Post Magazine: The New Campaign

Running for president used to mean getting to know middle America. But, as Joel Achenbach asks in this week's issue of The Washington Post Magazine, do shaking hands in local diners and chatting with folks on a downtown street really make a difference in these days of exorbitant campaign fundraising?

Joel Achenbach is a staff writer for The Washington Post Magazine.

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Joel Achenbach: Let's light this candle!

Isn't that what people say??

I hope you had a chance to read the magazine story on retail politics. The gist is: The old method of winning a nomination may no longer work. The idea that you can take your ideas and your nifty personality and win a nomination in Iowa and New Hampshire, one person at a time, may be a myth at this point.

A few pieces recently supplement my article. Here's a story in the Post by Anne Kornblut about candidates zipping all over the country:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042800964.html

And a Fix item by Chris Cillizza on the same:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/05/fix_picks_tired_on_the_trail.html

And you might have seen the James Wolcott piece in Vanity Fair that talked about the You Tube campaign and which also mentioned the old Teddy White campaign-trail narrative being obviated (love that word).

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Boodlevania, MD: Tip O'Neill once famously said that "All politics is local." Given the Internet and the myriad other changes in campaigning, and politics in general, do you think that is still true?

Joel Achenbach: In some ways the presidential campaign is more local than certain governor's races. If you want to be governor of Texas or Florida or California you're not going to be working a lot of living rooms. The states are too big. The prez race, however, has wisely let a lot of the action take place in small states. It's an imperfect system to say the least (why Iowa? why NH?), but most of the political pros love it. But I think the Internet has really changed things, and also, of course, the need to campaign nationally even in this crooked-year (off year). Which means raising money and zooming all over the place rather than doing the retail.

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Los Angeles, Calif: I don't understand how the state legislatures and/or parties can't have forseen that putting all the primaries on the same day in January (which is where they're headed) turns the election over to the TV networks and the largest contributors, which are becoming large corporations and their executives who pay themselves vast sums so they can do things like influencing elections. Are the pols really such morons? Or perhaps this is the desired outcome?

Joel Achenbach: Someone who covers politics full-time could answer this question better than I can, but in essence a bunch of states wanted to have a say in the nomination. For years, California was late in the calendar. It just didn't matter. McCain told me that Arnold told him that he was tired of candidates coming through California and taking money at fundraisers but California not having any say at the polls.

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San Antonio, Tex:

Just a gestalt thing, but your very scary piece reinforced my suspicion that we're coming on one of those catastrophe theory cusp points. That we're getting to a point when things seriously break down, that we're kind of where the USSR was in 1987. Maybe 1988.

Am I being too gloomy?

Joel Achenbach: Go Spurs! Though I actually liked the Suns in that series, must confess.

I think you could make the argument that we're more like the USSR in 1995 after it already collapsed.

Consider what happened in 2000. George W. Bush raised 20 million bucks by the summer of 1999. He was the pre-ordained GOP nominee. McCain was great on the stump and of course was adored by the national media who loved riding on the S.T. Express. McCain won big in N.H. But then when the campaign went to S. Carolina, Bush came out with a flurry of attack ads on TV and the whole campaign turned ugly -- as I think most analysts would tell you. I'm not saying McCain deserved to win that race; only that ideally the contest shouldn't just be about TV ads.

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Joel Achenbach: I'm going to go to a comment I got by email from one of our readers:

"Dr. Mr. Achenbach,

I read your entire, very long, article in the May 20th Washington Post

Magazine.

I find it absolutely unconscionable that in the entire 8-9 very

intensely packed pages you consistently refused to cover, or even

mention, one of the "top of the food chain" candidates - Senator John

Edwards.

I see absolutely no reason he should not have been included in this

article. You include passages about much less likely candidates such

as Dodd, Richardson and Tancredo, the former two not having raised even

1/4 the amount of campaign funds as Sen. Edwards.

Furthermore, you have joined the entire press machine in an attempt to

ordain the two front runners, Sens. Clinton and Obama, with more than a

full page of coverage on each. Yes, they did raise the most money, but

currently John Edwards leads the polls in Iowa, and is the only

candidate who beats the Republican candidates in a head to head races

against the Republican top tier. Clinton and Obama merely tie. And

despite the money discrepancy between Edwards and the top two

candidates, Sen. Edwards had raised 3 times more money in the first

quarter than any previous presidential candidate had until this

election. Clearly he has the money to run, and the ability to win...

Your coverage

is no longer "fair handed" or "neutral"- but rather a reflection of the

conservative media conglomerate's domination of our free press."

Let me respond briefly. I wasn't trying to provide a comprehensive look at all the candidates. More Edwards would have been good. But this wasn't a roundup. I was trying to make a point about how the campaign process has changed. I don't think I mentioned Mitt Romney even once. And I don't think coverage should be dictated by how much money a candidate has raised.

Do you?

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Alexandria, Va: You wrote a very interesting article about retail politics. Although I'm sure you wanted to remain non-partisan, I couldn't help but sense a partiality toward Barak Obama, which is fine with me. And I saw you giving a positive nod to Hillary Clinton, who is "my" candidate. We simply HAVE to finally HAVE a woman president. I want to see a Clinton-Obama ticket AND a Clinton-Obama White House.

Joel Achenbach: I tried to be equitable in praise and criticism. I don't have a horse in this race. In the piece I said Obama didn't look totally polished to me in the retail event in New Hampshire, but then I made the point that what I think doesn't really matter -- it's what those people in the room, the actual voters, think.

Thanks for the comment.

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Fairfax, Va: It seems as if candidates might benefit from electronic "chats" like this. Are there any plans for the candidates to exploit the internet as a way to recapture some of that "retail politics" feeling?

Joel Achenbach: Hillary did Firedoglake recently. And a bunch did a MoveOn.org chat in April I believe. My guess is that they're better in the flesh than typing -- less chance, also, of a verbal gaffe.

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Irvington, NY: Television networks vet consumer goods advertising to ensure that sponsors can support their claims. Is this true of political advertising appearing on TV in the print media or on the internet?

Joel Achenbach: Great question about what the standards are: I don't know but I'll try to address this on my blog this week (washingtonpost.com/achenblog).

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Helpme, Wash: How many candidates do you think will last till the first primaries? Having so many makes it nearly impossible to sort out their stands. And it's so early, I just can't take this seriously.

Joel Achenbach: Great question, thanks for participating.

There's been some grumbling about the crowded stages at the early debates. There are, what, 8 Democrats and 10 Republicans so far who've passed muster sufficiently with the debate planners to earn a spot on the stage. My guess is that if you're Mike Gravel you're running such a guerilla campaign that the very notion of "how long can you last" is hard to define. In some years, fringe candidates such as Alan Keyes have kept rolling along because they're mostly media creations rather than highly networked candidates with elaborate ground games and realistic prospects of winning.

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Alexandria, Va: I'm not all agog about NH or IA, but your article did remind me how they're--in some ways--the last bastion of retail politics/shoe leather-earned support as election cycles spin out of control and costs to stay in the race skyrocket. Is there any way the national committees can try and rein in the official campaign season? Do they even want to?

Joel Achenbach: Someone's gotta do something. And soon. My guess is that Bill Gardner will move the NH primary to around Thanksgiving or so just to get it some breathing room. I don't know about the RNC but the DNC wanted to move some big states earlier on the calendar. Florida is now Jan. 29 and that could be a huge vote. What no one can tell you -- because no one knows -- is what'll we do between Feb. 5 and the political conventions in late summer. By Feb. 5 the nominees will surely be known. I guess everyone goes into hibernation for a while? It's all crazy.

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Waldorf, MD: In the lore of politics in the last half century, there are many candidates who are said to be very good campaigning in a "small room"--that is, among a handful of people such as you're describing in retail campaigning. But these same candidates who are good in small groups are said to be mediocre (or worse) in front of large audiences and on TV, etc. I think Carter was said to be this way, and to some extent G.W. Bush. Be that as it may, do you think a candidate can do really well retailing in New Hampshire and Iowa, and just look awful on TV?

And to some extent this all ties in with the question of personality versus issues. It seems to me absurd to vote for Candidate X or Y because you "like" him as a person, or he has a nice wife, 2.7 kids and a dog named Shep. What I want to know if, is this candidate (male or female, I don't care) on the "correct" side of my issues?

Joel Achenbach: Kerry wasn't great on the stump, wasn't great on TV, but I think the voters in Iowa and NH followed your line of thinking and saw him as right on the issues and more "electable" than, say, Howard Dean. Edwards is tremendous on the stump, very smooth on TV. I thought Dodd was pretty great when I saw him in NH, but you have to have some critical mass or everyone will say you don't have a chance. McCain is funny, does a lot of jokes, but when he gets into Iraq the room can fall silent for 10 minutes, the mood becoming grave, as you can imagine. The person who is most underestimated, again and again, is Hillary Clinton. She's extremely disciplined and knows what she's doing. I saw Romney and Giuliani at the CPAC meeting in DC and Romney hit it out of the park, very Reaganesque, whereas Giuliani spoke to a silent hall -- not really his crowd.

Sorry about the stream of consciousness answer.

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bc near DC: Howdy, Joel.

What are the chances that the primaries are finally working the way that they're supposed to, in that we have a huge pool of candidates to be whittled down to a few for the general election?

Considering that the Bush Administration has been running the Exec branch for the past 6.5 years (even though it feels like 6500) is it such a bad thing for the electorate to have to look at such a large pool of candidates?

bc

Joel Achenbach: I think a large pool of candidates is fine. The problem is that we're still in the first half of 2007. There are no votes scheduled in the near future. How can we whittle?

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Eldoobeht, Va: Do you think it does a candidate good to appear on The

Daily Show or the comedy talk-show circuit?

Joel Achenbach: Eldoobeht, eh? Is that near Tralfamadore?

The Letterman appearance probably didn't help McCain, as he made a slight gaffe. Gingrich said this weekend that he won't go on one of those shows to announce his candidacy this fall, because he wants to keep things dignified. Though for some reason I have a feeling that a Gingrich candidacy would become an indignty-magnet. (If that makes any sense.)

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McLean, VA: Given that there is nothing in the Consititution about primaries or conventions, do you think there is any hope that the way we select candidates will change in the future?

Joel Achenbach: Well, you might put together some bipartisan commission, led by your Bob Dole generation, to try to nudge the process. But a lot of it is driven by media. Let's face it, politics sells. Everyone wants a piece of the campaign story. Even a knucklehead like me is jumping into the fray. It's a great story -- a wide open race, no incumbent, no Veep, very divided country, we're at war, etc., so of course we're going to cover the heck out of it. But yeah, I feel like it's way too early. Something's just wrong here.

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Washington, DC: Joel, you said "My guess is that they're better in the flesh than typing -- less chance, also, of a verbal gaffe."

Do you really think they wouldn't fill a chat like this with cut-and-paste of their talking points?

Joel Achenbach: You're right and that's the other reason why a live chat might not be so great -- it might be dull. I thought Hillary's chat at Firedoglake was kind of dull and programmatic.

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Your/Their Dollars at Work... :"And I don't think coverage should be dictated by how much money a candidate has raised.

Do you?"

No, shouldn't dictate coverage But it does, because insightful, comparative, fact-ladened coverage takes time, effort and a certain degree of talent. With the excpetion of some rare and wonderful indepth pieces (like your own) rustling up that kind of reporting talent, intellectual integrity and objective verbiage are just too much hard work. Reporting by numbers is the cheap way out. And it sells just as many ads as hard work.

Joel Achenbach: Thanks for the nice words.

One problem as journalism becomes increasingly an online enterprise and opinion oriented is that stories like mine may become rarer -- it took me months to report and write. (Oh, and check out Richard Thompson's great illustrations. If you have a chance, find a real dead-tree edition of the magazine even if you have to shell out some money. Thompson is a genius, I swear.)

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College Park, MD: What cars do the candidates drive?

What cars do the spouses of the candidates drive?

Joel Achenbach: I can only tell you what Yau-Man drives.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2007/05/yauman_for_president.html

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Fairfax County, VA: I read today in the paper that Bill Richardson couldn't legally become president if it weren't that his (American) father insisted that his pregnant mother rush to give birth over the border in California. This is ridiculous. He would be just as suitable or not whether or not she took that trip.

I also think Arnold Schwarzenegger, because he was able to bypass the extremism of the primary system (due to the recall nonsense), is striking a fascinating middle course in California--but unlike Richardson, Schwarzenegger, a relative of the Kennedys for goodness' sake, is not legally qualified to be president.

This is an absurd requirement that interferes with our freedom of choice. What were the founders thinking? And is there any realistic hope the constitution will be amended to delete the "born in the USA" requirement?

Joel Achenbach: I asked Richardson about this and he said he'd like to see that provision repealed. But we didn't talk about it in any depth, so I didn't want to go so far as to report that he favored a Constitutional Amendment.

Here's the story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/20/AR2007052001407.html?hpid=topnews

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Washington, DC: Is the present system of "primaries on steroids" any better that the old system of smoke filled rooms? It seems that that old system did a pretty good job of selecting competent candidates who could actually get elected.

Joel Achenbach: That's a great question. I kind of like the idea that voters get to play a role in deciding these things, don't you? We're never going to be a perfect democracy, but letting citizens be heard seems like a good notion. That said, the nominees often tend to be the very people who would have been picked in the smoke-filled room. Gore and Bush in 2000, for example, were the frontrunners long before there was a vote. The conventional candidates favored by the party bosses usually win.

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Joel Achenbach: Here's a great question by email:

"You state that Mr. Richardson lived in Mexico and moved to America when he was very young. Could you please explain to me in which continent is Mexico located? Pleeeeease! Get your geography straight!!!!"

Point well taken. I'm running to the atlas right now...

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Columbia, MD: Dear Mr. Achenbach, People vote, but electoral college decide. Even Supreme Court have a say. With retail campaign, do you think "the will of people" count?

Joel Achenbach: It's imperfect but it's better than just having a battle of TV ads.

Folks, I gotta scramble out the door. I hope you all have a fun and productive week and, if you're in the DC area, get outside on this sparkling day.

Thanks for the questions....See you next time...Stop by the blog this week if you have more questions/comments...Cheers, Joel

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