Axelrod, Powell, Even Hillary Prove Big Winners:
Commentary by Albert R. Hunt
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The longest and most exciting U.S. presidential campaign in memory ends Tuesday. The biggest winner will be Barack Obama or John McCain; the other will be the biggest loser. That's the way elections work.
During the course of the year there have been many other winners and losers. Barring an unprecedented shift over the next 24 hours, here are some 2008 award designees:
BEST POLITICAL STRATEGIST: David Axelrod. He is the architect of the most remarkably cohesive and compelling presidential campaign in modern American history. Axelrod and Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, had a strategic sense of the times and the field. They ran circles around Hillary Clinton and McCain.
A few mistakes were made. If last March they had focused only on the Texas primary instead of splitting their time in Ohio, they probably could have knocked Senator Clinton out three months earlier. More striking is how few mistakes were made. They were calm and confident, when other politicians, and more than a few of us pundits, thought they were blowing it.
Axelrod, who combines the toughness of a Chicago political operative with the compassion of a devoted father of a special- needs child, takes his place alongside Stu Spencer (Ronald Reagan) and James Carville (Bill Clinton) as that rare strategist who really makes a difference. He has a fabulous candidate; even Secretariat needed a good jockey.
WORST STRATEGIST: Steve Schmidt, which seems unfair, since the McCain campaign chief is a smart fellow and wasn't dealt a winning hand. However, he was responsible for three moves that doomed the Republican nominee.
Disastrous Palin
First, there was the selection of Sarah Palin, then her sheltered rollout culminating in the disastrous interviews with Katie Couric of CBS News. Either Schmidt should have argued against picking the untested Alaska governor or he should have let Palin be Palin.
On Sept. 24, he advised McCain to suspend his campaign and return to Washington to lead a rescue plan of the worst financial crisis in three-quarters of a century. The candidate had no notion of how or who he wanted to lead.
Finally, it was Schmidt who persuaded McCain to abandon the free-wheeling, usually accessible straight-talk express campaign model. Courting the press isn't necessarily productive. Obama keeps a pretty fair distance from the media. But McCain abandoned what works for him, what was comfortable for him. He stopped being McCain.
BEST SUPPORTING ROLE: For McCain, his constant companions, Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.
Powell's October Surprise
For Obama, Colin Powell provided the welcome October surprise with his endorsement of the Democrat. The early supporters who mattered most were Governors Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Janet Napolitano of Arizona. Perhaps most of all, Edward M. Kennedy gave his strategically critical endorsement in January.
LOSERS WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN WINNERS: Senators John Sununu of New Hampshire and Gordon Smith of Oregon. Both are effective lawmakers well-respected by Democrats as well as Republicans.
Both Republicans will likely lose on Election Day, a reminder that tsunamis wash out the good as well as the bad.
Another loser who should have drawn a winning hand is Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. All over America, Democrats are raising more money than Republicans except at the national party committee, where the Republicans raised 60 percent more this election cycle than the Democrats, whose take was down from four years earlier.
Newt Kristorris
THE TAPE OF FOOLS: Newt Kristorris, a composite of conservative pundits Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol and Dick Morris. Kristol, the only one with an intellectual and moral compass, has had a tough year.
The longtime advocate of the Iraq War argued, post-surge, that it would be a political winner. He was also one of the first to champion Palin for the vice-presidential nomination. Then he was the first recipient of the ``blame game'' award a few weeks ago when he called on McCain to ``fire'' his whole campaign.
Morris, the former Bill Clinton adviser who was canned when caught with a call girl in his hotel room, maintained his customary moral posture in his 2008 campaign commentary, starting with trash talk about Hillary Clinton's sexuality.
He was agitated this fall at the Republican failure to play the race card against Obama, whose ``chief financial backer'' he said is convicted felon Tony Rezko, and ``his first employer'' was ex-terrorist William Ayers. Morris's head still seems to be in that hotel room.
True Political Genius
He fancies himself a political expert. Two months ago, here is this ``expert'' on the race: ``I believe the worse the economy gets, the more people get scared to death about what might happen if Obama gets elected and raises taxes.''
Then there was his colleague, Gingrich, who in September boldly predicted McCain's decision to suspend his campaign and take the helm in the financial crisis battle was a game- changer. ``This is the greatest single act of responsibility ever taken by a presidential candidate, and rivals President Eisenhower saying, `I will go to Korea,''' he said.
Gingrich also charged that ``Saturday Night Live'' TV skits had slandered Palin and that she could sue; apparently, Palin didn't think she had a case, as she agreed to go on the program.
CLOSING CHEAP SHOT: North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole, trailing and desperate, runs an ad in the final week linking her challenger, Kay Hagan, to ``Godless Americans.'' Hagan is a Sunday school teacher and an elder in her church.
Hillary and Bill
COMEBACK KID: Hillary Clinton. She ran a lousy presidential campaign, inexplicably picking and sticking with ill-suited strategists who not surprisingly were out- strategized.
It was painful, personally and politically. Yet she licked her wounds and has been a loyal and tireless surrogate supporter this fall for the man who defeated her. She has preserved her effectiveness in the party by getting over it.
Now if she can just persuade her husband.
(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Albert R. Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: November 2, 2008 10:14 EST |
