The Next Right

  • Why Lisa Murkowski Lost

    [It's been 1 year and 4 months since I wrote my last blog post here. For readers of The Next Right, I left my position as the RNC's Deputy Research Director back in May and am currently a Senior Communications Strategist with New Media Strategies in Rosslyn, VA. It feels good to be back in the blogosphere.]

    Lisa Murkowski has now conceded. I have a great amount of respect for Joe Miller, but I have been a loyal supporter of Lisa Murkowski since her 2004 campaign. As a conservative from Alaska, I have disagreed with her positions on a few issues, but I believe she has been a good Senator for Alaska. Murkowski has been a thoughtful policymaker among her peers as well as an articulate leader on several key national issues including energy security.

    Yet despite the enormous amount of admiration I have for her, I believe Murkowski has no one to blame except her own campaign for what is a stunning primary defeat. Bottom line up front: Lisa Murkowski's primary campaign should serve as a lesson in what not to do when you are being attacked by your opponent.

    There has been a lot of talk about how wrong the polls were, the ballot initiative concerning abortion, and why Lisa Murkowski decided not to "go negative" on Joe Miller. Yet it's just not as simple as that. Here are four very interconnected reasons why Lisa Murkowski lost:

    1. When attacked by Miller on health care via paid media, Murkowski chose to respond directly only via earned media.

    Joe Miller didn't raise a lot of money, but he had enough money to buy a swarm of radio ads throughout the summer claiming that Murkowski wouldn't vote to repeal President Obama's health care reform package. Murkowski's direct response to this claim only showed up in the newspapers, talk radio shows and TV.

    Now, as an Alaskan, one might think that this is a relatively good strategy seeing as though most of Alaska media is dominated by one newspaper, one television station and a handful of talk radio outlets. Plus, Murkowski's response was a good one: that Joe Miller's claim was an outright lie and that she voted several times to repeal portions of Obamacare and co-sponsored other pieces of legislation to do the same. (More on this in point #3.)

    But do the math: Joe Miller's several radio ads and robocalls constantly spreading this claim vs. the maybe one story per day Lisa Murkowski got rebuffing this claim. Republican primary voters probably heard Miller's message 5 to 10 times as much as Murkowski's direct response during the summer. You can't bring a knife to a gun fight.

    2. Murkowski's paid media message strategy centered on "I'm a conservative too."

    It wasn't as if Murkowski didn't have the money to respond; she had millions to spend on paid media. So what kind of paid media did she put up as her closing argument? Watch below:

    Summary of her closing argument: "You don't like Obama? Me neither." When you're being attacked in paid media in a Republican primary in this environment, the right response in paid media isn't to say "Here's evidence that I'm a conservative." It shows a certain sign of weakness to the electorate, maybe even a hint of phoniness.

    3. Murkowski had the right response to Joe Miller ready to go, but never used it.

    That's right. Lisa Murkowski had exactly the right response to Joe Miller's claims about her support/opposition for Obamacare. And the Murkowski campaign put it in a 2 minute web video. (Watch it all the way to the end for the kicker.)

    If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right: what a brutal response! Joe Miller was in the audience at a health care town hall Lisa Murkowski hosted, where she made her opposition to Obamacare very clear. Did this video appear in a 30 second TV ad? No. Instead, the campaign left it on YouTube to garner 1500 views.

    4. While Miller's supporters had all the motivation in the world to show up, Murkowski gave no motivation to her base of supporters to go vote for her.

    Elections aren't won by people who rest on their laurels and hope those laurels carry voters to the ballot box out of a sense of respect to the candidate. Elections are choices made by voters between candidates.

    In this political environment, no more motivation was necessary to get Joe Miller's supporters out to vote, whether or not there was an initiative concerning abortion on the ballot. And while there were a lot of national stories about Murkowski's refusal to run negative ads on Joe Miller, the fault in the campaign's strategy was deeper than that. The campaign decided to run Murkowski on her laurels instead of comparing her record and experience vs. Miller's record and his experience. The campaign decided not to run what I would call "compare/contrast" ads that give your base of supporters a reason to make sure you win and your opponent loses.

    There is one particular example of the complete antithesis to Lisa Murkowski's 2010 primary strategy: Congressman Don Young's 2008 primary strategy against then-Lt. Gov., now-Gov. Sean Parnell. Watch the ad below:

    When Parnell and the Club for Growth attacked Don Young over spending and earmarks, Young didn't cower into a corner saying "I'm a conservative too." Agree or disagree with Young's position, he turned the negative into a positive very creatively and effectively, and Parnell's 30 to 40 point lead 5 months before the August 2008 election disappeared. That's what I call a "compare/contrast" strategy: giving your supporters a reason to come to the ballot box.

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    I would welcome other persepctives from Alaska, DC or other places as to why this happened to Lisa Murkowski. But I firmly believe that her campaign stuck to a particular strategy that ended up being a detriment to her re-election.

    On the other hand, there could be a silver lining to her loss: in the long term for the Republican Party, this could serve as an example to candidates (both incumbents and challengers) on what to do and what not to when attacked by an opponent.

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  • New York State of Mindlessness

    It's (Still) The Economy, Stupid!

    By George Scoville | @stackiii

    I have fought every impulse in my being to weigh in on the Cordoba House debate, and to pontificate, lecture, and moralize from atop my libertarian mountain. Now that I'm actually writing about it I find myself stricken nearly dumb by the irony of what I'm about to suggest on a blog entitled THE NEXT RIGHT. But it has become clear that The Current Right has completely forgotten about The Last Right, and this could prove to be the foil for The Next Right -- at least that's my worry. I do not intend to debate the morality or legality of the construction of Cordoba House in either this post or in the comments - so if you're looking for an ideological fight, you've come to the wrong place. The Right has a new messaging problem, and if anyone intends to supplant the Democratic Party in any meaningful, long-term way, it will require pretty swift action.

    The Republican Party is polling considerably well among registered voters (Gallup) on a number of factors: party identification, 2010 vote preferences among independents, and 2010 candidate preferences. The Republican Party also seems to be riding a wave of enthusiasm (RCP) that spreads quicksand all over the Democratic Party's uphill battle as November draws near. Finally, the Republican Party has retaken the lead on the generic ballot (PPP). Whatever successes the Republican Party currently enjoys it owes in large part to both the Tea Party movement and the fact that President Obama and the Democrats over-estimated their "mandate." This cannot be overstated, especially in light of the fact that only a handful of Republicans are engaging their Democratic counterparts substantively (The Weekly Standard).

    Now, set all that aside for a moment. Step back 26 years to 1984.

    Ronald Reagan wasn't polling well, hitting a 35% approval rating in 1983 (Gallup). The economy was in recession. Unemployment was high, though it dropped from 10.8% in '82 to 7.4% by Election Day '84 (Salon). We were at war -- each day every American faced an existential threat. Federal spending was at 22.9% of GDP (EconLib), in large part because Reagan's defense budget crested far above projections he made on the campaign trail in '79 and '80. But Reagan handily won re-election in 1984 because he kept the message simple -- this worked:

    Why, then, is former Speaker Newt Gingrich -- a sort of de facto leader of today's Republican Party, an icon of the 1994 Republican Revolution, and potential 2012 presidential hopeful -- foisting a divisive cultural narrative (WaPo) onto an election cycle already dominated by anti-Big Government and anti-spending narratives that, heretofore, have been working (Pew Research via NPR)?

    Ezra Klein is pickin' up what I'm puttin' down:

    One political question about the Ground Zero Islamic complex/mosque/theater-space/swimming pool: Why are Republicans trumpeting this? And why, a week or two ago, did they start talking about the 14th amendment? Republicans are going to win a lot of seats this year. And they're going to do it on the backs of the economy. Getting into social issues -- particularly social issues that might anger minorities -- is a dangerous play. It loses them long-term votes that they just don't need to lose. It paints their party as intolerant and opportunistic. And it's unnecessary: It's not like they're hurting for things to talk about.

    The Cato Institute's Gene Healy blames the Professional Right:

    All this posturing is getting tiresome. The "mosque" controversy isn't about property rights or religious freedom. It's a bogus issue seized by the GOP establishment to distract the rank-and-file from the party's reluctance to shrink government.

    Will Wilkinson, also of the Cato Institute, blames the amateur Right:

    This idiotic foofaraw could be a distraction only if the GOP rank-and-file actually cared more about the size of government than the cultural politics of American identity. But they don’t. It’s not even close. American conservatism is a movement consumed by protecting and asserting a certain fabricated conception of the traditional American way of life against imaginary enemies. Support for small government is no more than a bullet point on the Right’s “What We Believe” cheat sheet, mouthed at opportune moments. I approve of what Gene’s trying to do here rhetorically, but the fact is that complaining about Muslims and keeping holy the memory of 9/11 and Ground Zero — the legitimizing altar of aggressive American imperialism —  is a direct manifestation of contemporary conservatism’s essence.

    Personally, I don't really care who is to blame for the propagation of this narrative -- whether Gingrich is demagoguing, or the conservative, evangelical base needs some pandering. The bottom line is that playing with this narrative is like playing with fire, and could be as dangerous to the Right long-term as a Gingrich marriage proposal. In many ways the conservative base is like the fuel in a gas can, fuel that powers the political machine that winds up carrying water in elections -- but for God's sake, don't hand the Left a big, fat box of strike-anywhere matches. 2010 and 2012 can -- and should -- be a slam dunk for right-of-center candidates. Let's not botch it.

    Update:

    Ben Smith (POLITICO) notes that Gingrich's caustic remarks echo those of Mussolini:

     

    A regular correspondent wondered why Newt Gingrich's recent declaration on the planned downtown mosque sounded so familiar, and found this:

     

    Gingrich:

     

    There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.

     

    Mussolini:

     

    There will be a mosque in Rome, the Fascist ruler said, only when a Roman Catholic church is permitted in Mecca.

     

    The quote is frequently attributed to Il Duce, though I'd be grateful to any Italian-speaking reader who has a primary source.

     

    Sorry, folks - you can call me a wet blanket all you want - independent voters just won't trade one statist polemic (Obama) for another (Gingrich).

    Cross-posted at Liberty Pundits.

    Further reading:

    Jacob Sullum, Reason Magazine

    Doug Mataconis, Outside the Beltway blog

    Doug Mataconis redux, Outside the Beltway blog

    David Harsanyi, Reason Magazine

    Ben Smith, POLITICO

    Garrett Quinn, boston.com

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  • Modernizing Government: A Renewed Focus on Innovative Solutions

    Throughout the nation, people from all walks of life seem to share a general sense of unease about the future direction of our country and of our society’s seeming inability to solve the major challenges facing it. There is something beyond any single legislative debate, something more fundamental than any particular policy issue. Regardless of one’s party affiliation (or lack thereof), all increasingly share this sense that our nation has reached an important turning point.

    For too many years, government has been responding to a seemingly endless chain of crises that have created an ad hoc patchwork of short-term fixes and lost opportunities. Once venerated public institutions, like dominos in a line, have repeatedly betrayed the public’s trust.

    As the challenges continue to mount, this is a moment that demands a government dedicated to data-driven solutions – where the best ideas are free to prosper and where people of good faith can innovate together. We must enthusiastically engage the public’s creativity, imagination and expertise in increasingly meaningful experiences that directly impact the democratic process.

    Let us respond to America’s challenges as Americans – united around a shared commitment to finding the best ideas, working together to build a better future for our country. The sacrifices that have made this nation possible demand nothing less.

    Ultimately, greatness is a choice and it is a choice that each of us has to make – what will we do to make the future a better place? A country’s fate is the sum of individual choices, and so does the fate of our country rest with each of us, every day.

    Something is happening in America – throughout the country, people are answering this challenge. They are entrepreneurs and oddballs tinkering with new ideas, willing to commit intellectual heresy and demand a better way; they are emblematic of America’s innovative culture that has always been the foundation for our nation’s success.

    Let us move together to a new era of solutions, based on answering today’s challenges and not yesterday’s memories.

     

     Matt Lira currently serves as the Director of New Media for House Republican Whip Eric Cantor.

     

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