David Axelrod talks about the campaign

By Richard K. Barry

David Axelrod, senior strategist for the Obama campaign, was at the University of Chicago talking to an audience about the election, particularly those things that surprised him about the Romney campaign.

Among those surprises was that Republican super PACs didn't attack Obama far earlier; Mitt Romney didn't  invest more in his ground game; and, Romney picked Paul Ryan as his running mate. 

Axelrod said that he was a bit surprised conservative Super PACs, which spent massive amounts of money, "didn't hit television and radio with anti-Obama ads until May." He added that "our air defenses weren't ready," meaning they didn't yet have the money to respond. As it put it, "they gave us a pass for some reason."

Another point he made was that the Romney campaign took too long to fashion a positive message about their candidate as a successful businessman, waiting until late fall to get there. The Obama campaign assumed that once Romney secured the nomination he would craft a more positive message about where he would take the country, generally considered an important aspect of any winning campaign.

As for Ryan, Axelrod personally figured former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty would be the choice, possibly Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. His doubts about Ryan were a function of tough-minded views on privatizing Social Security and making significant changes in Medicare.

And as for the Republicans' field operation, their comparatively small investment played into the Democrats' hands and was not forecast by Axelrod, either.

Read more »

The biggest threat all along was Jon Huntsman. Thankfully, Republicans were too stupid to nominate him.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

After decades of trying, the Manchus finally crossed the Great Wall in 1644, taking Beijing and establishing the Qing Dynasty. They had an easier time of it than Huntsman in the Republican Party.

The WSJ's Washington Wire is reporting that early on the Obama campaign was worried about one really appealing Republican in particular: 

Jon Huntsman is the former Utah governor who took a moderate stance in a GOP field that leaned to the right. He didn't get very far in the Republican nomination fight, but team Obama viewed him as a serious candidate who could pose real problems in a general election. 

"We were honest about our concerns about Huntsman," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said at a Politico breakfast event Tuesday. "I think Huntsman would have been a very tough candidate."

As for the president, he liked Mr. Huntsman enough to appoint him ambassador to China in 2009. Mr. Messina, who was working in the White House at the time, said he helped Mr. Huntsman win Senate confirmation.

"As someone who helped manage his confirmation for Chinese ambassador, he's a good guy," Mr. Messina said. "We looked at his profile in a general election and thought he would have been" a formidable candidate.

Absolutely. In fact, I wrote a post way back in June 2011 called "Huntsman the Formidable."

Don't get me wrong, I never thought it was going to be him. The Republican Party is just too extreme right now, too ideologically absolutist, to go with someone like Huntsman.

This is the party, after all, that tossed aside conservative-but-not-conservative-enough Dick Lugar in Indiana, who would have been a shoe-in for re-election, and ended up with Dick "pregnancies from rape are a gift from God" Mourdock, who lost badly in what this year was a solidly red state, a race that was his to lose. A party that was so uncomfortable with Mitt Romney that it flirted seriously with the embarrassing likes of Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum before finally settling, reluctantly, on the guy who would end up losing. It was not going to get behind a guy, however conservative, who refused to kowtow to the far right, who exposed Republican ignorance, who was just too sane and civil for the current Republican zeitgeist.

Not in 2012. Absolutely not. He just had way too many strikes against him, as I noted here:

Not that Republicans will ever nominate him, mind you. They're too stupid to know what's good for them, and Huntsman just isn't the right sort of Republican for 2012, what with the party getting ever more extreme, particularly with the rise of the Tea Party, and old-school establishment figures, not to mention moderates, or those who just aren't conservative enough for the extremists, even those with a single questionable mark on their record, being purged from its ranks by the right-wing Bolsheviks who run the show.

I wrote a post way back in January 2011 called "If I were Obama, I'd be worried about Huntsman." In retrospect, I was wrong. Obama had nothing to be worried about. Huntsman was never really a threat.

I was actually talking up the Huntsman thing even earlier, with a post in May 2009 called "Huntsman 2012?" What did I say then? "Huntsman may make us all a little queasy, but, thankfully, Republicans are just too stupid to know what's good for them."

He was undeniably formidable, as I wrote in June 2011:

[T]here's no denying he's an awfully impressive man. I might even go so far as to say he could very well be Reagan 2.0, or if not that, given how transformative Reagan was for movement conservatism, at least a leading Republican in the Reagan mold. He just seems to have it all, even the somewhat more tolerant and even liberal positions on some social issues that show him to be a man of the times, not a man against the times, a conservative who is open to progress and change while remaining committed to his fundamental beliefs. Perhaps he could be zeitgeist conservative, the forward-looking proponent of conservatism at a time of massive global change.

Alas:

But not likely, not in today's Republican Party, which would likely rather expel him that have him as its leader.

Yes, Republicans really are too stupid to know what's good for them. Which is good for us, but not good for Huntsman, who will have to wait until 2016, or forever, to make his mark in a party that has abandoned him and all those like him.

 

Do you get what I'm saying?

 

Republicans. Stupid. Huntsman. Never.

This is how you win an election

By Mustang Bobby

A lot has been written in the last two weeks about how the Obama campaign pulled off a strong re-election against some incredible odds (and odd people, too). There's been a lot of talk about messaging and getting donors lined up, getting the right surrogates out there, having good oppo research, and having an instant counter-strike force ready to take on whatever the Republicans threw out there... or gaffed up on the field.

All of that was important, but it really didn't matter until the actual votes were cast, and that meant getting every voter that had the slightest inclination to vote for Barack Obama out to the polls, either early voting or on the actual day. And that took dedication, organization, and just plain hard work. Not everyone can do all of that, even those who want to. For some it's the time that it takes, for others it's the cost that cannot be absorbed. So they found other ways that they could help win the election.

For instance, my parents. They have been involved in a lot of campaigns in Northwest Ohio for many years, and you might recall that in 2004, my mom was a delegate to the Democratic convention in Boston. In 2008, they opened their house to visiting campaign workers and volunteers, and this year they did it again. Yesterday they shared their story with TPM:

I just read the great piece by the man from Idaho who went to Cleveland to canvass for Obama's re-election. My husband and I were similarly blown away by the dedication to Democracy we saw in the volunteers we hosted. At our house (my husband and I are in our 80's by the way) we have taken in workers like this man who arrive from all over the country.

We have given them beds and use of our laundry machines plus the occasional early morning glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee. Other volunteers provided home cooked meals at the downtown Toledo headquarters. We had as many as six sleeping in our guest rooms and in the hall between during the '08 election run-up. One young man was part of the legal team that advised the campaign staff and came from David Boies' law firm in New York. He shared his personal life stories with us and we kept in touch for more than a year after he went to work in DC. This year we had at one time four women sharing our two guest rooms. One told her astonished husband she absolutely had to go to Ohio – this being the Thursday before the last weekend – and she lived in Seattle. She caught a plane to Detroit the next day, rented a car and arrived unannounced at headquarters. They placed her with us during which time she walked the streets to canvass in downtown Toledo, rising early and working deep into the evening, grabbing a bite at headquarters and collapsing in our bedroom after 10:00. Another woman came from the Jersey shore and once she found her house was OK put her shoulder to the wheel as well in Toledo doing anything that was needed including the demanding work walking the neighborhoods to get out the vote. Our guest who stayed the longest had taken unpaid leave from Congresswoman Maxine Waters' office in DC four weeks before the election to work where she knew the need was most critical, Ohio. She was exhausted by the time the votes were all in. She had risen at dawn every morning, canvassed all day – eventually working as one of the team leaders placing volunteers where they were most needed – and she didn't return until after 11:00 at night. The Tuesday of the voting she finally got to bed around 2:30 Wednesday. When she left two days later we hugged and exchanged addresses. I'll never forget her or the stories these great women shared with us, some of them hilarious, some frustrating but a lifetime of memories for them and for the two of us.

Obama's machine stayed dormant after the '08 election and then retooled and expanded to the vast organization you saw that blew away the competition. I see this happening again in Ohio. The name is a bit different now; it's Organization For Ohio today, but it will be in place when needed for the off-term elections and beyond. The e-mails are already beginning. They know me and they'll call on me again.

Needless to say, I am very proud of my parents.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

President Obama thanks his campaign: "I'm really proud of all of you."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This is a wonderful clip, and it just makes me admire and respect the president all the more:


And in our own small way, we played a part here at The Reaction. 

Richard and I were on the Obama campaign's media outreach list, along with other liberal-progresive bloggers. This blog was on their radar. We got the e-mails. We got the messaging. We were on some of the media calls, including the other day with Axelrod, Plouffe, Messina, and Cutter. And we did our best to help.

We were part of the campaign -- Richard and I, as well as every member of the Reaction team. And I am immensely proud of that.

The final push for President Obama

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's no time to rest...

Will Ferrell wants you to vote

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Just saw this over at Frank's place:


I'm sure Republicans will blast this one as well -- just like they did Lena Dunham's -- saying Obama is desperate and will do anything for votes.

Actually, it's just a funny ad with an important message: vote.

(And it's especially important to get out and vote given the Republicans' voter suppression efforts.)

Behind the Ad: The man has no shame

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.) 

Who: Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Michigan and Ohio

What's going on: So much has been said about Mitt Romney's willingness to lie his ass off about nearly anything if he thinks it will help him win the election.  His campaign has said that they would not allow themselves to be influenced by fact checkers. He might as well have said he would not allow his campaign to be influenced by the truth.

Romney knows he needs Ohio to win the election, He knows Michigan would be a major victory, so he simply starting telling people that because of Barack Obama's efforts to save the auto industry, Chrysler would be shipping jobs to China for the production of its Jeep line. Not a word of it is true and Chrysler has said so.

Steve Benen talked about this today, citing a couple of newspaper pieces:

The New York Times editorialized today, "It's bad enough to be wrong on the policy. It takes an especially dishonest candidate to simply turn up the volume on a lie and keep repeating it." What's more, the Toledo Blade chastised Romney today for "conducting an exercise in deception about auto-industry issues that is remarkable even by the standards of his campaign."

The Obama campaign has an ad calling Romney out on his latest lie: "Cynical." I'd say this is what desperation looks like, but Romney has run his whole campaign like this.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Obama's first term by that guy who talks fast

By Richard K. Barry

Okay, this guy has always annoyed me, but it's a cute enough idea by the Obama campaign. At this point you throw everything you've got at it, like this very quick look at President Obama's first term.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Remember what Mitt Romney is all about

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.) 

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia.

What's going on: On Saturday, the Obama campaign put out an ad suggesting voters think about what a Mitt Romney led America would look like as they enter the voting booth.

This is the punchline:

"Mitt Romney's plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy. Medicare - voucherized. Catastrophic cuts to education. Millionaires will get one of the largest tax cuts ever, while middle class families pay more."

"That's what Mitt Romney wants to bring here," the ad concludes over a map of the White House, which shifts again to a photo of a voting booth. "Remember that, when you go here."

Works for me.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Lena Dunham and Ronald Reagan vs. Republican (faux) outrageaholics out to smear President Obama however possible

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you may have heard that Lena Dunham, the extremely talented young woman of Girls and Tiny Furniture fame, has made a video for the Obama campaign called "Your First Time." You may even have seen it. (Watch it, for the first time or again, below. It's really good.)

And you may also have heard that Republicans are freaking out over the double entendre (voting for the first time = losing your virginity), saying the ad is in bad taste (among other more vitriolic takes).

Women, it seems, aren't allowed to be sexual, or at least not when they support President Obama.

That, and these Republicans just can't take the obvious humor here. Said the loathsome Erick Erickson, for example: "If you need any further proof we live in a fallen world destined for hell fire, consider the number of people who have no problem with the President of the United States, via a campaign ad, ridiculing virgins and comparing sex to voting."

Ridiculing virgins? What? Okay, voting is compared to sex, but, again, it's meant to be humorous -- and it is. Not that these traffickers in right-wing outrage can appreciate the (fucking) joke. I hardly think President Obama and Lena Dunham would do an ad that treats women like sex objects or that diminishes them in any way. To the extent that both sex and voting can be empowering, well, yes -- that's the point. And everyone who isn't an intellectually and sexually stunted fool surely gets it.

Hey, even Ronald Reagan got it. As TPM's Eric Kleefeld notes, the Republican who could never do wrong said this on November 1, 1980:

I know what it's like to pull the Republican lever for the first time, because I used to be a Democrat myself, and I can tell you it only hurts for a minute and then it feels just great.

Oh, but Republicans are outraged! And it's all so very faux, because do you really think they give a shit about a woman's dignity, as they're suggesting? Please. These anti-sex theocrats would much prefer it if women stayed home, baked some apple pie, took care of the kids, and pleased their husbands -- that is, if they did the opposite of what Ms. Dunham is proposing here. Indeed, Ms. Dunham, and all such liberated women, are threats to the repressive right-wing worldview that is so clearly on display here.

(Along, of course, with the transparent and pathetic attempt to score some of the women's vote for Romney by characterizing the president as some sort of sexual predator, or at the very least as a  degrader of women. Stupid and ridiculous -- the president is in a loving relationship with a strong, brilliant woman and has two lovely daughters, lest we forget, and strongly advocates policies that specifically empower women (e.g., equal pay, abortion rights, access to contraception) -- but what do you expect from these clowns?)

It is 2012, right?
 

Mark Halperin finally said something I enjoyed hearing

By Richard K. Barry 

I wouldn't want to sound too optimistic about the presidential election. After all, what kind of Democrat would that make me? But I will say that a piece yesterday by Mark Halperin gave me some reason for hope. Based on interviews with senior campaign staff, Halperin had this to say, in part:

Chicago remains sufficiently funded and emboldened by its own polling to compete for the final two weeks in all nine of the battlegrounds: Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia in the South; New Hampshire in the North; Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin in the Midwest; and Nevada and Colorado in the West. As they have in the past, Obama campaign officials say they expect to win a high percentage of those states and conceivably could sweep all nine.

And this:

When pressed, the Obama officials with whom I met said that five of the nine stand out: Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire. In that quintet, Democrats believe the combination of their current leads in polling, early voting (where applicable), and ground game makes their chances of winning even greater there than in the other four. And given the Electoral College math, unless Romney picks off one or more of those five states, Obama would win a minimum of 281 electoral votes and re-election.

Current leads in the polls in swing states, early voting, and ground game. To this I would add what I think is undersampling of the Hispanic vote in polling in some key states.

It is a very interesting article by Halperin. I recommend it. And as for my level of optimism about the outcome, I'm actually feeling fine.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Obama's got ground game

By Richard K. Barry

We are going to hear a lot over the next two weeks about the superior ground game the Obama campaign feels it has in place to help ensure people who are supportive actually get out and vote. If you are unfamiliar with the term, a ground game in electoral politics refers to the infrastructure a campaign has close to the voters in any given constituency that allow it to be in touch face-to-face both to persuade voters and to get them to the polls on the big day: offices, campaign staff, volunteers, telephone lines, literature, campaign signs, etc.

For example, much has been made of the fact that the Obama team has a lot more field offices in battle ground states. Molly Ball had a terrific article at the Atlantic yesterday going into some detail about the comparative advantage the Obama people have on all aspects of their effort.

Still, I liked David Gergen's comment on this. He said:

In the pivotal state of Ohio, for example, the Obama campaign has three times as many offices, often captained by experienced young people. By contrast, a major Republican figure in the state, throwing up his hands, told me that the Romney field team looked like a high school civics class.

Conventional wisdom is that a good ground game can add up to two points to an election result. In 2008, Obama didn't need those points, but he probably will this time. And this time his ground game is better than last time.

By the way, the Obama campaign will be posting a blog by Jeremy Bird, its National Field Director, on what they call its "historic grass roots operation," or what I call its ground game. You can find that here.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: President Obama's plan for the next four years

By Richard K. Barry 

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.) 

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Colorado.

What's going on: The Obama campaign released a new upbeat ad yesterday -- "Determination" -- that draws attention to the president's plan to secure economic security for the middle class. He's beginning to make his closing argument that we've come too far to turn back now.

As the campaign argues:

Unlike Governor Romney, the President has been consistent and clear about his vision and values because he knows his plan will actually create jobs and strengthen the middle class – and that recent history teaches us the right way to grow the economy is from the middle out, not the top down.

And, as The Huffington Post notes:

In the spot, Obama speaks directly to the camera about his plans for a second term, including boosting manufacturing and spending on education. He also touts first-term accomplishments, including the bailout of the auto industry and the end of the Iraq war. 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Obama on the wars

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Unknown.

What's going on: Prior to last night's debate, the Obama campaign released a TV ad making the point that the president's policies overseas have made the U.S. stronger domestically. The theme is that it's "time to stop fighting over there and start rebuilding here." It also draws attention to the fact that Romney called the Administration's plan to end the war responsibly Obama's biggest mistake.



(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Why Romney fails the Commander-in-Chief test (Part 1)

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Web video.

What's going on: In anticipation of last night's debate, the Obama team released a series of short videos to talk about the many reasons Mitt Romney would be a disaster as Commander-in-Chief. The first, below, features interviews with foreign policy experts and footage of Romney in his own words. The Obama team calls it Romney's "bluster and blunders on the most important national security issues of our time."



(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Obama on his commitments to seniors

By Richard K. Barry 

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Florida.

What's going on: Last week, the Obama-Biden campaign started running an ad in Florida that emphasizes the commitment his administration is making to seniors to protect Social Security and Medicare, in contrast to the Romney-Ryan plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Obama campaign touting signs of economic recovery

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive " Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, and Virginia.

What's going on: President Obama is rightly pointing to signs of economic recovery in an ad called "Main Street." Romney has tried to say the economy hasn't improved under Obama, another of his famous lies. I am still amazed Republicans get to talk about the disastrous economy they left Obama like they have no idea how it happened or bear no responsibility for it.

Maybe not fast enough, but things are getting better. 


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Early voting victory in Ohio

By Mustang Bobby

In case you missed this in all the coverage of the debate, the Supreme Court refused to hear Ohio's appeal of a lower court decision to allow early voting to continue in the Buckeye State:

The Supreme Court delivered a victory to President Obama's reelection campaign Tuesday, saying it would not set aside a lower court's ruling that all Ohio voters be allowed to cast ballots in the three days before the Nov. 6 election.

The Obama campaign had sued the state over its decision to end early voting on the Friday before the election for all but members of the military. The campaign said the decision would disproportionately affect poor, elderly and low-income voters, who are most likely to take advantage of early voting.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit agreed. It said that if Ohio is going to open polls for military voters during the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the election, it must allow all voters to participate.

"While there is a compelling reason to provide more opportunities for military voters to cast their ballots, there is no corresponding satisfactory reason to prevent nonmilitary voters from casting their ballots as well," the appeals court said.

Without comment, the Supreme Court turned down Ohio's request to revisit the lower court ruling. There were no noted dissents to the decision.

The reason that the Ohio Republicans are against early voting is pretty simple. They know that early voters tend to vote heavily for the Democrats, and, as Greg Sargent notes, the Democrats are very well organized and braced to get out the vote. This, by the way, is the reason why a lot of Republicans in states like Florida are doing everything they can to make voting — not just early voting — more difficult: if you can't sell your candidates on their merits, at least prevent the opposition from voting at all.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Mitt Romney's continuing disrespect for women

By Richard K. Barry

I have to imagine that the Obama campaign will be able to pull a bunch of clips from Tuesday's presidential debate to help voters understand what the real Mitt Romney thinks. The debates are about moments and Romney was more than generous providing moments that help us better grasp what he's all about.

In this clip below, at the Obama-Biden website, in which Romney talks about the now-famous lady binders, he fails to talk about pay discrimination for women.

Here's what the campaign had to say about it:

At the second presidential debate, President Obama showed his continued commitment to progress for women. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney didn't offer a single policy or solution when asked about the problem of pay discrimination, just anecdotes. While the President talked about women as breadwinners, Romney talked about them as resumes in "binders".

In a follow-up question, one of Romney's top advisors claimed that the Governor opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009. Watch this video and share it with your friends to show why Romney is too extreme for women.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: The Romney-Ryan strategy -- thirsting for an answer

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive "Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Web video.

What's going on: Well, we knew the Obama campaign would make good use of Paul Ryan's pack of lies and evasiveness in the VP debates.

This came out last week, but I somehow missed it. It's lovely. I particularly like Ryan's big sigh when he was asked about protecting women's reproductive rights. Priceless.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)