Obama and Cable

Previous posts have discussed the Obama campaign's advantage in targeting television ads. Reuters reports:

As political experts assess Republican Mitt Romney's failed U.S. presidential bid, an analysis of how his campaign and President Barack Obama's winning team used cable TV to target ads at specific groups of voters may offer some valuable tips for the future.

During the final weeks before the Nov. 6 election, with polls showing a tight race, Obama's campaign exploited cable TV's diverse lineup to target women on channels such as Food Network and Lifetime and men on networks such as ESPN.

The Obama team used the fragmentation of cable TV's audience to its fullest advantage to target tailored messages to voters in battleground states.

Meanwhile, Romney's campaign relied on a more traditional mass saturation of broadcast TV. The Romney camp was entirely dark on cable TV for two of the campaign's last seven days.

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 For instance, the Obama campaign identified zip codes surrounding Ohio tire-manufacturing plants and purchased cable ads touting Obama's efforts to block tire imports from China.

Obama ran 600,000 cable ads to the Romney's 300,000 around the nation during the campaign, said NCC's Kay. Obama's cable TV push started in April. Romney's began in September.

Obama's team also mixed and matched its messages to sharpen the appeal in key counties.

Regional Makeup of the GOP

At the Los Angeles Times, Paul West reports on the regional composition of the GOP:

"An increasing challenge for Northeastern Republicans, and West Coast Republicans, for that matter, is the growing perception among their constituents that the Republican Party is predominantly a Southern and rural party," said Dan Schnur, a former GOP campaign strategist who directs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. "There's always been a political and cultural disconnect between the South and the rest of the country. But as the parties have sorted themselves out geographically over the last few decades, the size of that gap has increased."

To an unprecedented degree, today's Republican majority in the House is centered in the states of the old Confederacy. The GOP enjoys a 57-seat advantage across the 11-state region that stretches from Texas to Virginia.

Outside the South, however, it's a different story.

As a result of reapportionment and the 2012 election, the GOP no longer controls a majority of non-Southern congressional districts. In the last Congress, Republicans held a slim, two-district majority in non-Southern states; now Democrats have a 24-seat edge. Still, the Republicans have a comfortable 33-seat overall majority in the House — two seats are vacant — and only the most optimistic Democrats believe that Republicans will lose control of the chamber in 2014.

The Buffoons' Rebellion

A rebellion this week illustrated the political problems facing Speaker Boehner and the political ineptitude of his internal foes.  Robert Costa reports at NRO:

It was 15 minutes before the big vote for speaker on Thursday afternoon, and Representative Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican, was ready to sit back, clap, and get on with his day. As he waited, he walked to the back of the chamber to catch up with some friends. Then, out of nowhere, a conservative colleague, whom he won’t name, came up to him, tapped his shoulder, and pulled him aside. The colleague whispered that when the vote began, a few backbenchers would attempt to mount a rebellion against Speaker John Boehner. They had kept their plot quiet for weeks, the colleague explained, and he regretted the eleventh-hour mention, but they wanted his support. The colleague thought Franks would participate in the revolt, especially since the Sun Belt conservative has, at times, broken ranks with party leadership.

But Franks wasn’t interested — at all. He shook his head and said, “No, thanks.” Franks couldn’t believe that a small bloc of conservative House Republicans would haphazardly plot against the speaker, especially so close to the roll call. Franks ended the conversation and found a seat. Several other members who were approached, he says, did the same. “I’m one of the most conservative guys here and I find out about this thing 15 minutes before the vote?” Franks asks, in an interview at the Capitol. “To me, it was a ridiculous miscalculation by a sincere but inept group.”
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Members say the rebellion was mostly a project of the libertarians (Justin Amash of Michigan and Walter Jones of North Carolina) and a clique within the Jordan-affiliated RSC, especially members of the class of 2010 (Mulvaney and Labrador) and their allies. It was never something that involved widespread outreach. “I only heard about it from a reporter,” says Phil Gingrey of Georgia, a longtime figure in conservative circles. “That was a real mistake,” acknowledges a House Republican staffer involved with the coup attempt. “My boss didn’t say much to anybody beforehand. They were thinking that maybe they could help Eric Cantor or someone else find a way to win.”

Just-retired Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) tells Molly Ball:

I think it's ridiculous. They should kick them all out of the Republican conference. The picture in Politico of a sitting Republican member of Congress on the floor with an iPad showing a screen with a whip count to deny the Republicans the speakership of the House is asinine. This is what I'm talking about: These guys are OK when it comes to ideology and dogma, but they don't have a clue how to participate in the legislative process.

I don't know what their objective is. If it was to deny the speakership to Boehner and hand it to Mrs. Pelosi, I don't know how their cause would have been furthered. If it's to force the vote to a second ballot to make some demands, well, who the hell do these people think they are? Twelve out of 233, and they're making demands? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Primary Problems

At Politico, Jonathan Martin writes that Republicans are pondering how congressional and presidential primaries have hurt them, and what to do about it. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) says that the GOP should aggressively recruit good candidates up front, and push back when Democrats try to influence GOP primaries, as McCaskill did:

“If you catch wind of (Democrats playing in Republican primaries), it’s a tough decision but you’ve got to have the ability and flexibility to say, ‘OK guys, we’re headed down a track here, so is there a better candidate who has more appeal, can raise more money, is more representative of the state they’re in?’” said Portman.

Pragmatists want the Crossroads groups and other outside organizations to get more involved in Senate primaries.

In an interview in the Capitol, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the NRSC chairman in the past two elections and now the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, said, “I think you’re going to see more people involved in primaries,” right as he rounded a corner and nearly ran into Crossroads CEO Steven Law.

“Speaking of the devil and he appears,” joked Cornyn. “He said what’s going to happen in the primary process and I said well I think you’re going to see more people get involved. “

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Law, on cue. “More people are going to get involved.”

On the House side, pragmatists want to protect incumbents from challenges from the right. Former Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), wants to help those interested in a grand bargain.

He’s taking over the Republican Main Street Partnership — the slimmed-down group of congressional GOP centrists — and is going to create a super PAC to serve as a counterbalance to the Club for Growth in House Republican primaries.

“When a center-right Republican is in a primary and is being targeted by some group as a RINO, we’re going to make sure we have their back,” said LaTourette. “Not just with speeches and press releases but with money.”

LaTourette said his initial goal for the group’s super PAC would be to raise $10 million and he had already gotten favorable responses when he brought up his plan with senior House Republicans on committees that make it easy to raise money.

At the presidential level, there is talk of process change:

And Romney’s political director, Rich Beeson, said in an interview for POLITICO’s ebook on the election that the primary, which stretched until mid-April partly because of the proportional distribution of delegates, cost the Republican nominee precious time in setting up his general election operation.

“It was probably worth 350,000 votes,” said Beeson.

A committee tasked by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus with assessing what went wrong in 2012 and how the GOP can rebound will consider changing the 2016 primary back to a winner-take-all format. But such a proposal is likely to run into serious resistance from RNC members who hail from states whose primaries and caucuses have typically taken place long after the nomination has been decided.

What’s more likely, according to one committee member, is an effort to take control of the debates, by which the RNC would have more say over the number and format of the forums.

Soak the Rich: Been There, Done That

As Steven Sloan reports at Politico, congressional Democrats admit that they’ve exhausted their ability to raise tax rates on the wealthy:

“This does settle the issue of rates for individuals,” Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) told POLITICO. “That’s good. That certainty and predictability is one of the gains” of the fiscal cliff legislation.

Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, the top Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, agreed. When asked whether more rate increases are in the offing, he responded, “I don’t foresee that.”

It’s a significant policy evolution for a party that has been screaming about raising rates on top earners ever since President George W. Bush started slashing taxes in 2001.

Here's the trap.  If they want to raise additional revenue by raising corporate taxes and closing "loopholes," they will collide with their own constituencies.

Further limit deductions for charitable contributions?  The charities -- many of which have liberal orientations and serve the needy -- will push back.

Further limit the deduction for mortgage interest?  That step would disproportionately hit states with high property values, including the Democratic bastions of New York and California.

Raise corporate taxes? The RATE Coalition -- which argues convincingly that corporate tax rates are already too high -- includes many corporations that give substantial amounts to Democrats.

Ironically, the White House insisted on inserting dozens of special-interest tax provisions in the fiscal cliff bill.

Bummed Out

Hope and change are down the memory hole.  Susan Page writes at USA Today that we are not seeing the good feelings that usually accompany an inauguration. 

Battered by an economy that is only slow recovering — and soured by the spectacle of Washington dysfunction in the "fiscal cliff" debate — views of the nation's future and its fundamental promise have darkened in the four years since Barack Obama's first inauguration.

Then, even during an unfolding financial crisis, Americans believed by a double-digit margin that it was likely young people would have a better life than their parents, one facet of the classic American dream. Now, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds they're narrowly inclined to say that's not likely. By 50%-47%, respondents say the country's best years are behind us.

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The stratospheric expectations that surrounded Obama's groundbreaking election in 2008 have fallen back to Earth — not to dismal levels, but to decidedly lower ones.

Then, two-thirds in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll said they were "optimistic" and "proud" in reaction to Obama's election; now, about half cite those emotions in response to his re-election.

Then, six in 10 were "excited"; now, four in 10 feel that way.

Negative reactions run higher now. Three in 10 were "pessimistic" in response to his election four years ago; now 43% are. Then, 27% described their response as "afraid"; that number has jumped to 36%.

The poll of 1,025 adults taken Dec. 14-17 has a margin of error of +/– 4 percentage points.

Gallup adds another troubling finding:

A majority also believe American power will decline rather than increase in 2013, something that has happened only once in the 15 years before when Gallup asked this question. Americans were most positive about American power increasing in 1963, when 84% expected such.

Arkansas

AP reports on the political realignment of Bill Clinton's home state:

Four years ago, Arkansas Democrats held every constitutional office, all but one seat in the state's congressional delegation and a seemingly untouchable majority in the Legislature.
How things have changed.

The state GOP party built on major gains in 2010, when Republican John Boozman knocked off Democratic U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Republicans nabbed four constitutional offices. In 2012, voters threw their support behind the Republican Party, giving the GOP its first majority in the Legislature since Reconstruction and electing only Republicans to represent Arkansas in in the U.S. House.

The remarkable rise of the Republican Party in Arkansas — and the corresponding plummet of Democratic Party control in the state — was voted the top story in 2012 in Arkansas by Associated Press members.

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Throughout the 2012 election cycle, Republicans pledged to make major gains in the Legislature, where Democrats have had control for 138 years.

"That's a clear choice for Arkansans," state Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb said in the final days before the November election. "The Democrats are enablers of the policies of Barack Obama and the Republicans will fight those intrusive policies."

In the general election, Republicans grabbed a 21-14 majority in the Senate and a 51-48 majority in the House, with one Green Party member.

On the federal level, Arkansans re-elected Republicans Rick Crawford, Tim Griffin and Steve Womack to the U.S. House and picked Republican Tom Cotton to represent the 4th Congressional District, which was open after Democrat U.S. Mike Ross announced he wouldn't run for re-election.

The election left U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor as the lone Democrat in Arkansas' congressional delegation.

Prior's seat is up in 2014.