Jeff Frederick » 2012 Election

2012 Election Winners & Losers

Jeff — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:46:11 +0000

Amy (my wife) put together this great list of 2012 election winners and losers. She did a great job (I only helped a little) — so I thought I’d share it (with my limited comments in blue):

Winners:

Organizing for America. Obama’s machine sent warning signals in 2011 (in Virginia particularly) that they were alive and well, but the GOP shrugged them off [JMF: and underestimated it]. They understand the mechanics of voter contact, cultivation and turnout and do it well. They leverage technology and data in ways that we’ve never seen before. Until the GOP dismisses the play-it-safe, consultant mentality [JMF: and gets past the “catch up” paradigm in favor of “let’s be our own trailblazers”], they’ll never level the playing field.

Marco Rubio. Son of immigrants. Living the American dream. Marco and his story represent everything that conservatives want in a candidate. He is right on the issues and can articulate bread and butter politics to the socially and fiscally conservative Latino voters the GOP keeps fumbling away. Rubio will continue to rise and shine as the GOP seeks to find its footing and fix their serious demographic problems.

Joe Biden. The Vice President is a relationships man and boy did that shine this campaign season. The gaffe-inator shows that unpolished, people politics still sells and he sells it well. Middle America likes a person they can relate to, and his style resonates with those who see themselves as keepin’ it real. This is not his last rodeo.

Harry Reid. He’s a fighter and revels getting his hands dirty, qualities that make him a hero to the MSNBC crowd. Overcoming a tough challenge for re-election in 2010, he emerged an emboldened leader, vowing to fight for the Senate’s top spot. He proved successful, despite an onslaught of spending from conservatives hungry to take back the Senate. [JMF: And, two years later, not only is his majority secured, but strengthened with greater numbers and a harder left caucus.] He’s now even more secure in his position.

Chris Christie. Son of New Jersey. No matter “what’s your exit,” this bellowing Jersey boy won’t be exiting the political stage for some time. His approval rating is bigger than his persona, currently a whopping 72% in a state that’s boldly blue. His pitch-perfect straight talk and Bruce Springsteen swagger have steamrolled his opponents at every turn. He’s loved for his handling of Hurricane Sandy (95% approve) and his “I don’t give a damn about election day…I’ve got a job to do in here NJ that’s is much bigger than presidential politics…” is one for the history books.

Losers:

Bob McDonnell. The leader of the Virginia GOP, Governor McDonnell was so confident that he had his state in the win column that he jetted across the country trying to secure his position in a would-be Romney administration. He openly bragged about how the Virginia Republican operation was better than it had ever been, and yet the results were embarrassing – Romney got fewer votes than John McCain did in 2008. How exactly is that a better organization? Not a good national debut for a man once on the short list for VP. [JMF: I’ll resist the urge to add to this one.]

Republican Establishment. For a party that deplores picking “winners and losers” in the economy, they sure don’t mind intervening to do the very same in Party contests. The establishment has to learn that cherry picking candidates is to their detriment. While most people were appalled with Todd Akin’s remarks about “legitimate rape,” it was the establishment’s unsuccessful hand-wrangling to get him out that emboldened him (Akin) and the grassroots to stay the course. The top-down approach is no longer going to work and again, the GOP will continue to lose until they figure this one out. Parties are an apparatus to help nominees [JMF: supposedly working to represent the Party grassroots], not clearinghouses for determining the most “electable” candidates.

Project ORCA. Romney’s super-secret Election Day turnout, voter contact, mobilization, whatever you call it machine failed miserably. Any knowledgeable technical person knows that you must test, test and test again an operation to make sure it works. Never launch something on game day. That never works. The hype about this project was just that–hype. Until Republicans foray into voter contact technology, they will continue to fall behind. Give the technology “projects” to Silicon Valley types, not politicos who dabble in technology.

Democrat Incumbent Senators up for re-election in 2014. Elected under the Obama landslide of 2008, the 20 Democrats must defend their seats in 2014 after Obama veers to the Left even more now that he has a mandate for “Forward.” Second term mid-term elections are especially disastrous for the party in the White House, something even Ronald Reagan couldn’t avoid in 1986. Look for a lot of distancing and independent language from these Members back home in their respective states.

America. 48%, or 58 million Americans, voted for change. We are a country divided, and the wounds of this election may prove especially difficult to heal. In a close election, someone always loses. Nearly half of the country wanted something different for America. Instead, they got more of the same or maybe even worse. That remains to be seen. Either way, these 58 million people must lick their wounds and keep working for what they believe in.

Rising Stars:

Rand Paul. Rand Paul is the politician to watch. Inheriting his father’s liberty-loving followers, Rand already has an organization in place as he tests the waters for a Presidential run. The Campaign for Liberty organization is as close as the right gets to Organizing for America, and could be even better if the GOP would embrace the Paulites, instead of trying to downplay their influence. Paul shares the values of his father, but his approach is more savvy in tapping mainstream GOP support. Smart money is on Rand as a leader-in-waiting of the Republican Party.

Governor Susana Martinez. The first female Hispanic governor in the US, Martinez is one to watch. Switching from Democrat to Republican in 1995, she is able to articulate the values of immigrants and can carry the torch on Latino issues such as immigration that have proved so vexing to the GOP. She made securing the US-Mexican border from illegal immigrants an issue in her 2010 campaign. In the aftermath of an election where two of the most difficult voting blocs for the GOP were women and Latinos, the benefits are obvious in having a successful and capable politician like Martinez in our midst.

Cory Booker. He lives his mantra “Democracy is not a Spectator Sport.” A respected man of the people, the Mayor of Newark has earned accolades from Republicans and Democrats alike. Booker’s best political moves transcend politics itself. Whether rescuing constituents from a burning building, offering a home to the displaced from Hurricane Sandy, or starring in a bi-partisan YouTube video with Chris Christie, Mayor Booker simply breaks the mold. Booker also utilizes social media like no one else, constantly taking to Twitter to keep citizens informed. His latest act, to live on food stamps for a week, is just another sign that the sky is the limit for this man of the people.

Best Romney Speech Ever

Jeff — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 15:03:32 +0000

Meant to post this several days ago: The best speech I’ve heard Mitt Romney give. Even those that don’t like him will like this.

Round 3

Jeff — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:06:53 +0000

In case you’re interested, my thoughts on the last Prez debate… if you are, my apologies for getting this out so late. Been crazy day.

My friends aren’t going to want to hear this, but the President won last night’s debate by controlling it in a way similar to the way Romney controlled (and won) the first debate.

Obama was aggressive, commanding, confident, and stayed on offense the whole night

– and just like in football, that’s how you win the contest. The President sounded very credible, which was only compounded by his seemingly intimate knowledge of Romney’s foreign policy positions. And, all this was in spite of the split screen (which didn’t do him any favors). Of course, Obama has often sounded good – problem is, he hasn’t followed through.

That all said, Romney wasn’t horrible – just less good than many of us hoped. He certainly held his own, but played it safe. Way too safe. Yet, if Romney’s mission last night was to present himself as a plausible alternative to Obama on foreign policy, I think he achieved that goal. He knew his stuff and certainly passed the commander-in-chief-test. But this was a debate, and you can’t keep yielding your time to your opponent by asking him questions and waiting for an answer (we saw this in prior debates too). And, it’s a little hard to differentiate between a Romney foreign policy and the President’s when one frequently argues that Obama’s foreign policy is a failure while simultaneously agreeing with a good portion of it. It’s a nice gesture to give your opponent some credit, but Romney was doing it on every other response (or so it seemed).

Both gentlemen did well when the discussion turned to domestic policy, but Romney shined most brightly when covering economic issues. That is clearly his strongest suit. I hope undecided voters who’s biggest concern is the economy took note.

Obama, surprisingly, did well on the Israel question; Romney did better. Although, Obama’s description of his trip to Israel was fantastic. On this answer and others, he very effectively talked about regular folks he’s come in contact with – again, very similar to the way Romney so effectively did this in the first debate. Iran was also a strong subject for Obama (who would have guessed that pre-debate?).

Libya should have been Obama’s major weakness in this debate. Problem is, Romney only glossed over it – and when given no less than two perfect openings to hit Obama on his handling of the Benghazi attack, Romney never even brought it up.

The greatest U.S. national security threat question was also set up perfectly for Romney, but he only gave a quick answer and then changed the subject. By the way, the correct answer was the debt. Neither of them gave that answer. If the question was the greatest international security threat: a nuclear armed Iran. My humble opinion.

I’m not one of those that thinks that minor slips of the tongue or tongue twists are that notable or important, but Romney did occasionally contradict himself. For example, he made the point that we can’t just simply go kill all the bad guys, but then not too long after, he said we’ll go kill them all. Huh(?) is right. As an aside, Schaeffer’s verbal “catch Obama’s bin Laden” slip up was kind of funny.

Romney had an very effective hit when bringing up Obama’s planed reset with Russia. Obama had a lot of effective hits, but my favorite was his line about this not being a game of battleship. Obama also very effectively used (and repeated) his “nation building at home” line. Romney really needed a refrain like that.

As much as I like politics and all the red meat this debate produced, I was disappointed that the foreign policy discussion was so limited and contained (in the “foreign policy debate”). There a lot going on in the world. Yes, some of it was brought up, but a lot of it wasn’t. The most glaring example was what’s going on in the European Union right now. That can have a far bigger impact that most of what was debated last night – and it ties straight into our economic challenges here at home.

A couple random notes:

Obama mentioned our military and the military of France in the same sentence. That just seems a bit insulting, no?
Obama’s constant hanging “and…” is driving me nuts. I’m quickly becoming an advocate of Obama being required to use a teleprompter.
I missed the rule for these debates that says Obama gets minutes more speaking time than Romney, but it happened in each of the three debates.

Round 2

Jeff — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:09:02 +0000

Here’s my thoughts on the latest debate, in case you’re interested:

This debate, too, I think was a draw. But, if you factor in expectations, I suppose you could say it was a modest win for Obama given how low expectations were for him. But, it’s not all good for Obama (read on).

This was my least favorite of all the debates (thus far). Obama disregarded just about every question from the aud

ience members by giving answers to questions not asked; Romney disregarded Crowley often; and both candidates completely disrespected the clock and the fact that the audience was there for a reason – to ask questions. They walked all over time limits such that many of the questions did not get asked. That’s unfortunate.

There weren’t a lot of one-liners, but to the extent there were, Obama won that contest. My favorite was the “sketchy deal” line.

Romney was VERY effective at outlining Obama’s horrible record, particularly on the economy. At times, he set it up very well for Obama to frequently be on defense, but instead, Romney was the one largely on defense, trying to refute just about every word out of Obama’s mouth – and thus, using much of his time to respond instead of advance. I loved it when they both were about to get in each other’s faces (I’m a shake-it-up kind of guy), but in the end, all it did was have Romney give Obama a chance to “correct” the record (from Obama’s perspective), when it would have been just as effective for Romney to say what we wanted to say without inviting a response.

And, WOW, what a missed opportunity on Libya. Sure, Crowley had no business interjecting (she’s supposed to be moderating, not participating in the debate), but the bottom line is that Obama didn’t even attempt to answer the question and Romney should have insisted he answer to question asked.

With respect to Obama, if there is one thing that seems more and more apparent in these debates, it’s that he is over his head with this presidency thing. Sure, he can sound good at times, but overall, he really doesn’t seem to grasp the enormity of the responsibility he has, nor what it takes to get the job done in a way that moves our country forward. His past strengths of sounding great and instilling hope for a bright future are all but gone now (he doesn’t sound all that great, and he seems the furthest thing from optimistic lately). His proposals are the same as he proposed 4 years ago, and yet can’t seem to come up with an acceptable answer as to why he should be given another 4 years to do the things he proposed in his last campaign, and he hasn’t really offered anything new for this campaign. The best excuse he can muster is that he didn’t have cooperative Republican partners to get stuff done (like on immigration reform), yet the lack of GOP cooperation didn’t stop him from ramming through ObamaCare without a single GOP vote when his party controlled both houses of Congress.

VP Debate

Jeff — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:10:03 +0000

My take on last night’s VP debate, for anyone interested:

Both candidates had their moments, but overall I think the debate was a draw.

Ryan clearly did his homework. I thought the debate was largely skewed towards foreign policy where Biden would be a Goliath to anyone’s David, but Ryan held his own and Biden’s strength on that subject matter proved not to be of any advantage to him in this

faceoff with Ryan. Ryan was the candidate of ideas and optimism, and he wins the prize for best one-liners.

Biden was aggressive, and while that would normally be a good thing, he took it way too far. He rarely let Ryan speak without interrupting him once if not multiple times, and he left unanswered several good questions – not to mention all the facial expressions. Yet, if I ever had a record as bad as the Obama/Biden record was, I’d want Biden in my court. He was masterful at making all the excuses in the world for their lack of success, and yet, it didn’t sound all that much like he was making a lot of excuses. He kept asking for equal time to respond to questions, all the while being ahead about 2 minutes ahead in speaking time over Ryan. And, it seemed like Biden must have gotten a new set of teeth that he wanted to show off – and show off he did. Those things were big and shiny!

At a certain point later in the debate the arguing back and forth left me (a political junkie) bored and disinterested. I’d bet a lot of regular-Joes out there just stopped listening to both of them.

Ryan’s best response of the night was when he was ticking off the economic stats in Biden’s home town of Scranton, comparing where they were when Obama/Biden took office and how worse they are today. There was nothing Biden could say.

Biden’s best response of the night was when he brought up Ryan writing the Vice-President for stimulus funds for Ryan’s constituents, where Ryan wrote that the stimulus will help create jobs – all the while saying the stimulus was bad and wouldn’t help create jobs and spark the economy.