Fire the Consultants: by Amy Sullivan

[MSgt213]

Why do Democrats promote campaign advisors who lose races?

If you were a Democrat running as a first-time candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2002, Joe Hansen was most likely a familiar part of your life. As the field director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), Hansen was responsible for recruiting promising candidates, and then for getting the nascent campaigns off to a running start. In the first overwhelming days of your campaign, Joe was a lifeline. He took you out to dinner for pep talks, broke down the fundraising process into something almost manageable, walked you through the selection of campaign staff and consultants, and promised that—if you proved you were a serious candidate by putting together the right team—the DSCC would happily write the checks that might make the difference when things really heated up in the fall. And when it came to choosing just the right firm to design and produce the fliers, postcards, and door hangers that would blanket your state in the closing weeks of the campaign, Joe recommended the very best consultant he knew: Joe Hansen.

In addition to his job at the DSCC, Hansen was also a partner in the direct mail firm of Ambrosino, Muir & Hansen. His sales pitch must have been effective—Democrats in nine of the closest Senate contests in 2002 signed up with Hansen, including Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Max Cleland in Georgia, and Alex Sanders in South Carolina. The day after the election, only two (Tim Johnson in South Dakota and Mark Pryor in Arkansas) were still standing.

Despite widespread grumbling about his aggressive sales tactics, Hansen is still part of the DSCC (he stepped down as field director midway through 2002 as criticism mounted; officially, he is now a “consultant” for the committee). What's most surprising, though, is that Democratic candidates continue to hire him despite his lousy record. After losing seven of nine close races in 2002, Hansen was again a man in demand during the last election cycle. His firm handled five of the most competitive Senate races in 2004, including the two—Tony Knowles in Alaska and Erskine Bowles in North Carolina—that prognosticators thought were most winnable. Only one of Hansen's candidates, Ken Salazar in Colorado, pulled out a victory.

Hansen is part of a clique of Washington consultants who, through their insider ties, continue to get rewarded with business even after losing continually. Pollster Mark Mellman is popular among Democrats because he tells them what they so desperately want to hear: Their policies are sound, Americans really agree with them more than with Republicans, and if they just repeat their mantras loud enough, voters will eventually embrace the party. As Noam Scheiber pointed out in a New Republic article following the great Democratic debacle of '02, Mellman was, perhaps more than anyone else, the architect of that defeat. As the DSCC's recommended pollster, he advised congressional Democrats to ignore national security and Iraq in favor of an endless campaign about prescription drugs and education. After the party got its clock cleaned based on his advice, Mellman should have been exiled but was instead...promoted. He became the lead pollster for John Kerry's presidential campaign, where he proffered eerily similar advice—stress domestic policy, stay away from attacking Bush—to much the same effect.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.sullivan.html

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Yep, it's all the consultants' faults

Press complicity and GOP dirty tricks didn't have a thing to do with it.

Repeat that 500 times a day for a week. You will actually start believing it's true.

--p!

[KoKo]

4. It's the "losing" combination of both. We need fresh faces and voices

to counteract the Repug Attack Machine of the many "Think Tanks" operatives and troops on the ground. These Dem Consultants are loser hacks and any candidate who hired them based on their losing records deserved what they got.

UNLESS: the Election Fraud is true. :shrug: In that case the hacks should be screaming to the high heavens that this election was stolen because their polls and inside work were correct. Their candidates DID NOT LOSE....The Repugs rigged the election.

So which is it? Whichever it is, if the Dem Campaign Consultants can't stand up and defend their own work then they need to move on and find other jobs.

[Dogmudgeon]

13. Why make it one-track?

Although I personally don't believe that most policy wonks are "loser hacks", a healthy turnover of leadership is usually good for any group. But the effect of a campaign manager is far weaker than most political junkies believe. They are there to provide organizational leadership and executive decision-making, not philosophical direction and vision.

A key difficulty is that most Democrats have not accepted that the Republican "revolution" is driven by heated, emotional culture-war issues -- Fundamentalist "Christianity", Machismo, and "Free" Enterprise. There is no way that issue-based politics can crack this nut, let alone a campaign manager. It would take a major breakdown in American society, comparable to the Great Depression, to cause the culturally conservative Christians to vote for a Democrat.

Unfortunately, some of the left-wing's culture-changers are equally as rhetorically abhorrent as the right-wing's -- and have, predictably, gotten the lion's share of the airtime by the Press. The Great Political Correctness Panic was set off by the Limbaughtian rhetoric of fewer than a dozen feminist scholars, given public ubiquity by scandal-hounds; Black Power advocates regularly walked into highly visible "traps" set by the Press and the Right designed to make them seem like saboteurs and bomb-throwers.

The rigging of voting machines is only one part of the culture war. There are hundreds of nasty tactics that can be used to engineer a desired vote. Cultural myopia dictates that we overlook all Republican malfeasance, while examining every small lapse the Democrats make in microscopic detail -- with interpretations provided by the stink-hungry conservative Commentariat. (E.g., the voice of feminism is no longer represented by Betty Friedan, but by Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, who "give good soundbite".)

Campaign consultants rank several links lower on the political food chain. Without culture-based (grassroots) activism aimed at reforming Christianity, eliminating bigotry and power-worship, and gaining the attention of the servile Press, our present crop of problems are here to stay. Replacing campaign consultants is, and will continue to be, a meaningless gesture.

Then there's that rigging-the-election thing. Either way, campaign managers ought not be held responsible for things they can't control (like vote rigging), nor expected to perform electoral miracles. Politics really ought to be about the "common" citizens being heard, and a wise campaign manager (and candidate, of course) will encourage that.

--p!

[lyonn]

11. Press and dirty tricks are a problem

but, the press are whores. If you put out good stuff for them to print and sell they will do it. How did Dean get so popular a year before the primaries? I noticed him on C-span and loved what he said. Then over time noticed the crowds he was drawing. No other Dem candidate had accomplished that. So then I was more interested and tried to watch all his events. He was in demand on the talk shows. So, I think you can work around the press and then be smart when it comes to what the Repubs are saying and doing. Gawd they are obvious!

[lyonn]

12. Well, the media did do a number on Dean

Always wondered why someone in his crowd didn't insist on showing the tape with the crowd noises as they actually were and not just Dean's mike? They let that episode get out of hand. So you do need smart handlers that arn't rubber stamps. I think Trippi was reading his own press clippings.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. Politics is way too narcissistic

Joe Trippi is a very good manager, but a) tried, like King Canute, to control things he had no power over (like the Press), and 2) identifies with the political "kingmaker" class.

I think he did an overall good job organizationally, but expected the Press and the Right to play fair. Whether or not he has a future depends on how well he learns and how quickly he breaks out of the mirror-gazing trap.

The "Dean Scream" was slime politics from the beginning. It's difficult for anyone to defend against it, no matter how how savvy they are. But you're right, Trippi was slow to react to it.

--p!

[sendero]

16. Ok....

.... press complicity we can do nothing about in the short term.

GOP tricks? Those can be countered by someone with the intelligence and bravery to do so.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Shrum, Brazil and their ilk to do jack sh*t. It just isn't in them, and our people seeking to win elections need to jettison these losers.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Why do you think so many of us want Dean, Clark, people who WILL break the mold. Because we've given this paradigm all the time in the world and it is not effective.

We can't fix the press overnight (although there are lots we could do to make ourselves look better and get more air time) but we can get rid of hacks who can barely think within the box much less outside it.

on edit: and one more thing. These "consultants" are merely more manifestations of a cancer that has spread throughout our party, one that we used to associate with the right wing only. It is about greed, getting mine, etc. We have so many Senators and Congresspersons and consultants that are about their "career" and their "career" only, that it looks to me like the remainder is now a minority. We will never have success at the polls as long as the primary motivator of our candidates is to protect their own asses.

[gottaB]

2. pretty outrageous --n/t

[CWebster]

3. Obvious enough.

Centrists, despite their claims to rally the broad middle, really only relate to a select group who peaked in the 90's: Yuppies.

[KoKo]

5. BTW: This article is a must read for all us DU'ers. It's our first real

look into these hacks who keep losing...and for those of us who were involved in Red States with the Kerry/Edwards campaign, I can tell you this group and the state Dem Parties are a mess. They've been doing things the way they want to for decades and no amount of losses seems to wake them up.

Here in NC they hadn't even updated their voter files. They use volunteers to handle the computer updates because they say they can't get money from the DNC into the local parties. The local parties won't allocate funds for just one full time clerical worker to update files.

Party officers on the Precinct level who were elected were not even listed on the Party Website. Records of the Vice-Chairmen and Treasurers for the Grassroots Precinct Officers were never updated so that those of us working in our communities for Kerry-Edwards weren't even on the contact e-mail or mailings from the County or State Party. It was as if we didn't exist. No matter how many phone calls we made asking for our names to be listed on Party Records, we were told, they would "get to it eventually." A year later and an election later and we still are not listed so that folks in our Precinct or Party Headquarters can contact us for meetings. If it hadn't been for the Progressive Activists (the Dean/Kucinich workers) we wouldn't have been able to function. We would have been left out of meetings and even the state Democratic Convention. We wouldn't have a voice in voting machine reform...we would have lost by even a wider margin here in NC without the activists who created their own network since the Party wouldn't help us.

There is no excuse for this. And, I'm in the State Capitol, the headquarters where I can go downtown to the seat of our State Government and talk to these people. But, officially I don't exist as an "elected officer" in their records!

I can't imagine how bad it must be out there in the rest of NC. No wonder we lose elections. Its easy to have election fraud and manipulate polls when the oppostition party doesn't even have a record of those working for it.

It is a mess out there. Maybe if the DCCC/DNC weren't paying all the money to these Campaign Consultants the local parties could afford computers and personell to update lists. Maybe we wouldn't have to pay for our own flyers and beg for yard signs and campaign literature.

Maybe we just need to start a new party.....:nuke:

[bread_and_roses]

15. Everyone should read your post

It's true, almost impossible to win win with that kind of sloppy and ineffective organization.

[bread_and_roses]

17. I meant "I wish everyone would read your post"

Since it is hardly up to me to say what everyone "should" do :). That was a spontaeneous burst of affirmation for your account - especially since it mirrors some of my own experience here in upstate NY - where local races are often won by Republicans, despite NY's "blue" status.

[blue4barb]

6. Great insight to a problem that I never thought about.

This merits our attention/input. Do you think Dean as a possible party chair would be receptive to pursuing this?

[loudsue]

7. Dean not only WOULD be receptive, but he's ALREADY doing it, despite

the fact that he's not yet the DNC Chair.

Here's the website that is organizing activists in every state. Please join, and encourage all members listed in your area, or go to already established meet-ups.

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/

Dean is working as the leader whether they elect him or not! Now THAT is a patriot, and a dedicated leader!!!

Please call all your State Committee members, and persuade them to vote for Dean as DNC chair. He's the only one that is so committed to this effort that he's already doing something about it. All the others are full of hot air, and trying to cozy-up with the corporatist interests....who will OWN them, if they are chosen as DNC chair instead of Dean.

:kick::kick::kick:

[KoKo]

10. I nominated this for homepage. So many of us Dems in our State

Organizations ran up against problems with lack of funding from DNC/DCCC ,etc. This article points out where some of the money that needed to be in the state to support "Grassroots" went. We Dems need to clean this up if we are ever going to take back House/Senate and States...

[KoKo]

8. Kick for this....amazed that all DU'ers aren't checking this one out!

[DaveinMD]

9. I go against this every day

I'm a direct mail consultant. I won 80 percent of my races last year. But it is very hard to break in to the old boy's network that makes decisions for the national party.