In response to Mitt Romney’s announcement that he will not seek reelection, Deval Patrick has, to my ears at least, sharpened his rhetoric in two ways: (1) to link Kerry Healey with Mitt Romney at every possible opportunity (my quick perusal of old Patrick press releases showed an almost exclusive focus on Romney and hardly any mention of Healey, except in discussing her husband’s company’s sleazy tax break); and (2) to be more aggressive in playing up the differences between himself and Tom Reilly (moments ago I wondered aloud whether this might happen). From the press release just received at BMG central (emphasis added by me):
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We all know that in so many ways the leadership from the Romney-Healey Administration is bad. But we can’t just replace bad leadership with ordinary leadership. I want to offer creative leadership and vision. And with leadership experience not just in government, but in business, community work, and not-for-profits, I believe I have unique skills to offer at a unique moment in our history.
This is good strategy, IMHO. I respect the impulse to run positive campaigns, and to use only aspirational language, and all that. But the Dems tried that at the 2004 convention, and it was a total, utter, unmitigated catastrophe. You’ve got to explain to voters why you’re different from – and, frankly, better than – the other guy.
Everyone wants more and better jobs, a clean environment, good schools, more health care, etc. To win an election, you have to convince the voters that you’re the best candidate in the field to deliver those goals – and not just because you want them the most, but because you are the most likely to achieve them. I don’t mean mudslinging and stupid negative campaigning. I mean serious, issue-focused, substantive, vigorous debate between the candidates.
Today’s news about Romney is excellent not only because it removes him from the electoral calculus. It’s excellent because it brings the 2006 election into much sharper focus, which means both the public and the candidates will be thinking harder about it than they were before. Patrick’s press release today concludes by saying “I am looking forward to the race.” So am I.
is Opening Day of the 2006 Governor’s race!
Positive vs. negative is not the issue. A good campaign draws contrasts between its candidate and the others, and tries to give voters a clear idea of what they’d be voting for if they choose that candidate, that they wouldn’t be voting for if they choose any other candidate. That’s the important part, the clear definition and contrast.
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A good campaign of the sort we want, and support, is one that can do so straightforwardly and honestly. We don’t want campaigns to have to resort to dirty tricks, lie about their opponents, and so on. But these are, to some extent, orthogonal issues from what I talked about in the first paragraph.
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I think the use of “positive” and “negative” to describe campaigns, muddies the waters. It gets those two things confused. There are good “negative” and bad “negative” things one can do in a campaign, from both a moral and political standpoint.
That’s pretty much what I was trying to say, though I didn’t use the word “orthogonal.” đŸ™‚ “Stupid” negative campaigning – the swiftboating of another candidate – is what we should wholeheartedly reject (and I seriously doubt that either Patrick or Reilly will go down that road). But among other disastrous missteps, the Democrats at the 2004 convention made a gigantic error by studiously avoiding mentioning W’s name. You’ve GOT to talk about the other guy, and why he is less likely to get the job done. That, I think, is what you mean by “contrast,” and if so, I agree with you.
I don’t think talking about the other guy by name is necessarily required for making contrasts, though it can be part of it. The Democrats could have drawn a clear contrast by directly opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and favoring withdrawal, and if they’d done so, would have drawn a clear contrast without having to talk about Bush by name. It’s not that I think they shouldn’t have mentioned Bush’s name. I just don’t think it was absolutely necessary, either.
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Take, for example, the recent senate special election. Jehlen defined herself as the progressive candidate. It’s something Mackey could also have done, except that most of the voters that formed his support based weren’t looking for “the progressive”, so he didn’t. So Jehlen didn’t have to talk about any of the other candidates by name, to draw a contrast – she knew she was the only one trying to define herself as the progressive, and that was a clear contrast. Callahan defined himself as “the neighborhood guy from Medford”. Again, a clear contrast: nobody else in the race was going to do that, or would have any credibility with that, so there was no need for him to mention them by name. And it worked to the extent that it could: he won Medford solidly. [ He banked on that being enough to win overall, and it wasn’t, but that was a campaign strategy error on other grounds, not a failure to define himself in contrast to the other candidates. ]
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I do agree that in the 2004 convention, talking about Bush by name could have been useful. But only in the context of drawing a clear, defining contrast.