The beginning of the end of the end for Gordon Brown

If you thought losing 3 special elections was bad …

Last night the Scottish National Party won a by-election (like
our special elections) in Glasgow East. A friend who is a Tory
operative sent me a facebook message in shock last night:

the SNP are about to win a ‘special election’ in labour’s 4th
safest seat in parliament! like the GOP gaining pelosi’s seat in
San Francisco!

The all-things-leftist Telegraph put it
this way
:

If Gordon Brown, as now seems likely, loses the next election to
David Cameron, this will be seen as the moment he knew the game was
up.

Noting that the candidate wasn’t the problem, they
continued:

This loss was not about her, it was about the Prime Minister. It
was about a Labour party that has lost its way and now seems to
inspire only disdain, even among its heartland supporters.

We are seeing the end of the post-Cold War center-left swing in
Europe perhaps best symbolized by Tony Blair. Center-right
governments are in charge in Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, and,
soon, the UK.

PA-11: Seeing the future in Lou Barletta

A model for winning Hillary districts

Earlier this week, I sat down with Lou Barletta, the mayor of
Hazelton, PA — just named
PA’s Mayor of the Year
— and the GOP nominee for Congress in
PA-11 against Paul Kanjorski, an old-school, corrupt, machine
Democrat. I know a little bit about the region, as my mom spends a
bunch of time with her cousin who lives just outside of the
district. At the end of June, I spent the better part of the day at
the Anthracite
Museum
, where I learned about the coal mining industry that
used to be the economic core of the district.

About 15 seconds into talking to Barletta, I thought “wow. This
guy has something special.” I am very cynical about politicians,
especially Congressmen. They don’t have to be very charismatic or,
often, smart. Barletta is both. And I was disinclined to like him
because I disagree with
his hard-core immigration position, which could well put him over
the top in this race
.

Throughout the conversation, I learned more and more about the
district, Barletta, and Kanjorski.  I think that we can win
this seat with this guy, even in this environment. His campaign
released
a poll
that shows him up 47-42, which the DCCC believes enough
to put up
ads against  him.

The upshot is that if you want to the GOP pick up a seat,
give
Lou Barletta some money
. If you want to stop illegal
immigration, give
Lou Barletta some money
. If you to get rid of a
corrupt Democrat who gives taxpayer dollars to his campaign staff
and family
, give
Lou Barletta some money
. If you want to
highlight Democratic use of earmarks
, give
Lou Barletta some money
. if you want to
stop a Democrat who admits to lying about the war for political
gain
give
Lou Barletta some money
. If you want to stop a Democrat who
says
one thing about our security in Washington and another at home
,
give
Lou Barletta some money
,  If you want to send a message to
Congress that we need to develop more domestic energy sources,
give
Lou Barletta some money
. Or if you want to support
a model of conservative government at the local level
, give
Lou Barletta some money
.

But there is a very deep thing going on here that might be the
best reason of all. If you want to send a message that playing
along with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi is no way to represent
god-fearing, hard-working, working-class values, then give
Lou Barletta some money
. Barletta may offer a concrete model of
how to win in a district like gave Hillary Clinton 75% of the
Democratic primary vote.

I am going to write a lot more on Barletta. I think that he is a
model for how we can continue to cut into Democratic districts in
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. But in the mean time, give
Lou Barletta some money
.

Cross-posted from
The Next Right
.

PA-11: Seeing the future in Lou Barletta

Earlier this week, I sat down with Lou Barletta, the mayor of Hazelton, PA — just named PA’s Mayor of the Year — and the GOP nominee for Congress in PA-11 against Paul Kanjorski, an old-school, corrupt, machine Democrat. I know a little bit about the region, as my mom spends a bunch of time with her cousin who lives just outside of the district. At the end of June, I spent the better part of the day at the Anthracite Museum, where I learned about the coal mining industry that used to be the economic core of the district.

About 15 seconds into talking to Barletta, I thought "wow. This guy has something special." I am very cynical about politicians, especially Congressmen. They don’t have to be very charismatic or, often, smart. Barletta is both. And I was disinclined to like him because I disagree with his hard-core immigration position, which could well put him over the top in this race.

Throughout the conversation, I learned more and more about the district, Barletta, and Kanjorski.  I think that we can win this seat with this guy, even in this environment. His campaign released a poll that shows him up 47-42, which the DCCC believes enough to put up ads against  him.

The upshot is that if you want to the GOP pick up a seat, give Lou Barletta some money. If you want to stop illegal immigration, give Lou Barletta some money. If you to get rid of a corrupt Democrat who gives taxpayer dollars to his campaign staff and family, give Lou Barletta some money. If you want to highlight Democratic use of earmarks, give Lou Barletta some money. if you want to stop a Democrat who admits to lying about the war for political gaingive Lou Barletta some money. If you want to stop a Democrat who says one thing about our security in Washington and another at home, give Lou Barletta some money,  If you want to send a message to Congress that we need to develop more domestic energy sources, give Lou Barletta some money. Or if you want to support a model of conservative government at the local level, give Lou Barletta some money.

But there is a very deep thing going on here that might be the best reason of all. If you want to send a message that playing along with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi is no way to represent god-fearing, hard-working, working-class values, then give Lou Barletta some money. Barletta may offer a concrete model of how to win in a district like gave Hillary Clinton 75% of the Democratic primary vote.

I am going to write a lot more on Barletta. I think that he is a model for how we can continue to cut into Democratic districts in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. But in the mean time, give Lou Barletta some money.

A different view on the left versus right online debate

In the regular debate about about how the right can catch up online, several points are often missed. The first is that the left has developed a movement based on the interconnectedness of people inside the movement. People get recruited, energized, and leveraged. This may or may not be as much a function of larger demographic and political trends, as it has something to do with the netroots specifically.

At the same time, the right has often been better at campaign mechanics, especially in recent years. Our assumption seems to be that if we get enough people to go and vote in this country — which we still believe is just right of center — then we can win. If McCain wins, it will probably be because his ideas are basically in line with a just-right-of-center country, while Obama’s may not be.

In recent years, our political-technological innovations have focused on turning out normal people at unbelievable levels. In that context, I want to highlight something from Jose Antonio Vargas hints at this in his piece on Cyrus Krohn and the RNC:

[…] Then-Rep. Bobby Jindal was an attractive candidate, Krohn says, and it was projected to be a tight race. For 3 1/2 months, using online micro-targeting and data-matching, he identified a set of voters and turned them out to the polls.

Statewide turnout for the Louisiana race was 46 percent. Of those voters who interacted with Krohn’s online targeting — he won’t say how much of the total vote — 76 percent voted, he claims. Krohn says he’s not suggesting that the RNC is responsible for Jindal’s win. What it does suggest, however, is that the model could have significant impact on voter turnout, he adds.

Technology should lower the costs of things that campaigns already do, and those lowered costs should allow new ideas and techniques. The 72-hour program massively increased the efficiency of the GOP’s GOTV efforts, at the same time that the RNC and Bush-Cheney got better at recruiting more volunteers to do those things.

The Louisiana story makes clear that we likely still have significant advantages here. Our GOTV is almost certainly tremendously more efficient, helped by the things that Cyrus is working on, existing technologies like 72-hour, and non-electoral technology developments. These efficiencies will allow us to stretch our precious GOTV dollars and volunteer time by deploying them where they make the most incremental difference in actually delivering the next vote.

If this ends up being a close election, or a very close election, it is going to come down to electoral technology. Maybe it will be ACORN crashing the rolls and delivering illegal voters. Maybe it will be Cyrus massively increasing turnout and optimizing our GOTV through what he is doing. Maybe it will be just that they recruit and register and vote more people than we do, or vice versa. But my hunch is that if we win a nail-biter, what Cyrus is doing will deserve a big chunk of the credit.

I don’t want to downplay what the left is doing at all. We clearly are not competing with them in this space. Social media should give us more opportunities to communicate with voters and future voters alike. And we should be able to exploit the efficiencies and new modes of communication to better organize people.

But in some places, we are doing very, very well. And Jose’s story on Cyrus should make that clear.

So that’s how Obama counts to 10. He’s President now

This popped my eyes out:

With layers of Secret Service agents, they zipped through Amman Tuesday in a motorcade of 20 vehicles.

I now see how he gets to the 10 in:

"The objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to ten years," he said.

But a reporter had to remind his staff that he is not President yet:

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.

 

Cancelling markups to avoid votes on energy

How afraid are the Scaredy-crats of getting on the record?

Today, Senator Robert “Sheets” Byrd (D-KKK/WV) cancelled a
markup in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Why? He even told
us.
To avoid a vote on energy
:

Given the uncertainty in how the oil and gas drilling
issue is currently playing out on the Senate floor
, I have
decided to postpone the July 24th appropriations markups at this
time,” Byrd said in a statement.

Earlier, Boehner noted “clear majorities” in both houses, but
that the Dems were afraid of them. From
The Hill
:

Boehner stressed that there are “clear majorities” in both
chambers of Congress to support greater energy exploration, but
blamed Democratic leadership for preventing votes on such
issues
.

“The only thing standing in the way of what we want are Nancy
Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama,” Boehner said.

I am going to coin a new word: Scaredy-crats

If Michigan is tied, then John McCain will be President

Jonathan Martin gets a new Michigan poll via the Detroit News:

New poll numbers out from the Detroit News have the Michigan race between Obama and McCain very competitive with a chunk of voters still on the sidelines.

Obama is up 43-41, but 12% of voters said they’re undecided.

My gut is that if undecideds are that high, John McCain is President.  Michigan is a lot of electoral votes and we saw throughout the primaries that Obama never really closed well. The undecideds always broke hard against him.

Obviously, it is far too early to be making statements like this,  but this and this New Hampshire poll suggest that McCain is very much in this.

Dobson, Warren, Huckabee, and the changing evangelical movement

The evangelical movement is changing, and this will have real implications for the GOP. Rick Warren is replacing James Dobson as the political powerhouse of American evangelicalism. And you couldn’t come up with a clearer couple of events to express that than what we have seen in the last couple of days.

Within hours of each other, John McCain and Barack Obama agree to attend a forum at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. (NYT has the story) I suspect that the word got out, and James Dobson got in the game. The NYT’s Caucus blog reported yesterday that Dobson would consider endorsing McCain and start explaining how bad Obama is.

But it is pretty clear that Warren and his issues are in the drivers seat. From the NYT:

Mr. Warren, the author of the best-selling book “The Purpose-Driven Life,” said he had called each man personally to invite him to his event, which will focus on how they make decisions and on some of Mr. Warren’s main areas of focus, like AIDS, poverty and the environment.

CBN’s David Brody has a recommended line for McCain on the topics that are not on the agenda:

“While the issues of poverty and climate change are so vitally important, let me also talk about two vitally important issues to me and that is the life of the unborn and the protection of the sanctity of marriage”. Ka-ching! Are you kidding me? That’s the money line folks. Click here to see the reaction by Evangelicals if he delivers that line.

That’s all true, but what forum are they speaking at? I don’t think that that’s an accident. If you don’t think there is something real to this shift, just watch this video from the ONE campaign

 

Mike Huckabee is travelling around Africa with Cindy McCain, a bunch of Democrats, and the ONE campaign.

Which ad would you click through?

So I was doing some research for a panel that I am speaking on at RightOnline, and I was curious. So I searched on Google for "obama healthcare" and "mccain healthcare". I was shocked by what I found. First the ads:

 Which of these would you click on? The one that asks you to register at campaign events or get to know someone? Or the one that asks you for money. I bet that Barack Obama’s ad has a lot higher click-through.

Now, let’s actually click through. Landing pages after the jump.

<!–break–>

First, Obama’s:

That’s a video of Obama looking at you and talking to you. It asks you to "Join us" in a big red button in the middle of the screen. And they are asking you to come to an event, not give money.

Now compare with McCain’s site, except that I’m goign to give you the whole page.

 

What’s the message of this page? McCain isn’t looking at you. There’s no message. There’s no explanation for why you might give up your email address. McCain is looking at the "Contribute" button, because you know what he is thinking about…

Any guesses which one gets more email addresses? Any idea which advertising strategy gets better ROI? I have a guess…

 

Democrats don’t believe in ethics reform

How did this not get more attention?

With reporting deadlines looming, congressional officers have issued revised guidelines that ease some of the lobbying disclosure requirements enacted last year.

The revised guidance, issued by the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate, relaxed the rules for disclosure of lobbyist contributions to parties at this summer’s Democratic and Republican national conventions, among other changes.

So, just as the Democratic convention is getting more and more behind in fundraising, they make it easier for lobbyists for pay for the parties that they can’t afford to pay for. How bad is it? From the Wall Street Journal

Under the new guidelines, "it’s hard to envision any event at the conventions that would trigger disclosure," said Kenneth Gross, an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP who advises lobbyists on complying with ethics rules. "This relieves lobbyists from tracking and reporting much information about attending or paying for events involving public officials, that would have been required before."

Just remember this when you see all the promises. What I wonder is where the outrage is.