by Michael Tackett
There’s a lot of pent up demand on the campus here, with candidates, consultants, staff and reporters all wondering when this presidential campaign will end, even though it really hasn’t begun.
That has led to several cases of premature prognostication and some odd instances of Republicans and Democrats seeming to wear the other party’s clothes.
It is, after all, the Republican Party that has a tradition of anointing the candidate who has stood in line the longest to be the party nominee. Democrats prefer the messy process in which they train fire on each other. Now it is the Democrats, with Sen. Hillary Clinton playing the role of quasi incumbent, seen as invincible, while the Republicans are spending a lot of time violating Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment.
But the election of 2008 also presents another question: Will it be 1968 again, or 2004?
The 1968 election of Richard Nixon was among the first when a candidate consciously catered to the party base during the primary, then ran to the middle in the General Election to capture the coveted swing voter. From at least that time, most winning candidates have adopted that playbook. Perhaps none did it as skillfully as Bill Clinton in 1992, with a campaign that was surgically tailored to appeal to the middle.
And it worked. Until that is, when Karl Rove rewrote the strategy and delivered a winner for George W. Bush in 2004. Rove’s thinking was essentially that for every concession Bush made to the middle, he was in danger of losing support at the party base. And through brilliant microtargeting of GOP voters, Rove’s strategy wrung vote after vote out of his party, cementing Bush’s re-election.
This was particularly effective in Ohio, arguably the most pivotal state of the 2004 campaign.
Which brings us to this campaign. On the Republican side, at least one of the leading contenders, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, would like to return to the Nixon strategy. His positions favoring abortion rights and gay rights--anathema to party faithful--just happen to play well in megastates like California, New York and even Florida.
Giuliani’s dismal showing at last weekend’s straw poll among religious conservatives gathered in Washington was a powerful demonstration of why the Book of Rove would not work for him. The GOP base also seems highly skeptical of Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and some have misgivings about Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. In fact, only former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee can lay any real claim to the hearts and minds of a lot of social conservatives.
The question, though, is how many of those same conservatives are willing to compromise, particularly if the alternative would be to cast a vote for Hillary Clinton.
And that’s one reason why Clinton might be looking to the Rove model should she be the Democratic nominee. You can be assured that no other candidate so animates the animus of the Republicans than the junior senator from New York. At the same time, there is no reason that her campaign can’t do for her what Rove did for Bush, which is to make sure you have had a fierce debate during the campaign, made few accommodations to the other side, and stoked the enthusiasm of your own core supporters.
That would at least give the country a clear choice, not a blurring of distinctions like Bill Clinton offered in 1992 or George Bush offered in 2000. And the irony would be that Hillary Clinton took a page from Bush to win, and Giuliani would need one from her husband.
Michael Tackett is the Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Tribune. He has covered every presidential election since 1988 and served as the Tribune's chief political writer during the 1996 and 2000 campaigns. He also served as National Editor for U.S. News and World Report. And, don't hold this against him, he has a law degree.
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Comments
You forgot to mention that the Rove model relies on a large block of androids controlled by a bunch of fast talking, slick sleaze bags to be successful. The Republicans had a lot of those. The Democrats do have a large number of independent thinkers a part of the base, who will just go limp and not bother to vote if they feel they are being manipulated. Hillary/Bill is walking on very thin ice despite her recent poll numbers. The Rove plan consisted of turning a sow's ear into a silk purse (Bush) and selling it to just enough people in the center. Remember, too that it was independent voters, mainly disenchanted Democrats in Florida, who enabled Bush to prevail. A similar thing could happen in 2008 to either party which pisses off a large sector of their base.
Posted by: GW | October 24, 2007 9:03 AM
GW:
Your comments are right on - I know that the more liberal Democrats will hold their nose and vote for Hillary, but will the GOP Religious Right do the same for Rudy or Mitt?
Posted by: BobinATL | October 24, 2007 9:25 AM
Chi-Trib Editors... is this: "You forgot to mention that the Rove model relies on a large block of androids controlled by a bunch of fast talking, slick sleaze bags to be successful" the kind of discourse you are going to allow on your page?
If so, and apparently so, that's pathetic.
Posted by: Darryn | October 24, 2007 9:36 AM
Darryn:
The Trib publishes the truth - what part of GW's post is wrong?
Posted by: BobinATL | October 24, 2007 9:43 AM
I must be dense because I don't understand this article. Is it saying that Hillary is running to the right for the Republican base or to the left for the Democratic base? Frankly, Hillary doesn't seem to take a firm stance on anything, the position of the classic waffler. So which base is she aiming for, Karl Rove's, or More-On.org's?
Posted by: Hampton | October 24, 2007 9:55 AM
The Rove model also relied on having a puppet with Dick Cheney's arm up his back!
Posted by: Charlie McCarthy | October 24, 2007 10:13 AM
Hillary is not using Rove's plan. His plan was to lie about and slander everyone and anything that got in Bush's way, right or left. He used the far right, telling them what they wanted to hear and once in power robbed the whole nation blind.
Posted by: Joe | October 24, 2007 10:47 AM
The whole article is a prime example of Beltway think and Liberal-think.
Did it ever occur to Mr. Tackett that Karl Rove's 2004 get out the vote microtargeting campaign, no matter how brilliant that might have been, had little effect on an election where, throughout mid and late 2004, President Bush was generally ahead of Kerry in the polls? Could it just maybe, perhaps, possibly be, that a Republican win was based not on some mythical outcampaigning of the Democrats, but rather on the simple fact that ordinary voters once again rejected the Democrats?
After all, no Democrat candidate for president has received even 50% of the vote since Jimmy Carter I--and he barely edged over 50%. You have to go back to 1964 to find a Democrat candidate for president getting substantially over 50% of the vote.
You can posit that the GOP have somehow outcampaigned the Democrats these past 43 years--just as you can posit that the Cubs not winning a World Series in the last 99 years is due to the Curse of the Billy Goat. But it seems more logical, more in keeping with these election results, to posit that voters simply reject the Big Government Liberalism of the modern Democratic Party.
But no Liberal in the media or elsewhere will be honest enough to admit that Big Government Liberalism isn't popular with ordinary people.
Posted by: Bruce | October 24, 2007 1:27 PM
Bruce:
If big government Liberalism isn't popular, how do you explain the election of 2006?? You know, when Karl Rove said right before election day that the GOP would not lose the Senate and the House, because the polls he was looking were better than all the other polls??
And remember, it was Rove and his bunch that got anti-gay marriage legislation on the Ohio ballot in 2004 to make sure that all the right wing nutjobs came out to vote.
Posted by: BobinATL | October 24, 2007 1:59 PM
This article assumes that Democrats are willing to hold their nose and vote for Hillary Clinton. Many in the Democratic field are throwing their support for the "alternative" and will not repeat the humiliation of the 2004 election.
I think I can safely say that I speak for about half of the voting public when I say that many of us will NEVER vote for Senator Clinton, even if she does SOMEHOW win the Democratic Primary.
Obama 08!
Posted by: Dr. Greg | October 24, 2007 2:21 PM
I think a lot of the reason Democrats haven't been able to accrue more than 50% of the national vote has to do more with identity politics: since the Reagan era, the GOP has effectively positioned the "L" word--liberal--to represent weakness. As a result, Democrats have consistently lost the white male vote since the early '80s. Democrats need to stop talking policy and start developing storylines that debunk this notion and show that liberalism--developing safety nets to help everyone (including the unfortunate)--isn't a weakness that facilitates a welfare state, but a show of strength, a way strong men can reflect their masculinity by being able to help those who can't always help themselves.
Posted by: Sliderz | October 24, 2007 2:48 PM
Dr. Greg:
So you would rather have Rudy or Mitt running the country instead of Hillary?
Do you think that is what Obama would tell you to do? What happens if Hillary picks Barack as her running mate? What do you do then?
Posted by: BobinATL | October 24, 2007 2:52 PM
I don't care how they play, I'm tired of republican rule.
Posted by: Ryan | October 24, 2007 3:39 PM
Well..I am lifelong democrat and I would NEVER vote for Barack Obama. If were between Barack and Rudy, I'd defect. And I know PLENTY who would do the same. Want to continue the republican domination of the White House? Vote Obama. This country is not ready to elect a black man and that black man isnt ready to get elected.
Posted by: dwayne landry | October 24, 2007 3:42 PM
"Well..I am lifelong democrat and I would NEVER vote for Barack Obama. If were between Barack and Rudy, I'd defect. And I know PLENTY who would do the same."
Well, if there are PLENTY of people who feel this way, NONE have ever expressed it in the Swamp. MANY Democrats have said they won't vote for Hillary, but you are the first that I've heard who would NEVER vote for Barack. Seems your projection of your own view onto the population as a whole is rather over-blown.
Posted by: Distrust and Verify | October 24, 2007 4:41 PM
Hillary already uses Rove tactics.
Most sneaky corrupt campaign ever.
Posted by: jds | October 24, 2007 7:08 PM
The last thing the country needs is another Turd Blossom.
BTW, 'Bruce' thinks TB was a nasty name made up by hateful liberals about KR. He said it once, if you can find it in the archive.
He never retracted.
Posted by: C.Morris | October 24, 2007 7:52 PM
Distrust and verify-- I believe the key here is nationwide electability, in context with the article. Zogby has released a poll that shows public response to the question who would you NEVER vote for? For example, Clinton may have convinced half of Democrats she is worth it, but that only makes roughly a quarter of the voting public. We could see some "Anybody but Clinton" action among the Christian right. I'm personally hoping for a four-way race and debate.
Posted by: Don Keyhote | October 24, 2007 7:55 PM
Don K,
That poll shows Obama with the third lowest NEVER VOTE FOR rating. I was responding to the gentleman whose anecdotal evidence suggested that "plenty" of voters, in particular Democratically-inclined individuals, would NEVER vote for Obama, not Hillary. The poll you provided supports my assertion that the gentleman is projecting his personal feeling onto the population as a whole, contradicting polling data to the contrary.
Posted by: Distrust and Verify | October 24, 2007 9:52 PM
Hillary's problem... is Hillary. Karl Rove said it...
Posted by: johnny7 | October 25, 2007 6:44 AM