We had an Obama office opening close to here last night, so I’ll give you my impressions and you may then extend my remarks about this office opening out to the entire country.
This is how you know you’re at the right address, when you see cars like this one:
First, it was a good turnout, with solid representation of what I believe are the main “groups” of Democrats and liberals and allies that we have here. I think that is mostly due to the work of the Obama organizer who is on the ground here and has been for about six weeks. She works really hard. She gave an intro speech last night and lost her train of thought in the middle. That has happened to me, and I like her, so I was very sympathetic. I was nearly holding my breath during what seemed like a very long, fumbling-for-words silence as she tried to remember where she was and what she had just been saying. It went on long enough for me to consider rescuing her by creating some kind of distraction. Luckily for everyone there who might have had to suffer through any lame, clumsy attempt to give her a little breathing room, she regained her composure. I think she was so tired she had reached that point we’re all familiar with where there are long spaces between phrases and transitioning from one topic to the next is like slogging through mud.
Second, I think the Issue Two fight in Ohio was good for national and local Democrats. I know the conventional wisdom nationally is that all union members and all public school teachers are rabid Democrats, but that is not true in this very conservative area. Nate Silver is the only national political person who has addressed the fact that union members in states like Ohio are not, actually, 100% Democratic voters, but perhaps there are others who do, and I just don’t read them:
More tangibly, Republican efforts to decrease the influence of unions — while potentially worthwhile to their electoral prospects in the long-term — could contribute to a backlash in the near-term, making union members even more likely to vote Democratic and even more likely to turn out. If, for instance, the share of union households voting for Democrats was not 60 percent but closer to 70 percent, Republicans would have difficulty winning presidential elections for a couple of cycles until the number of union voters diminished further.
In any event union members here are coming off a win because they succeeded in repealing SB5, and they are very optimistic and engaged, so John Kasich’s Issue Two is probably good for Barack Obama in 2012. Mitt Romney did his customary coin toss on Issue Two and the coin landed on the wrong side when it stopped spinning, when the smarter choice was probably to rely on his other two brilliant market-honed tactics, which are not answering the question at all, or making something up. Romney supported Kasich’s law, no matter which Romney shows up when he gets here.
A day after he refused to endorse an Ohio ballot measure that limits public employee union rights, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said today that he is “110 percent” behind the effort.
While he was in Ohio yesterday, Romney seemed to distance himself from anti-union measures that have lost popularity in recent months. Campaigning a day later, the former Massachusetts governor told reporters that he supports the ballot measure aimed at restricting collective bargaining rights for state employees.
Third, we have a local challenger for a safe Republican statehouse seat, and the fact that the challenger is a union member at a manufacturing facility is good for the whole ticket. Winning aside (because he is a long shot) union members here know him and they like him, personally. I think it will make a difference in enthusiasm and interest in the 2012 election as a whole. He got the United Food and Commercial Workers endorsement last night. They have 2300 members in his district. It’s been really interesting helping him with his race, because he operates in this wholly union-centric political world. We have had lots of union involvement in elections here, and I was a union member at one time, but they do have their own unique culture and priorities and political approaches and he’s very much immersed in that.
Finally, I noticed, again, that Sherrod Brown is extremely popular with Democrats here. Sherrod Brown is a liberal, and this is a conservative area. Republicans win here. If Brown wins, and I think he will, someone or other needs to seat a round table on that, pronto, because he isn’t a conservative on social issues, and he isn’t a hawk on war(s) or a peacock on deficits, but he is very well-liked among rural, red-county Democrats. They’re either bravely bucking the conventional wisdom here, or the conventional wisdom is wrong.
Thomas F
Were people aware that Obama ate dogs?!?!?
LGRooney
They opened up just down the street from me in Arlington (the real one in VA) this past weekend. Unfortunately, family matters got in the way and we were not able to attend. We’ll probably stop by this weekend.
Kay
@Thomas F:
Does he eat dogs? Figures. Monster.
pragmatism
treacher and memeorandum are going nuts about dog eating. asking if the secret service is ensuring that obama doesn’t eat bo.
Keith G
Kay, thank you so much for your reporting and analysis. I really appreciate your efforts here. I wish others had the willingness and ability to follow your lead.
Scamp Dog
I’ve been slightly involved with the Obama campaign here in the north Denver suburbs, and they just brought in another young organizer who’s taking . Kay, is the conventional wisdom you’re talking about local or national? Because if it’s national level, inside the beltway/media village CW, well, it may be conventional, but it ain’t wisdom. I have no idea about the local Ohio version, that’s your bailiwick.
Keep up the good work!
Keith G
@pragmatism: I ate a pekingese once but I was hungry an hour later.
mikej
Republicans are trying to get the asian american vote in line with the hispanic vote.
David Fud
You are absolutely right about Brown. All Democrats need to study what is working for him. If he can do it, many more could do it. A lot of us rage about conserva-Dems, and rather than rage, I would prefer to elect Dems.
burnspbesq
“Conventional wisdom is presumed wrong until proven otherwise” is a reasonable default position to take.
Ruckus
Conventional wisdom. That term always makes me think of the flat earthers. How many centuries was that the conventional wisdom? Conventional wisdom seems to be wrong far more than right. And the life it gives to bullshit is amazing.
pragmatism
@Keith G: i know a guy who has a dog training biz with the motto “we make bad dogs good and good dogs great”. he told me once that an asian customer of his asked him in jest about the motto, “what, you have some kind of sauce or something?”
beltane
@David Fud: It seems to me that many red state Dems go wrong by pandering on social issues while toeing the beltway line on economic issues, an approach that alienates everyone and inspires no one. Sherrod Brown is a genuine economic populist which means he doesn’t need to trick the rubes into voting for him by throwing them a bone on social issues. I’m not sure why so many Democratic politicians are a little slow in getting this.
SectarianSofa
@LGRooney:
As opposed to Arlington, Gloucestershire?
4tehlulz
Speaking of cars, DNC’s trolling Mitt like a pro:
Democratic National Convention Will Put Donors’ Names On Race Car
jibeaux
I want to know how to clone Sherrod Brown. Democrats do o.k. in NC, but they don’t run much of a gamut from the centrist blue dog middle. (I know former liberal darling and populist John Edwards was from NC, but let me tell you when he was here he was gung-ho right to work and didn’t accomplish or even particularly talk about anything for poor and working people, so I do not accept him as a substitute.) Then today on Facebook, this gay liberal millionaire guy who ran years ago for the Dem nomination for Senate and lost fairly predictably to the more centrist Kay Hagan, is posting in praise of Americans Elect. So maybe you see where I’m coming from.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@beltane:
You have described soon-to-be-gone Misery Senator Blanche McCaskill.
I get the sense that Brown doesn’t waffle or run skeeered of what the nasty ole wingnuts claim they’ll do to him come election time. That’s the polar opposite of dear Blanche.
Roger Moore
On the Sherrod Brown thing, I think there’s a clear, long-term difference between the general and specific. Politicians tend to start with a sort of house brand, as Democrats or Republicans, and maybe a little bit of distinction like being a liberal or a blue dog. But when they hang around for long enough, they can start to build up personal brands that can extend beyond their generic status. That’s where things like keeping promises and having good constituent services can pay off. Retail politics doesn’t work as well in a big state like Ohio, but it can make a difference if you’re good at it and keep it up for a long time. Somebody like Brown can wind up being very popular in spite of his policy positions, not because of them.
MikeJ
@Ruckus:
Eratosthenes was born in 276 BCE and he knew not only that the world was round but how big it was within 1%. Flat eartherism hasn’t been conventional wisdom since then.
Kay
@jibeaux:
I think really talented people are rare. Brown manages to pull this off. I don’t know that just anyone can do it, economic populism and social issues liberalism. Too, Ohio really is 50/50 so if he’s smart, and everything goes well, and he puts the 88 counties together just right, he can stay liberal, stay at 51%, and win. Maybe that’s not workable in NC.
Steve LaBonne
@beltane: This. Though it’s also true that he’s both really talented and really genuine, and such people aren’t that easy to come by in politics.
Matthew Reid Krell
I used to eat dogs, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: There have been far too few attempts at economic populism among Democrats, IMHO. But one of the indispensable attributes for a candidate who tries it is bluntness. It even seems to help if he looks rumpled (Brown, Sanders, Schweitzer) or acts prickly (Webb).
And the real sticking point is that there is a legion of consultants who figured out how to win Democratic seats in hostile territory with a blandly pro-business, cut-spending message — think of Lincoln, Bayh, et al, even Bill Clinton to an extent — who don’t want to mess with “success.” They’re busy trying to clone Mark Warner rather than Sherrod Brown. And there’s a lot more money on their side.
tamied
@pragmatism: This is what I say about kids. People ask if I like children and I say, it depends on the sauce…
Mickey
Thanks for the post Kay. I find your boots on the ground insights into super important Ohio very interesting.
Dildo
Looks like the Seamus nonesense will finally be put to rest, thanks to the Obama eats dogs meme. Honestly, its a big winner for the gop. Makes Obama look different and icky.
FlipYrWhig
@Mickey: Gah! For a moment there I practically choked. Because I totally misread the word “boots.”
catclub
@MikeJ: “The oldest known terrestrial globe was created in 1492, when Spanish and…”
That might be a better indicator of knowledge of a non-flat earth. The fact that it was made by Islamic scholars indicates that the general knowledge in Europe of a spherical Earth might not have been universal.
catclub
@tamied: I like the neighborhood that has signs for slower traffic: “We love our children … delicious!”
Martin
@MikeJ: You overlook the power to deny what we once knew. Acceptance of evolution is going down in this country, not up.
gwangung
Um, I think constituent services and keeping promises is every bit as important for a politician, maybe even a bit more important than their policy positions.
rikryah
I LOVE these reports from the ground. I always find them informative and will spread the word.
Linda Featheringill
@4tehlulz:
the race car with donors’ names:
That’s very nice. Maybe bunches and bunches of names all over the vehicle. Sort of like the Wall only happier.
Martin
@Kay: The economic populism works if you genuinely believe it – further if you live it. It’s easier for Joe Biden to sell it than John Kerry, simply due to the fact that Kerry is loaded and Biden much less so. That shouldn’t be surprising to anyone – it’s hard for men to sell women’s issues, or whites to sell minority issues. That’s why equal representations is SO important – not just for women and minorities and gays and Muslims but also for blue collar and service workers. You need farmers in Congress.
goblue72
I think a number of folks have touched on how Brown pulls it off – and I think its a repeatable secret sauce. Mix together:
One Part – Disciplined attention to constitutent servics/shoe leather polictics (the Tip O’Neill model – Massachusetts politicos in particular are experienced old hats at this – even a Ted Kennedy who could sleep his way through a re-election was well known for having top notch field offices and constituent services.)
Plus One Part – Consistent economic populism and support for pure lunch pail issues.
Plus One Part – Unapologetic support for those lunch pail issues as well as the progressive social issues that conservative voters might otherwise disagree with. I.e. not backing down to the Republicans.
Combine those three, and a candidate can win in more conservative areas.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I am starting to think “blunt”, in politicianese, means “honest”. Sherrod Brown sounds exactly the same on a voting rights conference call as he does on television.
Slightly more partisan and angry, but essentially the same person.
I agree with you on economic populism, though. It isn’t simply a matter of style. There’s no money in it, and that’s why more Democrats don’t try it. Because what’s the down side? They lose as often as they win when they’re reasonable Wall-street centrists anyway. What the hell. Tell the truth. See how that goes.
There are other trade-offs midwestern populists make, though, and climate change legislation is an example of that. Feingold and Franken and Brown split off from the liberal side over that, because they had to. Manufacturing is energy-use-heavy, and so is agriculture. Also, it’s cold. They can’t blow off heating cost increases as no big deal.
nellcote
Our “problem” around here is too many liberals running!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/15/MNHG1O1TRE.DTL&ao=all
ruemara
I love these posts, they really give me hope. And I have no idea what Obama eats dogs means.
Ruckus
@MikeJ:
Maybe you missed the whole point of the “conventional wisdom” idea? Sure some people knew the earth was not flat long before it was accepted but many did not believe it. Facts be damned. That it was completely wrong, did not matter. We believe what we want to, not necessarily the truth. Hence conventional wisdom. Often wrong, never in doubt.
nellcote
@ruemara:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/obama-as-a-boy-ate-dog-meat/
Bobby Thomson
There’s a huge selection bias that determined who attended your meeting. Sure, Brown is popular with Democrats, but that doesn’t tell you anything about how he is perceived by other voters. Brown is running in a statewide race. If Brown wins, it will be because turnout in areas where Democrats win overwhelms the vote in places where Republicans win, and not that Brown has magic pixie dust. You’d have to show me conservative Republicans who view Brown favorably for me to believe in that.
ExurbanMom
Couple reasons why Brown is popular:
**he shows up to local events when he can, so people feel like they know him. He’s approachable and willing to chat.
**he has excellent constituent services.
**he has a lovely and talented wife who is very popular in her own right (the writer Connie Schultz)
**he is real, not fake, and you feel like he is being
honest with you at all times.
**MSNBC likes him, and puts him on the air 1 or 2 times a week.
In my experience, many of these qualities are rarities; putting them together in one package is extremely rare.
kay
@Bobby Thomson:
Well, I know all that. I don’t claim Brown appeals to Republicans. It’s a 50/50 state. He doesn’t need a whole lot of Republicans, and he’ll never get many, because he is, in fact, a liberal Democrat.
What I was addressing was the idea that rural Democrats require a conservative position on social issues and national security.
They don’t. Half the people in that room either go to church regularly, or are veterans, or have family members in the military. Brown is not a hawk and he’s not a (public) Bible Banger. Yet, they like him, a lot.
Foregone Conclusion
@Bobby Thomson:
I hear you, but no Democrat in this day and age is going to win over conservative Republicans, and rightly so. What Brown’s got to do is appeal to conservative Dems and indies (and perhaps a few moderate Republicans, although these days they’re probably statistically insignificant) AND get the urban/liberal base out in force. Would be interesting to see how far he’s mobilising conservative Dems, rather than just liberals though.
Roger Moore
@gwangung:
Sure, but you have to get elected before people can find out about your ability to provide constituent services and keep promises. That’s the sticking point. Once somebody like Brown gets elected, he can keep winning by doing a good job at retail politics, but it’s hard to get to the point where that’s even possible if you hold unpopular positions on the issues.
LGRooney
@SectarianSofa: I said “real” not “original.”
JoyfulA
@David Fud: In Pennsylvania, we keep having ConservaDems shoved down our throats by our supposed betters. The most recent instance of many is the 80-year-old Arlen Specter, who figured out he couldn’t get nominated by the GOP again and so decided to be a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania. His first vote as a Democrat was against cramdown, proving he’s not too quick on the pivot, but still every “important” Democrat from the president on down insisted that this elderly Republican was just what Pennsylvania needed.
Actual Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak had to spend down to his pocket linings to compete against the establishment-backed and -funded Specter. After he won the primary that should never have been, Joe had to spend the summer raising money (the usual big donors wouldn’t open their wallets), and then in the 2010 wave year, he lost by a little. He says at the end he was closing, and if he could have done retail politicking a little more instead of all that money-raising. . . .
Just one example of why I have no respect for political insiders and my betters.
No, I have no idea why those lines are crossed out. I didn’t do it; it isn’t on “editcomment.” Just pretend nothing is crossed out and read through the line.
SectarianSofa
@LGRooney:
[rolls eyes]
kay
@Bobby Thomson:
It has to be a statewide race. I buy that they need conservative Democrats in conservative districts. What I don’t buy is that they need conservative Democrats to win 50/50 states.
Look, this was supposed to work for Ted Strickland. He’s a minister, endorsed by the NRA, a budget hawk. Republicans came in with truckloads of out of state money and he lost. All I’m saying is the “What’s the Matter with Kansas” approach to rural Democrats might be a little stale. If you’re not socially conservative, it may be worthwhile to actually admit that, and promote your strengths.
Geeno
Re Conventional Wisdom: Columbus is a bad example, because the stories we have are mostly wrong.
Actually the Conventional Wisdom on Columbus’ proposed trip was that he would never make it all the way to Asia on the provisions he could carry not that he would go off the edge of the world. The skeptics were right; his whole voyage was based on the idea of the Earth being much smaller than it is. He was running out of supplies (and WELL beyond the point of no return) when he bumped into a landmass a roughly a third of the way to where he was trying to go.
a.j.
Kay, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – your posts are some of the most valuable, interesting, and reality-inducing pieces of anything that I read online. And I generally read 100% of BJ, most of dkos, and bunches of TBogg and TPM. Daily.
Thanks for your excellent work.
David Koch
thank you for the report, Kay.
please keep them coming.
debbie
“They’re either bravely bucking the conventional wisdom here, or the conventional wisdom is wrong.”
I think this is because there are people who appreciate a legislator working for them instead of the party. Sherrod may be liberal, but he does work for the people in his district.
I had a Republican state legislator when I lived in NYC, Roy Goodman, who was willing to help everyone in his district, not just fellow Republicans. Especially when they were trying to convert every apartment building into a coop, he was there, working to stop massive evictions. I attended more than one session where he would spell out exactly what our rights are. Where else would we have been able to get this kind of information?