A very
famous and often cited rationale of political campaigning states:
“Don’t interrupt when your opponent
self-destructs”. While it is said
that emperor Napoleon coined this phrase centuries ago, it lost none
of its validity up until today and political strategists like James
Carville still make a point of living by this timeless rule.
While
usually there is a lot of disagreement amongst the political
community on various issues, the press and commentators of all
colours certainly agree on this these days: Things don’t and didn’t
go well for the Romney Campaign for quite a while now. Whether it was
Romney’s unfortunate appearance on his overseas trip to Great
Britain and the Middle East, his hasty and inapt response to the
attack on the US embassy in Libya, the infamous 47%-comment or the
uncalled for release of his tax record this weekend: Until today, the
republican bid for the presidency has in fact travelled a bumpy road.
In my book “How to overcome the power
of incumbency in election campaigns”,
I define the concept of challenger quality. I use six characteristics
and talents that make up campaign skills for a candidate. He has to
be popular and charismatic; he has to have good speaking skills, the
ability to communicate over mass media and the ability to stay on
message. Finally, he needs good managerial skills as campaigns are
often chaotic and only the top guy can – and has to – establish
discipline. It is safe to say, that Mitt Romney hardly excels in any
of these areas. Or as the Republican strategist Ed Rogers puts it:
“Not much is required of Governor
Romney on this. He has to be poised. He has to be sure-footed. He has
to be precise. He was none of those”.
But
not only the candidate’s performance leaves a lot to be desired.
The Republican Party and its functionaries certainly have their share
in the “self-destruction” of Romney’s Campaign, too. More and
more prominent Republicans, amongst them famously Peggy Noonan, start
to distance themselves from Mitt Romney. In addition to that, many of
the party’s candidates for senate this fall start to worry about
the negative influence Romney’s behaviour might have on their
chances to get elected. Thommy G. Thompson, the Republican candidate
for Senate in Wisconsin, for example, stated on TV: “If
your standard-bearer for the presidency is not doing well, it’s
going to reflect on the down ballot”.
Also, many associated with the Republican Party start to voice loud
and public critics on Romney’s failure to take command of any
battleground states yet and call for a “campaign
shake-up”. According to the New York
Times, Romney responded to these demands in a chivalrous but not so
smart way by reminding the public once more of his weaknesses and
saying: “I’ve got a very effective
campaign. It’s doing a very good job. But not everything I say is
elegant”. Finally things got so far,
that Romney’s wife, Anne, felt the need put a foot down in defence
of her husband and said somewhat desperately on a campaign stop in
Des Moines: “Stop it. This is hard.
You want to try it?”.
Now, with all the talk about what has gone wrong in “Camp-Romney”, one might easily lose sight of the Obama Campaign and its reactions to all these events. Do they live by the rationale stated above and refrain from “interrupting the opponent’s self-destruction”?
A good
example for proving the point that they indeed do obey this rule is
the dynamics that came into play after Romney’s remark on the
Middle East on September 11. The only reaction the Obama Campaign
showed as an immediate result of Mitt Romney’s imprudent statement
was a brief declaration by spokesman Ben LaBolt saying that they were
“shocked that, at a time when the
United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of
our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to
launch a political attack."
Nothing more was said on the matter, especially not from Barack Obama
himself who abstained from commenting the subject completely. He
smartly preferred to uphold a statesman-like appearance, seemingly
superior to political games and mud wrestling. Mitt Romney on the
other hand rushed to hold a press conference with the good intention
to justify his remarks and the actual effect of making everything
worse. Not only was Romney now accused of playing politics with the
death of four US citizens, but foreign policy suddenly became an
general election issue (on this subject,
see also my entry of September 12).
Of course the press gladly and to some extent gleefully took up
Romney’s own lacking record in the field of foreign policy and
couldn’t publish enough polls showing how the electorate actually
trusts Obama incomparably more than Romney when it comes to foreign
politics.
Observing
the activities of the Obama campaign, we can see that they do many
things just right and really do make the best out of Romney’s
failures. They comment briefly and sharply and then leave Romney
struggling to make amends for his own missteps –usually making
things worse. Also, they make a point of never letting Obama do the
“dirty work”. Whenever the Obama campaign launches a
counter-attack on Romney, they either use surrogates like Vice
President Biden or high ranking campaign officials like Ben LaBolt,
Jim Messina or David Axelrod.
Romney might
still be convinced that he doesn’t need a campaign-turnaround. I am
convinced of the opposite. He is running behind in a setting that
actually still strongly favours the challenger. He needs to shake
things up in order to change the dynamics of the campaign. I think it
was a Republican strategist who recently said that in a presidential
campaign, there are ten important moments. I’d say that about 7 of
these are over by now. This leaves Romney three.