I'll apologize for the delay in getting my election thoughts up, but only a little. Better to take a few days to digest and ponder the big questions before tossing out comments.
What did we learn on Tuesday night? Quite a few things. I'll touch on a few.
Tommy Thompson and Scott Jensen made it look easy. Mike Huebsch and John Gard thought it was easy. Guess what? It's not easy. Tommy was the charismatic leader and Jensen was the brilliant strategical mind pulling the strings behind the scenes. Even in bad years for Republicans (1992, 1996, 1998), Tommy and Scooter managed to deliver. Last night, Wisconsin Republicans found out the hard way that being that successful wasn't a fluke. It also wasn't a God-given right.
Legislative Republicans have totally orphaned the broad-themed, 60% issues that Jensen and Thompson leveraged so well. What the GOP was left with was a pastiche of smaller issues that appealed strongly to certain parts of the base but also badly marginalized parts of the electorate. And even worse, on issues like TABOR, they not only ticked off moderates, but failed to deliver to those they were pandering to.
Sure, Legislative Democrats don't have much of an agenda lined up, but guess what? That's not the job of the minority party. Their job is to convince people that they'd be a better option - or to let Republicans convince voters through their actions that they are the worse option. Republicans seem to have chosen the latter, to great success.
There were certainly national trends that favored the Democrats, but like I just noted, there have been many instances in the last 15 years when Republicans at the state level managed to be successful in down years. If Legislative Republicans just shrug their shoulders and blame this on Iraq and nationwide disdain for Republicans, they're missing the point. Heck, Jensen managed to pick up seats in 1998, a year when Republicans were being spanked for the stupidest impeachment proceedings ever.
Legislative Republicans gave voters no reason to elect them. The Republican Senate majority was just flat out dysfunctional, so there's no point in discussing their lack of cohesiveness. The leadership of John Gard and Mike Huebsch, however, has led to the sounding of the death knell on congruent policy platforms within the Assembly. Republicans don't have a serious comprehensive agenda on health care reform or K-12 finance. They haven't had a full jobs agenda in quite some time. The last serious tax cut Republicans pushed was in the 20th Century, not the 21st.
Team Jensen always had an agenda. Hell, Team Jensen usually had the entire agenda scripted, complete with theme weeks, which were designed to generate easy earned media for candidates. Team Huebsch/Gard never did that, and that's the job of the majority party. To have a plan. To take action. To get things accomplished. Instead, Gard was busy running for Congress, and Huebsch was using his political tin ear to tell Steve Freese and Gabe Loeffelholz and Rob Kreibich that they didn't have anything to worry about.
Republicans need to develop the guts to stop bending over for Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Right to Life. Banning birth control isn't going to lead the GOP back into power. Letting the only pharmacist in a rural community decide to not stock certain drugs isn't a winning issue. Going after the family planning waiver isn't going to run it up at the polls. Couple that with a candidate for governor who opposes rape and incest exceptions for abortion and you've officially got a GOP agenda that creeps most women out. I've teased Carrie Lynch about all her talk regarding reproductive rights, but she's got a point. If Republicans keep this up, they're going to hemorrhage female voters from here to eternity. Nobody's asking the GOP to be rabidly pro-choice. But you can't tilt that far and that loudly and not expect voters to cringe.
The tent, it is a changin'. As of late, Republicans have adopted a small tent approach. It's densely packed, though, and designed to generate turnout among a few small core constituencies. Republicans have primarily pandered to social conservatives, pushing issues like concealed carry, conscience clause, photo ID, flag burning, gay marriage. Some even want to let 8-year-old kids walk around in the woods with guns. But they're focused on really turning out those voters that care about these issues.
Their other approach - their old approach - is the big tent approach that was the historical basis for the majority. They talked about 60% issues. Tax reform. Tort reform. Welfare reform. Some token patriotism like reciting the pledge of allegiance in schools. Go read the Contract with America or Jensen's campaign plans in 1992 and 1994 and tell me how many issues evangelicals got in there. That isn't to say that the importance of evangelicals can't be acknowledged. Surely the Republican Party is unlikely to abandon its generally pro-life position. But when they push social issues to the front of the line, they lose the big tent atmosphere, and moderates and independents begin to feel uncomfortable hanging out at their place.
The Democrats were leaner, meaner, hungrier, and more competent than their GOP colleagues. With the abolition of the caucuses (and some of the highest paying jobs in the Capitol), most veteran GOP staff have little reason to expend the extra effort of taking leave and staffing a campaign. Assembly work rules, for example, theoretically prevent workplace retribution for failing to participate in campaign activities. Assembly leadership hasn't been especially generous in financially rewarding those who have been most active in "helping the team" during campaign season. Add together and mix. What do you get? Many knowledgeable GOP veterans who could lead saw no reason to do anything other than stuff envelopes and make calls for candidates in the Dane County area.
Assembly GOP leaders seem to have lost sight of the fact that going out and working a race requires a lot more work and a lot more personal expense than enjoying a quiet September and October in the confines of one's legislative office. So with few exceptions, the GOP sent out a campaign team this season that looked less like World Series winners and more like the Bad News Bears. At the worst possible time, the GOP was left with a campaign staff that had remarkably little experience compared to years past. The GOP thought they could just run everything from Madison. Nope.
Republicans can fix their problems. This isn't a full blown crisis for Republicans. The Jensen playbook is pretty timeless for the GOP. Recruit good candidates. Test your message. Tailor your campaigns. Elect a competent, pragmatic leadership that fosters consensus. Build cohesive agendas with broad support. Carefully screen staff selections and stop tolerating the dead wood and coffee clutchers who don't contribute. Reward staff and legislators for their hard work. If someone wants to dust a copy of that playbook off, I think Joe Wineke has a copy.
Assembly Republicans can get back to 54 in 2008. It took them a decade to get from 52 to 60. Nobody should expect them to get it all back in one cycle. But they can turn the corner and move forward.
Whether they will is yet to be seen.
What did we learn on Tuesday night? Quite a few things. I'll touch on a few.
Tommy Thompson and Scott Jensen made it look easy. Mike Huebsch and John Gard thought it was easy. Guess what? It's not easy. Tommy was the charismatic leader and Jensen was the brilliant strategical mind pulling the strings behind the scenes. Even in bad years for Republicans (1992, 1996, 1998), Tommy and Scooter managed to deliver. Last night, Wisconsin Republicans found out the hard way that being that successful wasn't a fluke. It also wasn't a God-given right.
Legislative Republicans have totally orphaned the broad-themed, 60% issues that Jensen and Thompson leveraged so well. What the GOP was left with was a pastiche of smaller issues that appealed strongly to certain parts of the base but also badly marginalized parts of the electorate. And even worse, on issues like TABOR, they not only ticked off moderates, but failed to deliver to those they were pandering to.
Sure, Legislative Democrats don't have much of an agenda lined up, but guess what? That's not the job of the minority party. Their job is to convince people that they'd be a better option - or to let Republicans convince voters through their actions that they are the worse option. Republicans seem to have chosen the latter, to great success.
There were certainly national trends that favored the Democrats, but like I just noted, there have been many instances in the last 15 years when Republicans at the state level managed to be successful in down years. If Legislative Republicans just shrug their shoulders and blame this on Iraq and nationwide disdain for Republicans, they're missing the point. Heck, Jensen managed to pick up seats in 1998, a year when Republicans were being spanked for the stupidest impeachment proceedings ever.
Legislative Republicans gave voters no reason to elect them. The Republican Senate majority was just flat out dysfunctional, so there's no point in discussing their lack of cohesiveness. The leadership of John Gard and Mike Huebsch, however, has led to the sounding of the death knell on congruent policy platforms within the Assembly. Republicans don't have a serious comprehensive agenda on health care reform or K-12 finance. They haven't had a full jobs agenda in quite some time. The last serious tax cut Republicans pushed was in the 20th Century, not the 21st.
Team Jensen always had an agenda. Hell, Team Jensen usually had the entire agenda scripted, complete with theme weeks, which were designed to generate easy earned media for candidates. Team Huebsch/Gard never did that, and that's the job of the majority party. To have a plan. To take action. To get things accomplished. Instead, Gard was busy running for Congress, and Huebsch was using his political tin ear to tell Steve Freese and Gabe Loeffelholz and Rob Kreibich that they didn't have anything to worry about.
Republicans need to develop the guts to stop bending over for Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Right to Life. Banning birth control isn't going to lead the GOP back into power. Letting the only pharmacist in a rural community decide to not stock certain drugs isn't a winning issue. Going after the family planning waiver isn't going to run it up at the polls. Couple that with a candidate for governor who opposes rape and incest exceptions for abortion and you've officially got a GOP agenda that creeps most women out. I've teased Carrie Lynch about all her talk regarding reproductive rights, but she's got a point. If Republicans keep this up, they're going to hemorrhage female voters from here to eternity. Nobody's asking the GOP to be rabidly pro-choice. But you can't tilt that far and that loudly and not expect voters to cringe.
The tent, it is a changin'. As of late, Republicans have adopted a small tent approach. It's densely packed, though, and designed to generate turnout among a few small core constituencies. Republicans have primarily pandered to social conservatives, pushing issues like concealed carry, conscience clause, photo ID, flag burning, gay marriage. Some even want to let 8-year-old kids walk around in the woods with guns. But they're focused on really turning out those voters that care about these issues.
Their other approach - their old approach - is the big tent approach that was the historical basis for the majority. They talked about 60% issues. Tax reform. Tort reform. Welfare reform. Some token patriotism like reciting the pledge of allegiance in schools. Go read the Contract with America or Jensen's campaign plans in 1992 and 1994 and tell me how many issues evangelicals got in there. That isn't to say that the importance of evangelicals can't be acknowledged. Surely the Republican Party is unlikely to abandon its generally pro-life position. But when they push social issues to the front of the line, they lose the big tent atmosphere, and moderates and independents begin to feel uncomfortable hanging out at their place.
The Democrats were leaner, meaner, hungrier, and more competent than their GOP colleagues. With the abolition of the caucuses (and some of the highest paying jobs in the Capitol), most veteran GOP staff have little reason to expend the extra effort of taking leave and staffing a campaign. Assembly work rules, for example, theoretically prevent workplace retribution for failing to participate in campaign activities. Assembly leadership hasn't been especially generous in financially rewarding those who have been most active in "helping the team" during campaign season. Add together and mix. What do you get? Many knowledgeable GOP veterans who could lead saw no reason to do anything other than stuff envelopes and make calls for candidates in the Dane County area.
Assembly GOP leaders seem to have lost sight of the fact that going out and working a race requires a lot more work and a lot more personal expense than enjoying a quiet September and October in the confines of one's legislative office. So with few exceptions, the GOP sent out a campaign team this season that looked less like World Series winners and more like the Bad News Bears. At the worst possible time, the GOP was left with a campaign staff that had remarkably little experience compared to years past. The GOP thought they could just run everything from Madison. Nope.
Republicans can fix their problems. This isn't a full blown crisis for Republicans. The Jensen playbook is pretty timeless for the GOP. Recruit good candidates. Test your message. Tailor your campaigns. Elect a competent, pragmatic leadership that fosters consensus. Build cohesive agendas with broad support. Carefully screen staff selections and stop tolerating the dead wood and coffee clutchers who don't contribute. Reward staff and legislators for their hard work. If someone wants to dust a copy of that playbook off, I think Joe Wineke has a copy.
Assembly Republicans can get back to 54 in 2008. It took them a decade to get from 52 to 60. Nobody should expect them to get it all back in one cycle. But they can turn the corner and move forward.
Whether they will is yet to be seen.
1 comment:
Excellent observations. The $467K question though, which makes Green's abortion stance irrelevant is - Green saw first hand in the assembly how the Jensen playbook worked so why didn't he utilize it in his campaign. Take the playbook and an aggressive attitude/strategy and it well could have been a different outcome in the Gov's race.
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