Newt Gingrich’s Re-Emergence

Early on, Newt Gingrich’s non-traditional ways seemed to almost destroy his campaign.  He was always well aware of his role as a rebellious candidate, but his initial strategy as such simply did not work.  The question, then, is what has changed?  That is, what has he learned from the beginning of the summer, when over twelve of his staffers decided to call it quits?  The answer could be, in part, that he knew the potential for his re-emergence all along.  In a story reported by CNN’s Kevin Conlon in June, Gingrich was quoted as saying the following:  “In July of 2007 Hillary Clinton was going to be the Democratic nominee and Rudy Giuliani the Republican [nominee].  John McCain was out of money and written off by the press.  The fact is campaigns go up and down.”

The campaign’s money situation is better than it has ever been.  When his staffers decided to quit en masse during the summer, Newt was in a very precarious chicken-or-the-egg situation:  was he broke because he did not have campaign workers to raise money, or was he unable to keep staff members because he had no funds?  It did not matter to Gingrich either way; all he knew was that he was going to continue on with his candidacy.  Throughout the summer period when he had very few campaign workers, he was able to raise a mere $800,000.  However, from September to November, reports Trip Gabriel in his New York Times article “Gingrich Eager to Be More Than an Anti-Romney,” the campaign raised $4 million.

As always, Gingrich is making it his priority to run an issues-only campaign.  He is attempting to avoid the “dirty tricks” of politics, essentially protesting the less glamorous side of campaigning.  In his June article, Kevin Conlon quoted the candidate during a speech he gave regarding his troubled campaign:  “I’m not running to talk about the nuance of campaigns.”  He stated plainly that he did not want to discuss “campaign process,” but rather the issues that the campaign would seek to address.  At the time, one of the major reasons his staff decided to leave was that Gingrich refused to do campaign-like things, such as actually touring important states like, for instance, Iowa.  Now that he has accepted the necessity of such traditional campaigning strategies, he is beginning to secure more funding and support from conservative strongholds.

He is currently showing strong poll numbers – almost overtaking Mitt Romney – and is consistently gaining more support from the “anti-Romney” portion of the electorate.  As a newly-minted frontrunner, however, he will soon find himself coming under attack.  Romney will not likely be the one making the attacks, since his strategy thus far has been to sit back and watch the candidates destroy themselves.  Yet there is still enough competition in the GOP nomination race to elicit harsh criticism of Newt’s liabilities, including his marriage history and his previous stances on global warming.  If he can survive these attacks, then he will stand a good chance of maintaining a competitive edge until the Republican Convention.

Political Ads Equal Propaganda?

Evan Tracey, the president of Campaign Media Analysis Group, responds to a caller who asks about the “half truths” of the political ads being circulated.  He  claims that a particular side’s view of the truth can actually be construed as propaganda, and that it is not incumbent upon the campaign to give a context.

The Truth Scale of Attack Ads

Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact, describes the majority of 2010 campaign attack ads.  He says that many of the charges included in the ads are “barely true.”  In other words, there is a modicum of truth to the charges, but the truth is very much distorted.

Fewer Campaign Ads on Television

Charles Black, former campaign advisor to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, describes the political environment before the emergence of the internet.  He discusses how social media has become more important than the traditional television campaign ads, which was all that was at political strategists’ disposal during his time.

The Secretly Rational Jon Huntsman

When Jon Huntsman discusses an issue, he does something that an alarmingly low number of potential GOP presidential candidates are doing these days:  he makes sense.  He is not extreme, and nor is he concerned with saying anything in a dramatic fashion.  This level-headedness is, ironically, a major reason that he is doing so poorly in recent opinion polls.  Individuals like Hermann Cain, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and even Michele Bachman have a great deal of name recognition; for a few of the candidates, a potential voter might even conjure up a face with a particular context when the name is said.  Although a majority of these candidates is known best for some sort of egregious campaign mistake, the excessive coverage they receive tends unfortunately to drown out the more rational candidates.  As a result, too few people know enough about Jon Huntsman to throw their support behind him in an opinion poll.

Huntsman recognizes the sensationalism inherent in the media coverage of the Republican nominee race.  He nevertheless remains hopeful, saying that it is still the “pregame” and that people will ultimately make the rational decision as they cast their ballots.  Unlike other candidates, Huntsman is concerned less with being overtly partisan and more concerned with reinstating a level of Trust in the American political system.

His discussion of Trust in the previous video may possibly be just another work of sophistry, a means of manipulating a collectively naïve public.  Yet his point rings true either way.  Nobody seems to trust government these days – Republicans cannot trust Democrats, and vice versa; Tea Partiers choose to shun the majority of governmental action, both presidential and congressional; and even Occupy Wall Street protesters tend to be wary of the existing power structure.  At least Huntsman recognizes this sad fact.

In light of Hermann Cain’s most recent “Libya” flub, Huntsman’s experience as a diplomat working for the Bush Administration in East Asia would be a major asset to the country.  As Cain can hardly formulate an opinion on President Obama’s response to the Libya crisis and has trouble naming the leader of Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan-stan, having a commander-in-chief who speaks Mandarin fluently, like Huntsman, would be a much more preferable alternative. 

One potential snag the candidate might be experiencing is his moderate tendencies.  According to Michael D. Shear’s New York Times article, “Huntsman on Evolution? ‘Call MeCrazy,’” for instance, Huntsman does not agree with Rick Perry that evolution is a fallacy.  He agrees also that humans could potentially have left a carbon footprint, thus having a part in exacerbating the phenomenon of global warming.  “He doesn’t believe the party can be an anti-science party,” says Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller.   To those who claim that he “lacks faith” because of his pro-evolution stance, he has credentials as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan.  It is unclear if this fact is simply another snag, however.  Nevertheless, if Mitt Romney can overcome being a Mormon with certain socially liberal tendencies, then so can Huntsman.  It matters not what religion the candidate follows as long as he vows to carry out his duties with composure and rationality.

Potential Attack Ads

The most devastating attack ad of the 2004 election was arguably the "whichever way the wind blows" piece created by the Bush campaign.  In the advertisement, footage of John Kerry wind surfing in the ocean is shown while a narrator describes his history of political flip-flopping.  Flip-flopping, it seemed, was the biggest weakness of either of the candidates at that point in time.

Now it seems the only chance the GOP has to defeat President Obama in the 2012 general election is himself a documented flip-flopper – Mitt Romney.  This, in other words, is the most preferable choice for the Republicans who want to realistically take back the White House.  If the wind surfing ad was able to sway as much public opinion as it did, then imagine the potential for dramatic attack ads in the upcoming election cycle.

All Democratic political strategists would have to do before the general election would be to play clips of the candidates, followed by a narrator asking, Is this who you want for president?  In the best case scenario, it would be a message similar to the wind surfing ad; in the worst scenarios, clips from interviews like the following will be played:

When asked a direct question regarding United States foreign policy with Libya, Hermann Cain was unable to give a direct response.  This lack of a direct response is by no means a stylistic choice; he simply did not know what, exactly, the interviewer was asking, let alone an actual answer to the question. He equivocated and fumbled through the response for over five minutes, attempting to somehow make himself looks good.  He emphasized once again the unimportance of having foreign policy knowledge, as he could always “look up” facts if a situation presented itself.  Moreover, Cain gave the overtly partisan non-answer to the question:  he disagreed with how President Obama handled the crisis without really knowing what he did in the first place.  In other words, he felt that it was his duty to disagree with a Democratic president on principle.  Only later did he backtrack somewhat from this idea, when it was explained to him that many Republicans actually agreed with the president on the matter.

If Cain does not become the GOP nominee, then maybe the attack ads will look something like this:      

Realistically, this could be a case of bad nerves.  However, this flub is also a terrible mistake for a presidential candidate, as not only does it lend itself to detrimental sound-bites, but it also looks bad for the candidate when the entire question and answer sequence is viewed.  If nothing else, the potential nominee should be comfortable enough with his or her own plan that, even when placed under stress, the candidate should be able to access major points without a problem.  Ultimately, an attack ad using this video would need no framing.

Again, if Mitt Romney – the flip-flopper – becomes the nominee, then there is the potential for another wind surfing ad.  Republican strategists must not be sleeping well at night knowing that this is likely the best possible outcome of the GOP nomination process.  

Newt's Chances

CNN’s Paul Steinhauser reported Tuesday in his article, “Gingrich:  Debates helping him rise in the polls,” that the candidate is currently enjoying the support of twelve percent of Republicans and Independents with tendencies toward the GOP.  According to the article, that is a five percent increase from the previous month’s polling conducted by USA Today/Gallup.  This rise, some have conjectured, is due to the downfall of the Perry campaign, which has lost significant support since the point in time when he was considered the frontrunner. 

The recent jumps in the polls are a major victory for Gingrich, who during the summer faced a number of difficulties.  Not only did many of his very important campaign staff members resign from his campaign, but he was all but broke at the time as well.  At that point, the question was, was he broke because he had no staff to raise money, or was he unable to keep his staff members because he lacked the finances.  The most likely answer is the former, given the following comment the candidate gave to Steinhauser on the subject:  “I made a big mistake in the spring.  I brought in very smart, traditional consultants, and I’m not a traditional candidate…Those people needed to leave.  They had a vision of a traditional campaign, which I couldn’t possibly run.” 

Now that Gingrich is off and running once again, he has discussed his campaign strategy in terms of potential votes, as described in the CNN post by Gabrielle Schwarz entitled “Gingrich:  I’m the tortoise, Romney’s the hare.”  That is, he plans on securing the support of the approximately eighty percent of Republicans who have not committed to Romney; he claims that he does not need to take away the voters that have already to committed to the former Massachusetts governor, but merely needs the rest of the electorate to be on his side.  If the sexual misconduct scandal with Cain continues (or begins, rather) to hurt that candidate’s campaign, this task will become that much easier, as the votes will likely flock to Gingrich.  After Perry’s flubbed “three agencies” remark at the most recent debate, it is unlikely that he will receive any of those votes.

 

With so much seeming to go his way, what is preventing Gingrich from securing even higher poll numbers?  One answer may be his holier-than-thou attitude, which may seem unappealing to many.  As demonstrated in the following video, he does not come off as the most likeable candidate.  He appears almost – for lack of a better word – snooty with his responses. 

One other hindrance to Gingrich’s campaign is that silly technicality that is quickly turning this GOP nomination race into one big conundrum:  whichever candidate becomes the Republican presidential nominee must be able to defeat Barack Obama in the general election or else, well, what’s the point?  This very point may put Gingrich a bit too far to the right to be able to effectively compete in the general election.  It may also be why the Party establishment has been so willing to throw consistent support behind Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney in South Carolina

Various online news publications this week have discussed Mitt Romney’s presence, or lack thereof, in South Carolina.  The state is being represented as crucial to obtaining the Republican presidential nomination, as it has historically tended to side with the eventual choice for nominee.  An overall Republican stronghold, the state boasts a large number of very conservative Tea Party activists, which does not bode well for Romney; nor does the fact that Hermann Cain, a conservative Southerner, is seeing strong polling numbers there allow him much breathing room.  After all, the Romney campaign does not seem to be putting much emphasis on its operations in South Carolina – only three paid employees are currently working in the state, according to Peter Hamby and Shawna Shepherd’s CNN article entitled “Romneyfinds himself man to beat in South Carolina.”

This is interesting to note since, as the title of the article would indicate, Romney still somehow happens to be the frontrunner.  Logically speaking – and it is certainly a stretch to discuss anything in this race in a rational light – Romney is not a great match with the state.  That is, not only is he a Northerner with a few less-than-conservative views, at least within recent memory, but he is also a Mormon.  With the number of South Carolinians self identifying as Fundamentalist Christian and Evangelical reaching forty percent, the potential for Romney’s faith to be a major liability is great; and yet, the impact of religion on this particular race has so far remained minimal.    

One possible explanation for the slack Romney has been given thus far in the race is the fact that today’s major issue is the economy – something that his campaign has emphasized, and something to which his past business experience would certainly apply.  In the state in question, for instance, the population has suffered from the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country. 

Despite his strong poll numbers and economic expertise, certain political scientists believe that a Romney win in South Carolina is an impossibility.  According to Reilly Moore’s article in SpringValleyPatch.com entitled “Romney Ignores SC, Keeps Frontrunner Status,” more than a few academics agree with this assessment.  Robert Oldendick, for instance – a professor at the University of South Carolina – believes that the candidate’s win in his state would be contingent on being the frontrunner in the previous two primaries in New Hampshire and Iowa, which he believes will not happen for Romney.  Simply put, “I don’t think he can win here,” says Oldendick.

Not all academics share this view of the situation, though.  Despite his incredibly sparse campaign presence in the state, a decision which may have been a strategic one, it is still possible that Mitt Romney’s overall positive national coverage could be enough to secure him votes.  In other words, his success elsewhere has given him name recognition, even in South Carolina.  And his campaign has thus far remained error free – for the most part.  If he keeps up the clean campaigning, he might just have a good chance in the Southern state.

The American System of Presidential Debates

 

Janet Brown again discusses the presidential debates, indicating that there is no law in the United Staets which mandates that the presidential candidates must debate.  Furthermore, she notes that the United States should take pride in the fact that the Commission on Presidential Debates serves as a model for other countries who wish also to have discussion between candidates take place in a neutral forum.

The Alternative Energy Issue Debated in 2008

 

During the 2008 general election campaign, John McCain and Barack Obama debated in a town hall setting.  The two address the issue of alternative energy in a reserved way while still attempting to take political jabs at one another.

Planning Presidential Debates

Janet Brown, Executive Director of the Commission on Presidential Debates, describes the process that goes into planning presidential debates. She illustrates how setting up dates and locations are no more important than creating an effective dialogue that will stimulate interest and the desire for additional knowledge.

An Excess of Religion

Here is something that might cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand straight up:  apparently, Rick Perry is on a mission from God to take back the White House.  This might merely sound like another opinion-based blog geared toward maintaining a separation of church and state – and, to be fair, the initial framing is certainly a subjective response to new information – but a recent report from CNN’s Dan Gilgoff entitled “Rick Perry’slong faith journey culminates in presidential run,” indicates that the candidate does actually believe he is carrying out a divine undertaking.  Kelly Shackelford is quoted in the article, who was present as the presidential hopeful was discussing the topic with a group of “religious activists.”  She claims that “He didn’t want to [run for office], but he felt the Lord was calling him.” 

For Perry, religion, indeed Christianity, ought to be in the public sphere.  Gilgoff’s article’s article clearly indicates this, and not through a series of vague assertions meant to denigrate the candidate in the eyes of Democrats.  He uses clear quotations from Perry’s book, On My Honor, as well as quotes from his speeches to characterize his candidacy, and it takes little critical thinking to ascertain that his candidacy has overtly religious undertones.  In his book, Perry makes the following assertion:  “The life of a secular humanist has a depressing end.  All their possessions will be left behind, and the only thing that will matter is what God thinks of their life in the face of eternity.”  He is making a personal value judgment based on the religion of others, and his conclusion is something that he hopes to convert to public policy.

His stance on abortion is one instance in which his policy has been influenced almost entirely on religious ideology, and not necessarily on rationality.  The pro-life stance that he takes on a more general level, one could argue, can be articulated in rational terms.  Yet the policies he supports to almost blindly follow his faith-based initiative do not always stand up to sound reason.  One example includes his backing of Texas State legislation that cut funding from Planned Parenthood; the funding that was cut, however, was not to be used for abortions in the first place.  Governor Perry volunteered to promote the legislation, which needed no extra backing, despite this fact.

Last August, describes Gilgoff, Perry organized a massive prayer rally at the Texans’ Stadium in Houston, Texas.  Perry also, as an elected official, “proclaimed three days of prayer for rain” in the drought-ridden state.  Moreover, he is staunch critic of the reasonable and scientifically-based theory known as evolution.  (Yes, the previous sentence includes a few extra qualifying adjectives meant to spin the observation in a particular way.) 

Americans should be allowed to believe whatever they wish.  However, if an issue falls into the realm of public policy, then it is my opinion that it should be addressed with a solution based in rationality, never faith.  Governor Perry’s campaign promises indicate that this will not be the case if he is elected.

High-tech Lynching?

Hermann Cain is still rising in opinion polls even though he has been accused recently of sexual misconduct by former female employees of the National Restaurant Association.  According to Jon Cohen’s Washington Post article entitled “Cain rises in Post-ABC poll despite scandal; most Republicans dismiss allegations,” the Cain campaign has almost eclipsed the consistent frontrunner, Romney, trailing him by just a single percentage point.  Currently, the candidate has a whopping 23 percent of the GOP voting pool ready to throw support his way, with a great deal more support coming now from non-tea party members.  Nevertheless, the Republican electorate remains highly uncertain of their preferred candidate, as fewer than one-third of the individuals who wish to vote for Cain are ultimately unsure of who they will vote for in the upcoming primary election.  Romney is seeing a similar trend.

The scandal that has Cain on the defensive involved, at first, one previous female employee of the National Restaurant Association, and then a second.  Although the candidate consistently denies having any culpability in the matter – calling the entire scenario a “fabrication,” according to the New York Times – the two females were offered very generous severance packages, in conjunction with a confidentiality agreement, after the alleged incidents occurred.  Most substantive interviews regarding the incident with the first woman, which took place at a party, were given to reporters on the condition of anonymity.  The facts regarding the scenario that have thus been extracted must, for that reason, be treated with a responsible level of skepticism.  After all, far too many will benefit from the story to immediately believe it at face value.  Each GOP candidate, especially Perry, Romney, and Gingrich, would immediately see higher poll percentages should Cain fall.  If Cain has a good chance at becoming the Republican nominee, then the Democrats will have a stake in the matter as well.

Hermann Cain’s scandal has sparked some interesting discussion.  The term “high-tech lynching” has resurfaced, as a PAC called “Americans for Hermann Cain” recently used it to describe the current allegations regarding his alleged sexual misconduct.  The organization produced a video, shown above, that includes various media interviews that denigrate the candidate.  The end of the video includes a portion of Clarence Thomas’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, where he defends himself from similar accusations.  Both men are politically conservative African Americans, so the question has been asked, does the “left” dislike the idea of a black Republican?

The individual answering the question in the following video claims that, "the core vindication of liberalism in American society today is...well, we were right about Civil Rights, and all of those on the other side were wrong."  Thus, the argument is that for an African American to say that the Republican platform is better would rob the Democrats of their validity; they would have no justification for existing.  This observation, however, clearly overlooks the fact that the Democratic Party has tended to vote in conjunction with the interests of African Americans ever since the Civil Rights movement.  It also boils the entire focus of the American political system into nothing but race politics.  The accusation that the Democrats created the entire scandal as a modern day form of lynching is unfounded, alarmist, and even offensive to those who actually did lose their lives at the hands of lynch mobs.  Nevertheless, the interesting race dynamics of this presidential election cycle remains something to be investigated.

Patch Reporting

Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL, tells a story about how New Jersey Governor Chris Christie landed his helicopter at his son's baseball game. In this instance, patch reporting was utilized, which involves state-of-the-art technology that allows journalists to make local stories accessible on a national level.  Ariana Huffington, President of the Huffington Post, expands on the idea.

Social Media and Juries

Former Maryland Circuit Court Judge Dennis Sweeney comments on the prevalence of social media as it relates to the court system.  More specifically, he discusses the use of social media by potential jurors who tend to serve on juries because they are able to keep in touch with their jobs and families.  The issue of electronic surveillance to keep jurors from using social media during trials is also discussed.

Media, Movements, and Elections

Author Katrina Vanden Heuvel gives her views on the mainstream media today.  She claims that the media is currently focusing too much on the Tea Party movement as it pertains to the election cycle, and not enough on other movements.