The Democratic consultants whose bad advice handed Bush the victory

[Selatius]

(Plenty of links in the article itself, so don't forget to look them over as well)

THE DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANTS WHOSE BAD ADVICE HANDED BUSH THE VICTORY



The National Journal's Daily Poll Track yesterday brought news of a new national survey that ought to make Democrats disgusted with the leadership of their party sit up and take notice:

"Television advertising alone cost more than a billion and a half dollars in 2004, but who exactly was supposed to get the message?," asked the Journal. "A new Annenberg survey found that only 15 percent of voters considered voting for the other presidential candidate at any point in the election cycle. Supporters of President Bush and John Kerry were statistically even: Eighty-four percent of Bush voters and 85 percent of Kerry voters said there was never a time they thought they would cast ballots for the other candidate."

"Quoting Annenberg political director Adam Clymer, the survey's analysis suggests the results 'vindicated a campaign strategy of playing to the base and spending relatively less time and money on undecided voters or soft supporters of the other candidate,' adding that Clymer thinks 'the Bush campaign was especially skillful at implementing that strategy.'" That is, if anything, an understatement--and ignores how the Democratic campaign did just the opposite.

I wrote repeatedly and despairingly during the campaign that the national Democrats were ignoring their base and, indeed, alienating it by failing to provide a clear, understandable, and meaningful alternative to Bush on the key issues of the economy and Iraq. And who was responsible for the failed Democratic strategy? Why, the overpaid Democratic consultants whom Kerry hired, one layer after another, as he flailed about trying to get traction with the electorate. On September 8 I wrote a dissection of the terminal failings of those consultants--most of whom were, in off-years, corporate lobbyists--and whose advice was, I predicted, dooming the drive to dump Bush to disaster. A few weeks later, I wrote of the Kerry consultants: "These millionaire media goniffs and Clintonista off-year whores for Corporate America, to whom Kerry is now listening, are themselves deaf to the wails of distress coming from those Democrats in the battleground states who have been begging for a bold Kerry economic attack on Bush, which they see as the only way of having a prayer of defeating this war president by mobilizing the victims of the Bush economy and energizing the desultory Democratic base." The new Annenberg poll confirms that I wasn't wrong.

Now, in the latest issue of the Washington Monthly, Amy Sullivan--in a first-rate broadside entitled "Fire the Consultants," has provided a damning bill of indictment against these guns for hire, "a clique of Washington consultants who, through their insider ties, continue to get rewarded with business even after losing continually."

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/01/the_democratic_.html

[DELUSIONAL]

1. So this is going to be the spin ???

Not vote fraud -- hacking the vote -- voters not allowed to vote --

The victim is going to be blamed.

Bush's people did not run a brilliant campaign -- they just flew their boy around and put him in front of tiny hand picked audiences -- people do NOT show up in droves to see fuckface bush.

Kerry didn't run a perfect campaign -- he happens to be human -- but he ran a better campaign than Der Bushita.

And KERRY WON!

Exit polls are the smoking gun.

[placton]

5. both can be true - they are not mutuall exclusive

we can change the Dem consultants easier than the vote fraud

[Maat]

2. Thanks for the post.

Kind of reminds me what goes on in corporate America. They hire 'consultants' or 'professional corporate officers' all of the time. It is a mistake much of the time. Sometimes the way to go and the person to be CEO is is right in front of the Board's face - the experienced guy or gal.

[Warpy]

3. It's a closed club at the very top

Boards of directors are shockingly inbred, with the same names appearing over and over again on multiple corporate boards. Directors may themselves be CEOs of other companies.

The only way to get into this club is to be born into it.

Promoting people who know what they're doing is not part of the game any more. Promoting people who are proven leaders and moneymakers is no longer part of the game. One promotes out of one's class, generally from a company he's parachuting out of after doing a dismal job of leading it.

If you're going to lavish company money on someone to the tune of what top CEOs make, you want to keep it within your class, within the club.

People who know what they're doing can be kept where they are until they start costing the company money in benefits, and then someone else will take their place. If you're not in the club, you're an interchangeable object to be used and then discarded when no longer fresh and new.

[bemildred]

4. Almost sounds like a corrupt and decadent aristocracy, eh? nt