Thread: In a pivotal year, GOP plans to get personal

In a pivotal year, GOP plans to get personal
Millions to be spent digging up dirt, ‘defining’ Democratic candidates
By Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza
The Washington Post

Updated: 9:06 p.m. PT Sept 9, 2006

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.

The hope is that a vigorous effort to "define" opponents, in the parlance of GOP operatives, can help Republicans shift the midterm debate away from Iraq and limit losses this fall. The first round of attacks includes an ad that labeled a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin "Dr. Millionaire" and noted that he has sued 80 patients.

"Opposition research is power," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (N.Y.), the NRCC chairman. "Opposition research is the key to defining untested opponents."

The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has enlisted veteran party strategist Terry Nelson to run a campaign that will coordinate with Senate Republicans on ads that similarly will rely on the best of the worst that researchers have dug up on Democrats. The first ad run by the new RNC effort criticizes Ohio Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) for voting against proposals designed to toughen border protection and deport illegal immigrants.

Challengers make easy targets
Because challengers tend to be little-known compared with incumbents, they are more vulnerable to having their public image framed by the opposition through attacks and unflattering personal revelations.

And with polls showing the Republicans' House and Senate majorities in jeopardy, party strategists said they have concluded that their best chance to prevent big Democratic gains is a television and direct-mail blitz over the next eight weeks aimed at raising enough questions about Democratic candidates that voters decide they are unacceptable choices.

"When you run in an adverse political environment, you try to localize and personalize the race as much as you can," Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said.

In a memo released last week, Cole, who is running to succeed Reynolds at the NRCC, expanded on that strategy. The memo recommended that vulnerable incumbents spend $20,000 on a research "package" to find damaging material about challengers and urged that they "define your opponent immediately and unrelentingly."

GOP officials said internal polling shows Republicans could limit losses to six to 10 House seats and two or three Senate seats if the strategy -- combined with the party's significant financial advantage and battled-tested turnout operation -- proves successful. Democrats need to pick up 15 seats to win control of the House and six to regain power in the Senate.

Going for the local body blow
Against some less experienced and little-known opponents, said Matt Keelen, a Republican lobbyist heavily involved in House campaigns, "It will take one or two punches to fold them up like a cheap suit."

Republicans plan to attack Democratic candidates over their voting records, business dealings, and legal tussles, the GOP officials said.

John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University and the author of a book on negative advertising, said Republicans and Democrats alike lack positive issues on which to run because of divisions over the war and economic policy. This will be a "very negative campaign and probably a more negative campaign than any in recent memory," Geer said.

As Republicans try to localize races, Democrats' hopes for the most part hinge on being able to nationalize the election and turn it into a referendum on the Iraq war, President Bush, and the performance of the Republican Congress -- all faring poorly in polls this year.

Bush will try to make terrorism the issue nationally, casting the election as a choice between two distinct approaches for protecting the nation from attack. Beyond that, however, most Republicans want to distance their elections from the national context.

That strategy is born of necessity. Republicans are alarmed by the large number of House and Senate incumbents who are trailing or tied in their internal polling. Many are attracting the support of less than 45 percent of likely voters -- a danger zone for any incumbent 60 days before an election. The political rule of thumb is that incumbents rarely draw a majority of voters who make up their minds in the days shortly before Election Day.

Do voters have an appetite for change?
History shows how the combination of opposition research and negative advertising can work. In 2000, Republicans unleashed a furious attack on the spending practices of Democratic House candidate Linda Chapin, including her purchase of an $18,500 bronze frog as a legislator in Florida. Chapin, then the favorite to win an open Florida House seat, lost to Republican Ric Keller. That same election cycle, Republicans dug up a tape of state Rep. Eleanor Jordan (D-Ky.) asking to speed up a vote so she could attend a fundraiser, an image that destroyed her chances of knocking off Rep. Anne M. Northup (R).

This year, the challenge is tougher, as national polling shows voters dissatisfied with the party in power and ready for a change.

"When all [Republicans] do is launch potshots, they look like they're trying to cover up the fact that they have no solutions" said Phil Singer, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

As in past elections, the bulk of negative advertising this year probably will be delivered by party committees -- a strategy that allows the candidates to distance themselves from the trash-talking messages that turn off some voters.

Digging for dirt
Wisconsin's 8th District offers an example. Earlier this summer, the NRCC sent a young staff member to the district for one week to look through court records, government and medical documents, and local newspapers to find embarrassing information about physician Steve Kagen, one of the leading Democratic candidates in an important swing district, an NRCC aide said. The researcher discovered that Kagen's allergy clinic has sued more than 80 patients, mostly for failing to pay their bills.

A new NRCC ad airing in the Green Bay area, the district's main media market, warns: "What Dr. Millionaire doesn't want you to know is his clinic left more than 80 patients behind -- suing them. That's right, suing more than 80 patients."

In recent elections, Democratic officials have complained that Republicans are much better at opposition research. But Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chair the Democrats' House and Senate campaign committees, have invested more heavily in research. Notably, the researchers dig not only into Republicans, but also their own candidates. This allows Democrats to anticipate what is coming and be ready to respond quickly.

Dems also do opposition research
One Democratic research success this year came when Emanuel's staff combed though the archives of several universities to find a copy of an article Colorado Republican candidate Rick O'Donnell wrote for an obscure publication in the mid-1990s. A researcher eventually found the article at George Washington University. In it, O'Donnell argued that Social Security should be abolished -- a revelation that was highlighted in three sharply worded DSCC mailings in the district.

Direct-mail appeals often carry the most negative and potentially damaging messages. Dan Hazelwood, a leading GOP direct mail consultant, said that if a hypothetical Democratic candidate favors the establishment of a garbage dump in a section of the district, for instance, it makes more sense to "narrow-cast" this message by mail to the people most affected rather than buying an expensive, districtwide television ad.

The RNC's expanded role in part reflects concerns that Senate Republicans may not have enough money to take the fight to Democrats. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, under Chair Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), had $15 million less to spend than the DSCC at the end of July. But, the RNC is planning to make up the difference. The committee ended July with nearly $44 million in the bank, four times what the Democratic National Committee had on hand.

In setting up a separate arm to spend money on Senate races, the RNC is altering its past practice. In the past, the RNC simply transferred a large sum of money to the House and Senate campaign committees and let the chairmen decide how to spend it. This year, Nelson -- a former top official in the Bush reelection effort and political strategist for House Republicans -- will work with consultants Tony Feather and Curt Anderson to oversee the TV and direct-mail campaign, which by law must remain independent of coordination directly with candidates.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14757598/

What a waste of time and money. Stick to the issues!

Originally Posted by americangirl

What a waste of time and money. Stick to the issues!

It's always worked in the past, for both parties.

This time, I'm not so sure. People are really pissed off for one, and a lot of people no longer watch tv without using a DVR to skip commercials, especially political ones.

Plus, I'm not so sure it's a wise move running a commercial blasting "Dr. Millionaire". People may think they're talking about Senate leader Frist.

I'm going to vote for candidates who are against illegal immigration period. Anyone who is a globalist, a card carrying member of the CFR does not have my vote!!

Vote all the CFR members out!

Originally Posted by CC

I'm going to vote for candidates who are against illegal immigration period. Anyone who is a globalist, a card carrying member of the CFR does not have my vote!!

Vote all the CFR members out!

Ditto CC!

Also, any candidate who supports this President is OUT OUT OUT OUT!!

Personally, I find this RNC Tactic repugnant. For Republicans to target Democrats for voting against measures to enforce immigration law when the Big Guy in the White House has done everything within his Great Power to undermine anything the Congress has tried to do is just low-down and disgusting.

Real Republicans do not support this type of political tactic and this time I believe they will cross party lines seeking people who have stood by or attempted to stand by the American People...and it won't matter what the party is.

And I'm a 4th Generation Republican.

The RNC is a Pig Pen or the Republicans would have already removed this Maniac from the White House.

Wake Up Republicans....if there are good things you want to do, you must remove Bush and Cheney from Office.

YOU HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE.

Originally Posted by Judy

Personally, I find this RNC Tactic repugnant.

There's no doubt that it's a desperation measure. The GOP's internal polling must be looking grim.

If the Democrats actually came out with some acceptable ideas, it would be a total massacre. But that's never going to happen.

I agree. If they impeach Boosh they will do themselves a favor, the American people and the world!

I wonder why the Democrats aren't capitalizing on this and getting on the bandwagon of immigration and border security....because you're right, CountFloyd....they would take every single seat up in November!!

I wonder why the Democrats haven't tried to Impeach Bush and Cheney?

It's strange....really odd....but these are days of Ironies and Opposites, eh?

Things are not what they seem and people are not whom we always thought them to be, eh?

The Democrats, thus, are the Globalists.

ACLU
Southern Poverty Law Center
Ford Foundation
George Soros Open Borders Society
Hollywood
Open Borders Lobby
Unions

No one has been standing where they should....the Opposite of where they should be is where they've been.

What a clever clever plot to end the United States.

Get a Republican President and a Republican Controlled US Senate on board with the Democratic Open Borders Lobby and they are unstoppable.

What a Magnificent Chess Game they devised.

The Ultimate Treachery!!

The Epitome of Double-Agentry.

God Help US.

I am at a point where I hate the majority of both parties. They all seem to be totally out of touch with the reality and the desires of the American people. For me nothing is about party lines, each side has characters with little to no morals and selfish political ambitions. Most of them are pathetic excuses for human beings. I'm sick and tired of being a pawn in their poorly played game of chess.