And Then There Were Four (and Hucakabe and Paul and Gravel)

Jan 30 2008 Published by under Barack Obama, Candidates, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Republicans

With the over-delayed departure of John Edwards, and the implosion of Rudy Giuliani, the race for President comes down to four – Clinton, Obama, McCain and Romney. Between them the race is now an endurance campaign to see who has the resources and stamina to see it to the wire.

It increasingly looks like McCain will come out of 2/5 with a near lock on the nomination and will round out the process shortly thereafter. Romney, no doubt, will probably drop from the race on 2/6 or 2/7.

What’s unclear is the state of the Democratic race. Tim Russert and Chuck Todd were on Today this morning discussing the state of play as we look at the apportionment of delegates, the makeup of the superdelegates and the likelihood that their race may continue into the spring. The best part was Tim Russert’s comment about Rudy:

From a national frontrunner to one delegate $50 million dollars later, it will be studied by political scientists for years. It was a disaster.

That may actually turn out to be a bigger flop than Howard Dean’s $50 million debacle in 2003-2004 because on a cost per vote basis, Rudy fares far worse at this point. Dean also had the scream, so you can point to a total meltdown of his campaign. Rudy just had a terrible strategy. Note to future candidates, skip one early primary? Maybe. Skip five? Not so much.

Now, other than the eventual Democratic nominee, the one open question is when Mike Gravel, Ron Paul, and Mike Huckabee will come to the conclusion that they have run their course and drop out as well. The longer Huckabee clings to the idea that he can win, the more petty he looks. He’ll undoubtedly make some snide comments about Romney stealing his votes. To be fair to him though, for a week or two before Iowa it looked like Huck might be the guy. That has to hurt.

The next big question is who will become the Pat Buchanan of 2008 and deliver a spastic, knee-jerk extremist speech at the convention that harms their parties chances for winning three months later? Will either party deny the also rans a place at the podium?

Honestly, my money is split now between Huckabee and Paul. Either Huckabee stands up and makes an impassioned case that homosexuals are the equivalent of rapists, molesters and monkey-humpers; or Paul goes off on a 20 minute tirade against the World Bank and advocates for the legalization of black tar heroine. Either way, it will be interesting to watch.

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Good Luck, GOP. See you in 2012.

Jan 22 2008 Published by under Barack Obama, Candidates, Craziness, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Pandering, Politics, Republicans

As a lot of people chatter about the departure of Fred Thompson from the race, I’m sitting here thinking about the last 9 months and wondering how I can ever look my party in the face again. For that matter, I don’t see how I can look my fellow voters in the face. Fred Thompson ran the race we all claim we want to see. For that, he got disparaging remarks about his vigor, his ambition, his wife, and his personal appearance.

It really is sad. We claim we want a candidate to talk seriously about the issues, to put forth bold policy proposals and debate on the merits of his plan. In a race crowded with style, Fred was all substance. Yet the people looked away.

In a campaign marked by cat-fights between candidates constantly engaging in underhanded digs at others’ religion, age, and life story, Fred took the high road and stuck to records, and policy. With debates that more closely resembled a three ring circus of 30 second sound bites, Fred stood, hands down, taller than the rest and demanded a little dignity.

The one “failing” of Fred Thompson seems to have been the fact that he refused to be treated like some retarded, inbred poodle jumping through every hoop the media threw in front of him.

When he built and unveiled his Internet presence, the media panned his effort with calls that he ‘plans to run his whole show online.’

When he and Jeri appeared in public, the media savaged his wife as a gold-digger, an interloper in the First Lady sweepstakes, and as a micromanaging puppet master working the strings of the campaign.

When he chose to spend time with his family, the media called him lazy, disinterested, and uncommitted.

Yet that lazy, uncommitted, disinterested candidate was the only one in the race saying something that mattered. He was the only one talking in complete sentences about the issues our nation faces. He was putting forth plans that got noticed by economists and experts as being serious and substantive. He was the only one demanding an end to the pageantry and a beginning to a new era of serious policy based campaigns. He was the only one that made it through the debates with his honesty and integrity in check.

It was, in short, exactly the kind of race we claim we want. He was, by placing his priorities on his family and not the sideshow, exactly the candidate we claim we want.

Yet once we got the campaign we’ve asked for, and once we got the candidate we asked for, he was labeled ‘lazy’ and ‘not serious’.

Well, at this point, all I can say to America is congratulations. You will get the President you deserve. You can pick from 32 flavors of vanilla. You can pick from the 6 remaining monkeys who are rabid enough in their pursuit of self-glorification that they will dance as you grind your organ. You can hold your nose and cast a ballot for candidates that perpetuate this ridiculous system we have created.

As for me, I’ll be sitting out the Presidential election this year. I am unable to find anything in the remaining candidates on either side that gives me hope at a time when we really need it. I’ll sit and ponder the death of statesmanship knowing that our American Idol obsessed culture has taken another step away from electing leaders and another step down the road of electing entertainers.

At this point I don’t see why you don’t chuck it all and simply let the winner of Bruno and Carrie’s Dance War run our nation for the next four years. I’ll bet they dance to your music better than any of the candidates you have left.

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Kung Fu Election

Jan 15 2008 Published by under Barack Obama, Candidates, Craziness, Democrats, Elections, Gaming, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Politics, Republicans

With a name like KungFuQuip.com on a blog covering politics, there was absolutely no way I could avoid commenting on Kung Fu Election. Choose your candidate and pit them against the other contenders in bloody death matches to determine the next leader of the free world. The intro song is really annoying and you should skip past it, but as it says, “China may have got our jobs, but we got their fighting skills.”

Now go out there and let John McCain, Mitt Romney, The Huckster, or Rudy serve up a hot plate of whoop ass on Obama, Richardson, Edwards or Clinton (technically Hill, but as you see in the screen grab below, just as in real life, she had to invoke the spirit of Bill to fight her battles for her).

Kung Fu Election at Atom Films

By the way, apparently they were going to include Fred Thompson, but they realized “Fred Thompson doesn’t decide who lives and who dies; he just makes it so.“

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Is Barack The New Pink?

Oct 19 2007 Published by under Barack Obama, Candidates, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Republicans

I was tripping through RedState and stumbled upon an interesting comment.

My liberal friends have been existing on the narrative that Bush is the New Nixon — from the time he first ran for president. That got me thinking, that if it’s true, then we have to endure another Carter BEFORE our New Reagan… As much as I HATE having a New Carter, we may have to endure one before the country realizes we need a New Reagan.

I hadn’t spent much time considering the Bush=Nixon meme, but it opens up some interesting doors. The current incarnation of the Democratic Party aligns itself with the far left wing – just as it did in 1976. It’s facing off against a Republican Party that has been battered by an unpopular war and scandals and a slowing economy. In 1976, a huge number of Democrats crowded the ballot to compete for the nomination. Carter, who was relatively unknown at the time, emerged from the pack.

Another interesting coincidence is the importance of the primary calendar. In 1976, the system was new, and people didn’t quite know how to operate under the different system. In 2008, the primary calendar is the big difference, and it has caused as much confusion. Everyone is making assumptions about how the lineup will impact the parties’ final choices, but nobody knows for sure.

It is entirely possible that we could see exactly the same outcome. A relative newcomer (Barack) defeats the establishment candidate (Hillary) and goes on to the general election. If the GOP can’t address its issues, and capitalize on the open seat and the anti-incumbent mood, the inexperienced and very liberal Obama could walk to the Presidency.

I suspect that an Obama Administration (which would believe it owes its presidency to the far left) would be almost as horrific as Carter.

The dynamics of the election certainly bear some resemblance to 1976. However, as I said yesterday, I think the GOP has some opportunities it didn’t have in ’76. While the war is just as unpopular, there are overarching security concerns that we didn’t have then. The Cold War, while raging, didn’t impact us the same way the 9-11 attacks did. The Soviet Union didn’t kill 3,000 people in New York. Whether you believe Al Qaeda was in Iraq in 2002 or not, they certainly are today. Not many people are us up to bailing out as they were in Vietnam (where we had almost no vested interests).

It will be interesting to see how 2008 plays out. Under normal circumstances, I’d almost lay odds on Hillary not getting the nod. The fact is the Democrats rarely nominate the person you expect. In December of 2003, Howard Dean was a forgone conclusion and John Kerry was a nobody. In 1992, nobody was betting on the guy from Arkansas. In 1976, nobody expected Carter.

I’m not sure that holds true this year. There are some good contenders in the form of Obama and Edwards, but Hillary is too polished to make the kind of rookie mistakes that cost Dean. She’s also wired into the establishment and in Democrat nominating processes, you can’t underestimate the power of the super delegates. The super delegate system was establish to prevent another Jimmy Carter from winning the nomination. When 40 percent of your delegates ARE the establishment, you only need 10 percent of the popular vote to win the nomination.

Hillary should be able to swing that.

If it does end up being another 1976, and we have to wait until 2012 for our Reagan, I’m not sure who that would be. The commenter at RedState suggested it was Brownback, but I’m not sure I agree. As a proud member of the Libertarian wing of the Party, I have to admit two things. First, I see Brownback as a so-con first and foremost. Second, because that is the impression he has left, I have taken little time to explore his libertarian cred. While I may not be typical of the libertarian wing, I like to think I have a pretty good bead on things. I suspect there are a lot of my little “l” brothers and sisters who are automatically distrustful of Brownback simply because of the so-con popularity.

Who then? I’m not honestly sure, but you can bet I’ll be looking for my candidate in the event the days of malaise return.

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Where’s Mini-Mitt? In Search Of End-Of-Quarter Dollars

Sep 25 2007 Published by under Barack Obama, Fundraising, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Politics

(cross-posted at TechPresident.com)

There’s a lot of buzz in GOP internet circles about the glaring omission from Romney’s site. As we approach the end of the fundraising quarter, we all expected the return of mini-Mitt, the annoying and intrusive pitchman for the Romney campaign’s June finance crush.

With no mini-Mitt to talk about, I thought I’d look at what the campaigns are doing to grab those last minute dollars. There’s a lot going on, and it’s interesting to track the different tactics.

The House Party

In lieu of mini-Mitt, the Romney guys have rolled out a snazzy little splash page pimping the Rally for Romney (a clever rebranding of the standard “House Parties” tactic). Like Rudy’s House Party (scheduled for the 26th), the idea behind the Rally for Romney is to allow grassroots fundraisers to bundle checks and ship them off to the campaign before the end of the quarter.

House Parties are an effective method of raising money, but by comparison to traditional online tactics, I’m not sure they’re hugely profitable versus the labor. If your diligent at all about vetting the fundraisers your authorizing, you’ve got a lot of work to do. If your not, there is a good possibility your authorizing people with sketchy pasts to gather funds on your behalf.

I’m not sure that matters any more, however. Guilt by association used to be a significant reason for campaigns to watch their associates. If they’re raising small enough amounts, it may not matter.

The Celebrity Endorsement

McCain and Hillary are taking a slightly different tack. They have decided to roll out the celebrity e-mail. For Hillary the celeb in question shares a bed with her (at least occasionally), so I’m guessing it was no trouble to have Bill pen a missive.

McCain, however, decided to use the “Dancing with the Stars” definition of “star”, and rolled out an endorsement from former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach. Now, I’m not questioning the appeal of an octogenarian former football star, but I’d suggest someone with a bit more “name”. Couldn’t they find a current football player?

The celeb e-mail works, if the celeb in question is universally loved among your donors. Bill Clinton works because Democrats generally love him. Staubach is a questionable choice. I don’t know anyone but the most die hard Cowboy fan who will open their wallet simply because Roger asked.

The Viral Appeal

Obama is pushing a “matching funds” program that pairs supporters. If you give $25, some other philanthropist will match your funds. You can then exchange e-mail with them. I like the idea behind this, as it gives supporters a sense of community. Some might say it’s a bit goofy, but anything that makes people feel connected to the campaign empowers them to be a voice for the campaign.

The Give-Money-and-Win-Something Appeal

The Edwards camp is taking a page from the Obama playbook and offering a trip to meet up with Edwards for a handful of selected donors. His giveaway is a little different however. There’s no steak dinner at a fancy restaurant in store for the winner. Nope. The grand prize winners will be whisked off to N’awlins, Louisiana for a fun filled day of rebuilding Katrina damage.

I’m not knocking voluntourism. I think efforts to help the Big Easy rebuild are fantastic. I’m just not sure that helping John do a roof raising in the Ninth Ward is the type of tchotchke most people would be hoping for.

The Thompson finance team has a similar contest going, but it’s geography based. The town that brings in the most donations per capita by midnight on 9/30 gets a visit from Fred. It’s sort of a cross between Eventful and traditional fundraising.

There Can Be Only One

The downside to these efforts is the only people who will ever know if they’re successful are those in the respective campaigns. These aren’t likely to comprise the bulk of funds raised. The money rankings will come out in a week, and the winners and losers will be declared. Ultimately, the best online fundraising idea may belong to a candidate who doesn’t fare well overall.

Rest assured, though. In another 90 days, we’ll do it all again.

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