THE BRIEFING: Vol. 2, ISSUE V

To: Our readers
From: David Freddoso, editor, Conservative Intelligence

  • The Democrats’ 2014 tell
  • Three steps to de-nationalize the midterm election
  • Complicated fight in Oklahoma’s special


Outlook 2014

People often compare politics to chess, and the comparison has some merit. Chess is a complicated contest of long-term strategic thinking. A single wrong move often turns a won game into a hopelessly lost one. Every game is different, yet all games have broadly applicable best-practices and time-tested, proven strategies, from which deviations are brutally punished. And throughout each game, players look for ways to convert one advantage (time, material, quality) into another.
But in some ways, politics is a less like chess than it is like poker, a game with a whole different set of skills. As an observer, even if you know what cards the players hold, you still don’t have enough information to know the outcome unless you are a good judge of the psychology around the table. Good players discern their opponents’ true opinions and act on them, hoping for a bit of luck in the process.
If you could stand next to the poker table at which this year’s high-stakes midterm elections are being played out, you’d know right away who has the better hand, even without seeing the cards.
Here’s the tell: In any given midterm, the party that nationalizes the election is going to win. The party that tries to fragment it into 500 separate races and beat each opponent separately is going to lose. “We’re going to run on local issues” is Washington-speak for “we’re about to get crushed like a paper cup.”
Senior Democrats have not yet uttered that fatal line about “local issues” this cycle, as they did in 2002 and 2010, but the process of fragmenting the election is well underway. There are three clear indications
First, Democrats are publicly discussing a “triage” strategy. This from Politico, from a couple of weeks ago:
Democrats: Cede the House to save the Senate
With Democrats’ grasp on the Senate increasingly tenuous — and the House all but beyond reach — some top party donors and strategists are moving to do something in the midterm election as painful as it is coldblooded: Admit the House can’t be won and go all in to save the Senate.
Whether or not this describes a real strategy, it’s a frank acknowledgement of what we’ve previously noted here: Democrats have very few soft Republican targets to strike at in the House, and frankly, few in either chamber this year. And the softness of the targets they do have (consider, for example, Rep. Steve Southerland in Florida’s 2nd Congressional District) depends heavily on what the the national atmosphere is like. That they would discuss “triage” so early is a sign that they see themselves in the minority in both chambers in 2015.
A second method for de-nationalizing an election is to keep national party figures — for example, the President of the United Statess — out of it. Politico again, last week:
White House’s Senate Strategy: Keep Obama Away
The White House and Senate Democrats are preparing an extensive midterm campaign strategy built around one unavoidable fact: Hardly any candidates in the most competitive states want President Barack Obama anywhere near them…Obama’s unpopularity could cost Democrats the Senate, but vulnerable incumbents need the full resources of the White House to hang onto the majority. So the president and party leadership are exploring how to deploy Obama and his team in a way that minimizes complications for Democrats in places like Colorado, Georgia or Kentucky where his polls are underwater.
Obama is president, so he cannot truly go into hiding for the rest of the year. But you get the broader point here: The Democrats’ plan for victory is to cede the House, then keep the Senate by hiding their own president. At best, this indicates that their idea of victory is to hang on to the Senate by the skin of their teeth. To understate the case, this may not strike one as a particularly optimistic approach to the midterm.
To be sure, Republicans have employed this strategy before — most recently, in 2006, when they lost the House, the Senate, and most of their bench for future presidential races. Even to draw that parallel is to recognize the dangers Democrats face.
If you look past these grand strategy items to campaign tactics, the Democrats’ weaknesses become even more obvious. A third way of un-nationalizing an election is to run against your own side on a national issue. The unofficially party-controlled SuperPACs are now running ads critical of Obamacare in order to highlight how their own members somehow “stood up” to President Obama and demanded the website be fixed. Here’s a typical example of these ads, on behalf of the badly endangered Miami freshman Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Fla. It is almost identical to ads being run for other endangered Dems such as Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona:

Yes, this ad attempts to highlight the most popular parts of the Affordable Care Act. But the fact that Democrats have to trash Obamacare (albeit mildly) in order to inoculate themselves is the sign of a devastating and potentially losing weakness. It’s a clear case of, “When you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
In short, although things could change very quickly (think of how much they have changed since the government shutdown in October), the early tells suggest Democrats have a hand as bad as anything we expect, and no way to fold and wait for another. The outward signs suggest they are bracing for a disaster.

Senate 2014

Alaska: Given his prolific fundraising (along with beneficial name-confusion with the popular Republican mayor of Anchorage), it’s not a stretch to suppose that of the Republicans in the primary election for Senate, it’s Alaska’s former Natural Resources Commissioner, Dan Sullivan, who keeps Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, up at night.
That supposition is confirmed by a new ad that the pro-Begich Put Alaska First SuperPAC has just dropped $64,000 on to produce and air in the state. Bear in mind that the Republican primary in Alaska doesn’t take place until August 19, so it’s pretty clear they view Sullivan as someone they need to beat up early. More on this, and the video of the ad itself, here.
Kentucky: The first Bluegrass poll of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s primary suggests, once again, that it isn’t very competitive — 55 percent to 29 percent. But the most damning numbers are below the topline. McConnell draws 57 percent from conservatives in his primary against Matt Bevin, the conservative, Tea Party candidate who draws only 28 percent. In other words McConnell actually does better among conservatives than among moderate Republicans. More on this here.
Louisiana: Americans for Prosperity made an incredibly large ad buy against Sen. Mary Landrieu last week — more on that here.
Oklahoma-Special: Oklahoma State House Speaker T.W. Shannon – a staunch conservative and the state’s first black Speaker — recently threw his hat into the ring for the special U.S. Senate election to succeed the retiring Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who is retiring early. Shannon will face U.S. Rep. James Lankford, R, an ally of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Shannon begins as a huge underdog in this race. A recent poll by Harper Polling (our pollster, but not our poll) found Lankford starts with a pretty commanding lead of 54 to 18 percent, with a little-known third GOP candidate receiving just 1 percent of the vote. But if Shannon has a chance, it is because he stands to benefit from conservative suspicions of Lankford.
Lankford’s election to the House in 2010 was strictly a grassroots affair — he figuratively came out of nowhere, made the runoff in a crowded primary, and then routed the favorite, former State Rep. Kevin Calvey (who had the backing of the Club for Growth). In winning that race, Lankford, a former director of the nation’s largest Christian youth camp, relied heavily on church volunteers.
Shannon is said to be the stronger fundraiser, and the Harper poll hints that he could be helped considerably if his mentor, former Rep. J.C. Watts, R, were to endorse and campaign for him. (The poll finds that Watts would lead the race, were he to jump in, which is highly unlikely.) Lankford has tried to reassure restive outside groups on the Right that he’s not their enemy.

-DF
http://www.conservativeintel.com/the...campaign=House