Category: 2010 Election

Great article on Politico about how the more Obama wins, the more he loses:

The problem is that he and his West Wing turn out to be not especially good at politics, or communications — in other words, largely ineffective at the very things on which their campaign reputation was built. And the promises he made in two years of campaigning turn out to be much less appealing as actual policies.

The big problem Obama has is that he knows how to give a speech from a teleprompter. That’s his real talent. He is unskilled in politics. Truth is I don’t see him as capable of reinventing his presidency, as Clinton did after 1994. In addition, my friends in DC say the Democrats are demoralized, a sentiment also echoed in this article:

Many Democrats on the Hill don’t much like Obama, or at least his circle of advisers. They think the White House makes them take tough votes, but doesn’t care that much about the problems those votes leave politicians facing in tough races in 2010. Numerous Democrats have complained privately that Obama only cares about Obama — a view reinforced by Gibbs’s public admission that Democrats could lose the House.

By 2012, the White House may have few friends left. This is good for us because we desperately need to make him a one termer if we’re going to preserve the gains we’ve made recently in the courts.

Chris Byrne has an excellent analysis of this years race in November. The Dems are going to take a beating. This is uncontested at this point. But it’s not going to be a panacea. This is one reason I think it’s important Reid keep his seat despite the fact that I hate him on other issues. I would hate Schumer or Durbin just as much or more on those same issues, and they’d also sabotage NRA every chance they could find. It’s not that I like Reid, it’s just that he’s the best choice there is for that seat given the possible choices.

Bitter and I went to walk two neighborhoods today on behalf of Tom Corbett, Pat Toomey, and Dee Adcock for the the Montgomery County GOP, who are running NRA endorsed candidates for all the major offices. At this point the GOP is just trying to get the candidates out in front of voters, and survey them to find out what their hot button issues are. Of all the volunteer work we do, walking neighborhoods has to be my least favorite activity, especially then the temperature is above 90 degrees. But it’s necessary work. We reached about 80 voters today in our walk.

The campaigns are starting with soft Republicans. Soft being defined as either people who haven’t voted in every election, or new voters who don’t have much of a record. The idea is to try to influence their vote while they haven’t heard much about the candidates. It’s much easier to help bring them around to a candidate now, than to try to change their minds later.

So what do we know from our work so far? Suburban Philadelphia soft Republicans are not a fan of the health care reform. I only had one guy say he was in favor of it, and one guy who said “There are some things I like, and some things I don’t like.” Everyone else was against Obamacare, even the young people we spoke to.

There’s no love for Allyson Schwarz among soft Republicans in the neighborhood we walked in Montgomery Township, even in households that had an open mind about Sestak and Onorato. One split household, where the husband was a Republican and the wife was a Democrat, the Democrat wife said she would never vote for Schwartz because she was against an issue important to her. That’s not to say Dee Adcock doesn’t have an uphill battle, but there’s a base of discontent there with Schwartz even among marginal GOP voters. That’s not good for Schwartz. This is going to be a very interesting election year.

Last night, I spent 2 1/2 hours making phone calls for Tom Corbett for Governor, Pat Toomey for Senate, and Dee Adcock for Congress.  I assumed, when asked to help out, that we would be calling hardcore Republicans to recruit volunteers and get a general sense of how much they know about the specific candidates now that the primaries are over – not formal polling by any means, just a general view of the picture.

Except, I found out when I arrived that the call list was of “soft” Republicans.  They don’t vote in primaries very often, if at all.  They are registered with the party, but not active by any measure.  A few undecideds here and there, a few who didn’t really know about the candidates (especially at the Congressional level, which isn’t a surprise given the district and the lack of a specific media market for that area), and a surprising number of people willing to volunteer for the candidates.

Really, the Democrats really could be in big, big trouble if this is a sign of the times.  Of the 4 other people in the room with me, 2 had never volunteered for phone banks before.  One was moving over into general Republican issues after having mostly volunteering for pro-life groups before.  Keep in mind that it is June.  It’s freakin’ June and nearly half the people in the room are new to volunteering, and I recruited several more from the soft Republican call sheet.  (There were many more callers in the rest of the building, I just eavesdropped on those in my room so I could make more calls instead of chatting it up.)  This can’t be good news for Democrats.

On Saturday, we’ll be doing a walk for the same candidates.  I don’t know if that list is for hard or soft Republicans.  I do know that Obama’s camp is already canvassing soft Democrats, particularly those who just registered last year and/or those who don’t vote in midterms.  So we definitely need to be doing the same on our side.

If you’re in SE Pennsylvania and want an excuse to get a little exercise & help a good cause on Saturday, I’ve got locations for several events in Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware counties.

I would also suggest to bloggers that helping a campaign out for a couple of hours a month is a great way to get a read on the pulse of your local voters.  It’s absolutely fascinating at times.  Great blog fodder, too. :)