Randy Kuhl's visit to Iraq earlier this month is an interesting glimpse into Republican political strategy for dealing with the hot-potato issue of the war. It also shows that Randy needs to work on his game if he wants to have any credibility on this issue.
Randy's trip was one of at least 16 by members of congress since July. Fourteen of those members are Republicans. The lone Democrat who accompanied Randy on his trip, Lincoln Davis of Tennessee, has a competitive district (won by 54% in '04 [pdf]) and supports a "stay the course" position in Iraq.
The surge of congressional visits appears to be part of a Republican political strategy for dealing with the Iraq issue. Not so, according to Randy's spokesman, Bob Van Wicklin. He calls it "asinine" to charge, as Eric Massa did, that Randy was using this trip to boost his candidacy.
Well, I've been called worse, but this jackass thinks the facts show exactly that.
In the same interview, Van Wicklin noted that "oversight is an important part of the job" and that "He (Kuhl) votes on the defense budget." That's mighty thin. If you go beyond Van Wicklin's Schoolhouse Rock version of how a bill becomes a law, there's the little matter of committees. Kuhl isn't on a single committee that has anything to do with Iraq. If Van Wicklin's right, 747s full of legislators would be winging over to Iraq on a regular basis. Obviously, they're not, because only committee members can exercise meaningful oversight. The rest, like Randy, are there for the nickel tour.
So, Randy's in Iraq as a member-at-large with four other representatives who support the war and don't have Iraq-related committee assignments. He's there for a few hours, spends time at an airbase and flies around in a helicopter. What else could he do but gather anecdotes and get his picture taken with local troops?
Randy's visit was clearly a campaign-related trip. The question is whether it did him any good.
My take is that Randy blew it. A smart politician would have filed away that Iraq trip for debates, TV commercials and speeches. In a debate, anecdotes from the trip could be used to put his opponent on the defensive. Even though Massa has spent far more time in the Middle East, and is better-experienced in foreign policy after having served as an aide to Wesley Clark, he would be forced to argue with Randy's personal account of his recent trip. Fresh eyewitness testimony is powerful, and that's why Republicans are sending dozens of members to Iraq 100 days before the election.
Instead of quietly storing up anecdotes for later, Randy took what could have been a silk purse and turned it into a sow's ear by opening his mouth. Stupid comments like "...it really isn't bad. You can almost forget you're in a war zone..." and "When you fly over and you look down, we were 1,000 feet, and you see people in fields, farmers plowing fields, herding water buffalo's [sic]. It's life as usual." make him seem horribly out-of-touch. I'll bet that I'm not the only person who's reminded of Vietnam by that last remark.
By spouting off about his trip to the media, Randy opened himself up for a devastating broadside from a respected third party, General (ret.) John Batiste. Massa now has a rejoinder ready for Kuhl in the debates: he can quote a man who led troops for two years in Iraq. Randy can still use his trip as fodder for speeches and ads, but he'll need to tread lightly in the debates.
If you want to see how a smart politician handled the same trip, take a look at Rep. Tom Cole's column. The man who led Randy's delegation to Iraq came back with a carefully-worded positive take on the war. There are no references to Vietnam-era livestock, and no hollow "not so bad" assertions. Randy needs to study that hard and learn a few lessons, or his campaign will suffer the same fate as the water buffalo in Apocalypse Now in the coming election.
A few gems from the local papers:
Randy on the election: Kuhl says war won't be key to vote
Randy on Iraq: Most of the country is very, very safe
It may turn out that both of these statements are true. But he's definitely on the wrong side of the current spread on both of them.
Fundraising season is in high gear, and both candidates are rolling out the big guns to help them raise the bucks they need to saturate the airwaves after Labor Day. Let's check out Randy and Eric's fundraising buddies (f-buddies for short).
I sure hope Randy is practicing safe fundraising with his f-buddy, John Boehner, because, according to this Washington Post article, "Boehner has had his share of taint". Boehner's famous for handing out tobacco lobbying checks on the floor of the House. This time the money changed hands at a fundraiser in Horseheads.
Randy's choice of Boehner as a f-buddy is predictable, and bringing in the majority leader to raise money does nothing to dispel the stench of hack that permeates the Kuhl campaign. But choosing Horseheads as a location for the fundraiser was smart, because it kept Randy out of the more liberal and less sympathetic Rochester media. This one-night stand should be forgotten quickly by everyone except Randy's campaign treasurer.
Eric's choice of f-buddy is his old boss, Wes Clark. Eric and Wes managed to make this a fundraising two-fer, because Clark's visit coincided with Randy's moronic attempt to bolt-on some gravitas by traveling to Iraq. Eric and Wes were able to get some coverage to remind voters that they own this issue. As for the rest of Clark's visit, I won't ask if he won't tell.
I've listed a lot of the blogs in the local area that have written about the 29th race recently on the right. Seeing that list, and adding big national sites like Kos and myDD to it, you've got to wonder if there's anything left that's worth saying about this race.
Obviously, I think there is (either that, or I've just another kook
on the Internet.) I've started this blog because I want to contribute a perspective that's missing from the work of area bloggers.
I'm sure I missed a number of blogs making the list. If I missed you -- right, left or center -- drop me a note. With the exception of Michael Caputo's column, all of those blogs are leftist or progressive. What's missing is a blog that doesn't have a "netroots" bias. This bias causes those bloggers to overestimate their impact on the race, to fail to critically examine the candidate's positions, and to be in danger of turning into boring echo chambers.
The Kos and myDD folks, and their progressive acolytes, seem to think that they are part of some kind of people-powered revolution that will change politics as we know it. Well, I guess I'm just anblogasmic. Blogs are a great communication vehicle, but they represent and influence only a small (yet vocal) segment of voters. The 29th is older than average, and older voters are less likely to read blogs. The district is more conservative than average, so a lot of the netroots rhetoric and positions don't resonate with voters. I plan to post more on how all media will influence this campaign as this blog goes forward.
Eric Massa is a political junkies' wet dream of a candidate, but the netroots blinders don't allow those bloggers to understand or acknowledge some of the reasons why. Massa's positions on the issues and campaign approach does not fit into the paradigm that Kos and MoveOn believe it does. I think his campaign strategy is actually more robust (and more centrist) than the netroots crew might want to acknowledge. I'll have an in-depth post on how his campaign resembles other past successful minority challenges in the near future.
Similarly, the netroots perspective misses a lot of what's interesting about John R. "Randy" Kuhl. Randy's clearly a weak candidate and a party hack. Nevertheless, Randy is fascinating because he lacks the imagination to do much but run every play in the Republican playbook. Some of those plays work. Why they work is important and little-acknowledged by the blogging left. More on this, too, anon.
As an ardent political spectator rather than inflamed MoveOn partisan, I don't feel the need to constantly whip up my fervor for one of the candidates. Obviously, I like Massa and dislike Kuhl, but both are politicans and therefore should be subject to intense skepticism. Both are likely to ignore or dismiss inconvenient facts, to make tactical alliances with disreputable groups, and to stretch the truth under pressure. And, man, am I looking forward to watching it happen.
One of the frustrations of Congressional races is the lack of good publicly-available polling. Kuhl and Massa probably have great internal polls that tell them how they're doing precinct-by-precinct. The general public has to make do with vague national polls and the crumbs that the campaigns want to throw us.
The last poll that I've seen for this race is a four months old. It showed the race at a statistical dead heat, and Randy's negatives at 50%. It was produced by Massa's campaign, so caveat emptor, but it's the freshest crumb we have.
Because it's a bellwether. It's a "safe" Republican district with a undistinguished freshman incumbent, Randy Kuhl. If Kuhl loses, a whole lot of other party loyalists are going down the tubes.
By the numbers, Randy should have an easy win. Though he's a freshman, he represents a district with a large Republican plurality. He beat his Democratic opponent in the last election by a 10 points.
But, this year, Randy has a two major problems.
The first is his voting record. Since his election in 2004, he's voted with the majority in the House on almost every substantive issue. When he's bucked the majority, he's done it to support Bush. His vote against stem cell research is a good example.
In other words, Kuhl has never voted against the President on a substantial issue. Unlike his predecessor Amo Houghton, who voted against the war in Iraq, Randy is in the President's pocket.
Randy's second problem is his opponent. In the last election, Randy went up against young, inexperienced Sam Barend. Sam made a few mistakes in her campaign, most notably when she tried to make Randy's nasty divorce a campaign issue. She was also a 26-year-old running her first campaign in a district where the median age increased 4 years (to around 38) in the last census.
This year, Randy's opponent is a 24-year Navy veteran and cancer survivor, Eric Massa. Most of the superficial reasons to vote against Barend won't be around this time, and Massa will be able to make hay with his longstanding opposition to the war in Iraq.
If a political analogue of fantasy football existed for political junkies, it would be hard to draft better players than Kuhl and Massa. Kuhl is perfect because he has few qualities other than loyalty to Bush. He's like the control in a scientific experiment. Massa is perfect because he's impervious to the mudslinging on the war that might otherwise cloud the election. I can't wait to watch Kuhl's attack ads, because they're going to have to go beyond the usual "cut and run".
We've just passed the 90 day mark in this race. We have three interesting months ahead. Hold on, because it's going to be a hell of a ride.