Posted on 11/21/2009 4:49:55 PM PST by HokieMom
CEDAR CREEK, Tex. –After four years of grappling with how to appeal to voters, a group of top Republicans believe they’ve found a winning formula for 2010. Call it the McDonnell Strategy.
The shorthand: run on economic policy, downplay divisive cultural issues, present an upbeat tone, target independent voters and focus on Democratic-controlled Washington—all without attacking President Barack Obama personally.
It’s an approach that elected Bob McDonnell to the Virginia governorship earlier this month.
While Republicans posted two hard-fought gubernatorial victories on Nov. 3, McDonnell’s path to victory is the one that most encourages the GOP, a remarkable case of a social conservative who made his name in politics as an abortion opponent yet managed to reverse a Democratic trend in Virginia and shellack his opponent by nearly 18 percent while largely steering clear of cultural issues.
As rejuvenated GOP governors gathered at a resort outside Austin for their annual strategy session there was little doubt who they wanted to spotlight. McDonnell was shown off at nearly every public event, paraded before the reporters, consultants and lobbyists here as the example of how Republicans can find swing state success in the Obama era.
New Jersey Gov.-elect Chris Christie was also offered as a reminder of the party’s twin triumphs this month, but it was McDonnell who was in demand. Swarmed by new friends, some of them with business interests in Virginia, the commonwealth’s next governor was usually the last official to leave the mix of cook-outs and plenary sessions that marked the Republican Governors Association (RGA) conference.
“McDonnell’s stock was very high already and he found a way to get it even higher,” said Nick Ayers, the RGA’s executive director.
That was in part because Ayers’ boss—and a man who is seen among the establishment Republicans here as something close to the GOP’s de facto national leader–made sure to hold up McDonnell as a model.
Mississippi Gov. and RGA Chairman Haley Barbour laid political hands on his new colleague.
“I thought McDonnell was a master in talking about the things families were talking about around the kitchen table,” Barbour told reporters. “And he never got off on personalities. He never got away from talking about the important issues and how he would address them – and that’s what winning candidates do.”
And, Barbour noted, McDonnell ran with a smile.
“Winning candidates don’t go chasing down rabbit trails and they’re not shrill and they’re not accusatory,” said the Mississippian and former Republican National Committee chairman.
With the struggling economy on the minds of voters, McDonnell focused his message on fiscal issues from the campaign’s outset, touting a bumper sticker-friendly slogan: “Bob’s for Jobs.”
When his rival, Democrat Creigh Deeds, seized upon McDonnell’s graduate school thesis—a document that appeared hostile to working women and gays—the Republican kept to his economic arguments.
In an interview, McDonnell recounted his strategy.
“I never shied away when I got attacked on pro-life—I said, ‘Yeah I’m pro-life, I’ve governed myself that way for 18 years [in the political arena] and I’m going to be a pro-life governor,” he said. “Now let’s talk about jobs and the economy. So it was more a matter of focus, not a matter at all of backtracking on things that we believed in.”
The key, McDonnell said, was locking up the Old Dominion’s many centrist voters, who tend to be fiscally right of center but wary of social extremism.
“If I did a decent job reminding the base about 18 years in the vineyards working hard for the conservative cause, they’d be with me,” he said. “But if I was going to win I had to capture a strong majority of those independent voters.”
To inoculate himself against charges that he was out of the cultural mainstream, McDonnell noted that he went up on TV with positive images portraying himself as a guy-next-door suburban Dad and military veteran.
And while he relentlessly tied his opponent to national Democratic policies on spending, energy, and organized labor, the former state legislator and state attorney general was cautious when it came to Obama, who is still personally popular among many voters.
“What I ran against was just ‘Washington’s policies,’” McDonnell explained, holding up his forefingers to make the quotation sign. “And everybody knew what that meant. I thought the president wasn’t going to be a personal target and I think that served us very well.”
While not advocating retreat from the party’s culturally conservative platform, the consensus view among the establishment Republicans here is that McDonnell’s method of not highlighting such issues as abortion and gay rights offered path to victory. Those topics were virtually ignored here.
“What most people want to know about candidates and officeholders is this: ‘Will you keep my taxes reasonable, hopefully decreasing; can you help me get my kid to a school so he or she can get a decent education?’” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a potential 2012 presidential candidate.
Said McDonnell: “The message of fiscal conservatism was the heart and soul of my campaign.”
But other Republicans with less sterling credentials among the party’s Christian conservative base than McDonnell could have a more difficult time downplaying the issues that animate so many GOP activists.
Nor is it certain that other candidates will enjoy the sort of yawning disparity in energy as hungry and out-of-power Republicans did in Virginia this year.
McDonnell conceded he had better terrain to run on, describing an “enthusiasm gap [that] was 180 degrees different from last year when Republicans were on the short end.”
But he took partial credit for tamping down enthusiasm for his Democratic rival—and in doing so suggested a tactic for how his party could split the opposition in similarly purple states next year.
“We put our opponent in such a box on state issues like taxes and federal issues like [the Employee Free Choice Act] and cap-and-trade that he was kind of out carved out in no man’s land,” McDonnell boasted. “So I think we actually created to some degree the lack of enthusiasm for the other side because he was never really appealing to his base.”
The way McDonnell won, and where he did it, has boosted the spirits of many in his party, and he said that he’ll stump for Republican candidates out-of-state next year.
He downplayed any talk of national ambitions.
“I’m laser-focused on Virginia,” said McDonnell, adding: “No trips to Iowa.”
Any Republican who wants to win needs to stop with the “reaching across the aisle my friends” and stick to his beliefs. DO NOT try to appeal to Democrats, they already have a party.
Yea right! Blah Blah Blah Blah look at me I’m a moderate RINO vote for me over the Moderate Socialist I mean Centrist!
I did notice he had the charisma needed and a good ad agency! His photo was all over, and he got the media’s attention, which means people saw and heard him, for better or worse, per their view. He made his points and didn’t back down. I wish we had more of him just now.
Clearly define the problems and what you believe the solutions are. Lay our you political beliefs and show how they differ from you opponents.
That's the winning strategy, IMHO.
Exactly. Find a strong conservative whose unashamed of his beliefs. If Democrats want to come along, fine. No need to moderate views in order to draw them in.
At the same time when it comes to someone like Obama, you get more payoff by attacking the policies of his third-rate appointees and simply ignoring him.
NOTE: One advantage in running against Obama is that if you successfully attack and destabilize one of his ignorant or criminally inclined cronies, he'll toss them off the bus quite quickly, so you have to be prepared to immediately turn to another one to keep up the heat.
A successful candidate should never really need to say anything critical about Obama.
Do you think McDonnell campaigned as a moderate? He repeatedly said he was pro-life, would govern pro-life, then turned the topic back to jobs. His ads were hard hitting on various energy sources and cap-and-trade and against Washington. He appeared firm to me, yet able to pull the swing voters in. That’s why he won with such a wide margin.
The McCain method was to "kow tow to the voters" ~ and for many of them they think that makes you weak so they vote for "somebody else".
He was the Attorney General. Conservatives nationwide need to look at their bench and farm team. Think about someone new not necessarily the next in line.
Poor John McCain. He sure comes across as weak for a war hero. As the observers say in the column, McDonnell came across as strong yet he smiles. No need to fear him as a hot head if you’re not as socially conservative as he is. And Washington, DC is out of control. Independents know that and wanted someone with the courage of his convictions to stand his ground.
How do we win... Not how do we help the country, how de we help ourselves.
OUR NEXT TEA PARTY SHOULD BE AT GOP HEADQUARTERS- SOON!
As a Republican, I, of course, offer my congratulations to Gov. McDonnell on his win. But I can’t help thinking if this kind of corporate backed and owned Republican was sitting in the U.S. Senate at the end of 2008, he would have cast his vote in support of TARP along with all the other so-called fiscal conservative Republicans.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Get the hell out of the way!
That’s what he was able to do and you’re right. It works. He also was a successful fundraiser so he had the funds to get his views out in markets usually too expensive for that much saturation.
If the latter they will F* it up, as usual. Remember NY23.
Save your sympathy. War hero? He got shot down and survived a PW camp--under some questionable circumstances. No disrespect that it takes something to be a naval aviator in the first place, but he didn't do anything more than what he had to do to survive. Hero? Pretty thin gruel imo.
Well, it is Politico. They’re duty bound to try and marginalize Sarah Palin. They’ll be denied access to the inner sanctum otherwise.
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