Well, with Jim back from Turkey, it was time for another On Tapper to head overseas. This time, it’s me. As of last Friday, I’ve relocated to London. I’m still working for that big P.R. firm, helping clients with digital / online communications. In fact, starting today, I’m blogging at our firm’s new blog. It’s called Authenticities, and you can check it out here.
Not to worry, though. For both of our remaining readers, I’m going to keep chipping in on U.S. politics, sports and all the rest here at On Tap. Excepting the occasional rant about life in the UK, I’m hoping you won’t notice too much of a change. And, as always, the three of us plan to continue our virtual bar chats. Keep reading and commenting. And thanks for sticking around.
I’m off to one of the last few places in the world that’s largely undisturbed by man. And no, it isn’t the arctic. I’ll have lots to say about the trip when I get back, and lots of photos to illustrate it with.
Until then, I leave you in the hands of my good and faithful co-bloggers. Hopefully, both of you readers will still be here when I return. (But don’t worry. I’ve written my portion of the final On Tap Award. It should post itself tomorrow morning while I’m on my way to the airport. I know you’re dying to see it.)
While I’m gone, I’m told that I won’t have any access to any outside news. Indeed, there really won’t be any communication of any kind.
And by the time I get home, the Iowa caucuses will be over and the New Hampshire will be done.
It will be very interesting to see how the race looks after these two pivotal weeks without being a witness to the day-to-day tactics, the back-and-forth in the press, and all of the other minutiae that usually consumes political watchers like me.
It’s presumptuous to think that I’ll have anything profound or interesting to say, but this sort of thing can’t happen very often, so at a minimum, I’m sure I’ll have an unusual perspective.
Before I go, I’ll leave you with some predictions:
Huckabee is going to win Iowa, but Romney is going to finish closer to him than anyone expects. 7,000 Mormon caucus goers can have a tremendous impact. Romney will leave Iowa with the momentum. I have no idea who is going to finish third. My powers of vision don’t go that deep. (Side note: the results look the same in Wyoming on January 5.)
Romney’s momentum will be stopped in New Hampshire with John McCain’s victory there. Huckabee will finish second. Romney third. The final tallies are very close, with McCain prevailing by only a couple of points, but the press dubs him the comeback kid and predicts big things. Fred Thompson drops out the day after and endorses McCain.
On January 11, I’ll be back in the country to see how my foresight fares against actual events.
Either way, I predict Romney will win Michigan.
That means South Carolina will once again be a huge battleground. You could argue that whoever wins South Carolina will capture enough momentum to win the nomination. Or not…
See you in a couple of weeks.
Jim: I predict that Marshall will come back and ask, “Okay, maybe I could see Ron Paul winning either Iowa or New Hampshire, but BOTH?” And then he’ll drop to his knees before a cracked, damaged Statue of Liberty buried up to its chest and wail, “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, d*** you! God d*** you all to hell!”
Semi-seriously, there’s only a few broad predictions I’m willing to make right now. First, Iowa will be very close between Romney and Huckabee - probably less than six percent between them, and maybe less than three percent. Despite the 33-30 or so finish, the second place finisher will be seen as seriously damaged. It’s not fair, but it’s the way the post-Iowa buzz will play out. I don’t know if third place will be enough to generate some momentum for Fred Thompson; there’s a big difference between finishing third with 20 percent and finishing third with 15 percent. I also think there will be a cascade effect; winners of Iowa and New Hampshire will surge in Michigan and South Carolina….
On behalf of Cam and Jim, I’d like to extend a public word of thanks to frequent On Tap commenter and blogger extraordinaire Jeff Harrell.
Jeff stepped up this weekend to help us complete a long overdue WordPress upgrade and do some maintenance on our server. (I say he helped us. What I mean by that is that Jeff did everything while we answered his e-mails and did what he told us to do.)
Jeff is a master designer who is an expert in both Moveable Type and WordPress. That’s a damned unusual combination. (He also has a book available for sale.)
The work that Jeff completed this weekend was simple for someone with those skills, but would have been impossible for the On Tap gang.
So thanks, Jeff, for helping us out. We can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.
This was written at 35,000 feet, so I wasn’t able to look back and see precisely when I last posted here at On Tap, but I know it’s been a while. I guess I got a little burned out, and needed a break. I also got interested in a couple of new toys. A couple of months back, I created a Facebook page. And last month, I joined Twitter, a microblogging community. Both have been interesting and fun.
Facebook brings together people with similar interests. It’s also got lots of cool applications that have been fun to explore and enjoy. In many ways, fooling around with Facebook reminds me of my first tentative steps onto the Internet after a friend plugged my Mac in the wall in our dorm, installed Netscape and pointed me to Yahoo. That prompted countless hours of exploration, trying to figure out just what this Internet thing was, and what it could offer. In short, Facebook has put a little of the fun back in the web, and for that, I’m grateful for its existence.
Twitter, on the other hand, provided me with an alternative for self-expression that rewards my laziness. Rather than composing a fully developed thought for this site, Twitter’s limit of 140 characters per post forces me to publish simple, direct ideas. And so I found myself liberated from the burden of coherence. I have to admit, I’ve enjoyed Twitter a lot. I can compose and post quickly and easily from my laptop, blackberry or cell phone. I can tweet from the car, home, work, airport, and anywhere else. In that respect, Twitter has been truly liberating. Like most folks, I suppose, I have odd thoughts and insights at all sorts of strange times. Many, to be honest, happen while I’m driving. But I usually forgot those thoughts by the time I’ve arrived at my destination. Thanks to Twitter, I can now publish them from a stoplight.
(As an aside, I don’t presume that anyone is actually reading any of this. Heck, I’m sure both readers of this site have long since moved onto other, more content rich locales. But I enjoy opining on things great and small. This site and Twitter both provide facilitate opportunities for me to do so.)
Friends find my conversion to Twitter more than a little strange. For many months, I railed that Twitter emphasized the worst aspects of blogging, and swore that I would never participate. But I discovered the power of Twitter — as one friend predicted I would — at an industry event, where audience members were interacting with each other, discussing a presentation virtually, while the presentation was still happening. It was like a massive IM conversation, and suddenly, I was benefitting not only from the presenter’s expertise and insight, but the entire room.
Twitter does is have its downsides. Its ubiquity rewards instant impressions, not well developed thoughts. And in a medium where too many writers fail to edit themselves sufficiently, Twitter makes self-editing essentially impossible. Further, its required brevity makes it difficult to convey complexity. Nevertheless, like any form of communication, these challenges can be overcome by thoughtful, clever authors, and my experience with Twitter shows that’s precisely what’s happened. My concerns, it seems are unfounded.
After messing around with Twitter for a while, I thought seriously about giving up on this site, and confining myself to Facebook and Twitter. For any number of reasons, I decided just the opposite. Instead, I’m renewing my commitment to On Tap, and if by some miracle your are still reading our site, I pledge to do a better job keeping the content fresh. I hope that Cam and Jim will as well.
Still, if you want to catch me on Twitter, you can always go here.
Jim, I’m so sorry that I’ve been away from the blog for a while. But I wanted to publicly congratulate you on your new bundle of joy. You’re a lucky, lucky man.
So blogging from a 737 gets you an Insta-link? Well top this:
I’m blogging from the back of a pony right now. And I’m using my laptop. I’m also using an ethernet cable, not wireless.
You don’t want to know where it’s plugged in.
Shempu: I don’t even need a pony. I blog using sonar.
Marshall: Shut up, Shempu. We all know you were the first one in line to buy an iPhone.
Jim: I was going to call Shempu to mock him, but he wasn’t in an area where AT&T has coverage.
I couldn’t agree more with Patrick Ruffini’s reaction to the news that one or more of the leading Republican candidates for Presidents are planning to skip the September 17 CNN / YouTube debate.
What the heck are they afraid of? Interacting with real Americans?
The questions offered for Democrats at their YouTube forum were generally excellent. Many were clever and creative. But importantly, they got at issues that are central to our country. Compare that with Chris Matthews or another big media moderator, and the YouTube crowd comes off looking great.
Governor Romney doesn’t think taking questions from a snowman is befitting of the President? Has he been outside of his bubble lately?
Communications and, indeed, our whole society are becoming more conversational — more side-to-side and less top down. Romney and the rest of the Republican field need to learn this lesson and act accordingly. The age of communicating through the Beltway elite — Mark Halperin’s Gang of 500 — is over. Gone for good.
Among the Republican field, only Senator Fred Thompson seems to have grasped the opportunities that the online world offers and the way it has altered how we all communicate with one another. Ron Paul, through no discernible strategy of his own, seems to be benefitting from it.
And if Republican candidates aren’t prepared to learn this lesson on their own, voters will be glad to educate them at the polls next year.
So, to the candidates: stop complaining and show up. If you’re afraid to have a conversation with the American people, you’re not the candidate that the American people want on the job.
Jim: Yeah, I’m underwhelmed by the arguments that the Republicans shouldn’t do it. Because the questions might be stupid, unfair, biased, partisan, or suckerpunches? Folks, not only did we have Chris Matthews moderate a debate, Keith Olbermann anchored it. The Politico offered questions from readers including, “what do you hate about America?” Hello? Barn door open, horse gone.
What, the questions are “beneath the office of the presidency”? What, are you running for Queen or something? Cowboy the @#&$ up, you pansies.
If it’s a stupid question, say so. Follow the Gingrich model: Asked by a snotty teen at an MTV forum whether he wears “Boxers or briefs?” responds, “That is a very stupid question, and it’s stupid for you to ask that question.” The only way it could have been better is if he made the little punk cry.
For Pete’s sake, wouldn’t we love to see a Republican candidate respond to a 9/11 “Truth”er? (I suspect if Anderson Cooper tried the usual “your questioner was in the audience here tonight” schtick with that question on Rudy Giuliani, Rudy would jump into the audience and kick his ass himself. “Give me a minute, Anderson, I need a minute to stick a broomstick where the sun don’t shine.”)
Good example - Entry 2,944 asks, “Since you are a Mormon, a certain percentage of your salary goes to the Mormon Church. Now, there’s a conflict of interest there, if you are elected president, that means taxpayer dollars will go to the Mormon church by people who didn’t vote for you. What do you think about that?”
I think this man is a moron. Once a president, or any other government employee is paid their salary, they’re entitled to spend or donate it anyplace they like. The suggestion that Romney or any other presidential candidate tithing a portion of their income to his or her church is somehow a “conflict of interest” suggests that the questioner is supremely misinformed, and/or just has a beef with Mormons.
Jim drew my attention to a facinating exchange between Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini and leftroots leader Jerome Armstrong. Their dialogue, as it relates to the online aspect of the Presidential campaign, is thoughtful and interesting, but in Patrick’s post, I saw a larger point that I think gets at the heart of the Democratic nomination contest.
Patrick points out, “Barack Obama has mobilized people, even if he hasn’t mobilized the netroots. He’s brought in students, African Americans, and apparently, young females. These are groups that are relatively apolitical. That’s why when you loosen the likely voter screen just a little, Obama does a lot better.”
Patrick gets at the question central to the Obama candidacy. It’s the same question that’s dogged every candidate for all time. Who is going to vote?
There’s this simplistic notion, perpetuated by the media, that the electorate is a massive monolith. Through polls, the media’s pundits describe how the views of that monolith evolve over time. You can hear Bill Schneider now… “In this election, 42% of voters described themselves as conservatives. That’s up four points from 2004, Bob. And it just shows how the country has grown more conservative over the last few years.”
Horse hockey.
The monolith hasn’t mystically altered itself. It’s very composition has changed. Consider the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. A reliable exit poll — a dubious assumption to be sure — would have shown that the Ohio electorate was more conservative than it was in 2000. Why? It’s not because the state grew more conservative in the preceding four years. It’s because the Bush campaign did an anstonishly good job of getting conservatives to go to the polls, so the percentage of the electorate comprised by conservatives increased.
In American politics today, there are, broadly speaking, three kinds of voters:
- Habitual voters — They turn up to vote in every election and most primaries. Period. Candidates don’t have to do a lot to get them to turn out. They tend to be the most partisan or ideological. These are the people who are electing the town council, planning commission and dogcatcher. Habitual voters comprise around a quarter to a third of all voters.
- Occasional voters — They turn up to vote when they feel like or think it’s important. They vote in most Presidential elections and will show up for other significant elections in off years if they are engaged. They might vote in a party primary if they feel a strong pull to a particular candidate. Sometimes, they get engaged because of the news. Sometimes, because a campaign engaged them. Occasional voters make up an additional third or so of the total.
- Never voters — They registered when the renewed their drivers’ license because they were extra diligent about filling out all of the forms before they went to the window AGAIN. Or maybe when someone knocked on their door and handed them a clipboard. They don’t vote. Period. Nothing will get them to vote except Ross Perot or Jesse Ventura. They make up the final third or so of the total.
Senator Obama’s presidential campaign is based on his personality. It’s based on the idea that he will be a different kind of President; that he has a vision; that he will make a difference; that he’s not a cynic; and that he’s not all wrapped up in Washington politics.
Which is all well and good for the media and his campaign message team. If they let him be who he is, he should have significant appeal. (Note: this does not include clumsily circulating oppo memos to reporters.)
But for the folks working on the ground — the folks who will ultimately win or lose the campaign — the question is much more challenging. Does the Senator has enough appeal to attract those Occasional voters to the polls? Could he even get a few Nevers?
In the history of American politics, the list of candidates who really accomplished this feat is fairly short. Robert F. Kennedy would certainly qualify. (His brother, on the other hand, does not.) Andrew Jackson certainly does, as well. FDR, in his 1932 campaign, might. Jesse Ventura, in his campaign for Minnesota Governor, definitely makes the list. So does Huey Long in his first campaign for U.S. Senate. And we shouldn’t forget California Governor Arnold Schwarznegger.
On the other hand, the list of candidates who tried and failed is long. Indeed, there have been so many who tried and lost, that a comprehensive list is impossible. Some highlights: Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose campaign for the Presidency. Ross Perot, who succeeded in expanding the electorate, but not enough to win. And Jesse Jackson whose ability to bring black voters out to the polls in 1984 made him a serious contender for the Democratic nomination.
So, can Obama do it? I think he can.
Cam: I confess, I must have some sort of blinders on because I can’t see what it is that makes Obama an attractive candidate, much less someone that can draw historical comparisons to candidates like FDR and RFK (and when Marshall’s the one making those comparisons, it’s not the typical hype and bluster you’d find from many pundits).
So in your opinion Marshall, what’s the one characteristic that Obama has or at least is demonstrating that is selling himself to those “now and then voters”? Is it his “outsider” mentality? Is it his optimism? Is it his audacity of hope? 
So last night Marshall and I met with what can probably be described as the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Tech and Blog Division, Washington Chapter. The topic, very generally, was how lefties and righties use technology to further their goals.
One of the points that was made late in the evening, shortly before everybody headed home, was noting that before a political movement - any movement, not just conservatives - can use technology to promote its message, it needs to agree on what that message is. If one had to propose a new Contract With America, could conservatives formulate a list of ten legislative proposals that would get 90 for 9? (Meaning, 90 percent of conservatives agreed with 9 of them?)
A thriving political coalition makes sure that the most of its time deals with issues that unify its factions and divide the opponents. Republicans used to be good at this; sometime in the past few years, they completely forgot it and now the left is fairly unified on some big, and dominant issues: Pull out of Iraq, repeal Bush’s tax cut for those making more than $200k, create “universal health care”, sacrifice virgins to Gaia to mitigate global warming, energy independence, investigate oil companies for price gouging and flay the skin off their executives in public floggings, etc.
My favorite example of a unifying issue on the right, the one I used last night, was condoms in schools. Social conservatives oppose it because they feel it encourages sex among teenagers and undermines/contradicts parents. Fiscal conservatives/libertarians oppose it because they ask, “why the hell am I underwriting the operating costs of some horny teen’s sex life? Let the kid buy his own damn birth control!” Through different worldviews and justifications, the two mindsets come to a common policy goal.
Instead, Bush’s second term has been one meat grinder of an issue after another that splits the conservative coalition: Terry Schiavo, Dubai Ports World, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales and the U.S. Attorneys mess, and now, the biggest and baddest of ‘em all, illegal immigration. And now Bush wants a second crack at it. This is like hitting 22 in Blackjack and THEN doubling your bet.
Iraq might be turning into one of those issues. Conservatives support a strong defense posture, but there’s strong disagreement over nation-building, and just what the U.S. can do in Iraq now. Heck, I go back and forth on how much nation-building the U.S. should do.
At last night’s meeting, there was a lot of brainpower, creativity, and talent, eager to make the case for conservatism. The problem is, it’s hard to gain traction when the party of the right is still figuring out what it stands for.
Cam: And thanks so much to the organizers for scheduling this two hours before I go on the air. Would have loved to have joined y’all. Perhaps next time it could be a little earlier, or on the weekend? I’ll even volunteer the use of my deck and will buy the burgers and brats (because every meeting of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy should involve grilling stuff).
Okay, now that my snippiness is out of the way, on to the meat of your post. Here’s a fun mental exercise… can you come up with 9 BIG ISSUES that 90 percent of conservatives would agree on?
Here’s my dark horse pick: reducing our funding to the United Nations with the demand that certain reforms be met, and if those goals are not achieved within a certain period of time… we pull out of the UN. I have YET to meet a conservative who thinks the UN is a wonderful thing, and taking a firm stand on the corruption and bureaucratic bullshit that comes out of the building on the East River would be a bold statement.