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Carter Wrenn posted on June 21, 2010 11:27
The first ‘reality moment’ in a political campaign last week belonged to Bob Etheridge; the second belonged to Bill Randall.
Randall, who is locked in a tight runoff with Bernie Reeves, called his first press conference Tuesday and announced – as the cameras rolled – he thought the government and BP had conspired to cause the oil spill.
Of course, that video went viral – just as the video of Etheridge assaulting a college student the day before had.
Suddenly, voters in Randall’s district – like voters in Etheridge’s – were asking, Who is he? And Randall compounded his mistake by calling another press conference, looking the reporters in the eye and, in effect, telling them, I didn’t say what you think I said.
The press has a lot of problems but understanding English isn’t one of them – so, the reporters didn’t exactly buy Randall’s explanation that they’d misunderstood. One reporter asked, Well, are you now saying the government and BP didn’t conspire to cause the oil spill?
No, Randall said, he wasn’t backing up one bit.
After that the hour-long press conference turned into a macarena with Randall arguing no matter what was on that videotape he’d never accused BP and the government of conspiring but then saying he wanted an investigation into the conspiracy between BP and the government.
There’s an old saying ‘in politics it’s not so much what you do that matters – it’s what your opponent does to himself.’ Bob Etheridge and Bill Randall have given us two pretty good examples.
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Carter Wrenn posted on June 19, 2010 16:51
Last week was a heckuva week.
On Monday, Al Lytton – Renee Ellmers’ campaign manager – and I sat down, racking our brains to figure out how Renee could raise money over the Internet (to match the million odd dollars Bob Etheridge has sitting in his bank account from special interests), then out of a clear blue sky a video of Bob Etheridge assaulting a college student sailed out across the ether and, fifteen minutes later, without either Al or I lifting a finger Renee Ellmers had a full-fledged Internet fundraising campaign underway with donations rolling in from across the country.
It was the political equivalent of manna from heaven.
And not just financial manna; for years, Bob Etheridge has carefully crafted an image as a diligent, rural, grandfatherly southern Democrat – then in two minutes on a sidewalk in Washington he shattered that image into a thousand pieces and left people in his district wondering, Who is he?
Tuesday Mrs. Ellmers made her own video answering Etheridge and the more people saw of her the more they donated.
Wednesday the Civitas Institute released a poll that sailed across the Internet: 85% of the voters in the 2nd District had seen or heard about the video, Etheridge trailed Mrs. Ellmers 38% to 39%, and Etheridge’s popularity had turned upside down – 40% of the voters had an unfavorable opinion of him while only 25% were favorable.
By the end of the week the number of people following Renee Ellmers’ campaign on Facebook had soared, conservatives from across the country were donating to her campaign every day, and, now, Renee Ellmers may be the only Republican challenger leading an incumbent Democratic Congressman in the country.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 18, 2010 09:37
Campaign-finance reformers take heed: the Democratic U.S. Senate primary is what politics would look like without money.
Unexciting, uninspiring and virtually invisible. Plus, virtually no voters.
A campaign without TV ads is essentially a campaign that doesn’t exist. Yes, I know the importance of online communications. But TV is still the most powerful medium.
And Cal Cunningham and Elaine Marshall aren’t on TV because they don’t have money.
Estimates are that no more than 150,000 people will vote next week. Out of more than 2 million registered Democrats.
Tell me why this is a good thing.
Barack Obama shunned public financing in 2008, raised $300 million and was able to campaign in all 50 states. He got people excited, and he dramatically increased the number of people voting.
Tell me why that is a bad thing.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 17, 2010 08:12
Editorial writers are sometimes accused of occupying an ivory tower. This one from the Greensboro News & Record must live in a soundproof padded cell.
“For now, his relatively unknown opponent, Renee Ellmers of Dunn, says she's not going to take advantage of the situation.”
Hello. Did you miss her press conference where she took advantage of the situation? Did you miss her video clip?
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Gary Pearce posted on June 17, 2010 08:05
Republicans are determined to save Democrats from electoral disaster this year.
With any luck, the GOP will nominate Tea Partier Bill Randall to run against Brad Miller. Randall distinguished himself this week by speculating that the Gulf Oil spill is a conspiracy between Washington and BP.
Did anybody ask him if 9/11 was a conspiracy between Osama and Washington?
In Nevada, the GOP is out to rescue Harry Reid by nominating Sharron Angle. She “supports phasing out Social Security, wiping out the Education Department and returning to the days almost a century ago when the federal income tax was unconstitutional.”
She also wants female inmates to enter a drug rehabilitation program devised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Go Tea Party, go!
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Gary Pearce posted on June 16, 2010 09:41
President Obama rolled out his biggest weapon yet in his battle to get on top of his spreading oil-slick political crisis: his own oratorical power – and the Oval Office.
He’s making progress, but he’s still in catch-up mode.
Things might have been different if Obama had been a governor instead of a senator.
Governors learn – the hard way, sometimes – to react quickly to disasters. They understand that it’s vital to take charge – and be seen as taking charge.
They also learn – as Governor Hunt once told me – that government bureaucrats have three default reactions in these situations: They minimize the problem, they don’t always see and hear what’s happening on the ground and they always have a reason why something can’t be done.
The executive’s job is to confront all three reactions – and get action.
Mike Easley was a near-invisible governor. But even he understood the importance of being there immediately, even before the hurricane hit.
Obama is learning the governors’ lesson the hard way.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 16, 2010 09:39
While President Obama struggles with a gush of oil, Bob Etheridge struggles with a gush of videos.
It’s the worst close-up since Helen Thomas.
Team Etheridge has to push back. And the best defense is a good offense.
No, there’s no excuse for Etheridge touching – let alone grabbing – the obnoxious, faceless little twerps who stuck a camera in his face.
But something about this operation reminds me of Richard Nixon’s crowd and their dirty tricks.
Etheridge, now that he’s apologized, should turn the tables and turn public cynicism against his tormentors.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 15, 2010 09:20
The worst wounds in politics are self-inflicted. And Bob Etheridge has delivered himself a doozie of a boo-boo.
Getting caught on tape looking like a bully is not helpful in an election year that already looks toxic for incumbents.
But Etheridge can survive this.
He made a good start by apologizing on camera. He gave the media a competing video clip. He put contrition up against anger.
And he’s lucky on two counts: It’s June, not October. And he’s running for reelection, not U.S. Senate. (Remember when the DSCC courted him?)
In time, we’ll get the rest of the story about the guys who made the clip. As Etheridge asked, “Who are you?” And “who are you working for?”
But let this be a lesson. In politics, you’re always on – on camera and on the record. In a YouTube world, anybody can be the media, and anybody can be an – unintended – media star.
Suddenly, like Etheridge, you become famous for one minute of anger and frustration, not 14 years in Congress, eight years as state education superintendent, four terms in the state House and a stint as a HarnettCounty commissioner.
Now Renee Elmers, Etheridge’s opponent, will get her turn to star – or flop.
Judging from her press conference yesterday, she’s not ready for the spotlight. Holding a press conference to take advantage of the video, she promised not to take advantage of it.
She needs a camera ambush: “Do you fully support the Tea Party agenda?”
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Gary Pearce posted on June 14, 2010 08:11
What’s with this mania about whether President Obama has shown enough anger over the BP oil spill?
Is this the legacy of Bill Clinton, who so famously felt our pain?
Or that old actor Ronald Reagan, who could muster a catch in the throat and a flash of anger at the drop of a cue?
Obama’s press secretary had to describe Obama’s “clenched jaw” to prove he was angry. The President had to publicly bully BP.
Are we so programmed by TV and movies that we pay more attention to how the man looks than to what he does?
There’s probably a lot of fault to be found with the government’s response, though I’m still waiting for somebody to tell me exactly what should be done. But taking the President’s emotional temperature doesn’t strike me as particularly informative.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 11, 2010 10:13
I would have missed this one but for Seth Effron’s Quick Clips: “Perdue declares ‘war’ against school resegregation”(The Wilmington Journal).
The Journal reported:
Declaring that the state was ''in a war,'' Governor Beverly Perdue told members of the NC Legislative Black Caucus last weekend that she, as a citizen, fully supported the efforts of NC NAACP President Rev. William Barber in challenging the resegregation of public schools across the state. Even if that ''war'' ultimately ends up in the US Supreme Court.
''North Carolina is in a war,'' the governor declared last Friday during the opening night banquet of the 24th Annual NC Legislative Black Caucus Foundation's Education Scholarship Weekend at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center in the ResearchTrianglePark….
''If it takes going to the Supreme Court of this great country from WayneCounty and for WakeCounty, and for other counties in North Carolina, so be it,'' the governor continued. ''We will stand together, to make sure that all of the children of this state have a chance.''
A bold statement.
But the Governor has dug herself into trouble before by making bold promises she couldn’t keep. One was to protect the classroom from budgets. Then not to let death-row inmates go free.
How will she keep this promise?
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Spirits of the Air
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