told you so." But can a national front-runner really set expectations that low and expect to stay out front? If Giuliani finishes fourth in Iowa to Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and maybe even Ron Paul (gasp!), could his candidacy still be taken seriously? What if Romney, Paul, and McCain trump him again in New Hampshire? As a Connecticut native, I can tell you Giuliani isn't in for a soft landing on the icy streets of the Nutmeg State (where he called his lead "momentum-proof").
For Giuliani, his strategy is necessitated by disappointing polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. And to be fair, Giuliani has a real shot at winning South Carolina, where he's locked in a race for first with Fred Thompson and a surging Romney. But his explicit focus beyond Iowa and New Hampshire won't help his supporters in those states court new converts. Proof that Giuliani is thinking long term: He spends this week in Missouri, Florida, the Dakotas, and Washington, D.C. Iowa and New Hampshire aren't even on the schedule.
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Some politicians are often compared to rock stars. Dennis Kucinich is not one of them.
But you wouldn't know it after seeing him onstage at this weekend's Ani DiFranco concert in Boston. (Or, rather, seeing the video.) He took the mic for a few minutes between songs to describe a world without nuclear weapons and to ask the audience to "join us in New Hampshire." Ani later praised him for being, of all things, "so incredibly electable." When he finally left the stage, it was to the screams of adoring fans. The audience would probably have been throwing brassieres, had they been wearing them.
Contrast that with John Edwards' appearance at a John Cougar Mellencamp concert over the weekend. (Video here.) After crooning a few verses of "Small Town," Mellencamp interrupted the song to bring out Edwards. According to this account, cheers quickly turned to boos and chants of "Refund, refund." Edwards kept smiling but soon retreated—"You didn't come to listen to me"—and left Mellencamp to explain that Edwards was actually "a pretty fun guy." Add that to the rave reviews.
If there's a lesson here, it's that politicians and musicians don't mix. Best-case scenario, you don't come off as a total fool. Worst case, you get laughed off stage, a la Edwards, or you have Donnie McClurkin using your stage for a pulpit, a la Obama. Best to pick your theme music and stick with it—even if it's Celine Dion.
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As if rival campaigns weren't enough, presidential candidates have a new enemy to worry about: Audience members.
This weekend, the Clinton campaign fessed up to prompting a college student to ask Hillary a question about global warming. Sounds harmless enough—global warming comes up on the campaign trail all the time. But the actual exchange sounds particularly canned:
Student: "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming How does your plan combat climate change?
Clinton: "Well, you should be worried. You know, I find as I travel around Iowa that it's usually young people that ask me about global warming."
The backstory became public Friday when the student told the Grinnell newspaper that "One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask]." Another former audience member, Geoffrey Mitchell, recently came forward as well, telling FOX news how last April a campaign worker prompted him to ask about Hillary’s position on funding the Iraq war. Clinton told reporters that any planted questions were "news to me" and that they will "certainly not be tolerated."
These incidents highlight what seems to be a growing problem for candidates, and particularly Hillary: audience participation. Last month, Ted Bowman, a man from Iowa who saw Hillary speak about Social Security, asked Clinton after her speech whether she really opposed lifting the cap on Social Security taxes. She told him she might consider it, directly contradicting what she had just said publicly. After Bowman complained to the AP, the Obama campaign drafted him to testify to Clinton's apparent dishonesty.
You can see how a campaign becomes paranoid. Nothing is private, every quip is on the record, and every audience member is a potential oppo researcher. As a result, you get ugly interactions like the one between Clinton and Randall Rolph, the Iowa audience member she accused of being a plant for another campaign. Rolph responded angrily, and Clinton apologized. It makes sense that the campaign, wanting to avoid a repeat scenario, would try to control Q&A sessions. It's a downward spiral of artificiality, and it makes for stiffer candidates, blander quotes, and about as much spontanaeity as an assembly line. But most importantly, it makes audience members and candidates mutually suspicious. Look for Obama and Edwards to crank up the "trust" rhetoric another notch, if that's even possible.
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You may remember our item last month about the drought of campaign blog names. We rounded up all the names that have been taken—variations on “trail,” “political,” “bus,” "ballot"—and then listed all the names that are still available. It was only a matter of time, we figured, before someone would have to draw from that list.
Friends, that day has come. First we saw Newsweek’s Stumper, then the New Republic’s The Stump. Now, via washingtonpost.com, meet the new blog on the sphere: Stumped. (We'd predicted “Stump’d”—close enough.) It’s a write-in column in which former Los Angeles Times editor Andres Martinez answers readers’ questions about the presidential campaign. In his first column, he offers up a highly scientific formula to determine whether you should vote for Hillary or not. In fairness, the name is sort of perfect. But we still reserve the right to give Stumped a wedgie for unoriginality. Note to the Dubuque Telegraph Herald: “Stumpy” is still available.
(Slate is owned by the Washington Post.)
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