“Go Out There and Win an Election”

October 17, 2013Danny Vinik 1 Comment

Those were the words President Obama directed towards the Republican Party today as he further emphasized that this was the end of debt-ceiling hostage-taking. If the Republican Party doesn’t like the president or his policies, it should take its message to the American people and win elections. It’s a simple argument and it also applies to moderate Republicans. If they want to take back their party, win elections. Defeat Tea Party candidates in primaries.

Liberals are hopeful that this complete and utter defeat of the Republican Party in the debt-ceiling battle will lead to a change of GOP strategy. The theory goes that the Tea Party will see that its extreme tactics don’t work and will look for more practical methods to fight the president. This is highly unlikely to happen.

Boehner did an excellent job keeping his members unified, but grassroots organizations around the country have had about enough. Molly Ball has a great story today about how many conservative activists are ready to leave the GOP and want to primary every Republican who voted for the bill. Their belief is that Republican tactics didn’t fail, their leadership did. For the moment, there’s a gap between the opinions of these activists and the Tea Party members in Congress. These congressmen had nothing, but positive things to say about the speaker yesterday while Eric Erickson, Rush Limbaugh and other notable conservatives weren’t so kind. That gap will disappear soon enough as those congressmen look to stay on the good side of Erickson and Co.

Many reform conservatives were appalled with the Tea Party’s tactics. Ross Douthat hopes this was a learning exercise for the party so that it won’t “pull this kind of stunt again.” David Frum is ready for the Tea Party to exit altogether. He’s not alone in that opinion.

But Boehner and Republican leaders know that as much as they want to do that, they can’t. Whether they like it or not, the Republican Party needs the Tea Party as much as they need the moderates. They are listening to the Tea Party and not the moderates, because the Tea Party has no problem declaring war on the establishment and jumping ship. That may be electoral suicide, but the right wing doesn’t fear those consequences. The moderates do. It’s the same reason the hard-liners didn’t fear the political consequences of a futile government shutdown or the economic consequences of breaching the debt ceiling. It’s a game of chicken between the moderates and radicals. Whoever is willing to ditch the party and cause electoral defeat for both has control. Right now, that’s the Tea Party.

That’s why Boehner can’t simply cast aside his conservative members. It’s why he must do everything in his power to keep them happy and listen to them.

The way moderates take back the party is not through a civil war, but by defeating them in elections. As these extreme tactics fail, the moderate Republicans will earn more support from the marginal Tea Party voter. Slowly, they will win back their trust. This won’t be an overnight change. It will take at least the 2014 election cycle, probably longer and there’s nothing either party can do to speed it along. It’s deeply frustrating for Democrats to look across the aisle and see a party held captive by a small fraction of extreme members. For Republicans, it’s even more frustrating to be the ones held captive by those members. But casting aside those members in a nasty civil war will be political suicide for both the establishment and the Tea Party. The best thing moderate Republicans can do is win elections.

Ted Cruz’s 2016 Presidential Hopes Take a Hit

October 16, 2013Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Pew is out with a new poll today that confirms that Sen. Ted Cruz’s #DefundObamacare strategy was viewed favorably by the Tea Party and horribly by all other Republicans.

Before the shutdown, 47% of the Tea Party viewed him as favorable, compared with just 10% who didn’t. Not surprising, he’s even more popular now. He’s gone from a +37 favorable to a +66. He’s clearly a Tea Party hero, but he already was a Tea Party hero. He didn’t need to choose a futile strategy, shut the government down, piss off the Republican establishment and surrender without accomplishing anything. Ted Cruz failed mightily, but the Tea Party is very happy with him for putting up the fight.

The rest of Republicans? Not so much. His unfavorables nearly doubled and he went from a +10 to -6 in net favorables. That’s really bad.

So, did Cruz help himself or hurt himself for his 2016 chances?

There are two different schools of thought. One is that he first needs to win the primary and that will require Tea Party support. In that regard, his plan was a huge success. The other school of thought is that he will need money and the backing of the Republican establishment as well. Clearly he has failed there.

The reason that this has been such a disaster for him is that he already was a Tea Party favorite. If he hadn’t gone on this wild goose chase, his favorables wouldn’t have improved, but they probably wouldn’t have fallen either. No one else was going to use this strategy. If the Tea Party reacted negatively to congressional Republicans not using the government budget and debt ceiling to fight Obamacare, they would’ve taken it out evenly on all the 2016 GOP candidates (at least those in Congress). The blame would have been shared equally so it wouldn’t have put Cruz at a disadvantage. There wasn’t much of an upside or downside to not using the #Defund strategy.

On the other hand, there wasn’t much of an upside to using the strategy. Cruz became a Tea Party cult hero, but he already was well-regarded. There’s only so much he can improve. However, there was a large downside. The establishment found out who it doesn’t want in 2016. And that’s Ted Cruz. They hated every bit of this and are not going to forget quickly. These are the people who Cruz needs to fund his campaign and support him. They are also the people that he hadn’t convinced to support him in 2016. After the #Defund plan, they are all but certain to find a different candidate. That trumps any gains he made amongst the Tea Party. It’s a big setback for his 2016 presidential ambitions

SD Mayor Bob Filner Has To Go

August 7, 2013August 7, 2013Danny Vinik Leave a comment

I should’ve written this post a few weeks ago, but the latest sexual assault allegations against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner leave no doubt that he has to leave office and fast. Better yet, he should be in a jail cell somewhere. This is just truly appalling:

Fernandez, along with Army veteran Gerri Tindley, joins 11 other women who have publicly accused Filner, 70, of making unwanted advances, from groping to verbal passes.

They are also among at least eight female veterans and members of the National Women’s Veterans Association of America (NWVAA) in San Diego who have made accusations against the mayor. Almost all of the women were victims of sexual assault while they were in the military.

The women, like Fernandez, say the former chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee used his significant power and credentials to access military sexual assault survivors, who they say are less likely to complain.

That’s just so vile. There certainly have been calls for Filner’s resignation over the past month, but they should be even stronger. The evidence against him is solid (he’s already checked himself into therapy, basically admitting he has a problem) and the allegations against him are so nasty. Every newspaper should be out with an editorial demanding that he resign. That’s what makes this graph a little disconcerting:

This is a Google Trends search of newspaper headlines over the past 90 days. The first allegation against Filner came on July 11th and the story picked up steam towards the end of the month, but the last couple of weeks have seen a drop in coverage. Maybe this new revelation will cause a firestorm of news stories that force Filner out of office. I hope so. Because this is beyond unacceptable for an elected official, particularly for the Mayor of a major US city. Enough of this: Filner needs to resign. Immediately.