Campaigns Now Move at Warp Speed — and Candidates Must, Too
Roll Call Contributing Writer
It’s official: We’re in the zone, that weird period in the election cycle after Labor Day when campaign realities catch up to the political calendar, when working assumptions often stop working and when races begin to feel a lot like a roller coaster from which there is no escape.
Over the past month, we’ve seen mounting evidence that the political environment is shifting, as a variety of polls have shown movement toward Republicans in terms of both the president’s job approval and the Congressional generic ballot test.
Some Democrats say the die is cast — that 42 days isn’t enough time to turn an improving but still tough environment into a victory for Republicans. But this isn’t 1986 or 1994. The 2006 elections are taking place in a vastly different media environment, one that has sped up the pace of campaigns and amplified the impact of political events.
Internet news, 24-hour cable, bloggers, e-mail and YouTube.com permanently have altered the speed at which a candidate can change almost overnight from a lost cause to the comeback kid or vice versa. In this age of new media, races can tighten, widen and tighten again far more quickly than in past elections. Political events that 10 years ago might have had minimal penetration into voter awareness now get 24/7 coverage, and as a result they can have a far greater political impact than they might have had in earlier cycles.
Last week’s political drama was a case in point when three issues suddenly emerged that dominated the political conversation. First, there was the argument between the White House and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over the rights of terrorist detainees.
Normally, a legal debate over the intricacies of the Geneva Conventions might have been relegated to C-SPAN, but not in the age of the new media. It became a hot issue discussed in both substantive and political terms on cable, in blogs and on Web sites across the Internet. Given the media focus, it became abundantly clear within days that a compromise was not just a substantive priority of the White House but a political necessity for McCain.
We saw more evidence of the impact of the new media when Democrats, in an about-face that would have left most people in need of a chiropractor, offered up a near-universal condemnation of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s “The Devil Made Me Do It” speech to the United Nations.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), who have made a cottage industry out of bashing President Bush, actually defended the president against Chavez’s over-the-top remarks. In truth, the Democrats had no choice. They had to take on Chavez and do it fast before Republicans had the opportunity to put them in the same ideological boat. It wouldn’t be difficult.
The liberal records and often extreme statements of most Democratic leaders are a legitimate campaign issue that Republicans hope will give voters reason to pause before putting someone with the ideological views of Pelosi third in line for the presidency or a Rangel in charge of tax policy. By defending Bush from the obviously offensive Chavez, they hoped to make it more difficult for Republicans to cast them as villains despite their own long record of attacks on the president.
But when it came to big political moments last week, former President Bill Clinton took the honors with an eerily familiar meltdown on “Fox News Sunday,” in full denial, this time for letting Osama bin Laden slip through his hands. Definitely the most entertaining political television since the Howard Dean scream.
A highly indignant Clinton charged that he’d been lured into the interview under “false pretenses.” But did he really think he wouldn’t be asked about his administration’s record on terrorism after he went to the mattresses over his negative portrayal in ABC’s Sept. 11 miniseries?
Of course not, and strategically, standing up for himself and his party on the issue of terrorism probably was a good idea that got lost in a very bad performance. Instead of strengthening his argument, Clinton did little more than remind voters of the last time he wagged his finger, looked them in the eye and then lied to cover his failings.
His fit of temper, his sniping at Chris Wallace and his loss of control on a cable network only guaranteed round-the-clock coverage. We don’t yet know the impact of that interview or the Democrats’ attempts to distance themselves from Chavez or the argument over the rights of alleged terrorists or 100 other stories that the new media will focus on in the next 42 days.
What we do know is that September events already have changed the dynamics of the campaign, nationally and locally, far faster than anyone might have expected. Republicans are still in the game, and Democrats, many of whom once thought control of the House was a done deal and that a takeover in the Senate was a real possibility, now seem to be rethinking their odds.
We used to describe running campaigns as a little like a chess match with each side sizing up the opponent’s strategy, trying to stay at least one step ahead of the competition. That’s still true, but now it’s speed chess. To win, you have to make both the right moves and make them faster than the other guy, because the new media dramatically is changing how the game is played.
Both parties have 42 days to make their moves, to make their case to the voters. Republicans have a money advantage, an issue advantage on national security, and the benefit of a strong economy and falling gas prices. Along with the still negative political environment, Democrats also may have a historical advantage this year. Normally, the party holding the presidency loses Congressional seats in the off-year election of a president’s second term.
But history didn’t hold true in 1998, and it may not again this year. My advice is to assume nothing and buckle up. It could be quite a ride.
David Winston is president of The Winston Group, a Republican polling firm.
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