Monday, April 30, 2012

The Ground Game

During a recent trip to Denver I was able to observe the Obama street team in action. They were mainly older non-threatening white people, but there were also some young folks of all backgrounds. It was a far cry from the right wing media's portrayal of Obama supporters as radical hippies. Now that you can imagine the people on the streets I can get to why they are important. We are at the beginning of May and Obama's re-election campaign is already on every block of this country. I have checked around a bit and Mitt Romney does not have 1/10th of the street team assembled. How does the GOP expect to win? In this day and age it is straight up incompetence to not have a ground game going by January 1st of the election year. Where are the tea parties? If there was a true conservative movement they would be out in full force and visible. A part of me thinks that the GOP wants to rely on 527 groups again. The thing that they forget is that Bush had a ground game. I want the election to be interesting (just so I can have something to talk about) but if this is how the GOP is going to run this race, it will be an interesting historical landslide.

Monday, April 23, 2012

The last of Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich is a perfect example of why politicians should strike while the iron is hot. Back in 1995 when Newt stood face to face with president Bill Clinton he was at the apex of his game. Party enthusiast were begging for him to run the next years election. Looking back, he may have done better that Bob Dole.Why did he pass at that time? We may never know. What is even more puzzling is why he ran this time. The campaign that Gingrich ran for the nomination this year was truly unconventional. When I use the term unconventional it is a nice way of saying that it was a cluster.  Gingrich had no problems with the debates or giving speeches. I will give him credit for being a master politician, but presidential politics requires a bit more than having a good stump speech or one liners. Newt will go down in history as the architect of the Contract with America that helped sweep in a new area of conservatism. That by itself is a greater achievement than most politicians even dream of. Newt knows this, and that is why he may be kicking himself for not running in 1996. This may also be the reason why he has refused to get out of the last campaign of his life.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

General thoughts on the general election

So the match up is set and the bumper stickers, signs and balloons are being made. Right now it is hard to decipher what topic will be the one hot topic to rule the summer. Both sides are trying to make their claim concerning the economy. To this point I believe that issue will be a wash; with both sides not making the best case. The fact of the matter is that we were faced with going into a great depression and we did not. While the recovery has been slow, the only food lines that there have been are at the local Golden Corral. The hot topic for a minute was the 'War on Women'. This still might be a good attacking point for the GOP, but there needs to be policies behind the attack. Defeating a sitting president is historically difficult. Most of the candidates who won were able to draw a contrast with their opponents. To this point Romney has not drawn a sharp contrast and it seems he might make a mad dash to the middle. I'm not going to rush to a judgement on how entertaining this election will be, it's a long time till election day. But for the medias sake, I'm sure glad Joe Biden is still on the president's ticket.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Why Rick Should Stay In The Race


Lets face it, to this point the GOP primary has been about as exciting as a Friday evening playing Scrabble in the Romney house hold. Despite his low delegate count Rick Santorum has touched the base of the party. Even though he lacked funds and name recognition he was able to be a force. In my opinion it would harm the party to force him out at any point.

What are the advantages of Santorum staying in the race? First of all it will keep the primary season alive and spare us from the general election campaigns from starting. Also, with Santorum still in the race it will keep more people engaged in the political process. In 2008 the Obama vs. Hillary show captivated the nation and gave the democrats the edge. While the GOP has failed to produce a show of that magnitude, they need to capitalize on any opportunity they can. The best way would be to have a show down at the convention. Yes, a brokered convention.

What are the disadvantages of Santorum staying in the race? It is a valid concern that the more Romney is exposed to attacks the weaker he may be against Obama. The reason that the concern is valid is that Romney has done such a bad job of defining himself and deflecting criticism. Did George W. Bush  did not have this problem. Bill Clinton was even able to define himself despite horrible personal issues.

To break things down, I think Romney should spend more time on defining his campaign than urging Santorum to get out through segregates. The race against Obama is going to be ten times tougher than the primary. If Romney is not able to get rid of Santorum by being more appealing at the primary polls and with the conservative base, he might was well get out himself.