I had a very unusual and interesting view of a campaign from the inside this last election. I am an active Democrat and liberal. I donated a couple of thousand dollars both here in Colorado and nationally to Democratic candidates. And from reading my posts here you can see where I stand on a range of issues.
But 7 weeks before the election Jerry Coffee had to drop out of the U.S. Senate race in Hawaii and the Republican party tapped my mom to take his place. My mom is a moderate, strongly pro-environment Republican (things in Hawaii are different) but she is a Republican.
She needed my help and I have incredible respect for the job my mom has done as a state legislator for the past 16 years. I have no doubt she would have been an incredibly effective Senator. So I got to work helping her on the campaign.
So here I was, a staunch Democrat, working in the belly of the beast, talking to major players in the Republican party, working to elect that one more Senator that could mean control of the Senate.
Note: I have not posted confidential info I learned as that would be wrong. There were also a couple of people in the Hawaii Republican Party that were very helpful and I have not listed them because the rest are then singled out as not doing much.
Looking at the race at the time, and again in hindsight, this race truly would have determined control of the Senate. Not by her winning as that was an incredible long shot. But by making it competitive. And that would have been easy.
If the Hawaii race had become competitive that would have pulled money and mind-share from MT and VA to HI. And it would have done more to the Democrats who would have had to suddenly focus on a formerly safe seat than for the Republicans who merely had to stir things up.
What didn't they do? First off, we had zero help from the national party. Absolutely nothing. In fact the only help from outside Hawaii was from RedState and the day before the election interviews on Lars Larson and Hugh Hewitt (a big thank you to all three).
No money. Campaigns live and die on money and with only 7 weeks to the election and absentee ballots hitting the mailboxes in 2 weeks, there was no time to raise funds. The state Republican party donated $5,000.00 and the national party nothing. So a giant amount of our effort had to go in to fundraising (and we raised over $330,000.00 in that 7 weeks).
And no national effort to steer some donations to Hawaii. It shouldn't have been the number 1 priority but is definitely was worth some 2nd tier support - it would have been a lot more effective than the money waster in OH and PA. Our fundraising was time that could not be spent winning votes - in the last 7 weeks of the campaign.
No experienced campaign help. As my brother said, in 8 weeks we would have a good idea of how to run a campaign. But by then the election was over. What should we put in the radio and TV spots, when and where should we run them, what else should we do. We were amateurs on this and it showed. The spots got better but we never had one that moved the electorate several points - and a very well crafted ad will do that. We didn't need their top team but providing some help when we had no experience would have been a giant improvement.
There were no independent ads. Now garbage like the ads run against Ford in TN would have first of all gotten my mom very very mad (her first instructions to all of us was keep it positive). And it would have been a disaster in Hawaii where race is a major issue - but it's different from how it works on the mainland.
But a strong ad campaign from 527s and/or the RNCC could have moved the vote 4 - 8%. And this was an easy target. Akaka's favorables were only 45% and his unfavorables were also 45%. He had just come out of a primary where Ed Case had beat the hell out of him and he won only 55% in that primary. Here was an easy target. And yet… nothing.
And of course there is that famous Republican machine ability to target golfers who own snowmobiles and hit them with targeted mail and phone calls. Nope, does not exist in Hawaii.
And in the blogosphere we had nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was it. And I'm a proud member of DailyKos. I didn't even know where the conservative blogs and websites were. I definitely didn't know how best to post in them. Again, having someone who knows this territory and could put in even ½ hour a day would have been a gigantic help.
The gigantic vast right wing conspiracy? Apparently they aren't aware that Hawaii exists. No blogs, columnists, media, etc. They had post after post and hour after hour of time for Rick Santorum (41%), Michael Bouchard (41%), and Mark Kennedy (38%) and zero for Cynthia Thielen (37%). Even CNN - nothing.
Now we come to the local support in Hawaii. There wasn't much. Unstoppable Republican machine? Ha!
There was no GOTV effort. It was there for Gov Lingle(R) who is the most popular governor in the country. I guess they wanted to see how high they could run up the score. But there was no GOTV effort anywhere else by the party for Republican candidates. Small surprise that the Republicans win so few state level seats.
And the local Republican and right-win blogosphere? Nothing. Even the elected Republicans in Hawaii could not be bothered to post something for any other Republican candidate. I could not find a single post supporting another Republican. The local Democrats get it - but the Republicans seems to be off in another world.
But the one that takes the cake is this bozo. If he doesn't get the nomination, then screw the party. Vote Democratic or leave the ballot blank. Talk about a sore loser. The right wing of the Republican party in Hawaii is not working to get Republicans elected. It is working to pull down any Republican candidate that does not parrot the extreme right wing platform.
There were also letters and in person comments from several active Republicans - how dare she call for the resignation of Rumsfeld. Because of that they were not going to support her. And yet Bush clearly planned on firing him the day after the election.
So we had no support from the national party. No support from the VRWC (except for RedState, Lars Larson and Hugh Hewitt). And the supposedly all powerful Republican GOTV effort, targeted voter system, etc - no where to be seen.
And yet we almost beat the vote received by Bouchard, Kennedy, Santorum, and McGavick. By ourselves. In 7 weeks. With just 330K. Somehow I don't think Karl Rove with all of his famous charts had any idea what could be done here.
And I don't think anyone in the Republican party at the national level ever stopped to think that if they made Hawaii look competitive, that would have meant wins in Virginia and Montana.
Personally, I love my mom and I think she would have made a great Senator. (I think she would have made good on her pledge to do what it takes to have no oil imports in 10 years.) But I also think it was more important for the Democrats to win the Senate 51/49 and if the Republicans had instead won VA and MT that would have been 49/51. (I also think that with active help, this race was winnable.)
So I'm glad that the Republicans were both stupid and ineffective. And for those of you still worried about the powerful Republican machine - I've seen behind the curtain and there's nothing there.
Which brings up this explanation. Bush "won" 2000 in a fluke, both Gore running away from Clinton as well as the voter suppression and ballot insanity in Florida. Since then the Republicans have had one issue to keep control - 9/11. But that's it.
All this talk about a political realignment, a powerful Republican machine, etc - all this may be total garbage and is just a story sold to the media. Makes a better story than they're not very good politicians but "9/11" made up for that.
If so, there has been a major realignment due to the last 6 years. The Republican party has been captured by it's wingnuts. The moderates have been driven out. And with "9/11" no longer working it's magic, all the party has is its evangelical and wingnut base. And that base will work to insure that only candidates too extreme to win the general election win the primary.
In other words, all Karl Rove and company may be is a political Forrest Gump. He's definitely no Mark Hanna. And President Clinton may preside over an even more Democratic congress in 2008.
posted: DailyKos, RedState, MudvilleGazette
