Pryor v. Obama and Bloomberg

In his first TV ad of the cycle, Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) puts distance between himself and President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg.

Conservative Techies

At The San Francisco Chronicle, Joe Garofoli writes about Garrett Johnson and Aaron Ginn, who  have been cultivating a community of fellow GOP-leaning Bay Area techies. He mentions a Koch-financed project:

In June, their fledgling Lincoln Labs, an incubator for political tech ideas, will host a 24-hour hackathon. The goal is to encourage programmers to dream up digital ideas that use "market-based solutions (to) address big social problems," according to an online invitation. Cash prizes will be awarded for the top ideas - as well as the opportunity to further develop them.

Garofoli mentions another figure as well:

"A lot of campaigns think social media outreach is posting a funny picture on Facebook or using a hashtag" on Twitter, said Matt Shupe, who was the social media manager for Andy Vidak, a Republican who won a primary race this month for the 16th state Senate District in the Bakersfield area.

Instead, Shupe said, GOP campaigns need to do a better job of mining information about voters from what's on their Facebook pages, for example.

One reason Vidak received a large number of votes from non-Republicans in a district dominated by Democrats was that his campaign used digital outreach that "you wouldn't see in your standard Republican campaign," Shupe said. He declined to detail that outreach because the race is too close to call.

... 

"A lot of technology companies have a lot of very liberal people working for them," Shupe said. There's a feeling, he added, that showing your conservative stripes at work could "affect your employment situation or how your co-workers feel about you."

Dilemma for Landrieu, Pryor, and Hagan

Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) and Kay Hagan (D-North Carolina) face a dilemma:  embrace the president and turn off white voters, or oppose the president and turn off black voters.  Politico reports:

Obamacare may be the thorniest issue for the three. The law is a big liability with white independent voters and may become more so as inevitable problems crop up with its implementation. But the president’s namesake is beloved by the black community.

In Louisiana, where one-third of registered voters are black, a March poll from nonpartisan Southern Media and Opinion Research found that 56 percent of voters said Landrieu’s vote for Obamacare makes them less likely to vote for her. While 74 percent of whites said they are less inclined to back Landrieu because of her support, only 11 percent of blacks said so.

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Former Rep. Charlie Melancon, the Democratic nominee for Senate in 2010, was a Blue Dog who opposed the Affordable Care Act.

“Part of my problem was a number of blacks that could have gotten out there and helped me said, ‘You voted against the president on Obamacare and energy,’” he recalled.
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Democrats treat it as a given that they’ll sweep the black vote. They see the issue as the number, not the share, of African-Americans’ votes. So apathy is the enemy.

“I would say that it would be important that Sen. Hagan … [continues to] not be seen as running away from those difficult issues that might disproportionately affect those who are African-American or of color,” said Brad Thompson, the former state director for John Edwards.

Republicans, for their part, are touting their plans to make inroads among black voters. The Republican National Committee promises to hire African-American statewide directors and field staff in all three states. This is an outgrowth of the Growth and Opportunity Project, or “autopsy” report, after last fall’s losses.

Bachmann Out

In After Hope and Change, we discuss the failed presidential candidacy of Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), who just announced that she will not seek reelection in 2014.  At National Review Corner, I write:

Michele Bachmann’s retirement makes it much more likely that the GOP will hold her seat. Even though she represents a Republican-leaning district, she has tended to under-perform in the voting booth.  In 2008 and 2012, GOP presidential candidates carried the district by comfortable margins while she just squeaked by. Democrats have long used her as a bogeywoman in their fundraising appeals, and it is unlikely that the GOP candidate to succeed her will fire up the liberal checkbooks.

Developing an RNC Data Platform

Politico reports on development of RNC's data platform:

Liberty Works was hired to create an open-source voter data platform, meaning outside groups and campaigns would have access to the information for outreach and fundraising and also be able to build on it with their own applications. The RNC describes the goal for the shared data as “iPhone-like.”

Since the RNC announcement on May 1, Liberty Works has gotten off to a shaky start. Top engineers in Silicon Valley who have been looking for ways to help Republican campaigns question Boyce’s vision and say the company’s outreach is underwhelming — as are its salary offers.
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The big risk for the RNC is that any delay or failure to keep up with the Democrats’ vaunted data operation could hurt their already uphill efforts to win the Senate next year and further cement the GOP’s reputation as behind the times in the digital data world.

Complicating things for Liberty Works is competition from other conservative quarters, including the Koch brothers, whose network has also been in the Valley looking for GOP-friendly tech talent to build on its voter data outfit called Themis, which cost at least $18 million to build in 2010 and 2011.

Karl Rove is informally backing Liberty Works.

“[F]or all of Karl Rove’s fine attributes, he is also largely a direct mail guy who learned at the foot of Lee Atwater and never really learned anything after Atwater passed,” RedState’s Erick Erickson wrote earlier this month. “I’m just not sure, after the 2012 race, that this is a wise investment. Direct mail guys believe the data is the value, and what Team Obama discovered is that the tools to analyze the data are the value.”

Senate Recruitment

At The Washington Post, Chris Cillizza sees some positive signs for GOP Senate pickups.

Recruitment — or a lack thereof — also has handed Republicans a bit of momentum.

In South Dakota, former representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson, the son of the retiring Sen. Tim Johnson, have both passed up the chance to run for the Democratic nomination. While Republicans may face a primary between former governor Mike Rounds and freshman Rep. Kristi Noem, the winner will be considered a clear favorite over likely Democratic nominee Rick Weiland.

It’s the same in West Virginia, where a series of big-name Democrats have said no, leaving the party without a clear next step in terms of a candidate. Meanwhile, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito looks like the clear favorite to be the Republican nominee, although she will have to face a primary opponent from her ideological right.

Republicans have had their fair share of recruitment problems, too, most notably in Iowa, where the party has watched a cavalcade of candidates bow out as Democrats landed their first choice in Rep. Bruce Braley. In Nebraska, Gov. Dave Heineman’s decision not to run means a more wide-open Republican primary, but the state’s strong GOP tilt probably keeps the race from being all that competitive.

GOP: The Next Generation

In After Hope and Change, we raise questions about the "next in line" theory of GOP nominations.  But people still cling to it. At Reuters, Samuel P. Jacobs writes:

The early jockeying for 2016 reflects the uncertainty in a Republican Party that has been going through a generational and strategic shift since Romney, 66, lost in Nov. Among the most prominent potential contenders, Cruz, Rubio, Ryan and Jindal are all in their early 40s. Walker is 45 and Paul and Christie, both 50, are the oldest. The lack of an obvious front-runner for the upcoming presidential election is not unusual for the Democratic Party but is for Republicans, who for generations have typically had an experienced contender in line to run for the White House.

"There is no anointed person now, and that's a change," said Tom Rath, Republican strategist in New Hampshire who has advised Romney and former president George W. Bush. The chaos in the Republican field contrasts sharply with the picture for Democrats, who continue to wait for a definitive sign from former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the clear front-runner if she decides to jump into the race.

That has made Clinton a target of Republican arrows in Congress and online, attacks that have been fueled by their questions over how she handled the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, last September. Republicans could be setting a new ideological course after years in which the party has gotten more conservative, even as the nation's voters have become more diverse and likelier to support moderate and liberal Democrats.

Paul's focus on civil liberties, Cruz's brash, no-apologies conservatism and Christie's moderation-with-an-edge approach could be among the key forces competing for attention in the Republican race, analysts say. And then there is former Pennsylvania congressman Rick Santorum, who had some bright moments in the 2012 campaign as a conservative alternative to Romney.