Why Angle Lost

Pajamas Media ^ | November 6, 2010 | John Ransom

[Kaslin]

The fear and loathing after defeat in Las Vegas don't mask the reality that Sharron Angle's campaign was just not top notch.

The reasons for Sharron Angle’s loss to Harry Reid in a GOP surge year, when other conservative candidates like Rand Paul of Kentucky and Joe Walsh of Illinois won victories, are not rooted in strategy. Nor are they rooted in a flawed ideology that was too conservative. Instead, the loss was a product of simple logistical failures by the Angle campaign, failures they often were unwilling or unable to understand.

“Amateurs talk about strategy. Professionals talk about logistics,” said General of the Army Omar Bradley. Sure, he wasn’t talking about political campaigns. Yet the famous military axiom, more often than not, holds for politics as well. The terrible swift sword of the South, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, described it as “getting there first-est with the most-est.”

So here is a look at the “first-est” logistical reasons Angle lost to Harry Reid:

1) Lack of experience at the top. Three weeks after Angle won the Republican primary, top Angle advisors were still “looking for chinks in Harry’s armor,” as they put it. Really, they had absolutely no idea how they were going to take on Reid. None. Zip. Seasoned professionals would have been ready to execute. You know that IT guy who lives across the street; the guy I wave to in the morning? Yes, that guy would have had a better idea how to take on Reid than Angle did. Some ideas would have been better than no ideas at all. “We just won the primary three weeks ago,” a top member of Angle’s staff complained when asked why the campaign had stalled out. In that time, Angle went from a double-digit lead to down seven percentage points. She squandered her “first-est” advantage.

2) No message discipline. There are three things that can happen when a politician opens her mouth and only one of them is good. She can be quoted accurately but off-message; she can be quoted inaccurately and off-message; or she can be quoted accurately and on message. The outcome is always the responsibility of the candidate. Too often Angle was quoted off-message. Angle was infamous for verbal gaffes on the trail. These were due to her getting off the message that the economy sucks and it’s Harry Reid’s fault. Every social-issue question should have been answered saying: “Interesting question. I think the thing Nevadans want to know about is why after Harry Reid spent trillions of tax dollars, Nevada still leads the nation in unemployment, foreclosures, and bankruptcies.” It might have been a boring campaign, but Angle would have won by hammering her “best-est” argument.

3) Lack of experience in the middle. The campaign was littered with friends of friends who were very enthusiastic but lacked basic campaign experience. They shunned experienced activists (and advice), creating an “us against them” attitude in the GOP community. Even groups who were active in helping Angle win the primary were given the stiff arm once the general election started. Coalitions happen in the middle space of a campaign, and the Angle campaign squandered that space. Much of the Angle GOTV operation was by spontaneous activists who were frustrated by the lack of response from the Angle campaign. Although enthusiasm was at a high point in Vegas, Angle didn’t exploit the “most-est” enthusiasm gap.

4) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The campaign had a poor working relationship with the press, fostered by the fear that Angle too often got off-message. The press, Angle likely felt, “had no business to report [her remarks] so verbatimly,” to use Mark Twain’s apt phrase. Angle, then, rebuffed the press, which is always a mistake. Yes, it feels good to rebuff us. But the rebuff created a loathing by the press, which was returned by the campaign. Angle would have been wise to see the press as a delivery mechanism that is better managed than challenged. While this failure doesn’t necessarily fit into any “first-est with the most-est,” category, it might have been the dumbest thing the campaign did. It made the campaign look like it lacked confidence in itself.

“Victory in the next war will depend in execution not plans,” Patton wrote to Eisenhower in 1926. The next war was World War II. That war was won by overwhelming the Axis powers by logistics, not strategy.

It’s a lesson all candidates should study when they prepare to take on the Axis of Evil.

[TMA62]

To be honest, I think that this loss will become a victory in the long run. You now have Obama-Reid-Pelosi still as the visible leaders of the DNC. They are not popular which was one of the reasons why the dems lost so badly on Tuesday. With Obama-Reid-Pelosi

I am going to give a prediction. If there is any party that will be prime for a break away to a third party it is the democrat party. The DNC is being run by the radical left. The number of radicals to moderate dems in the party is at an all time high and will likely continue. While there are more registered dems in this country, a logical question to ask is “does the DNC really represent your views and values?” (this could be a good campaign theme for the republicans in 2012) I really think that when asked this question, many dem voters will say no. There could be a mass exodus from this party in the 2012-2020 with a newer party with not so radical views replacing it. I think it would be a great question to raise in the 2012 campaign. The republicans can point to Obama-Reid-Pelosi and has the electorate, “Do they really represent you??” Sooooo, the Reid victory could easily help the defeat of the left within 10 years.

[Alberta's Child]

Good assessment here.

But let's look at the bright side of this (the VERY bright side) . . . If Reid had lost on Tuesday, then New York's Chuck Schumer would be the new Senate Majority Leader in January. I think I'd have my head in the oven by March 1st if I had to listen to or read about that guy on a regular basis in that post.

[Candor7]

Why is pyjama media so strident in coverugup the truth? The Unions and casino employers made this electuon for Reid. So did voter fraud.

Reid simply called in his pork barrel chits,legal and illegal, knowing Hlder will be hands off.

[USSR Didnt Fall]

Drones will never get it we move on and move forward..

[gogeo]

Angle had a big advantage and squandered it. So it should be studied as an object lesson, which this is doing, or else it will just happen again...

Exactly.

There's no point in shooting the survivors, and no point in listening to the armchair QBs at FR.

The lessons are there for the taking, and lesson #1 is...Amateurs talk about strategy...

[central_va]

The inevitable campaign post-mortems from those “who just weren’t listened to or respected enough.”

Agreed. This piece reeks of "mainstream" advice ad nauseum.

[Polybius]

Good article, with good military analogies. Where it breaks down is in this statement. If Hitler had not attacked Russia and had to divide his forces, he would have been able to repel any invasion of Europe, no matter the logistics brought to bear against him.

On the hand, the prime motive for Operation Barbarossa was the German need for oil.

Hitler's Quest for Oil: the Impact of Economic Considerations on Military Strategy, 1941-42

An oil-starved Germany would have held on, maybe into the late 1940's, while U.S. and British seapower cut off it's supplies of imported food and materiel and while U.S. and British airpower dispersed it's industry to less efficient cottage factories and disrupted all transportation infrastructure.

Eventually, although not in 1945, Germany would have withered on the dried up vine and gone down to defeat.

In the end, it still all boils down to logistics.

[central_va]

Karl Rove is a master at that. Admit it, Bush wouldn’t had became President without despite his help.

There, fixed it.

[gogeo]

We as conservatives have to be cognizant that if we push to have red-meat conservatives in purple states, that will be a motivating factor for Dem GOTV efforts, and we have to be prepared to react in kind to support conservatives...

Another lesson...I don't think many conservatives understand what it means to be a lib. Government is their profession, their paycheck and their life. If they don't win, they don't eat.

That's why the constant growth of government. This is a ready workforce of committed idealogues for winning elections.

Part of our charge as conservatives is that we, each of us, need to be involved in the ground game. It's the price we must pay for a government we can stand.

Enough with the armchair QBs...reminds me of the "Car Wash Blues" song..."They wouldn't listen to the fact that I was genius...the man said we got all that we can use." Everybody wants to be a General, no one wants to be a soldier...but any army needs more soldiers than Generals.

Amateurs talk about strategy...

[gogeo]

Thus demonstrating that the problem wasn’t just get-out-the-vote...

In regards to something with as many moving parts as a campaign, winning and losing is never about just...any one thing.

[gogeo]

OH....we are people who WORK for a living and we’ve never been part of a HERD, unlike the Dems...

So the cost of working in/for a campaign is becoming a herd?

Get involved, or get used to living under a government you don't like.

[gogeo]

But in a well-run campaign, you find things for volunteers to do because you have structured things where there are lots of productive tasks to be done, and you don't want your volunteers striking out on their own - everything I did was at the approval of the campaign managers, I NEVER just did stuff on my own as to possibly do something that contradicted with the direction and message of the campaign...

This is true in any organization...is anyone blessed with a sufficient workforce of self-starting, seasoned volunteers?

Is McDonalds successful because they only hire such standout individuals, then wait for them to figure out what should be done?

[gogeo]

We have to realize it takes more than just campaign contributions. We have to dedicate ourselves to winning, even if it means one less vacation taken that year or a few less baseball games watched on TV or that remodelling job in the basement getting postponed six months...

That's the price we pay for being owners of government, rather than subjects...anyone who doesn't get involved is a free rider.

[gogeo]

I estimated that Dem turnout in Montco was over 60 percent - stunning - and Adcock’s winning model was for him to have 58 percent turnout (which he was very close to) and for the Dems to have a typical off-year turnout of 42 percent or so - that was the only way to overcome the 60,000 Dem voter registration advantage in PA-13 due to the chunk of NE Philly within it boundaries...

As 2008 showed, and as became appparent locally this year (Rossi/Murray) the RATs are really tied into community organizing/organizations, and their GOTV results are impressive.

If we want to win in 2012 we'll have to match their effectiveness.

[Ann Archy]

Idiocy. I guess I had to make it clearer to some people who are looking for anything to bitch about.

[gogeo]

The union ground game is becoming more and more dangerous - witness Toomey’s close call in PA. This problem is not going away...

True, true, true.

[chiller]

Reid's would have been a nice scalp, but as it turns would not have been the magical 51st senator, and then Reid would have been replaced with a more palatable Maj. Leader.

Harry will be the face of Democrats in Congressional battles, and that's not good for Dems. I don't think he'll be dumped...he "found" Obie after all.

[gogeo]

What should be looked into is why there was no establishment support for the conservative candidates?

We don't have the luxury of looking at one facet to the exclusion of all others.

[gogeo]

I am going to give a prediction. If there is any party that will be prime for a break away to a third party it is the democrat party...

That does not make sense to me. The extremists are in charge in the RAT party...the ones who are leaving are the more conservative members.

It seems to me any third party will come out of the TP ranks, if we aren't able to gain control of the GOP.

[gogeo]

S’Okay.