The Short, Fast Ride:
My 30-Day Crash Course In Presidential Politics

Before I announced that I was going to work for the Huckabee campaign, the news broke on NRO’s The Corner. I suppose it’s fitting then that my departure was also told first on an online media source. While I was planning to announce my leaving closer to the day of the caucus, Jonathan Martin from Politico beat me to it. There has been a lot of speculation about what it portends, but the actual details are rather banal.
At the end of November Family Research Council generously gave me a 30-day leave of absence so that I could go to work for Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign. I thought working on the campaign would be an invaluable experience so I jumped at the opportunity, knowing full well that it was only a temporary measure. At the time Governor Huckabee was still behind in both the Iowa and national polls. The question “What if he has a chance to win it all?” was something I figured I’d have to deal with when the time came.
Now the time has come for me to return to my job and my longsuffering wife. I am extremely grateful to FRC and to my family for their generosity and patience. I’m also thankful to the entire staff at the Huckabee campaign headquarters for allowing me to be a part of the team. Hopefully, after Governor Huckabee wins several primaries (and opens an office closer to the DC area) I’ll be able to help him once again in an official capacity.
In the meantime, I’ll share some of what I learned on the campaign trail. Although I can’t share any secret inside-the-campaign information there are a few lessons I learned during my 30-day adventure. None are particularly profound and some are quite obvious. Much of it may even be particular to the fact that I worked with such a small team. Still, I thought it might be worthwhile to share some of them in order to confirm what you might already suspect about Presidential politics.

The Pace is Brutal — While it may not compare to the blistering schedule of the candidates, staffers generally put in some brutally long hours. Most days started before 8 AM and ended well after 10 PM. Even on Sundays, the morning talk shows and the inevitable controversies that sprang from them required our attention. The media machine never stops and requires constant monitoring. Unlike some campaigns, we did not send out a dozen emails a day announcing when our candidate would be taking bathroom breaks. Instead, we tried to focus on the major issues which came with enough regularity to keep us fully employed.
The Other Side Doesn’t Matter (At All) — No one on the campaign ever seemed to take an interest in what was going on with Clinton, Obama, Edwards or any of the other non-GOP candidates. For all we cared, the Democrats might as well have been in an alternate campaign universe. All that mattered was what was happening on our side.
Pundits Don’t Know Anything — Six months ago, how many pundits would have predicted that on the 1st day of 2008 there would be a four-way tie in the national polls between Giuliani, Huckabee, Romney, and McCain? The fact is that they don’t know any more than you do. Indeed, the closer they are to DC, the less they are likely to know what actual voters are thinking.
This is Truly the Age of the Soundbite – Remember the controversy over Wayne Dumond? Remember hearing about how Dumond was castrated and the local sheriff kept his testicles in a jar on his desk; how there was some DNA evidence that could have potentially exonerated him; how the largest newspaper in Arkansas conducted an independent investigation and concluded he was likely completely innocent; how newspaper accounts provided proof that two of the parole board members who claimed the Governor had pressured them to parole him were caught lying…? You remember all that?
Of course not. Since it couldn’t be put into a soundbite, the real story never permeated the public consciousness. Instead, bits and pieces floated out that led people to conclude the Governor was guilty…of something, though nobody was quite sure what it was.
That was the sort of thing I dealt with every day. People wanted an explanation but didn’t want to stick around to hear it if it took more than 30 seconds.
Not Everything is Planned — Although most people couldn’t be bothered with actual facts, they had plenty of time for absurd speculation. The era of Karl Rove has created a climate of conspiracy in which people think that nothing happens by accident. And I mean nothing.
For example, the campaign first heard about the “floating cross” controversy in the Christmas ad from reading about it on the Drudge Report. No one had any clue what that was about so we watched the video several times before someone pointed out the bookcase.
Apparently, a Christmas ad in which the Governor mentions “the birth of Christ” was too subtle. We needed to use a bookcase that looked like a cross so that people would get the point that he was secretly sending a message to Christians.
To this day, some people still claim that the “floating cross” was intentional. Those people are idiots.
Campaigns Are Staffed By A Narrow Range of People – Much like tax preparation or lettuce picking, campaign work is short-term, seasonal, and semi-skilled. I identified five main grouping of staffers: (a) local hires and people who have previously served with the candidate, (b) young singles that work cheap, (c) financially independent volunteers, (d) high-priced veteran advisers, and (e) semi-competent/semi-experienced temps. (I fell into category (e)).
The Mainstream Media Ain’t So Bad — Many bloggers (including me) have a knee-jerk reaction to the mainstream media. We “just know” they have a liberal bias and that they can’t be trusted to report accurately on Republicans and conservatives. If my experience is any indication, then most of what we know is “just wrong.”
My job wasn’t to spin the press but to present the facts for the Huckabee campaign’s side of the story. I expected that I’d have the toughest time with the professional journalists but most of the reporters that I dealt with (especially Michael Luo of the New York Times and Jonathan Martin of Politico) were quite fair and always professional. Even when their coverage was cringe-inducing I rarely could fault them for being inaccurate or putting their own biases ahead of the facts.
Unfortunately, the same can not be said of the conservative media.
My rapid response list included a broad range of journalists, pundits, and bloggers and variety of outlets–everything from The New York Times to HotAir. Often they would ask me to clarify statements made by the Governor, defend claims made by the campaign, or offer evidence on a point of contention. Almost always the mainstream media from the “liberal” outlets were more fair and balanced than were the ones from the “conservative” side of the media.
Some conservative outlets, of course, were notably fair and accurate. Although he never pulled his punches, Jim Geraghty at NRO’s The Campaign Spot always let me present a rebuttal to the claims of other campaigns. The same can be said for NRO’s Byron York, one of the few conservative reporter/pundits that seemed more concerned about getting the facts straight than he was in shoring up the conventional wisdom of the GOP establishment.
But while there were a few other exceptions that I could praise (e.g., Terry Eastland from The Weekly Standard, Phillip Klein and Jennifer Rubin from The American Spectator, the guys at RedState), far too many of the conservative outlets refused to present any evidence that conflicted with their typical anti-Huckabee narrative.
I even sent out personal emails to a number of prominent pundits and bloggers who had criticized Huckabee for being insufficiently conservative. I told them that if they would send me a list of their grievances I’d provide a personal response from the campaign addressing their concern. My only condition was that they would post the exchange in its entirety. Not one of them took me up on my offer.
As a campaign staffer, I found such behavior frustrating. But as a consumer of conservative media I found it infuriating. There are a number of pundits, bloggers, reporters, and radio hosts that I will never trust again to be “fair and balanced.”
(To clarify my last point, let me say that I had only one expectation from my fellow conservatives: that they apply the same standard to every candidate. I had no problem with a conservative pundit bashing Governor Huckabee for raising the sales tax by a penny in Arkansas…as long as they also bashed Governor Romney for raising “fees” in Massachusetts. I had no problem with their complaints that Governor Huckabee wanted to establish diplomatic relations with Iran…as long as they hammered Mayor Giuliani for the same sin. Very few even made an attempt to be consistent in their criticism. That was what I found so disappointing.)
McCain Ain’t So Bad Either — I gained a great deal of respect for Sen. McCain and his staff. I’ve often been critical of him and his policies and still have qualms about whether he would make a great President. But he’s proven himself to be a man of character and surrounded himself with honorable staffers. He’s moved up in my estimation to be my second choice for the GOP nomination.
Thompson Is a Typical Politician–But a Very, Very Bad Campaigner — You have to admire the dedication of the FredHeads. They want Thompson to be the President much, much more than he wants the job. They’ve even bought into the idea that his not really wanting the job makes him somehow more qualified to be the leader of the free world!
I jumped on the Fred bandwagon from the beginning but am glad I got off long before the wheels fell off. Like many others I bought into the hype that Thompson was going to run a different kind of campaign. It is definitely different, I’ll give him that. But its also uninspiring. His hiring of Mary Matalin was the first sign that he wasn’t going anywhere. She’s not as skilled as her husband at negative campaigning so when Fred went negative it just made him look like a grouchier version of Bob Dole.
The FredHeads didn’t see it that way, of course. In their view Fred should be able to just skip this whole election nonsense and go directly to the coronation ceremony. Fortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Most of us want a President who doesn’t think its “pandering” to actually care what we think.
The Ron Paul Phenomenon is Not About Ron Paul — It will take a more astute political mind than I possess to comprehend this Ron Paul phenomenon. All I know is that it has less to do with the candidate than about people’s desire for something different. When Rod Dreher, Andrew Sullivan, Vox Day, John Derbyshire, and the 9/11 Truthers all agree on a candidate its safe to say that they aren’t all seeing the same thing.
My Opinion of Giuliani…Hasn’t Changed — Is he still in the race? Why? Mayor Bloomberg has a better chance of being the next President.
Mitt Romney will never be President — I won’t be surprised if Mitt Romney wins the Iowa Caucus. I will be surprised, however, if he’s still in the race when the South Carolina primary comes around. [Section deleted -- see here for explanation]
It’s not just his flip-flops on the issues, though that should be enough. (It’s hard to take seriously all those conservatives who bashed John Kerry for being inconstant while turning a blind eye to Romney’s politically expedient changes of heart.) No, what will destroy Romney’s chances is that he will lie about an issue, know that he is lying, know that you know he is lying, and say it anyway. It’s not just that he’s dishonest. It’s that he thinks we’re stupid.
Now it’s true that in the short term, we do tend to be stupid. Indeed, the reason that Romney’s dishonest campaign tactics have helped him in the short run is that most people have yet to realize–as have the other campaigns and the mainstream media–he is a liar. But eventually the public catches on.
If he had reserved his dishonest tactics solely for Governor Huckabee he might have got away with it. But he and his campaign (his communications team appears to be just as despicable and unprincipled) send out dishonest attacks on McCain, Thompson, and Giuliani too. Because most of it is done behind the scenes (i.e., scurrilous emails sent to reporters and influential bloggers) it is difficult to point out the most egregious examples. Don’t take my word on it, though. Ask around to the other campaigns and media outlets.
Supporters of Romney will no doubt be offended by my criticism. I could counter that I’m offended that conservatives are backing a man that, until recently, was just another Massachusetts liberal. Instead I’ll just hold my tongue and wait for Romney’s campaign to implode. His “lie and buy” strategy may get him a narrow victory in Iowa but he’ll flame out soon enough.
Which brings me to the final lesson I learned…
Primary Politics Isn’t Worth Losing Friends Over — People often ask me what I think about the “Huckabashing” carried on by my friend Hugh Hewitt. While I am concerned that his shift from candidate-favoring pundit to propagandist for Team Romney may hurt his reputation, it hasn’t affected the affection I have for my “blogfather.” Hugh’s wrong–dead wrong–about Romney. But he’s right about enough other stuff that I still respect his opinions. And aside from his poor taste in candidates, he’s still the same great guy that I’ve admired for years.
The same holds true for my friendships with pundits and bloggers that differ with me about which candidate will make the best President. I’ve had some heated disagreements and have said things that have likely damaged my reputation with some people (i.e., all fans of Romney). But when all is said and done, I care more about people than punditry or partisanship.
That’s not a profound lesson but it was something I re-learned on the campaign. Even if I took away nothing else, that alone would have made the 30 days in Little Rock worth the trip.