What do we say in the last two weeks?

I don't have much time to write a diary.  Our schools were closed yesterday, so I spent the entire day and evening doing things of the Webb campaign, even as Jim Webb as in Hampton for the Virginia NAACP convention (read about that here).  And shortly I am off to spend the bulk of today in a similar fashion.

One thing in which I participated was a meeting of key grass roots leaders (not sure I qualify, but I was invited), which got me thinking about how we communicate on behalf of a candidate in these final two weeks or so.  Below the fold I will offer a few ideas, using the Webb-Allen race as a model.  You may agree, or disagree, but I hope you will consider what I write.

In any two-way race, there are several approaches one can take.  There is always the impulse to strongly attack the other side, particularly if they have been attacking you.   And after all, such an attack can suppress support for the opponent, even if you do not switch a voter to your side.  After all, one less voter for Allen is a net increase of one for Webb relative to Allen.  But there are, at least for Webb, real problems with taking such an approach.   First, some of Jim's support comes from  people who view him as a different kind of candidate, and taking such an approach runs the risk of alienating some of these voters.  Next, there are still some voters who have not yet made up their minds, as difficult to believe as that is.  Forcefully attacking Allen could mean that they say a pox on both houses and do not vote.  That would make assembling a majority far harder.  Finally, if there are voters we can switch from Allen to Webb, that is a net gain of 2 votes.  But this last is always a tricky needle to thread.

Except perhaps not in the case of Jim Webb.   Here George Allen may be his own worst enemy.  I am not talking about his use of coded language, intentionally or otherwise.  I am talking about his apparently not having core positions and being willing to do anything for political purposes.  The press in Virginia is beginning to catch on.  Yesterday a major paper, the Virginia Pilot, noted that Allen has recently changed his position on Iraq, although without much fanfare.  In an editorial entitled Allen Hedges on Iraq war  concludes their fairly scathing analysis of the change with the following:

Eleventh-hour conversions are better than none at all. But Virginians should ponder why it took Allen so long to recognize what Webb saw four years ago, and why this shift comes on the eve of a close election.

Comparative advertising, comparative remarks on issue that matter to people, is always valid, and certainly not an approach of attack except for those whose ox is gored by the truth.   Thus it becomes valid to remind voters that the position Allen is now taking is (a) different from what he forcefully argued in the debates, (b) in opposition to most of what he has said in the campaign, (c) is becoming remarkably similar to the positions Webb has held all along.  You can  (a) ask why Allen, having changed, won't honestly admit he got it wrong, (b) congratulate him on finally getting it right but wonder why he finally changed his mind, and (c) ask the voter if it doesn't make more sense on this issue to bring to the table someone who understood the issue all along rather than expect someone who despite his position on the Foreign Relations Committee has been part of an effort that has been so wrong for so long.

Kos likes to argue that what matters is not issues but values.  I agree to a point.  I think there has to be enough on issues that people can feel comfortable about a candidate.  Voters want to have a sense that a candidate's position on issues comes from some real core, and is not offered merely to win votes.  And yet there has to be something beyond that.  After all, in voting for a president people are choosing to ask that person to come into their homes on television for the next four years.  That requires some comfort level that is beyond intellectual agreement on the issues.  

People also want to have some sense that any candidate for whom they vote is someone who can understand their concerns.  I think back to the town hall debate in the 1992 presidential campaign where a woman asked if the candidates knew the price of a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a pound of hamburger meat.  That was perhaps an unfair question, but when Clinton knew the answer it made an immediate connection for many people.  The question was a surrogate -  he can understand our concerns.

Here the Webb campaign has not taken advantage of something that could be greatly helpful for Jim with rural voters.  It is about values.  And it is also about Jim.  I was talking last night with the coordinators of sportsmen for Webb.  They have manned tables at gun show around the state, and have made some inroads.  One was telling me over a beer last evening that people want to see Jim's passion and emotions, and those are most readily accessible in his writings.  This was in response to a suggestion I made, that I have discussed with Jim, and formally proposed to the campaign.  At the author's event in Charlottesville where Jim appeared onstage with John Grisham and Stephen Kind=g, Jim chose to read from near the end of Born Fighting, an extended passage in which he discusses his somewhat complicated relationship with his dad.  This includes rites of passage, fishing camps, and hunting.  There is one paragraph, which if memory serves is on page 339 (I do not have access to a copy right now), where Jim writes about getting his first gun from his father at a very young age (I think it was like 8), and him doing the same for his son Jimmy.  In a few short passages Jim displays with clarity the understanding of the role of guns to many in America, especially those with roots in or connections with the rural areas for whom hunting and fishing are so important.  It is something like this that can provide an opportunity to switch a voter from Allen to Webb.  Jim is a lifelong outdoorsman for whom these things are an essential part of who he is.  One need not discuss putting deer's heads into mailboxes to provide a contrast.  

The campaign must respond to every attack,and they are doing so.  Those of us who are campaigning on Jim's behalf, as I will be doing shortly at a Farmer's market, need to know his position on key issues so that we can answer questions.  We can expect to be challenged with the attacks made by Allen - whether on the article about women in the military or on affirmative action or on the marriage amendment to the state constitution pending in this election - and we must absolutely know the answer to those challenges.  But if all we do is respond to challenges and make challenges of our own, at best we blunt the attacks, or perhaps give a reason to vote against Allen.  At this point we need to give reasons to vote for Webb.

Jim has had three main themes throughout his campaign.  All of his issues positions can be connected to these themes.  And in having 3 main themes, he provides a clear vision of why someone should vote for him.

First, a proper approach to keeping America safe.  This has to come first, but it is not accomplished by wasting American lives and treasure in a war of choice that merely inflames people against us.  We must be willing to talk with potential adversaries and do so with their neighbors, as we did in Afghanistan and as we can still do with respect to Iraq.

Second - economic fairness.  This country is strongest when we ensure that the needs of the least well off of our people are addressed.  This ties in to support of public education, not allowing the tax code to reward businesses for shipping jobs overseas, not allowing tax benefits for ordinary people like tuition tax credits or child care to expire while major corporations pay nothing in taxes.  

Finally, since Jim is running for the Senate, reestablishing that august body as  a coequal branch that provides oversight and a check on an excessive executive.   The Senate of which George Allen has been a part has abandoned that responsibility, and we as a nation has as a result suffered greatly.

Jim Webb's life speaks to all of these issues.  He has literally put his life on the line for our sake, earning a Navy Cross, a Silver Star, two bronze stars and two purple hearts in one tour of Vietnam, simultaneously earning the undying loyalty of all the men who served under his command.  He has served in both the executive and legislative branch as a staffer addressing issues of national security, and he has throughout his life continued to study and write about such things, which is perhaps why his vision on Iraq was right before the war and Allen, despite his position on Foreign Relations, was so wrong.

Jim benefited from government help.  He attended public schools and was educated at Annapolis.  His mother had a 4th grade education.  He has, given his roots in rural America (especially southwest Virginia), a strong understanding of the difference public schools can make in people's lives.  He has seen the devastation that can occur when our tax code is used to benefit those already well off at the expense of those whose hard work is what created the wealth this country enjoys.   He is thus very much of a Jacksonian, and this is a strong part of what drew him back to the Democratic party to which most of his family had remained strongly loyal.

Jim has seen what happens when an executive is unchecked by the legislative branch.  He has also seen the difference that can be made when the two branches cooperate as the Founders intended.  He has done so from inside both branches, having served as an assistant SecDef and as SecNav in the Reagan administration, and as a legislative counsel on the Hill.  He is not running for president (although if Allen still retains hopes of such an advance he is a fool - but one can legitimately raise the issue against him.  Jim is committed to serving the people of Virginia for the next 6 years, Allen is not.)

Perhaps what I offer here might not seem relevant to other campaigns.  In a sense Jim Webb is a very unique candidate.  Yet I would surmise that if a candidate has a basic core, a similar approach might be possible.

Most important, in every race, House or Senate, those of us out on behalf of candidates need to give voters a way to connect viscerally as well as intellectually on issues.  We have to know the issue positions, but it also helps if we can explain our commitment as something other than that we want Democrats in control rather than Republicans.  We need to give people a reason to vote FOR our guys and gals and not just against the opponents.  That reason for voting FOR may vary at the margins, but at the core it is probably the same for each.  This is a person who can understand what matters to us and for us.   This is person whose positions come from a core set of values.   This is a person who will help to properly keep us safe, and ensure that we treat all Americans with fairness.  And this is a person who respects the system of government our forefathers designed, where the Congress is not merely a place for self-aggrandizement of politicians willing to stay in office at any cost, and unwilling to perform their constitutional role of ensuring that the executive comes no where near having or exercising tyrannical power.

And now I have to go campaign for Jim Webb.

Peace.

Comments