A tale of two Senate campaigns
Philip Rucker and Robert Costa from the Washington Post have written an article about the Democratic and Republican campaigns for the mid-term Senate elections. The over riding picture one gets when reading the article is one side (the GOP) were much more organised and willing to deal with issues than the Democrats were.
Whilst Republican Mitch McConnell was dealing with the issue of Pat Roberts’ poor campaign in the Kansas Senate race mistrust between the Obama White House and Democratic Senate colleagues was growing. In particular there was tension between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Chief of Staff David Krone and the White House.
Democrats were trying to overcome problems of their own — including difficulties with a White House suspicious of their leadership and protective of the president’s reputation, his political network and his biggest donors.
After years of tension between President Obama and his former Senate colleagues, trust between Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue had eroded. A fight between the White House and Senate Democrats over a relatively small sum of money had mushroomed into a major confrontation.
At a March 4 Oval Office meeting, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and other Senate leaders pleaded with Obama to transfer millions in party funds and to also help raise money for an outside group. “We were never going to get on the same page,” said David Krone, Reid’s chief of staff. “We were beating our heads against the wall.”
None of this paints a pretty picture of relations between Harry Reid and Barack Obama. Also why has there been tension between Obama and his own colleagues for years?
The tension represented something more fundamental than money — it was indicative of a wider resentment among Democrats in the Capitol of how the president was approaching the election and how, they felt, he was dragging them down. All year on the trail, Democratic incumbents would be pounded for administration blunders beyond their control — the disastrous rollout of the health-care law, problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs, undocumented children flooding across the border, Islamic State terrorism and fears about Ebola.
As these issues festered, many Senate Democrats would put the onus squarely on the president — and they were keeping their distance from him.
“The president’s approval rating is barely 40 percent,” Krone said. “What else more is there to say? . . . He wasn’t going to play well in North Carolina or Iowa or New Hampshire. I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean that the message was bad, but sometimes the messenger isn’t good.”
So despite the talk from prominent Democrats such as the Vice President that they were going to hold the Senate they must have known in their heart of hearts that it was going to be a tough fight.
According to Rucker and Costa the GOP had a simple strategy.
1. Don’t make mistakes.
2. Make the elections all about Obama.
3. Get good electable candidates then coach them properly.
The Republicans had some interesting methods to induct new candidates.
Minutes after landing at Reagan National Airport one day early this year, many GOP Senate hopefuls found themselves besieged at baggage claim by people with cameras yelling questions at them about abortion and rape.
This was no impromptu news conference but rather Republican staffers in disguise, trying to shock the candidates into realizing the intensity of what lay before them.
Coming back to the Republicans and the troublesome Kansas Senate race. Mitch McConnell took a leading role once he was alerted to the bumbling fumbling campaign Pat Roberts was running and insisted changes were made thus getting the show back on the road.
The overall impression is that the GOP were more determined to win, had better campaign leadership and had a much better ground game. They were no doubt motivated to do better after the 2012 presidential campaign loss.