Republican Party Campaign Tactics

The BBQ Pit
1

It would seem to me that in recent years the Republican Party has tended to avoid the issues in political campaigns, in favor of peripheral matters that they think will score with the weak-minded voters. Examples include - on a national scale - the Bill Clinton scandal issue. And on a local scale (in my area - NY/NJ) the Lazio campaign against Hillary C. which consisted primarily of pointed out that she is not from NY, and the Bob Franks campaign against Corzine, which consisted primarily of calling attention to the (massive) amount of money that Corzine was spending. And now, the Forrester campaign for Senate, which has hitherto consisted of attacking Toricelli’s ethics, and now seems to be settling into an attempt to keep Toricelli on the ballot.

All of which wouldn’t bother me too much, if the stuff actually worked. But it has not, in any of the cases mentioned. And will likely not in the Forrester case as well.

The problem with focusing on peripheral issues is, IMHO, that you come off as conceding the more substantive matters. If one party keeps talking about education and health care etc. and the other says, in essence, “yeah, but you don’t really live here” or “yeah, but you are spending too much money campaigning” etc., it’s as if the voters are being given a choice between education or someone who lives in the state, and the like. Not a winning proposition.

What these candidates (& their consultants/handlers) don’t seem to realize is that just because something hurts their opponent, that does not mean that it helps them to center their campaign around it. It hurt Hillary (for example) that she did not hail from NY, and Lazio could have gained from it had he run a real campaign. The carpet-bagger issue would have added a few points, and might have put him over the top. But by pounding away at this issue, he lost in substance far more than he might have gained by enhancing the carpetbagger effect (if indeed he was successful at this).

And so it goes with Forrester. Toricelli was going to be hurt in any event by the ethics issues. But by centering his campaign around these matters, Forrester has succeeded in identifying himself almost solely in terms of his not being a Toricelli-style sleazebag. Well, guess what - neither is Lautenberg, and Lautenberg has gotten elected to the Senate from this state a couple of times at least.

Now it seems that Forrester’s campaign is going to be to keep Lautenberg off the ballot. I heard him interviewed a few minutes after the Toricelli press conference, and he hammered away at this issue. Idiotic. If he is successful in court (and I suspect that he will not be) it will not be a result of speeches on the subject. And meanwhile, the theme of his campaign will now be identified as being about keeping other people off the ballot. A losing campaign.

Fools.

I’m not 100% sure that Republicans tend to this more than do Democrats. It could be that I focus on it more in the case of Republicans because I find it frustrating in these cases. But this is how it seems to me.

2

I’m inclined to think it is pretty similar across the board. It’s just that the statements made attacking/questioning/undermining the opponent resonate more strongly both in the media and with the word of mouth constituents. There are, I believe, 2 major reasons behind this.

  1. People tend to remember the sensational rather than the mundane. Attack ads have more forceful language and are easier to recall than an ad where Joe Candidate talks about his welfare reform plans.

  2. To make inroads, new candidates attack. Incumbents can stay more above the fray and run on their record while not giving legitimacy to the new candidate by even bothering with him on a personal level. This might color your perception of things, assuming from your mentioned examples above that you are from an area where the incumbents tend to be Democrats.

For example, in the Georgia governor’s race currently underway, Republican Sonny Perdue ® ran an ad characterizing Gov. Roy Barnes(D) as a rat months ago. Both candidates have since stuck with mostly platform based ads. I bet you can pick the one that people can most easily recall.

For a reversal of sides, try this one. Denisse Majette (D) was running against incumbent Cynthia McKinney (D) in the primary. Both sides had their fair share of ads that were platform based. But the themes that stuck with voters involved Majette going after McKinney rather than Majette pumping up Majette.

Probably not applicable in every case, but it seems to make sense.

3

So you have no problem with the unethical, when it works, Izzy?

I’m not being nasty, per se, I’m just asking, honestly.

4

I only scanned the OP briefly but we are seeing this type of thing in our race for Governor. The Dem candidate was born in Canada, grew up somewhere in teh states, and, I believe, went to berkely and harvard. The GOP, of course, lived here his whole life. He thinks that’s relevant. I, as a GOP voter, do not.

5

Well, I don’t know that negative campaigning or pointing out problems with your opponent is unethical.

6

I meant, it seems to be the only one-the whole muck raking thing.

Honestly, nothing turns me off more.

7

We have (or had) just the opposite situation in MA. The Republican candidate was involved with the olympics in Salt Lake City (I don’t know what his exact title was). Anyway, he’s lived here his whole life and never sold his house here, but he also maintained a residence in Utah for three years. The Democrats tried to get him taken off the ballot, saying that he didn’t qualify to run based on residency. As far as I can tell the tactic failed.

On the national level, at the same time we were hearing about distinguishing markings on the President’s anatomy, we were also being told the Republicans wanted to starve school children and kick the elderly into the streets. Actually I guess that was merely exaggeration, not a side issue.

8

Ah, but it works. And nothing is more goal-oriented than a politican seeking election.

9

Shah Jehan, that wouldn’t be Mitt Romney, would it? He ran for Senate against Kennedy in '92 or '94. Got his ass handed to him, if I recall correctly, but he was allowed to run.

I’ve been away from Boston for a while since then. Did he come back to try again?

Anyway, yeah, I get pretty tired of the negative campaigning on both sides. It’s never caused me to switch parties, but I have voted against negative campaigners in the primaries.

10

I’m not sure I understand how ethics matters are “peripheral.” I can’t speak on the details of Toricelli’s case, but I tend to believe that if your opponent is unethical, it’s not muckracking to make that a campaign issue. IMHO, ethics is a primary issue of any campaign.

11

John Smith has a plan to rescue Social Security and Medicare. He supports the War on Drugs, and he will sponsor legislation to help law enforcement fight crime. He won’t be influenced by pandering special interests. He wants to represent you and your interests in Washington. He is tired of this scandal ridden administration, and promises to restore trust in the American government.

Paid for by the Demopublican National Committee

12

But what about the precious, precious children?

13

John Smith is at it again. He says he wants to save Social Security and Medicare. But look at the record. Between 1998 and 2000 he missed four votes in the state legislature. And last year, when other Americans were uniting in a time of tragedy, he went to a birthday party.

John Smith. Hates democracy. Supports terrorism. Against our values.

Paid for by Republicrats Against John Smith

14

We have proposed spending $15 Billion on Head Start programs, an increase of $3 Billion from last year’s $12 Billion. My esteemed opponent, Bill Brown, wants to spend only $14 Billion. He is obviously hates children, as indicated by his voting for a $1 Billion dollar reduction in Head Start programs.

An obvious sleazeball, taking money away from poor kids.
Paid for by Democrats for John Smith

15

I disagree, as mentioned earlier.

But I agree that there are two circumstances under which it can have a positive net effect.

  1. If the negative/peripheral issue being raised is not otherwise well known. In such cases, there is at least an advantage to be gained by bringing to the public consciousness issues that would otherwise be ignored. This contrasts with the examples being cited here. Bringing up well known issues over and over again has the primary effect of causing those who are already strong supporters of your campaign to get more worked up about these issues than they otherwise would be, but has little direct impact of the vital middle, IMHO.

  2. If the candidate can avoid having the public perception of his candidacy become dominated by these issues. This can be difficult to do - the media and public can disprortionately focus on small aspects of a candidate’s campaign, but it can sometimes be managed. In the Clinton/Lazio race, for example, Hillary was reluctant to engage in any form of negativity, fearing that it would rebound due to her own high negative ratings (as well as her “outsider” image). To get around this, she kept her own statements issue oriented, but had her staff and sympathizers make any negative points or attacks that were thought to be useful.

First poll numbers are in, showing Lautenberg with a 4 to 6 point lead.

16

That’s the one. I wasn’t in Massachusetts back when he ran against Kennedy. Was there an issue with his his residency then too? He’s definately being allowed to run for governor. If Mass wasn’t such a stonghold for Democrats (neither Bush nor Gore even bothered to campaign here) I’d say he’s a shoe-in to win. I can’t even name the other candidates.

PS
What Republican in Mass hasn’t had their ass handed to them by Kennedy?

17

It can also work if the negative counters the public view of the person or makes him out to be a hypocrite. Although it didn’t happen in an election, that was what brought down Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston. When it was revealed that they had affairs, while they castigated Clinton for the same thing, their credibility dropped and they were basically forced out.

18

The best ad I have seen in Minnesota- Coleman (now R) campaigning in 1996 to elect Wellstone (D). Wellstone dusted off those tapes to show how “easily” Coleman turned.

But the spite adverts gnaw at me. Hate em hate em hate em.

Ah Guv Jesse, we miss your adverts :wink:

19

“Son, I love your strategy, but don’t let them get to know you.”

Last week I attended a fund-raiser for a certain incumbent Democrat from a heavily Republican-leaning state. The affair was very small and he pretty much just stood around shooting the breeze with me and about a dozen other folks. He is in a dead heat with an opponent who has been doing virtually nothing except attacking him personally, a temptation which the incumbent has honorably resisted. The incumbent is actually quite funny, and he snapped off a number of real zingers which I would not dare to repeat in mixed company. One, however, is worth recounting here.

The candidate was musing over how helpful President Clinton was for him in a prior election, noting that Clinton showed up at one of his rallies and tirelessly worked the crowd for hours, despite the fact that Clinton was up for reelection himself and was absolutely certain to lose his own effort in the state in question. Then he said this:

“I suppose I could bring in Al Gore this time–if I wanted to get roasted alive.”

The point being that this gentleman thinks he actually risks losing support in his state by bringing in prominent Democrats to support him, because most of them have been so successfully vilified after a decade of unapologetic smearing.

That’s pretty lame, if you ask me, and while it’s certainly not the exclusive domain of the Republican Party, it certainly seems to be a popular Republican tactic in a number of races this year.

At this point there’s very little any Republican could do to impress me enough to cast a vote in that direction, but they would recover some of my ever-diminishing respect if they weren’t so darned intent on stifling public discourse through defamation. But what really concerns me is the fact that such tactics work, and often work quite well.

I think that speaks ill of my nation as a whole, and it saddens me, no matter who does it.

20

…Which is not to say that I completely disagree with IzzyR. On an individual basis such tactics seem to be just as likely to create blowback as they are to succeed. But from the big picture I think the Republicans have profited quite nicely from innumerable non-issue and mud-slinging campaigns. I think it’s entirely possible to argue that they’re running the show today thanks in large part to one fellow and the lists he created.