OCTOBER 31, 2007
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Edwards deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince makes a few points in response to my previous item. They're as follows (I'm paraphrasing):
1.) There's no historical example of someone getting killed in between wrapping up the nomination and the convention, at least not under analogous circumstances. True, Dole took a big hit from Clinton in 1996. But Clinton was an incumbent president with no opponent, and in any case Clinton himself (like Edwards) was within the public financing system.
2.) Earned media ends up mattering a lot more than paid media, and, as the nominee, you have nearly unlimited access to earned media. The real question is how you use your earned media. John Kerry, for example, was flush with cash in 2004. But he didn't respond aggressively when he was swift-boated, and that cost him the race. (Prince also points out that the swift-boat ad was a mere $1.5 million buy--hardly an example of drowning your opponent in money.)
3.) If Edwards ends up winning the nomination, he will by definition have demonstrated that it's possible to beat opponents who've massively outspent you with a compelling message.
4.) The pre-convention mismatch is something you hear about a lot from Clinton and Obama moneymen, who are basically flattering themselves by overstating their own importance as a factor in the race.
I think these are all fair points. I'd say three things in response:
1.) Clinton/Dole is a somewhat disconcerting precedent, if not so damning, even though the parallels aren't perfect. My recollection from reading former Clinton strategist Doug Schoen's memoir is that Clinton killed Dole with a lot of below-the-radar ad-buys in key swing states. By the time Dole got up and running after the convention, Clinton had more or less defined him in these places. So I agree that the national media narrative is influenced more by earned media than paid advertising. But 1996 suggests it's not just the national media narrative that matters; state-level narratives matter, too. And a big advantage in money would allow the Republican nominee to define the race in a lot of key states.
2.) It's true that, if Edwards wins the nomination, he will have proven that message can triumph over money. But voters, donors, and the media won't know this soon enough for it to matter. After all, at the time they're casting their votes, cutting their checks, and writing their stories, Edwards will not yet have beaten Clinton and Obama. The proposition will still be unproven at that point.
3.) Even if it's possible for the more compelling messenger to win despite being badly outspent, you'd still rather have that extra hundred or two hundred million between March and the convention. It's also possible for a well-coached team of unathletic no-names to beat a traditional basketball powerhouse like UCLA, but I'd still take UCLA given the choice.
Bottom line: I'm open to the idea that Edwards won't be sunk if he gets the nomination and can't wriggle out of the federal spending limits. Maybe the biggest problem he faces is the perception that it's going to be tricky, which makes his case tough to make in the primaries. (And which is obviously why we're having this exchange.)
--Noam Scheiber
11 comments
This sounds really naive but are there any good web links with percentages (if not $) and differences in campaign expense lists for each candidate? Or something close for that matter?
- hotshot22
October 31, 2007 at 10:41pm
Do you really think that the people who matter--voters--have a detailed enough understanding of campaign finance rules to take these matters into account when deciding whether or not to pull the lever for Edwards in the primary? The notion seems pretty far-fetched to me.
- aeromonas
November 1, 2007 at 3:43am
John Kerry won the nomination four years ago because everybody talked themselves into his electability. What did we learn from that disaster? Apparently, not much.
So here we are in 2007 asking whether Hillary is too unlikable and whether Edwards has enough money -- when it is clear we need to be asking who is the best person for the job.
If Edwards, who has committed to public financing, is deemed to be uncompetitive on economic grounds alone -- isn't the real story here about the failure of campaign finance reform?
The list of reasons people should not vote for Edwards is long but unimpressive: his hair, his house, his legal practice, and now his lack of money.
Sounds like 2004 all over again. Why don't we just draft Kerry and be done with it?
- purcellneil
November 1, 2007 at 8:44am
AHHH!!!!!!!!
Forget message, Edwards campaign! Presidential elections are about more than that. They're about field. How the heck are you going to start building field organizations in swing states if you're basically bankrupted?
Not only that - if we nominated Obama or Hillary, they'd dump tons of money into the states. That's money that builds their organization, but ALSO, as a side effect, builds voter lists for future races and helps downticket races. If Edwards sits on his hands until nominated and fails to send money to the states for early field organization, then one of two things will happen:
1. The GOP will have a tremendous advantage in those states. Field wins that last 1% of the vote while message wins about 49%. But it's still quite important.
2. Some stupid anti-war PAC (like MoveOn or something like ACT) will send hippies into swing states again and run an incompetent Washington-Centric field campaign based on the 1996 or 2000 voter turnout models. Local parties will fight these imbeciles and they'll all end up running in circles.
I like Edwards - but his decision to take public financing was desperation. John Kerry acted with the same desperation in 2004. I think in both cases this is a sign that there is no financial (grassroots or otherwise) nterest in both of these candidates. That's a troubling sign that (a) the campaigns aren't being run correctly and (b) John Edwards' message (economic populism/pro-labor) isn't the right message. And there's a convincing argument to be made that John Edwards is basically running on issues that no longer resonate with the Democratic primary electorate with the same intensity that they used to.
- virginiacentrist
November 1, 2007 at 9:29am
One more thing -
Don't mistake the deputy's message as some sort of appeal to voters. It's an appeal to elites (mainly in the media) to continue to take Edwards' campaign seriously, despite his desperate move (public financing).
- virginiacentrist
November 1, 2007 at 9:32am
Edwards is the innovator and the potential renovator.===================
JRE is Decent and Intelligent..======================
Hillary is automatically rejected by me for her association with the ungifted Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
I am going to vote for JRE.====================
PS.=============================
I have never seen such a misplaced out of space guy like Obama,
While I wish, Joe Biden and Chris Todd more luck.==============
- s4200
November 1, 2007 at 1:04pm
"How the heck are you going to start building field organizations in swing states if you're basically bankrupted?"
Maybe this is ridiculously naive but most voters have modems and email addresses, and belong to multiple real-life social networks-- church groups, civic and trade organizations, activist associations, neighborhood and school groups.
Is it really so difficult to find these people online, deliver targeted messages to them and engage them and their larger communities in online discussions? Is it really necessary to buy TV ads these days when you can rapidly respond to viral networks of online users in real time and without spending a penny? And do you really need an army of paid soldiers when you can recruit volunteer loyalists to spread their influence online?
I wouldn't count out Joe Trippi's candidate solely due to the lack of a warchest for TV advertising or paid staff who work offline. Different century.
- teplukhin2you
November 1, 2007 at 1:45pm
Some more unsolicited advice to Edwards: re generating "earned media", find a hot-button or sleeper issue that no one else is talking about and deliver a strong message about that issue with a liberal, unconventional spin. Immigration is the obvious choice, and in Iowa especially, the progressive message on immigration has to be
1) FIX NAFTA: the issue is not immigration but our botched economic relnship with MEXICO. NAFTA failed to increae opportunities for poor Mexicans. Revisit NAFTA and get it right.
2) To fix NAFTA, close loopholes for multi-billion $ companies like Cargill and ADM that dump subsidized cash crops into Mexico and thereby create demand among devastated Mexican campesinos for US jobs.
3) The big loser from our botched Mexico relationship is the unskilled US working class, which suffers from downward pressure on wages, race-to-the-bottom working conditions, and huge pressure on social services, esp health care and public schools in low and moderate-income neighborhoods.
4) The ultimate solution to this mess lies in Mexico. Help the Mexicans improve their educational infrastructure and encourage them with any/all incentives to follow Ireland's path upward out of poverty and desperate mass emigration.
Fixing immigration is all about workers' rights and preserving the ethos of social provision in this country. It's a PROGRESSIVE issue that has nothing whatsoever to do with race, nationality or culture.
How bout it, Johnny? Get this issue right with the right message and you can change the dynamic in the race. Might poach a few red states next fall while you're at it.
- teplukhin2you
November 1, 2007 at 1:57pm
"Is it really so difficult to find these people online, deliver targeted messages to them and engage them and their larger communities in online discussions? Is it really necessary to buy TV ads these days when you can rapidly respond to viral networks of online users in real time and without spending a penny? And do you really need an army of paid soldiers when you can recruit volunteer loyalists to spread their influence online?
I wouldn't count out Joe Trippi's candidate solely due to the lack of a warchest for TV advertising or paid staff who work offline. Different century."
Joe Trippi? He's a good guy...but this is the guy who burned through $43 million for the Dean campaign and didn't win a single state. Now we're going to give him...like...$10 million?
Also - I don't want to call you out here - but voter contact (for democrats) is about paid or volunteer door to door contact with voters. Email lists don't work because in a presidential election, folks on email lists are already (1) engaged and (2) decided. Presidential elections are about persuasion (mostly through media but a bit through voter contact) and turnout (speaking face to face with occasional-turnout voters). If you don't have money to get that operation started in the early spring, then you fall way behind. Edwards wouldn't be able to do it.
- virginiacentrist
November 1, 2007 at 3:36pm
Nobody got killed between wrapping up the nomination and the convention? Unfortunate wording, as the obvious example is Bobby Kennedy. :(
- stgla
November 1, 2007 at 3:39pm
Point taken about foot soldiers and GOTV, but re Trippi 2007's not 2004. Today Facebook has over 30 million users, MySpace has tens of millions, and there are now robust and large online social networks for every possible configuration of social group. These applications were practically nowhere in summer of 2004.
It's not hard to reach them or do micro-targeting of members of a group within a ZIP code or other local area. The point is that if you want to respond rapidly to an attack and target your response to _likely IA or NH caucus-goers_, the tools are there to wage such attacks without spending tons of money.
- teplukhin2you
November 1, 2007 at 6:38pm