“Mudcat’s” Southern strategy
There’s this political consultant for the Democrats named David Saunders, who goes by “Mudcat”, and he’s full of, well, he’s full of a lot of stuff, but he’s no doubt an interviewer’s dream because he’s full of earthy local-color quotes. He’s profiled by one of the Weekly Standard’s best writers, Matt Labash, and drops an interesting bit of strategery:
Mudcat, who describes himself as “an old-timey Democrat: pro-gun, pro-God, pro fiscal conservatism,” is tired of teaching remedial Mudcat Math to deaf ears in his own party. It can be distilled as The Twofer Strategy: If you get a rural white voter who otherwise would have voted for McCain to switch to Obama, his vote is worth twice as much as a vote from your standard “liberal pinko commie” or your MTV Rock-the-Voter, since Obama not only accrues one vote for himself, but also takes one away from McCain. Campaigns that court the base while ignoring voters who could be won over are “hunting squirrels they’ve already killed.”
Let’s turn that logic around a second and apply it to the Republican side. Is there an insight there into why McCain keeps kicking conservatives in the bojangles? There might be, because I see two reasons for McCain to do so:
I. He’s not conservative and doesn’t like us. This one gets a lot of discussion here, and I think there’s a lot of truth to it. McCain is genuinely invested in his Maverick rep and sees himself as better, smarter, and cooler than the mere earth-bound salt-of-the-earth conservative types. He thinks we insist on border security out of latent bigotry, and we’ve all been tragically misled by greedy corporations about this climate change thing and drilling in ANWR.
II. The other possible, and more strategic, reason is the mirror image of Mudcat’s twofer battle plan. If McCain were to turn out the conservative base, he still would have trouble winning. If he wants to win–and he’s a politician, so that’s a pretty safe bet–he’s going to have to poach some votes from Obama, maybe some likely Hillary voters, especially in key states.
Some of those potential twofer voters respond well to open-borders pandering and showing up at La Raza meetings. I think McCain figures that the conservatives he alienates by doing so will protest just by not voting for him, rather than by voting for Obama. In other words, McCain’s betting he’ll more than make up in twofers what he loses from dissing the base.
So if any consolation, it’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.
Well, okay, it’s actually personal too.
___________
I thought the extended fishing metaphor was worth a mention:
We hit the streams with a gaggle of Mudcat’s gregarious and generous friends, half of whom are named “Charlie.” Many of them are wealthy, but they are committed gentlemen of leisure, dedicated to the art of angling to the point that some have bought their own trout hatchery on their private limestone stream. On one outing, we hit a fishing spot so choice I’d never be invited back if I published its name. I wade into a hole that Mudcat has already worked over for four or so rainbow trout.
…
As I keep fishing and am getting skunked, I notice one of the boys sneaking upstream. Shortly thereafter, I hear scattered kerplunks and think the wiseacre is throwing rocks, scaring down prospective fish. But a minute or so later, trout start rising like bombs going off around my waders, which inspires a new round of catcalls. “Yep, no fish in there. . . . It’s a dry hole.” It turns out the prankster had stashed trout pellets in his beer bottle, and had thrown them in a riffle, which had washed down into my hole. A while later, I take a leaping rainbow trout and a nice-sized brookie on a bead-head zug bug, barely saving my dignity, though one of the Charlies seems cross that I horsed the latter in.
Okay, I’m not a trout fisherman, and I don’t own a private limestone trout hatchery or even any fishing gear from Orvis, but I think I missed the scene in A River Runs Through It where they chum the water with trout pellets.
There’s a theme here. The next day Labash and Mudcat go out to try to catch a catfish on a fly rod, and there’s Mudcat there to grease the wheels:
Mudcat asks to take a look at my flies, and settles on a brown woolly bugger, of which he cuts off the tail, to make it look more cylindrical. He tells me to go to it, which I do, sight-casting to large grass carp and channel catfish, their shadows darting through the water. Next, Mudcat starts adding “the secret ingredient”–cylindrical fish pellets–which he throws in by the handful, as he sits with a Camel dangling from his mouth in a lawn chair on a dock, about 50 feet in front of me from the shore.
Typical Democrat: flood the zone with giveaways, be it stinkbait or federal dollars, and bribe the voters to your side. (Example: Hey, have some free federal highway money! Just ignore that sharp barbed hook in the middle of it.)
Crudely effective, but I think it shows a certain lack of understanding for the fish and what they want. Which is supposed to be Mudcat’s stock-in-trade.
______________
{Post by See-Dubya}
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Categories: 2008 campaign, Democrats, John McCain
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See-Dubya wrote:
I don’t mind looking up to someone better than me - when they are actually better than me. For instance; I’m not going to challenge Phil Jackson by saying that I can coach better than he can. I’m not going to claim that I have a better understanding of gymnastics than Nadia Comaneci. I think McCain would - and then he’d have his proverbial head handed to him.
I think both reasons are correct - it’s not an “or” situation. Partly this is fed by a media that treats him as nicely as they treat any Republican, and he believes that with the media supporting him he doesn’t need Conservatives.
The big problem with this strategy is that he needs Conservatives to win. When Republicans turned their backs on Conservatives we had 2006. I don’t know if McCain learned that lesson.
There may also be an issue with McCain believing that Obama is going to self-destruct in the general election. There is precedent for that, but I wouldn’t rely on it for a victory strategy.
Is “Mudcat” advocating he can get a “rural white voter” to vote for the obamessiah? Good luck with that!
McCan’t can’t.
I’ll take doors 1 and 3 here. I’m convinced the RNC wants to build a center-left base to squeeze the ‘Rats, conservatives be damned. Even though they didn’t get their dream candidate of Rudy Giuliani (because of their arrogance thinking they could also squeeze out the early states), the state parties and the rank-and-file in most of those early states got the larger message, and took the closest thing to Giuliani that wasn’t “America’s Mayor”.
Mudcat=catfish=bottom feeder.
Any questions?
I think McCain figures that the conservatives he alienates by doing so will protest just by not voting for him, rather than by voting for Obama
Bad choice, McCain. I’m a committed, voting, activist Conservative and I’ve written and called every elected Republican I can think of telling them that if the price of diesel fuel is over $2.50 per gallon on election day, I’m walking into the voting booth and pulling the Democrat lever.
You think McCain is just shining on the independents and Democrats he wants to swing his way? I think he’ll do much more than that. I think McCain is prepared to execute an ordered sequence of Gang of 14 maneuvers, deliberately stabbing Conservative values in the back.
You vote for McCain and if he is elected you’re going to get comprehensive immigration reform (aka amnesty) and more stealth Supreme Court appointments such as Souter. And that’s just for starters.
This year it’s not enough to just sit at home and whine. Get out and vote against McCain. Show the big government Republicans the door.
Good points. He doesn’t care about conservatives, as he know we’re not going to vote for Obama if we don’t vote for him. We’ll either vote for a third party, a write-in, or sit on our hands. If he can lure a potential Obama voter, he’s added one to his column, and taken one away from Obama’s column. He knows we’re not going to add to the Obama vote total, no matter how mad he makes us.
I think to a degree both 1 and 2 are correct.
Undecideds will have to learn, with the MSM doing their best to hide it, that Obama is a flat out Marxist. If not, given the choice between a Democrat and a Democrat-Lite, with the Democrat being young and a good talker (if he has a prepared speech) people will go for the real Democrat.
JHSII is right, and his second point makes his first.
If McCain was 1/10th as bright as he thinks he is, he’d know that there is no way for him to win without his base. AND, he’d know that he has alienated his base enough that the simple “ANYTHING BUT OBAMA!” logic ain’t gonna cut it. He’ll get 3/4 of the conservative vote using ABO, but he needs all of it.
There is *so* much opportunity for a real conservative to make Obama look like the intellectual and cultural fool that he is. What the GOP doesn’t realize is that 8 years of RINO has completely undercut conservatism.
The nation isn’t tired of conservative principles. The referenda for gun control, gay marriage, border security, etc. clearly show that conservatism is not only alive and well, but it is the bedrock of the nation. The majority opinion, by far.
If only we had a conservative running…
When we needed a conservative, the GOP came up with a stumbling RINO.
Obama is going to beat him like a cheap drum, and the conservatives are going to use the resulting four years of catastrophe to say “I told you so,” and perhaps wake this nation up.
The only question is: does the GOP survive as the torch-bearer of conservatism? I think there’s a real possibility that we’ll be seeing new parties. That tide has been coming in, both left and right, for decades now.
geeze, sounds like you could attach string to a stick, put a “secret fish pellet” on a bare hook, throw it in and catch a ton……. lmao, why don’t the morons just use a net?
When Britain’s Tories lost Parliament, after they replaced the conservative Thatcher, with the UK equivalent of a RINO John Major, they decided their problem was that they were too conservative, and have remolded themselves into a version of Labour lite.
Do not doubt the ability of the powers that be to take the wrong lesson from a defeat, and since the Dems and Repubs set up the system to overwhelmingly favor the two established parties, it’ll take decades to develop a third party that can actually win, and in the meantime Obama and his fellow communists will have destroyed America.
aj montana
I know some people think bait fishing isn’t as sophisticated as fly fishing or lure fishing.
Hard to drink much beer fly fishing, hence I have never learned it.
Good one, see_dubya!
Matt Labash is hilarious, and is alone worth the price of the magazine.
McCain and the RNC have their own baiting strategy: Alienate the base, pander to the non-existent ‘moderates’ and invite moonbat liberal reporters to ride on your bus. If that does not work alienate the base some more and invite more moonbat liberal reporters to ride on your bus. Support Shamnesty Republican’s such as Chris Cannon-Utah, jerks such as Christopher Shays-Connecticut and wonder were the voters went.
That means they are better and smarter than we are. 2008 is not looking good, not at all. But who fly fishes for cat?
You said that right that Mccain is heavly invested in his maverick status. I believe that is much of his motivation in why he does what he does. If it will serve that purpose, well then, he’ll feel as though he has served his purpose.
Why?
Yeah. Why?
It is the talk of Republicans right now of exploring and drilling domestically for oil, including ANWAR, and building more refineries that is making Saudi Arabia uneasy and talk of increaing their production.
I gotta 3rd the “Why?”. The Dem proposals for addressing this issue are ludicrous on their face. Any economist worth his/her salt will tell you their plans won’t help (and may in fact RAISE fuel prices further). Hell, Obama seems to want those prices to rise.
Indeed they do want those prices to rise. For the short term it will help them at the voting booth, at least that is the plan. In the long term it will make you, me and all Americans MORE dependant on government services. Europe and the UK with their $9. a gallon gas should be all the evidence we need.
Dril here
Drill now
Shoot a LiberalWhoops, not PC
Pay less
http://www.americansolutions.com/
Ed’s point is a good one, and quite possibly a likely one. That’s one of the reasons I mention splitting parties. There’s an *excellent* chance that the Republican and Democrat parties both blur into a central party, with Socialist and Conservative parties taking to the wings, like you see in Europe.
And don’t forget the lessons of Britain that Ed mentions.
Britain was the greatest nation on earth, from the 17th century into the 20th. Her people benefitted from this in so many ways. Were there issues? Tons. But compared to anywhere else on earth, with the possible exception of the USA, there was nowhere better to live than England.
How about now? Is England the model of how you want to live? Being assimilated into some force-fit “Union” with other once-sovereign nations, just to survive?
When conservatives say they oppose “One World Order,” they’re not making that stuff up.
There is no more Italian Lira. No more Greek Drachma. No more Deutschmark, or Franc.
When do we lose the dollar? When do US Ships fly a UN flag, above the Stars and Stripes?
The GOP used to oppose this kind of thinking. Now? Not so much. There are elections to win, so don’t bother them with principles…
Thank you for telling me what I’ve known all along.
The political “center” — true independents, “moderate” Republicans and “Reagan” democrats — will decide this presidential election. Moonbats on the left and purist conservatives on the right will not, although both tend to vociferously over-estimate their importance.
Obama and McCain both know this. That is why Obama is now doing 180s on things like NAFTA and FISA, and that is why McCain is chasing after Hillary voters. Neither is much interested in placating their “hard core” base, because neither can afford to cede the middle ground to the other and both are reasonably certain that come election day their bases won’t defect to the other side.
It’s like chess: the player who aggressively fights to control the center of the board, even if it means sacrificing some of his pieces, will almost always defeat his opponent who is concerned solely with staying close to his home squares and who refuses to take any risks.
Despite McCain’s “maverick” reputation and Obama’s attempt to portray himself as some kind of secular Messiah, both are ordinary politicians: “winning ugly” is still a win as far as they’re concerned, and they’re both following conventional strategies to seize and hold the center.
The only problem for McCain is this: He has shown a great contempt for the conservative wing, moreso than any other candidate I can remember. While folks like Bush, Bob Dole, and the elder Bush could at least generally count on the conservative wing, McCain may not be able to. He’s just done far too much to anger them. It’s one thing to appear to broaden your base (as Obama appears to be wanting to do), and something different to totally move your base to the center (as McCain is doing).
McGumbo.
I’m in the middle of this article in my copy. My initial reaction to it was one of wonderment: “Why are they giving Obama a step-by-step guide on how to secure Appalachia’s votes?”
It is a (moderately) conservative mag, after all.
So if McNasty doesn’t care about the base and it isn’t hurting him not having them, why is it he needs to take government money, why is it the RNC can’t get much in the way of donations to the Repukican Party. Donations and votes go hand in hand.
I seriously doubt that either the RNC or McCain have any idea of the size of shovel they’re going to need to dig themselves out of the crater they’ve created. One would think that the top leaders of the party would be getting a clue by now? Giving a hair on issues by McCain isn’t going to get him there in November either. Parsing words and half truths only disgusts the base. He’s too old to be clever or cute.
Rightisright, is right - donations and votes go hand in hand.