GMP1 As Canary In A Coal Mine (again)

Via David Broder's latest column:

Plouffe [Obama's campaign manager] said that "turnout is the big variable," and the campaign is devoting an unusually large budget to register scads of new voters and bring them to the polls. "That's how we win the Floridas and Ohios," he said, mentioning two states that went narrowly for George W. Bush. "And that's how we get competitive in the Indianas and Virginias," two of six or seven states that long have been Republican -- but are targets this year.

"That's why I pay more attention to the registration figures than to the polls I see at this time of year," Plouffe said. "The polls will change, but we know we need 200,000 new voters to be competitive in Georgia, and now is when we have to get them."

And Plouffe is putting his money where his mouth is (or not putting his money).

But meanwhile, David Brooks sees Unhappy Warrior McCain doing better right now then he thinks that Happy Warrior McCain would be doing.

We don't happen to believe this, but we recognize that we're in the minority opinion right now.

Campaign strategy is a funny thing. Months and months and months of set-up to lock in that final 14-day push and election day narrative.

Remember, many people thought that Rudy Giuliani's Florida strategy was great ("Hey, look at our national numbers! We're strong baby! Strong!").

Right up until the Florida Primary.

And by then it was far too late.

"Not Offering Another Version Of Change"

McCain campaign co-head Rick Davis must understand the current political environment differently than we do because we sure don't understand Team McCain's tire gauge gag at all.

And to have the email come from the top campaign aid of an American Hero?

Wasn't there some surrogate's summer intern that could have sent this out under his/her email address?

Of course, maybe we're the crazy ones.

Who listen too much to people like David Brooks, who said on Friday:

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

David, is it just my imagination or has this campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain turned personal, rough and racial, among other things?

DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: Well, it's not the campaign a lot of us were hoping for, especially a lot of us who, you know, admired John McCain a great deal.

I wouldn't say the last week has been the McCain campaign we were hoping for. And that includes John Weaver, a longtime friend and former adviser to McCain. And so it hasn't been an elevated Teddy Roosevelt-style campaign.

The question on my mind is, is it an effective campaign? The fact of the matter is this is Obama's election to lose. The country wants a change. Obama is a change. If people feel comfortable with Barack Obama, then he will win the election.

So there is a good reason to think that John McCain should just go after Obama, should just raise doubts. I mean, he should say the guy has not achieved that much in life. He's very elusive on what he stands for. He has no experience. That's a legitimate case to make. I'm not sure I'd do it via Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, but that's a legitimate case to make.

My problem with what McCain is doing is not only that it's not elevated and doesn't please people like me; I understand that. But you have to -- you could raise doubts about Barack Obama.

But if you're not offering another version of change that people can quickly understand, then people will have the doubts about Obama, but they will prefer change with doubts over no change. And I don't think John McCain is doing that other thing.

We agree.

And we don't think that this tire gauge gag is offering voters that other version of change that Mr. Brooks is talking about.

But that's just us.

David Brooks On History (and The Surge)

David Brooks has a column up on The Bush Paradox.

Our favorite graphs:

The whole episode [Bush making "right" call on troop surge in Iraq] is a reminder that history is a complicated thing. The traits that lead to disaster in certain circumstances are the very ones that come in handy in others. The people who seem so smart at some moments seem incredibly foolish in others.

The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement. Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.

But before long, the more honest among the surge opponents will concede that Bush, that supposed dolt, actually got one right. Some brave souls might even concede that if the U.S. had withdrawn in the depths of the chaos, the world would be in worse shape today.

Life is complicated. The reason we have democracy is that no one side is right all the time. The only people who are dangerous are those who can’t admit, even to themselves, that obvious fact.

Amen.

Noted: Bush's presidency has been an disaster. But his (and John McCain's) surge is starting to work. Thank God.

GMP1 Might Only Be "A Few Bloggers", But McCain Can & Must Be The Reform Candidate

David Brooks is up with a new column pointing out several uncomfortable truths facing Team Obama and Team McCain in the general election.

The whole thing, as always, is worth a read.

Especially this paragraph:

Today, [McCain] is scheduled to give a forceful speech on why “reform” is better than “change.” He plans to describe how to remobilize government and address economic anxiety. But McCain’s reform message is only being carried by him and a few bloggers. Obama can draw on a coherent body of economic work and 10,000 unified voices.

Unfortunately, Mr. Brooks is "presently" correct - Team McCain has so far done a poor job of stressing Johnny Mac's extensive record of reform.

A record of reform that must be a central thread in McCain '08's message if McCain is to stand a chance in November.

We hope that McCain's speech tonight - and the required follow through by his campaign moving forward - will start to change all that.

We're just saying.

Sound Smart At Cocktail Parties By Reading What David Brooks Has To Say

Our unabashed intellectual crush on David Brooks remains unbroken.

His column today on potential Obama/McCain VP picks is well worth the read.

Crib Notes: Nunn or Daschle for Obama. Pawlenty or Portman for McCain.

David Brooks On The Republican Party

Not breaking news. But a smart rundown of what is happening with the GOP (especially in and around Washington)

From Friday's NewsHour:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Meanwhile, the Republicans have some problems of their own. They lost, David, this week, what, the third special election in a congressional district this

DAVID BROOKS: Barack Obama has got problems, but the Republicans have a cataclysm. I mean, to lose there is just a disaster.

JUDY WOODRUFF: This is Mississippi.

DAVID BROOKS: In Mississippi. I was up on Capitol Hill with the Republican troops this week. And I told them, hey, when the Democrats get 100 senators and 435 members of the House, at least they'll extend unemployment benefits for you people, because you're going to need them.

And they are scared. They know there's a sense of real doom, the sense of the party is in real trouble. It's going to take years and years to recover. McCain might be OK, but the Republican Party as a brand is contaminated.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What do they think went wrong?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, they're blaming campaign strategy; they're blaming this and that. But fundamentally they know it's a long-term problem, that the Republican Party has been in slow decline for years. Iraq and the unpopularity of Bush have just dropped it off a cliff.

And I think they understand, or at least they should understand, that it's going to be a long, slow climb. And right now, a lot of people in the Republican Party are looking at the British Tory Party, the Conservative Party, which was out of favor for a decade-and-a-half before they slowly came back.

Snip

JUDY WOODRUFF: What can the Republicans do?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think what they should do is just totally re-brand themselves, but they haven't done that. I mean, they -- and I was struck. I've been meeting with Republicans for years. Five years ago, they knew the problem was coming. There's some immobility there that they're not adjusting to.

And they've tried to -- maybe the problem is we weren't conservative enough. But if they were more conservative, they'd be in worse shape. I mean, they really haven't adjusted to the post-Reagan era. It's still, who's the next Reagan? What would Reagan do? And I think it's just mental blindness.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That ended quite a few years ago.

DAVID BROOKS: And this...

MARK SHIELDS: Quite.

DAVID BROOKS: It took the British Conservative Party a while to realize, "We're not distinguishing ourselves only from Labour, but also from Margaret Thatcher. That was good for that era, but now it's new."

And I don't think they've done it. Frankly, I don't think the conservative think-tanks have done it. I just think it's a fundamental problem. It's not a short-term problem.

David Brooks On The NewsHour Last Night

Noted: If you aren't watching the NewsHour's 15 minute Political Wrap every Friday well, you ain't living.

In any event, last night David Brooks said this about the Republican Party (and Team McCain):

There is a temptation to run against Obama -- Jeremiah Wright, liberal college professor, pointy-headed elitist -- Republicans know how to run that campaign blindfolded

....snip...

We know it does not work. We've seen it fail in these congressional elections we've just had. We saw it fail in 2006. It will fail, it will fail, it will fail.

We absolutely agree.

Or, to put it another way (as we wrote back in July of '07) - In 2008, George W. Bush trumps Teddy Kennedy. And not in a good way for Republicans.

David Brooks Asks: Will A Conservative Revival In The United States Take 10 Years Of Wandering In The Wilderness?

Today's column by David Brooks.

Well worth a read.

Boy, You Can Say That Again. Boy, You Can...

David Brooks on Jim Lehrer Friday night on the state of the Democratic race:

Frankly, not a lot is happening in the campaign. They keep going. They get more and more exhausted. It just goes on. And finally we'll get a news event in Pennsylvania. We haven't had a news event in quite a while.

And Brooks on Petraeus, Crocker & Iraq:

JIM LEHRER: Petraeus-Crocker, first of all?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think you did hear from the questions the increased concern about the cost from the Democrats, also from the Republicans.

But I think there was a crucial moment when Barack Obama was asking questions, and he made -- he said explicitly, "There will be no precipitous withdrawal." And I think people can also see the consequence of that withdrawal, whether they're Democrats and Republicans.

And what struck me was how different the hearings were and the private discussions from the campaign trail, where it's all about, "Let's get out quickly" or, you know, "Let's stay forever."

It is clear what's going to happen. The president will leave behind 100,000 troops. Gates said that he hoped to get it below that by the end of the year; he knows now that's not going to happen. That will allow the next president to reduce it, to some degree, but we'll still have a lot of troops there.

And if the conditions stay as they are in Iraq, I think the expectation is among serious Democratic foreign policy experts we're going to have a lot of troops there for a long time, because the costs of staying are high, the costs of leaving are prohibitive, and there will be a slow, gradual drawdown.

And to me, the temper, the timing of that drawdown will actually not be set in Washington. It will be set in Iraq. If all these truces that now obtain in Iraq continue, then we'll be there. If it blows up, it doesn't matter even if John McCain is president. We're out of there.

JIM LEHRER: How did you read Petraeus' conduct, and his words, and his presentation to the Congress, and of course to the American people?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think all of us who've covered him and Ryan Crocker, who equally -- they're the A Team. They're the best we have. And I think they're candid; they're straightforward; they don't over-promise; they get incredibly detail-oriented.

I was just in an interview with Crocker with a group of columnists. And you couldn't get the guy to make a generalization. It's about, "What are you going to do?" "Well, there's this, but then there's that problem. And then we're going to do this. We're going to have the provincial elections."

It's very detail-oriented. It's very execution-oriented, though they both fervently believe that, if we get out too soon, the war will not the end, the war will escalate, there will be genocide, they will be a terrorist state.

Mr. Brooks is far from perfect.

But our love affair with his thinking is in no danger of ending anytime soon.

What's 170 Days Between Friends?

This will make you want to cry (unless you've already checked out).

David Brooks on last night's NewsHour:

JIM LEHRER: All right, so just carry it another step your way, David. Let's say they go ahead and re-do Michigan and Florida and it's still not resolved. So then what?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, there are a bunch of possibilities. If it's still unresolved after all that, maybe they have some sort of deal. And I think you've got to think radically about this. All sorts of things will be on the table.

You also have to remember there will be five months, four months of bitterness, so the atmosphere will be totally different than it is now. Our friend, Peter Hart, the pollster...

JIM LEHRER: It's going to get worse before it gets...

DAVID BROOKS: It's going to get a lot worse. Peter Hart, our friend the pollster, pointed out that we're roughly now 170 days until the Democratic convention. If you go back 170 days, that's about when Fred Thompson announced for president. That was a long time ago; it's going to feel like a long time.

JIM LEHRER: Wow.

DAVID BROOKS: We're in the second quarter. We're not in the third or fourth quarter, and it's going to get uglier.

Yuck.

Here's hoping (but we're not hopeful) that time starts more quickly slipping, slipping, slipping into the future.

David Brooks's Advice To The Clinton Campaign (And Maybe The McCain Campaign?)

David Brooks is one of the best (so is Jim Lehrer).

Which is why we stopped a Guitar Hero Party last night so that we could watch this.

Brooks's money quotes about how Clinton (McCain?) could deal with Obama:

So I would be a little more personal and say, "You've got Mr. Perfect over here. You know, he went to Harvard Law School, Columbia college, has a perfect career, perfect family, occasionally his loafers get soggy from walking on water. But, you know, I've lived an actual life. I've had some struggles like you. And I actually understand you a little better than this guy does...

Put the mask down. The second thing I'd try to do -- and this would be more difficult -- is make this ideological. Try to get from some center versus left. Say, "He's more liberal than I am. I admit it."

And I would particularly pick on some social issue or maybe fiscal discipline and try -- there has been no ideological definition between the two. I might try to establish something like that.

So that would be two quick things she could do, and she could go after his class. What's the point of being a Democrat if you can't play on social resentments?

I mean, the guy does every rally it seems at some college. He doesn't campaign outside of 50 yards of a provost's office. Maybe play on that a little. It's desperation, but I would do something like that."

Rich Lowry Is No David Brooks

We always enjoy watching National Review Editor Rich Lowry talk politics with Jim Lehrer and Mark Shields on the NewsHour.

We really do.

When Friday NewsHour regular David Brooks isn't available that is.

Because if we're going to "go" Washington/NYC political elite, we want the best.

And Rich Lowry is just no David Brooks.

But don't take our word for it.

Compare Lowry's endorsement of Mitt Romney here.

And Brook's anti-endorsement of Mitt Romney here.

See what we mean?

Crib Notes: Brooks' takeaway graphs:

But his (Romney's) biggest problem is a failure of imagination. Market research is a snapshot of the past. With his data-set mentality, Romney has chosen to model himself on a version of Republicanism that is receding into memory. As Walter Mondale was the last gasp of the fading New Deal coalition, Romney has turned himself into the last gasp of the Reagan coalition.

That coalition had its day, but it is shrinking now. The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years. Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins. Republicans’ losses have come across the board, but the G.O.P. has been hemorrhaging support among independent voters. Surveys from the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post, Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University show that independents are moving away from the G.O.P. on social issues, globalization and the roles of religion and government.

If any Republican candidate is going to win this year, he will have to offer a new brand of Republicanism. But Romney has tied himself to the old brand. He is unresponsive to the middle-class anxiety that Huckabee is tapping into. He has forsaken the trans-partisan candor that McCain represents. Romney, the cautious consultant, is pivoting to stress his corporate competence, and is rebranding himself as an Obama-esque change agent, but he will never make the sort of daring break that independent voters will demand if they are going to give the G.O.P. another look.

(emphasis ours) The leaders of the Republican coalition know Romney will lose. But some would rather remain in control of a party that loses than lose control of a party that wins. Others haven’t yet suffered the agony of defeat, and so are not yet emotionally ready for the trauma of transformation. Others still simply don’t know which way to turn.

And so the burden of change will be thrust on primary voters over the next few weeks. Romney is a decent man with some good fiscal and economic policies. But in this race, he has run like a manager, not an entrepreneur. His triumph this month would mean a Democratic victory in November.

"The leaders of the Republican coalition..."

For example, The National Review?

Exact-A-Mundo!

Canary In A Coal Mine, Brooks & McCain

Let's be honest.

Yelling about "homo" marriage, fighting the abortion fight like it's 1980 and clamoring for a cement wall around the United States are not the planks of a political party that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.

And political parties who back candidates who jump up and down screaming, "Let's bomb the sh*t out of Iran/North Korea/Venezuela/France and then drill for oil!" are headed for the ash bin of history as well.

And GreenMountainPolitics1 doesn't care how well some of "those" people did in 2002. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

This isn't a pro-Democratic Party post. Hardly.

This is a anti-Republican Party post. In the same way that a canary in a coal mine is anti-lack of oxygen.

And this birdie is chirping for change. Loud.

So Obama might be the "change" candidate of the Democratic Party.

And good for him. No Snark.

But John McCain is the "change" candidate of the Republican Party.

And the GOP can either get busy "changing". Or it can get busy picking out its spot in the Smithsonian.

But don't take our word for it. Just ask David Brooks.