A Rovian Catastrophe

In 2004, after he masterminded President Bush's re-election campaign, Karl Rove was hailed as a political genius who quite possibly had the key to keeping the GOP in power....well, forever, I suppose. Rove's strategy? Motivate the base and rely on that trusty get-out-the-vote effort in the days preceding the election. Of course, in the aftermath of last week's election losses, many were left wondering exactly where the Rovian genius had gone wrong.

Many people cite the War in Iraq or political corruption as the reasons for last weeks election results; and, when discussing Democratic and Independent voters, those citations are most likely correct. However, Karl Rove's strategy has never been aimed at swaying these two groups of voters. Indeed, the success of Rove's genius arose from his ability to get so many voters to the polls despite largely ignoring these two groups. In light of Rove's acknowledged strategy, the reason for Republican losses ends up having nothing to do with Democrats, the War in Iraq, a change of direction, or any of those other things Nancy Pelosi talks about - it's a simple question of why Republican voters either refused to vote, or voted against Republicans.

So, which Republicans failed Rove? Was it his ever-so-reliable Evangelical crowd? Hardly. The ever growing ranks of Conservative Christians and Neo-Conservatives certainly made their presence felt on Election Day. All but one of the proposed bans on same sex marriage passed. The one that didn't? Arizona's. Other interesting ballot measures that passed? Minimum wage increases. Now think about that. What's different about Arizona Conservatism? (Hint: think Barry Goldwater) And who would vote overwhelmingly against increases in the minimum wage?

The answer to both has to do with fiscal conservatism. And these fiscal conservatives are the ones who didn't show up at last Tuesday's elections. These Goldwater-esque Conservatives generally vote overwhelmingly Republican. So why didn't they? Easy. Look at the National Debt. Look at how much money Congress spends. Look at all the pork-barrel projects coming out of Congress. Look at Republicans not voting Conservatively once in office. I could list tons of other reasons why the current batch of Congressional Republicans is not, at least in a fiscal sense, all that Conservative. I could also talk about how Republicans failed to deliver on the Immigration issue - but that's not the point.

The point is that Conservative voters, aside from the Religious Right, felt like their Congress had not delivered results for them. Here we find the flaw in Rove's strategy. You can't expect to rely exclusively on one group of people (Conservatives) for your candidates' voting base and not pay attention to half of them (the fiscal half) when you get in office. That's were Rove went terribly wrong this year: he still thought he could get fiscal Conservatives' votes simply by spewing that 'we're bad, but they'll be worse' line. Unfortunately, while that might work with Democratic, Independent, or even socially Conservative voters; an extremely logical, results oriented, Barry Goldwater type, libertarian conservative just isn't going to buy it.

So here's the message to Karl Rove: if you want to start winning elections again, just get your Republican Congressfolk to vote like they're Conservatives. Afterall, as Margaret Thatcher often says, "the facts of life are conservative" - so how hard can it be for politicians to follow suit?

Election 2006

My Final Election Projection for 2006:

First up, the U.S Senate: 52 GOP; 46 Dem; 2 Ind.

Close Races that I think will go Republican:
- Tennessee - Bob Corker
- Missouri - Jim Talent
- Montana - Conrad Burns
- Maryland - Michael Steele (It's a longshot, but I feel good about his campaign....)

Close Races that I think will go Democratic:
- New Jersey - Robert Menendez
- Virginia - James Webb
- Ohio - Sherrod Brown
- Pennsylvania - Bob Casey
- Rhode Island - S. Whitehouse

Independent Pick-up:
- Connecticut - Joe Lieberman

Now, for the U.S House of Representatives: 215 GOP; 220 Dem; 0 Ind.

Ok, so that's it. I could be way off - but hey what fun would it be if I didn't make any predictions at all? In any case, it's shaping up to be an exciting Tuesday.

Preliminary Election Thoughts

It's Friday of the weekend before the big Mid-term Elections 2006; and this means that political junkies everywhere (myself included) are beginning to get pretty excited. The upcoming election has all kinds of 'toss-up' races and will, surely, prove to be very interesting. In light of the proximity of November 7th I thought I'd offer up a few thoughts on and my preliminary predictions of the Election.

- The race I'm most interested is the one for the U.S Senate seat in Maryland. Michael Steele is probably my favorite candidate of all the ones out there this year. He's run a remarkable campaign and now has a legitimate chance to pull the upset. I will stop praising him now because I could go on and on. I really hope Steele wins.

- Mark Sanford will most definitely be winning re-election as Governor here in South Carolina. This makes me happy, as Gov. Sanford is a guy I really like. He's one of the few politicians left who seems to truly understand fiscal conservatism and small government. I am lucky in that my two favorite elected politicians, Gov. Sanford and Sen. Jim DeMint, are both from my home State.

- George Allen is a moron, and I sincerely hope he doesn't run for President in '08. Granted, he's been the victim of some vicious attacks and been overly beaten to death by the Liberal media, he's still run the worst campaign anyone seems to be able to remember. If he does this badly in a Senate race, I would hate to see him go National.

- If Wake Forest defeats Boston College this weekend and Texas finally stops screwing around in the 1st half against Oklahoma State, the GOP will assuredly retain control of both Houses of Congress. That was not a non-sequitur.

- Preliminary Predictions (In number of seats):
~ U.S Senate: 53 GOP, 45 Democratic, 2 Independent
~ U.S House of Representatives: 220 GOP, 215 Democratic

That should do it for now. I'll revise my predictions at least once more before Tuesday.