How to Blow an Election
Most of the political news this week was focused on Missouri senate candidate Todd Akin and his declaration that legitimate rape rarely causes pregnancy and his decision to stay in the race. What got missed by many of the media was the predicament that Minnesota State Representative Kerry Gauthier who had to drop out of his own race after he was caught by police engaging in oral sex with a 17 year old boy at a rest stop. At first, he had looked like he was going to stay in the state race, but the Democratic party convinced him to drop out. In Minnesota, the Democrats are looking to take back the House after years of Republican control and out of fears of having a Governor Walker like situation happen there like it did in Wisconsin. Akin was also called on by every member of the Republican who could draw breath to step down, but has refused. Now, if he were to step down, it would take a court order for him to be removed from the ballots and he would have to pay for the reprinting of ballots. While most people can agree that sex with a minor is a more important issue than statements on abortion, Akin has drawn a lot more heat than Gauthier has. Some have attributed this to media bias, some have attributed this to disparity in power of the two races (a Minnesota state race versus a national senate race), but there is something greater at play here. Akin has displayed two things people love to watch fall apart: pride and willful ignorance.
First off, let's take a look at Rep. Gauthier. Before last week, no one knew he was. He was in a safe seat in Minnesota and Minnesota isn't the most important state in the union. He broke right into the headlines getting caught with a live boy (half of the famous "never get caught with a live boy or a dead girl" rule of politics) by police. In Minnesota, the age of consent is less than 17, but still illegal under Minnesota laws of statutory rape. So, he was busted by police at a rest stop with this boy and is probably in trouble, pending a court date. He was probably hoping to stay under the radar until election day, and might have even made it with all the news that Akin was taking up. Problem is, he committed an actual crime. Now, that said, it was an actual crime that a lot of people disagree with being illegal. After all, it was over the age of consent way past the "Romeo and Juliet" clause that allows up to a 48 month agree difference between parties. Gauthier managed to stay off the front page, when in any other week he would have been closer to the front. It even could have affected Sen. Klobuchar's re-election bid in that state if enough people noticed and tried to tie the two Democrats together, but that didn't happen. Gauthier listened to the professional advisers he had around him as well as the party powerful who asked him to step down. His political career is over, but he'll land softly somewhere.
This is in direct contrast to Akin. Todd Akin fired all of his professional advisers sometime ago and his son is his campaign manager. His wife is one of his closest advisers and he has done a very good job of surrounding himself with people who are more valued for political fidelity than skill in winning elections. However, the first thing that showed him that he should stay in was a poll done a short time after the comments aired that showed him one point ahead of McCaskill. Now, many in the conspiracy theory mode said that Public Policy Polling (PPP) gamed the results to make sure he stayed in the race, but if you look at how the poll was done, the answer was simpler: it was done over one day in a three hour window by landline, which always skews older and Republican. However, a professional would have noticed that he dropped from ahead by 11 a week earlier. Looking at the polling, Akin's comments cost him a fair amount of voters. He lost about 13% favorability and McCaskill picked up most of those and then some. She was down by 9 but is now ahead by 10 in some polls. Which means she not only picked up the ones he lost, but some of the undecideds came to her as well. That is a disaster in terms of political maneuvering, especially in so short a time span. And this has given a major headache to the big ticket show.
Ryan and Akin were close in the House, especially on matters concerning abortion. Notably, they both sponsored legislation to prevent funding any abortions and both are very strong pro-lifers. However, Ryan wanted to focus on his budget and tax plans, his real life's work. He wanted to be the white knight from Wisconsin who comes in with a new financial plan to implement with the financial CEO whiz of a president. That's off the table now. Akin has made this race about abortion and all that entails (which I will not get into here), which has fired up enthusiasts on both sides of the aisle. Pro-choice groups have swooped in with a lot of money to change the nature of the race and Mike Huckabee has all but taken it upon himself to mount a defense of Akin, having him on his show a couple of times to explain his comments. Akin swears it was just a one word difference that made it all so bad, and Huckabee provided the sympathetic ear to that idea. There are a lot of Republicans who don't mind a race about abortion since they've seen polling that shows pro-choice support is at an all time low of 41%. However, this is not the race Romney (who has been both pro-choice and pro-life in his time) and Ryan (ardently pro-life) wanted to run. They wanted a referendum on the economy and the state of government spending and perhaps on the size and scale of government. They really didn't want to have to talk about abortion, and they were right to do so.
Before Akin made his comments, Missouri was in the Romney column by as much as nine points. Now, it's trending Obama by a few points. Akin may have cost Romney 10 electoral votes when he's fighting for everyone he can get. While Romney is doing better in Wisconsin thanks to his pick of Paul Ryan, he was counting on not losing any states McCain had and Missouri was one of those. It's been one of the few states that has been trending red while states like Virginia and North Carolina have been trending from red to blue. Now, Romney will have to fight for Missouri while trying to maintain the moderate image he had been hoping for. Part of this problem is that Romney had not effectively defined himself, his goals or what he really stands for other than him winning against someone else winning. Akin tripped the landmine of American politics: abortion; you never touch it, but you set out enough to traps hoping your opponent will hit it and cause more noise. This is why Karl Rove was threatening to pull independent group funding from his campaign 36 hours after the interview aired. This is why Paul Ryan called him directly and asked him to drop out. Even Ann Coulter wants him gone. However, some in the Republican party have taken this opportunity to stand against the big wigs of the party to show how devoted to the cause they are. The NRSC, the RNC and every Republican funding apparatus has pulled funding from the campaign, but some have stepped in to provide funding. The Susan B. Anthony List and Family Research Council have both pledged more funding since many of them thought Romney was too weak on abortion.
So here we have it, a candidate Democrats love since he is gold standard albatross and Republicans hate that he managed to screw up a couple of easy win races and drag everyone else into a fight about abortion, which no one wanted. Let's be clear, most voters do not want a fight about abortion. Knowing this, most professional political operatives do not want a fight on abortion. No one convinces anyone else, no one moderates their positions and there is way too much money and way too many people on the extremes to make it a position worth taking a middle ground on, if such a thing were possible. There are no votes to be gained by going extreme on abortion: they were either with you already or they were never going to be with you. Gauthier was gotten rid of quickly and quietly and did himself a big favor by keeping quiet, not doing national press until he announced he was dropping out of the race. Akin announced multiple times that he is in the race until November and he is going to win. He feels, perhaps not wrongly, that since he won a hard fought primary, he should get his day in the sun. Theoretically, that might even be true. Hell, the Democrats definitely want it to be true, but he could have lain in the cut, dropped out and tried again in a few years. Granted, he's 65, but odder things have happened. Now, he has made himself the Democratic party's favorite Republican talking factually incorrectly about the most hotbutton issue in this country since slavery.
And that's a heavy load for a man to swallow.
So it is written, so do I see it.
First off, let's take a look at Rep. Gauthier. Before last week, no one knew he was. He was in a safe seat in Minnesota and Minnesota isn't the most important state in the union. He broke right into the headlines getting caught with a live boy (half of the famous "never get caught with a live boy or a dead girl" rule of politics) by police. In Minnesota, the age of consent is less than 17, but still illegal under Minnesota laws of statutory rape. So, he was busted by police at a rest stop with this boy and is probably in trouble, pending a court date. He was probably hoping to stay under the radar until election day, and might have even made it with all the news that Akin was taking up. Problem is, he committed an actual crime. Now, that said, it was an actual crime that a lot of people disagree with being illegal. After all, it was over the age of consent way past the "Romeo and Juliet" clause that allows up to a 48 month agree difference between parties. Gauthier managed to stay off the front page, when in any other week he would have been closer to the front. It even could have affected Sen. Klobuchar's re-election bid in that state if enough people noticed and tried to tie the two Democrats together, but that didn't happen. Gauthier listened to the professional advisers he had around him as well as the party powerful who asked him to step down. His political career is over, but he'll land softly somewhere.
This is in direct contrast to Akin. Todd Akin fired all of his professional advisers sometime ago and his son is his campaign manager. His wife is one of his closest advisers and he has done a very good job of surrounding himself with people who are more valued for political fidelity than skill in winning elections. However, the first thing that showed him that he should stay in was a poll done a short time after the comments aired that showed him one point ahead of McCaskill. Now, many in the conspiracy theory mode said that Public Policy Polling (PPP) gamed the results to make sure he stayed in the race, but if you look at how the poll was done, the answer was simpler: it was done over one day in a three hour window by landline, which always skews older and Republican. However, a professional would have noticed that he dropped from ahead by 11 a week earlier. Looking at the polling, Akin's comments cost him a fair amount of voters. He lost about 13% favorability and McCaskill picked up most of those and then some. She was down by 9 but is now ahead by 10 in some polls. Which means she not only picked up the ones he lost, but some of the undecideds came to her as well. That is a disaster in terms of political maneuvering, especially in so short a time span. And this has given a major headache to the big ticket show.
Ryan and Akin were close in the House, especially on matters concerning abortion. Notably, they both sponsored legislation to prevent funding any abortions and both are very strong pro-lifers. However, Ryan wanted to focus on his budget and tax plans, his real life's work. He wanted to be the white knight from Wisconsin who comes in with a new financial plan to implement with the financial CEO whiz of a president. That's off the table now. Akin has made this race about abortion and all that entails (which I will not get into here), which has fired up enthusiasts on both sides of the aisle. Pro-choice groups have swooped in with a lot of money to change the nature of the race and Mike Huckabee has all but taken it upon himself to mount a defense of Akin, having him on his show a couple of times to explain his comments. Akin swears it was just a one word difference that made it all so bad, and Huckabee provided the sympathetic ear to that idea. There are a lot of Republicans who don't mind a race about abortion since they've seen polling that shows pro-choice support is at an all time low of 41%. However, this is not the race Romney (who has been both pro-choice and pro-life in his time) and Ryan (ardently pro-life) wanted to run. They wanted a referendum on the economy and the state of government spending and perhaps on the size and scale of government. They really didn't want to have to talk about abortion, and they were right to do so.
Before Akin made his comments, Missouri was in the Romney column by as much as nine points. Now, it's trending Obama by a few points. Akin may have cost Romney 10 electoral votes when he's fighting for everyone he can get. While Romney is doing better in Wisconsin thanks to his pick of Paul Ryan, he was counting on not losing any states McCain had and Missouri was one of those. It's been one of the few states that has been trending red while states like Virginia and North Carolina have been trending from red to blue. Now, Romney will have to fight for Missouri while trying to maintain the moderate image he had been hoping for. Part of this problem is that Romney had not effectively defined himself, his goals or what he really stands for other than him winning against someone else winning. Akin tripped the landmine of American politics: abortion; you never touch it, but you set out enough to traps hoping your opponent will hit it and cause more noise. This is why Karl Rove was threatening to pull independent group funding from his campaign 36 hours after the interview aired. This is why Paul Ryan called him directly and asked him to drop out. Even Ann Coulter wants him gone. However, some in the Republican party have taken this opportunity to stand against the big wigs of the party to show how devoted to the cause they are. The NRSC, the RNC and every Republican funding apparatus has pulled funding from the campaign, but some have stepped in to provide funding. The Susan B. Anthony List and Family Research Council have both pledged more funding since many of them thought Romney was too weak on abortion.
So here we have it, a candidate Democrats love since he is gold standard albatross and Republicans hate that he managed to screw up a couple of easy win races and drag everyone else into a fight about abortion, which no one wanted. Let's be clear, most voters do not want a fight about abortion. Knowing this, most professional political operatives do not want a fight on abortion. No one convinces anyone else, no one moderates their positions and there is way too much money and way too many people on the extremes to make it a position worth taking a middle ground on, if such a thing were possible. There are no votes to be gained by going extreme on abortion: they were either with you already or they were never going to be with you. Gauthier was gotten rid of quickly and quietly and did himself a big favor by keeping quiet, not doing national press until he announced he was dropping out of the race. Akin announced multiple times that he is in the race until November and he is going to win. He feels, perhaps not wrongly, that since he won a hard fought primary, he should get his day in the sun. Theoretically, that might even be true. Hell, the Democrats definitely want it to be true, but he could have lain in the cut, dropped out and tried again in a few years. Granted, he's 65, but odder things have happened. Now, he has made himself the Democratic party's favorite Republican talking factually incorrectly about the most hotbutton issue in this country since slavery.
And that's a heavy load for a man to swallow.
So it is written, so do I see it.