Fred Barnes: Mehlman Delivers (The RNC chairman takes his message to the exurbs)

The Weekly Standard ^ | July 25, 2005 | Fred Barnes

[RWR8189]

Waukee, Iowa
KEN MEHLMAN WAS IN HEAVEN. And heaven for the Republican national chairman was Dallas County outside Des Moines. Mostly an exurb, it lies miles from downtown Des Moines and is dotted with new homes and housing developments still under construction. Locals brag it's the 10th-fastest growing county in America. It's also Bush country. President Bush won the county in 2000 but lost Iowa. But in 2004, he more than doubled his margin of victory in Dallas County and won Iowa.

Mehlman, naturally, emphasizes fast-growing exurbs. "This is where you find the new conservatives and the new Republicans," Mehlman says. After taking over the Republican National Committee in January, he delivered Lincoln Day dinner speeches in several exurbs: Douglas County outside Denver, Lee County in southwest Florida, Pottawatamie County in Iowa across the Missouri River from Omaha. And last week Mehlman came to Waukee, a boomtown in Dallas County, for a party fundraiser. He was greeted like a rock star.

He isn't one. Mehlman, 38, is neither flamboyant nor brash. He wears bland suits. He is anything but excitable. And he is unusually task-oriented. He travels constantly, and his trips are not junkets. In Iowa, before getting to Dallas County, he met separately with social conservatives interested chiefly in the president's judicial nominations, Republican legislators, and with state party officials. He did two TV interviews and two radio interviews. And he chatted with two Des Moines political reporters, both of whom he knows from past Bush campaigns in Iowa.

Besides winning elections, Mehlman has two overriding goals and a pet project. One goal is to transform the Republican party into a powerful grassroots force for enacting the president's agenda in Washington. The party already has an email network of 15 million people and a list of 1.5 million volunteers. A second goal is related: Tie the national party more closely to Republicans in the states. And he is waging a personal crusade to recruit more blacks and Hispanics to run for office as Republicans. In Iowa, he spent time on all three missions.

As Republican chairman, Mehlman has emerged as a major public figure. He stepped forward last week, for instance, as the party's leading defender of White House official Karl Rove, accused by Democrats of leaking classified information. Of course, Rove is more than a Republican ally and a friend to Mehlman. Since they met in 1997, Rove has been Mehlman's patron, aiding his rise from the Bush campaign's Midwest coordinator in the 2000 primaries, to national field director in the general election, to White House political director in Bush's first term, to 2004 campaign manager, and finally to RNC head.

Conservatives who worry Mehlman isn't one of them need not be concerned. Mehlman grew up outside Baltimore. His father was a supporter of Ronald Reagan and "Reagan is how I became involved in politics," he says. He went to Franklin and Marshall College and Harvard Law School, where he joined the Federalist Society. He worked in private law practice until joining the staff of Republican representative Lamar Smith of Texas in 1994. He became chief of staff to another Texas House member, Kay Granger, in 1997. Rove was her political consultant and thus the Rove-Mehlman alliance began. "I'm a Texan by employment," Mehlman says.

In temperament and style, Mehlman is unlike Rove and even more unlike Democratic national chairman Howard Dean. Rove is sometimes brisk and has ten ideas on his mind at any given time. Mehlman is intense and focused. Dean's idea of outreach is to insult Republicans and question their motives. Mehlman criticizes Democratic leaders but not rank-and-file Democrats. When he meets a Democrat, Mehlman says, he tries to find out what they have in common and see if they can work together. "Politics ought to be about addition, not division," he says. A Republican official said Mehlman follows the Coke approach and Dean doesn't: "Coca Cola doesn't attract people by saying Pepsi drinkers are intolerant and have never worked a day in their lives." In short, Dean is abrasive. Mehlman isn't.

And Mehlman, a political operative with a taste for policy issues, makes more sense as a party leader than Dean. Mehlman is committed to expanding the Republican party and has, seemingly, no personal agenda. As a former elected official with a bulging ego, Dean is bound to be distracted by thoughts about the next office he'll run for. Dean craves the applause of crowds. Mehlman, from all appearances, doesn't.

Mehlman's most innovative theory is that a party can be turned into a force for lobbying Washington. This grew out of his 2004 experience as the Great Implementer. Mehlman had the job of carrying out Rove's plan of signing up hundreds of thousands of volunteers to register voters and get them to the polls. Democrats let "independent" groups like the lavishly funded Americans Coming Together hire paid workers to take on this task. As effective as the Democratic operation was, the Mehlman team was better.

But now comes the hard part: influencing Washington. So far, there's no evidence that Republican activists from outside Washington have improved the chances of success for the president's plan to reform Social Security or any other initiative. Mehlman, however, is a believer in gradual change in politics, not sudden breakthroughs. "One of the most powerful things in politics is when an incremental change becomes durable," he says. Some changes already have become all but permanent--a bigger Republican voter turnout, the migration of Hispanics to the Republican party--according to Mehlman.

Another Mehlman theory is that African Americans are ripe targets today for Republican proselytizing. "Three factors are different today," he says. One, Bush's ownership agenda is appealing to African Americans. "We're the progressives now," he says. Two, there's a "cultural disconnect" between African Americans and Democratic leaders. And, three, Democrats take African Americans for granted. But, again, Mehlman doesn't expect instant gains. "That's not how it works," he says. "I'm more realistic about what's required than people have been in the past." He favors "inclusion, not outreach. Outreach is what you do four weeks before the election. Inclusion is what you do four years before the election."

The inclusion strategy replaces the old practice of relying on African-American consultants. It stresses support for African-American candidates. Mehlman encourages this at all levels of politics. He recently spoke at a fundraiser for a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, city councilman, Otto Banks, who switched parties to become a Republican. In Iowa, he attended a fundraiser at the home of Isaiah McGee in Waukee. A school teacher, McGee is running for city council. "We're honored you are running for this office," Mehlman told him. "Run hard and keep running."

McGee was featured on the program at the fundraiser for Dallas County Republicans at Waukee High School. But Mehlman was the star. Republicans lined up to have their picture taken with him. His speech, largely praise of President Bush, was enthusiastically received. Most thrilling for Mehlman was what Dallas County Republicans said. "Dallas County is the fastest-growing county in the state," one said. "Many of the people moving here are Republicans, whether they know it or not yet." Mitch Hambleton, the county Republican chairman, topped that claim. As the votes were being counted last November at the county office building, he said he overheard a Democratic official mutter, "We'll never elect a Democrat in this county again." Mehlman applauded, looking like he couldn't be happier.

 

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

[Once-Ler]

The country is trending to the right. As Governor Tommy Thompson of WI used to say "Isn't it a great day to be a Republican?"

[jra]

b

[Loyal Buckeye]

Mehlman appears to be a bright straight-up guy.

[newgeezer]

So, just what the **** is an "exurb"?

I must be the only one who missed the memo.