The Dem IM

To:	JohnKerry
	The Dem IM:You did everything we could've asked for in 2004. Not only did you make Bush deal with the problems he created in a second term but you showed us how not to run a campaign.

TO: Internal Memo to JE and Campaign Staff
FR: Campaign Manager TheDemIM
DT: November 2, 2007
RE: Strategy Memo (Internal)

Introduction

John Edwards is already on his way toward the Democratic nomination in the 2008 Presidential Election. Since his vice presidential defeat of 2004, he has barnstormed the country picking up supporters and campaign contributions as he goes. Edwards is one of only a few Democrats in the country right now with a realistic chance at being the next President and must take advantage of this opportunity. As such, the following is a strategy outline for the primary and general campaign that seeks to maximize Edwards’ chances for victory in 2008.

Background

In the year 2004, then-Senator John Edwards of North Carolina ran for President as a populist fighter against vast economic and social disparities. His signature stump speech spoke of “Two Americas” where hope and opportunity are plentiful for one class of citizens while others are left behind in the grips of poverty. Edwards’ boyish-looks and sunny demeanor tempered this dark message with optimism for the future of America. Dedicated to a positive campaign amongst the mud-slinging pack of fellow Democratic candidate, he was endorsed by the reputable Des Moines Register and shot from single digits in the polls to second place in the Iowa Caucuses.

However, Edwards’ outsider-status as a single-term Senator and young appearance also worked against him in capturing the nomination. It was clear that the general election would be framed in terms of the threat of terrorism and the war in Iraq. Democrats, desperate to defeat President Bush by any means necessary, instead decided that the Vietnam War hero with decades of experience in government would be a more palatable nominee to swing voters in the upcoming general election. Edwards never developed the credibility to speak with strength on national security and was easily defeated by John Kerry for the Democratic nomination.

Several months later, the often aristocratic and uninspiring Kerry chose Edwards to be his running mate. What Kerry lacked in personality and charisma, Edwards had developed and perfected as a successful trial lawyer. Edwards was so talented on the campaign trail that his relative invisibility from major media after his nomination seems attributable to Kerry campaign fears that Edwards’ brilliance exposed Kerry’s flaws. In a poll less than a mouth from the November election, Kerry was viewed favorably by 46% and unfavorably by 43%. Edwards, on the other hand, was viewed favorably by 50% and unfavorably by only 23%. This, of course, is highly attributable that the Republican attack machine did not go after Edwards with nearly the same tenacity as they did Kerry (and appropriately so). Even controlling for such an effect, such a low unfavorable rating is certainly significant.

Edwards only major weakness as a vice presidential candidate was the one that plagued him as a presidential candidate: his lack of strength on national security issues. His inability to “talk tough” convincingly was most readily visible at his acceptance speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. When speaking of the ticket’s commitment to combat terrorism, Edwards looked directly into the camera and said the following:

“We will always use our military might to keep the American people safe. And we, John and I, we will have one clear unmistakable message for Al Qaida and these terrorists: You cannot run. You cannot hide. We will destroy you.”

As NBC correspondent Andrea Kremer put it on that night’s MSNBC DNC coverage, “He‘s too pretty to say that.” Matthews characterized it more colorfully, “You mean it was Pee Wee Herman speaking Luca Brasi.”

Of course, Kerry and Edwards went on to lose the 2004 election. Despite the initial media narrative about “moral issues,” a more precise analysis reveals that Kerry lost on “issues of terrorism, strength and leadership” . Edwards emerged relatively unscathed by the defeat as vice presidential candidates rarely have significant effects on elections and thus are not readily blamed. Since the election, Edwards has traveled the country speaking and demonstrating on issues of poverty and society. In addition to unofficially fundraising and campaigning for 2008, he is also the director of the “Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity” at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Since 2004, the country has slowly but surely realized the error of their votes and lost faith in President Bush and the Republican Congress. The mismanagement of the Iraq War and national disgrace of Hurricane Katrina plunged President Bush’s approval ratings into the mid-30’s throughout the end of 2005 and most of 2006. Public confidence continued to drop as scandal after scandal plagued Congress and the White House in an unending sprawl of convictions and resignations. It is only now, in late 2007, that the government has begun to correct itself with 55% of the public feeling the country is on the right track.

Starting with the elections of Governors Tim Kaine and Jon Corzine in 2005, Democrats began winning back seats across the country. In the 2006 election, the Party made gains in both the House and Senate with promises to reform government and require accountability under the slogan, “Enough is enough, and it’s time for a change.” This success has spread to significant victories in state legislatures and governorships throughout the country. Though, the party is still several seats away from a majority in either house of Congress, 2008 presents the opportunity to complete the Democratic Revolution begun in 2006.

Philosophy

It is my sincere belief that if we stick to our strategy, we will win the White House in 2008. This strategy is rooted in a philosophy that is a distinct break from those of the last couple Democratic presidential campaigns and will revolutionize the way campaigns are run. Most importantly, however, this philosophy gives us the framework to produce victory at the polls.

Identity
Voters vote for candidates, not issues. Democrats have been on the correct side of the issues but the wrong side of the vote count in too many elections. In a country where more people know the family members on The Simpsons than their first-amendment rights , it is ignorant to believe that simply laying out policy proposals is enough to win an election.

In the 2004 election, the Bush campaign attacked Kerry for being “weak,” a “liberal,” and a “flip-flopper” but offered no defining policy goals for his second term. The Kerry campaign, on the other hand, refused to attack Bush’s character but offered policy goals such as health care reform to voters. When Kerry voters were asked why they supported him, only 12% mentioned his personal positive qualities. 34% of Bush voters mentioned his qualities. In 2000, despite Gore holding a significant lead on most issues, Bush’s surging ratings in “personal qualities” allowed him to (perhaps) win an election that was Gore’s to lose.

Case in point, when Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for governor of California, he refused to set out specific policy proposals. Instead, he relied on his star power, charisma, humor, and a laundry list of movie quotes for his campaign. Even as a Republican in heavily blue California, he won by over one million votes. This, of course, is a special circumstance as the specific context of the recall election and the uncommon stardom of Schwarzenegger are surely unique in their quality. This is, however, just a more extreme version of American voting behavior.

While this may sound overly pessimistic about the role of voters in a democracy, an argument can be made that this is how the system should work. Voters do not have the time (nor a rational inclination) to fully research and review the major policy issues of the day. Not even the President, himself, has a complete understanding of the various positions and arguments on every single issue that may come to his or her attention. For this reason, it is practical that the President hire specialists on each issue that can offer concise analysis and advice. Similarly, voters choose candidates they feel they can trust to make decisions on policy issues that are too complicated or obtuse for the public to completely comprehend. After all, the United States is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy where elected officials are expected to perform as simple delegates on behalf of popular opinion.

On a post-structuralist level, one can argue that is the only way that voting could make sense. On the surface, it makes no rational sense to vote in any national election. After all, the chances of your vote deciding the winner is so infinitesimal that the benefit can never outweigh the cost of the time and energy needed to vote. There, then, must be an additional value gained from voting if we are to assume rationality persists. Traditionally, the argument has been made that citizens gain utility from the satisfaction of fulfilling a national duty to participate in democracy.
Perhaps, but in addition, I argue that that extra value is in the individual voter reifying a stable identity through their support of a candidate or party. As Michel Foucault might argue,

“[It] does not establish the fact of our identity by the play of distinctions. It establishes that we are difference, that our reason is the difference of discourses, our history the difference of times, our selves the difference of masks.”

That is, we take actions, based in our view of our own identities, to convince ourselves that that (nonexistent) identity is stable. When Southern Whites switched their votes to the Republican Party after the Civil Rights movement, it was because they felt that that group identity was no longer appreciated by the Democrats. In this way, issues become important only when they stand in for larger discourses of identity. To show their disgust for Democrats and, thereby, support for their identity, traditional Democrats started voting Republican. Similarly, many swing voters that may have supported Gore or Kerry’s policy proposals but not their bourgeois sensibilities elected the laid-back cowboy, George W. Bush to the Presidency.

Whether it is optimal or not, this is the current system under which elections take place. Hence, it is my philosophy that a winning candidate must project an identity that is at once strong and principled, and familiar and approachable. President Bush’s greatest political talent is his ability to convince Americans that he is a “steady and strong” leader but also a friend you could have a drink with at the bar. Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan are among others that have had the power to connect with people on their level as well as project “Presidentialness.”

Put simply, in order to win, you must be the best candidate, not just “right on the issues.”

Narrative
The campaign that controls the media narrative, controls the terms of the debate. Conservatives have long made charges that the media has a liberal bias that works against their candidates and policies. The claim effectively meant that the conservative movement had the playing field tipped against them. Perhaps this was true at some point but over the last decade, the traditional media has almost completely tipped against liberalism and Democrats. In order to, at least, level the playing field and, hopefully, tip it back in their favor, Democrats must control the media narrative.

As discussed above, there is too much information about each candidate and their policy stances for any voter to be fully informed enough to make a vote on “complete information.” Even if he or she had such information, they would need the expertise and framework to evaluate it in a way that yields a single choice between the two candidates. This is a process that no voter can be expected to fully master before going to the polls. As such, voters take necessary shortcuts to form generalized views of each candidate. This framework, or discourse, takes the form of an ongoing narrative.

A good campaign naturalizes these discourses as “conventional wisdom” and ensures that propagated throughout the media until they are known and accepted by voters. Casting Gore as a serial exaggerator or Kerry as a weak flip-flopper are all successes of conservatives catapulting talking points into conventional wisdom in order to control the terms of the election. The fact that the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” were able to dominate news cycles for nearly a month also speaks to the success of a well-coordinated campaign to control the media narrative. On the other side, Cindy Sheehan’s protest outside of the President’s Crawford ranch reframed the media narrative on the Iraq War from foreign policy to personal tragedy.

When conventional wisdom is controlled, the campaign can shape a story that inevitably results in the candidate’s victory. In 2000, the Republican narrative starred Bush as the sheriff coming to Washington, DC to maintain order and bring the values of common people into the White House. The Democratic narrative was about a job interview where the more competent man would receive the job. Both narratives were effective and propagated throughout the media though I would argue the Republican one much more so. Not necessarily because Bush (perhaps) won the election, but because, again, it was Gore’s election to lose and Bush ran a close, competitive campaign.

In 2004, the narrative battle was not even close. The Democratic narrative was about a war hero saving the country from an incompetent president. The Republican narrative was about a mysterious threat that could either be faced down by the “strong, steady” Bush or the “weak, flip-flopping” Kerry. In most of 2004, the Kerry narrative was dominant as held solid leads in national polls into August. However, beginning with the direct attack of the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” on the Kerry narrative and culminating in the Republican National Convention’s all-out attack on Kerry and support of the Bush narrative, the media narrative turned the tide to Bush. In order to win the 2008 election, this campaign must control the media narrative at all costs.

Vision
Tied up in a candidate’s identity and the campaign narrative is the vision for the world that they offer voters. The vision synthesizes of these components into a future that either scares or inspires voters to support a candidate. It is the conclusion that is reached, either by implication or explication, of what to expect from four years of the candidate’s Presidency. This term does not require much explanation as it is already so commonly used but for the purposes of this philosophy, it can be thought of as what voters sense about the world that the candidate will bring into being...

(more to come)

TAGS: Heart, Muscle, Gut, Framing, Democratic Message, John Edwards, 2008 Presidential Election