Morning Jolt - Obama Campaigns Like He Governs . . . Expensively

NRO Newsletters . . .

Morning Jolt

. . . with Jim Geraghty

August 6, 2012

In This Issue . . .

1. Obama Campaigns Like He Governs . . . Expensively

2. Can Americans Persuade Each Other Anymore?

3. No Protests, Please, We're Busy Working

4. Addendum

Here's your Monday Morning Jolt.

Enjoy!

Jim

1. Obama Campaigns Like He Governs . . . Expensively

The New York Times doesn't mince words:

President Obama has spent more campaign cash more quickly than any incumbent in recent history, betting that heavy early investments in personnel, field offices and a high-tech campaign infrastructure will propel him to victory in November.

Since the beginning of last year, Mr. Obama and the Democrats have burned through millions of dollars to find and register voters. They have spent almost $50 million subsidizing Democratic state parties to hire workers, pay for cellphones and update voter lists. They have spent tens of millions of dollars on polling, online advertising and software development to turn Mr. Obama's fallow volunteers corps into a grass-roots army.

The price tag: about $400 million from the beginning of last year to June 30 this year, according to a New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission records, including $86 million on advertising.

But now Mr. Obama's big-dollar bet is being tested. With less than a month to go before the national party conventions begin, the president's once commanding cash advantage has evaporated, leaving Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee with about $25 million more cash on hand than the Democrats as of the beginning of July.

And you thought talk was cheap!

Rick Moran says we shouldn't look at the early spending as good money lost:

That early spending will pay big dividends in the end. The network of state campaign offices and grass roots outreach by the campaign is unprecedented in American political history. The online efforts of the campaign include some very sophisticated data mining efforts, as well as creative use of social media.

Meanwhile, Romney is limited in what he can spend until after the election when he will become the official nominee of the party. . . Even though Romney will probably match the Obama campaign dollar for dollar in fundraising, and even surpass them with the help of conservative super pacs, Obama's early spending has given him a decided advantage in the trenches where elections are often won or lost before the first ballot is even counted.

Still, with all of that early spending, Obama is up three in the RealClearPolitics average (which still includes that ridiculous D+19 Pew poll -- take that one out and it's a 2.1 percentage point margin) and they're even in the Pollster.com average. Obama's deluge has kept him narrowly ahead -- but in the coming months, are Americans likely to be more pleased with what Obama has done as president or less pleased?

I hear it now: "Jim, Jim, it's an Electoral College battle, not a national popular vote contest." Yes, but you're not going to see wild divergence between the national numbers and all of the swing states. As Larry Sabato observed, "Obama can't be +6 in Florida and Ohio and be -1 nationally."

Anyway, as of this morning, the Romney campaign and RNC combined have approximately $185.9 million in cash-on-hand.

2. Can Americans Persuade Each Other Anymore?

Towards the end of last week, the wonderful Mollie Hemingway looked at the reaction to Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day -- the Million Mouth March, as Jon Stewart put it -- and examined a couple of folks who responded to the Chick-fil-A diners with angry screeds and thoughts of violence, berating the drive-through clerks, comparing the crowd to a hate rally, etc. . . .

If it is true that believing marriage is the conjugal union of one man and one wife is bigoted, the equivalent to the most vile racists of the past centuries, then it makes sense to react in the way the reporter, the recently fired corporate executive and the lesbian passer-by did.

If the idea that marriage is the conjugal union of man and wife is bigotry -- and the mainstream media and the cultural elite have pounded this view non-stop for years (here's the latest example of the accompanying holier-than-thou pietism with which the view is pushed) -- then you should respond by tormenting drive-thru workers who are part of the bigotry-industrial complex. You should speak ill of people who hold this view on Facebook. Often! You should feel like eating a chicken sandwich was about people putting their boot on your chest.

The thing is, though, that it's not. And the media and the cultural elite have been lying. And they have gotten us to a place where people are unable to just be civil to each other (one Ricochet member mentioned he recently got kicked out of his fantasy football league for supporting Chick-fil-A).

It is time to start talking about what marriage is without charging people with bigotry. Some people believe that marriage is the conjugal union of a man and woman who make permanent and exclusive commitment to each other, based on their gender differences and built around conjugal acts -- those acts that naturally lead to reproduction and unite them as a reproductive unit. Other people believe that marriage is the union of two people of any sex who commit to romantically love and care for each other and share domestic burdens. . . .

Many of us are tired of cultural battles. Unfortunately, tiring of them doesn't do much to help us resolve them. So when we discuss these things, and we must, let's discuss them in a spirit of love and charity. And let's encourage others to do likewise.

It's a wonderful notion, but there's sort of a prisoner's dilemma at work here. Lots of folks who participate in public debates lament the nastiness of our public discourse, the knee-jerk impulse to name-calling, the demonization of the opposition . . . but nobody wants to be a sucker or a chump, either. If somebody calls us names or lashes out at us with rhetorical wrath and fury, few of us like the idea of responding with an eloquent, detailed, rational response that would wow the Oxford Union. All it takes is one figure who relishes the coarsest of arguments -- one Bill Maher, one Michael Savage, one Alan Grayson -- and then we're off to the races. Why treat someone with respect in a public debate if they refuse to show you the same courtesy?

Of course, this applies to almost all issues in public life right now, not just gay marriage. How often do any of us actually persuade other people on any major controversy of the day? Have any Obamacare critics encountered an argument that made them stop and think and reconsider their opposition? Has any Obamacare fan changed their mind? Do people even change their minds anymore? (I suppose Chief Justice John Roberts does.)

A little while back, I purchased trial lawyer Gerry Spence's book, How to Argue and Win Every Time. (A skill everyone would love to have, huh?) I'm not doing it justice (no pun intended) in a one-sentence summary, but the gist is, speak from the heart, be authentic, admit your mistakes and weaknesses, and prepare like a madman.

I found it intriguing and possibly effective, but the author is quick to admit that the most skilled, passionate, heartfelt, and well-reasoned argument can only work if the intended target is willing to listen and reexamine their position. Are more and more Americans simply not persuadable on most issues of the day?

Certainly, a good portion of those we see making public arguments aren't all that interested in persuading others. In all of your years of watching coverage of politics on cable news, have you ever heard a pundit say, "You know, that's a good point. I hadn't thought about it that way"? Have you ever heard that on the floor of the Senate? Has this president, or any recent president, changed position and said that it was because he heard a new argument? I'd argue Americans don't really begrudge leaders who change their minds -- it's that the motives for the changed position seem cynical and transparent: "I was opposed to gay marriage in 2008 because I needed that position to win several swing states; I support it this cycle because polling indicates the public opinion has shifted a few more points and I have concluded that I need my gay donors more than I need the shrinking number of socially conservative Democrats." "The reason I sounded much more liberal while running for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 was because I was trying to appeal to a largely liberal electorate, and I knew expressing any conservative ideas would endanger my election."

3. No Protests, Please, We're Busy Working

Periodically we get a strange indicator that there's off-the-charts enthusiasm among the conservative grassroots: The fact that

GOP primary turnout was higher than the early reports suggested, Scott Walker's win in the Wisconsin recall election, the wild turnout for the Chick-fil-A support, etc.

I like the assessment from (Almost Senator-Elect) Ted Cruz (R., Texas):

Fresh off his come-from-behind Senate primary victory, former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz (R) said the Tea Party movement that helped propel his campaign is even stronger now than it was two years ago.

"This is part of a tidal wave that began in 2010 and that tidal wave is only stronger in 2012," he told Fox News's Chris Wallace Sunday morning. "Those protests died down. I think the reason is the Tea Party went to work."

4. Addendum

Roll Call's Meredith Shiner offers a classic correction: "Best pool correction ever? 'Earlier version of pool report indicated Marine One was wearing a polo shirt and pants, not President Obama.'"

(Marine One is the helicopter, in case you don't get it.)