CA: Tents and Parties

After the 2008 campaign, some observers said that Republicans could not recover unless they reached beyond their conservative base. In California, the National Organization has weighed in with an ad against Republican senatorial candidate Tom Campbell, who supports gay marriage. Dan Morain writes in The Sacramento Bee:

In California, Campbell is locked in a tight race against Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard. Polls show both would be competitive against Boxer, particularly in a year when angry voters are in a mood to throw out incumbents.

A Field Poll earlier this month showed Campbell leading Fiorina by six points in the GOP primary. A poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed Fiorina with a one-point lead. Fiorina and a third Republican candidate, Assemblyman Chuch DeVore, share opposition to gay marriage.

Will the National Organization for Marriage's involvement move the California electorate in the same way that it helped shape the New York congressional race? It remains to be seen. But Brown and Gallagher are willing to take credit for Fiorina's upward trend in the polls.

Gallagher, who is also an officer in the Virginia-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, cited that PPIC poll and proclaimed in a blog: "Bottom line: I think Tom Campbell is about to find out, as Dede Scozzafava did, that it is not a good idea to be for gay marriage if you are Republican."

Obama's Victory & 2004 Bush Voters

In a forthcoming article in PS, Arthur Lupia suggests that the behavior of 2004 Bush voters was key to President Obama's victory in 2008:

Barack Obama’s success in bringing millions of new voters to the polls was an impressive achievement. But these new voters were not a necessary condition for his victory. When considering whether or not to support John McCain in 2008, a number of Bush voters decided, “No We Can’t.” The number of 2004 Bush voters who decided to stay at home, or to support a Democrat, in 2008 did not grab the same kinds of headlines as new voter stories, but they were a sufficient condition for Obama’s Electoral College victory. Hence, future presidential hopefuls’ attempts to draw lessons from the 2008 campaign should focus not only on how the Obama campaign got so many new people to the polls, but also on why so many people who voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 2004 chose to do something different in 2008. If 2008’s new voters are less energized in 2012, the story of that election may turn on whether voters who once supported a Republican can be convinced to do so again.

More Polling Data on Health

More discouraging news for supporters of the health bill:

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows an uphill selling job ahead for President Obama and congressional Democrats to convince most Americans that the health care overhaul passed last week will help them and their families.

In the poll, 50% call passage of the bill "a bad thing" and 47% say it was "a good thing." That's at odds with the findings of a one-day USA TODAY Poll taken a week ago -- a day after the U.S. House approved the legislation -- in which a 49%-40% plurality called the bill "a good thing."

Ron Brownstein writes:

In the Kaiser poll, even fewer noncollege than college-educated whites said that the plan would benefit the country. In one sense, that's ironic: Census figures show that noncollege whites are more than twice as likely to lack health insurance as whites with a degree. But these working-class whites have grown more skeptical than better-educated whites that government cares about their needs. And the searing recession has only hardened those doubts. In a recent memo, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg warned that these anxious and alienated voters are approaching a "tipping point" that would send them hurtling toward Republicans in November. House Democrats seem aware of that risk: Of the 34 Democrats who opposed the final health care bill, 28 represent districts with an above-average share of whites without college educations.

CA: The GOP Primary Races

Debra Saunders has a smart analysis of the CA GOP primary races:

Politicos figure that Whitman was too smart to ever directly push Campbell out of the contest. But given that her political guru Mike Murphy sent that memo to Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner suggesting that Poizner instead run for Senate in 2012, it is evident that Whitman Inc. wanted to clear the field for governor. And Campbell had to be aware that the doors of GOP biggies supporting Whitman suddenly would swing open for him if he jumped to the Senate race. Whitman didn't need to push Campbell out. Her money did all the work.

So Campbell moved. And as fast as corn popping, former Secretary of State George Shultz became Camp Campbell's honorary chair, and Whitman fundraising dynamo Kristin Hueter added Campbell to her client list. (Said Hueter: "It's a lie if somebody says there was a deal cut for Tom to pull out of the race.")

Findings from the PPIC poll:

• Meg Whitman has bolstered her lead over Steve Poizner by 20 points since January among likely voters in the Republican primary. Today, 61 percent favor her, compared to 11 percent for Poizner, whose level of support is unchanged from January (Whitman 41%, Poizner 11%)
• Meg Whitman leads Jerry Brown 44% to 39% among likely voters in the race for governor and Brown is favored over Poizner, 46% to 31%.
• The Republican primary race for U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s seat has tightened since January, when Tom Campbell led both Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore among Republican likely voters (27% Campbell, 16% Fiorina, 8% DeVore). Today, Campbell and Fiorina are in a close race (24% Fiorina, 23% Campbell), and DeVore’s level of support is unchanged (8%). In this campaign—which has seen little advertising—the largest percentage of likely voters (44%) is undecided, similar to January (48%).
• Incumbent Barbara Boxer is in a close race with Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell for her senate seat.
• Approval for the state legislature’s job performance drops to 9%.

New Study of Campaign Money

A new report from the Campaign Finance Institute finds:

• First, the national political parties have continued to make up for the soft money they lost, but the new money comes from individual donors at all levels and not just from small donors.
• Second, it has become clear that the parties' financial stories must be seen as being intertwined with those of their candidates. Presidential fundraising strategies strongly affect the Democratic and Republic National Committees while Members of Congress have become among the most significant supporters of the House and Senate campaign committees.
• Third, because of the way the presidential candidates and their parties have long worked together, it is not possible to say in a meaningful way from the parties' financial figures alone that the national parties have played a less (or more) prominent role in presidential elections after BCRA than before.
• Fourth, however, we can say that the congressional parties are every bit as prominent in House and Senate elections as they ever have been. Their receipts are up, while their independent spending made them the dominant voice during the closing weeks of many if not most of the close elections for the House and Senate in 2006 and 2008.

Bounceless

Last fall, Bill Clinton said that "the minute health care reform passed, President Obama's approval ratings would go up 10 points." Nope, didn't happen. The first Gallup tracking poll taken entirely after the signature of the health bill (March 24-26) shows his numbers at 48 percent approve, 45 percent disapprove -- exactly equal to the average for the week of March 15-21.

Update: Gallup tracking for March 25-27 has approval and disapproval tied at 46 percent.

Words of War, Words of Politics

In the past few days, some columnists have suggested Republicans are inciting violence because some of their political vocabulary derives from military language. But as I explained in The Art of Political Warfare:

Military concepts are inescapable because many political terms began their career in uniform. "Strategy" comes from the Greek strategeia, meaning "generalship." "Campaign," from the Latin campus ("field") started as a military term for an organized struggle taking place over a distinct period and aiming for a definite result. "Slogan" derives from the Scottish Gaelic sluagh ("army") and ghairm ("cry").

Gary Hart, who led Senator George McGovern's presidential campaign and later became a senator and presidential candidate himself, wrote in his book Right from the Start that the McGovern campaign “relied heavily on the classic insurgency technique of rousing the countryside -- the volunteers -- to beat the entrenched powers. Like most political techniques, this one is based on military principles; it is New England citizens with pitchforks and muskets against George III's troops.”

The Clinton campaign famously had a “War Room.” (Hillary Clinton thought up the name). Clinton strategists James Carville and Paul Begala wrote: “With so much riding on the first take, being aggressive is key. Or as we liked to say in campaigns, “It’s hard for your opponent to say much when your fist is in his face.”