Beating Dead Horses
Pat Ryan
So back during the campaign, TA put up a post about the HD 49 race out in East County. Apparently some of Matt Wand's Libertarian Strike Force had done a little judicious lying about their opponent Nick Kahl and TA called 'em out. Carla followed up a couple of days later clarifying the specifics and I'm thinking, "Hey, here's some good solid dirt that we can use to paint our guy as the victim."
I mean we spent years out here in HD-52 hearing one single consistent message about why they supported our Republican rep Patti Smith, "She's a nice lady." Anything said by an opponent against her would cause an outcry of unfair persecution people would rally to support her.
"Well", I say to myself, "Our own Nick Kahl Might benefit from a little righteous indignation. Might even get him a point or two in the polls." But it was not to be, as our very own Hard Bright Boyz and Gurlz had their own little ambush set, unbeknownst to we mere mortals.
See, there were vast amounts of cash and truckloads of wild eyed libertarian consultants sent down to local races all over the US. One of the big players is Americans for Prosperity, which was created by the billionaire Koch brothers to spread the the old Free Market gospel. Just last week Jeff Kropf chair of the Oregon group was bragging about how his group's "boots on the ground" were decisive in winning the race. One of their central tax policy positions is to put what they call a 23% consumption tax (actually around 30% when you do the math right) tax out there to replace all other forms of taxation. Guys like Chuck Sheketoff can explain why it's a crazy idea, but the main thing for our story is that even though Matt Wand is not a member of AFP, and he is nowhere on the record as having supported this tax, our guys decided that this was a good place to attack.
A lot of Mult Dem groundtroops were pretty pissed when the mailers started going out and a few of us in Clackamas County received some of that good lovin' too. So, you guessed it, the victimhood that I hoped would accrue to Kahl wound up with Wand. The Outlook ran multiple play by plays under the wise tutelage of Mr. Garber, no doubt, and soon enough even the Oregonian was in on the act.
I'll assert, without a shred of evidence, that even in this really bad year, we had a chance to get Cheryl Myers or Nick Kahl into the lege, and this move could have been what blew it for us.
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8:25 p.m.
Nov 18, '10
FuturePac ain't the same without Jon Isaacs (or for that matter, Speaker Merkley). these wild charges highlighted negative campaigns in many races, including HD 37. i don't know that a fully positive message would have saved any of the seats that were lost; Van Orman, Stiegler, Riley & others were simply screwed by a bad year. not sure if skipping these tax mailings would have helped Nick or not; again, this year sucked.
but as a point of principle, they were wrong to do. we are better than that. when we went after Dudley on the minimum wage, we had his own damn words to use. he advocated for a reduction in what waitresses receive; that was on video & it changed the election. the wild claim about a 30% tax was pulled from someone's butt, and that's what it smelled like to the voters.
please, never again.
11:13 a.m.
Nov 19, '10
Who controls FuturePac now?
2:44 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
George Soros I believe. After all, he is the root of all liberal evil it seems. ;)
4:13 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
I used to work for the Open Society Institute in NY, and even had to hand deliver a sandwich to Papa George (my nickname for him) once. Who knew then that I was in the presence of evil?
7:00 p.m.
Nov 22, '10
What is the basis for this overarching antipathy for George Soros? I remember Mike Malloy used to lambast wealthy progressives who refused to contribute financially to Air America, which he felt that network never really got off the ground. But is there something more sinister I'm missing?
8:44 p.m.
Nov 18, '10
Negative campaigns, particularly if undertaken by Democrats, are held to a higher standard of truth than positive ones.
9:23 p.m.
Nov 18, '10
As a contributor to Future PAC I am pretty pissed off that my money went into these ads. There was no excuse for them. While it would be great to have only positive ads, I have no complaint about attack ads that are fact based, but these stretched credibility and damaged our candidates. Given the positions of so many Republicans it shouldn't be hard to find real things to attack them with. There was no need to stretch the truth that far. Besides, we should be better than that.
7:08 a.m.
Nov 19, '10
Future PAC lost every one of its targeted races. Their polling was way off in the race I followed. In retrospect going negative was the wrong tactic. A "gut check" on thier political advisors is in order.
11:20 a.m.
Nov 19, '10
Agreed.
9:30 p.m.
Nov 21, '10
As a resident of Lane County, I was pleased to see us pull out two targeted races: Arnie Roblan and Val Hoyle. Democrats obviously lost a number of races, but I believe they won 5 of the 9 closest. I agree that negative campaigning was not used correctly in every situation, but I don't think it was the sole cause of the losses. With many state legislatures across the country losing Democratic control, I'm happy we did not lose either chamber.
10:35 a.m.
Nov 19, '10
I'm the District Leader for the Dems here in 49. In my opinion, the FP mailers definitely hurt Nick's campaign.
As I said in comments on a previous post on this subject, District 49 voters had their fill of negative campaigning and dirty politics with Karen Minnis. To continue her legacy with this type of stunt is insulting to the voters. It not only doesn't work, it backfires badly and reflects badly on the Democratic Party. Ds outnumber Rs out here by over 3,000 voters, yet the Ds are more likely to simply not vote--and this type of campaigning turns them off even more.
But I want to point out that the damage these mailers did is not over and was not limited to the campaign. Most people do not separate Future PAC from the Multnomah County Dems or local District 49 Dems. So, now we're all painted with this brush and recruiting volunteers or PCPs for the Party and getting people involved has become that much more difficult out here. We're in the position of having to mend a fence that we did not personally damage.
I hope that FP really looks at this race as a model of what NOT to do in the future and makes some serious structural changes in how they do things. Neither the campaigns nor the Party can afford these types of mistakes in the future.
1:08 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
Mel, I couldn't have said it better myself, but I want to underscore that the pushback on the negative ads was real and absolutely verifiable. Campaign volunteers in both 49 and 51 were speaking directly with voters who said they were holding back on voting for the Dem candidates - often the WHOLE SLATE of Dem candidates - because of the voters' IMPRESSIONS of the Future PAC ADs.
I say "impressions" because of this: we can argue the veracity of the ads and the possibility of Wand supporting AFP positions at length, but in a campaign the bottom line is what the voter THINKS. These mailers scored really high on the voters' BS scale.
As MultCo Chair, I was fielding calls from irate constituents; one of whom was determined to tear up his Dem registration. In most cases, I had good conversations. When they heard that I agreed with their takes AND that volunteers and County/State Dems were not involved or consulted, I hope I saved some Dem registrations. But what a ridiculous thing to have to do days before the election. (and in one case on Election Day)
The weak and generalized defense of "negative campaigns work" is not sufficient here - clearly they did not. Negative campaigns involves a litany of variables, and conditions and market must be right. For example, the "negative" campaign that underlined SPECIFIC votes taken by Gordon Smith that challenged his claim of moderation worked well, particularly since it targeted and educated folks who were under that false impression.
There is a world of difference between the 2008 Merkley race and these 2010 ads, and 2010 damaged some excellent public servants, left volunteers pulling their hair out, and left County Parties and the DPO tainted.
1:14 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
I know people certainly noticed the mailers, and I didn't hear anyone that believed them. I think a lot of people (even myself) get frustrated and lament that voters are morons sometimes, but woe to the party that actually starts to believe it.
On a broader level, I don't think we, as politically active Americans, consider enough the effect of all of this negative campaigning. Imagine if three months out of every couple years McDonald's filled the airwaves with attacks on Burger King's employees as monsters, cheats and liars, and Burger King rejoined with the same kinds of attacks on McDonald's fry-cooks and burger flippers. Millions and millions of dollars later do you think the same number of people would be going to fast food joints? Of course not. We damage our "industry" in exactly this way, and face it, no one wants to buy our hamburgers anymore. It's okay for Republicans to do it, they hate the idea of Americans working together to achieve things through their government, but for our candidates to do it is the very definition of putting personal gain above the party's and the country's gain.
Perhaps it's necessary to win (but I doubt it), but I wish we could come together and create some mechanism on the left to repair the damage we cause each cycle. Imagine if there was a fund that offset each negative ad we run during the campaign season making government and the people that run it look like monsters, with an ad that explains what the government is doing for people, and how it's making lives better every day. We do it for the Lottery, and it doesn't suffer a multi-million dollar smear campaign every couple of years.
2:57 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
One contrarian point Brian. If your opponent's hobby is kicking cute puppies, and is on the record verbally or visually as a puppy kicker, He should be attacked as a puppy kicker.
If, on the other hand, your opponent hangs out with known puppy kickers down at the puppy kickers bar and grill, but no one has actually seen him kick a puppy or tell anyone that he has, best hold fire.
6:41 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
Ohhhh Pat, this is the funniest analogy I've read in a long time! Point taken, point taken...
1:20 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
I must also mention that I am extremely uncomfortable to have to be in a position to decry the actions of an organization that is on our side of the aisle, so to speak. Generally, most issues of a campaign strategy & judgment merit an in-house review and go no further.
But as soon as the efforts of good people and other good organizations are questioned publicly, (and yes, I am speaking loudly and proudly of the dedicated bunch of folks who make up the Multnomah Democratic Party), I must defend my own publicly.
3:03 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
Heat and light Carla. I love 'em and support 'em too, but unless we air this one out, we're likely to get no more than the patronizing smile, always at the ready for the benighted volunteers and donors.
5:29 p.m.
Nov 19, '10
Yep, and that's why I am in on this chat
9:55 p.m.
Nov 20, '10
I thought it was rather telling what people thought of these ads when Win McCormick donated $2500 dollars to Shawn Lindsey (R) towards the end of the campaign.
In HD 37 where there was like a 400 vote difference you have to wonder how many of those 400 voters were annoyed Dems and NAV voters who were turned off by the ads and mailers.
There is for sure lessons to be learned here.
8:35 a.m.
Nov 21, '10
Yeah, in that one, Lindsey's opponent Ainge was actually on the record in '03 supporting the idea of a sales tax as a component of a general tax overhaul. Lindsey was not. So Ainge was particularly ill suited to push the meme.