Ga. Effort Shows GOP Strengths
washingtonpost.com
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and David S. Broder
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 7, 2002; Page A01
ATLANTA, Nov. 6 -- The combination of forces that powered Tuesday's Republican victories across the country was nowhere more visible than here in Georgia, where the GOP enjoyed its best day in history.
A surge of partisan support fueled by frequent campaign appearances by President Bush and an unprecedented effort to turn out his voters resulted in the defeat of Gov. Roy Barnes (D), Sen. Max Cleland (D) and -- even more amazing to Georgia citizens -- longtime speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives Tom Murphy (D).
Bush's role in particular was critical, according to Raymond Strother, the veteran Democratic consultant who was Barnes's media adviser. "He is an incredible force," said Strother. "It reminds you of Franklin Roosevelt."
But the tactical and organizational skills demonstrated by Georgia Republicans also go a long way toward explaining why the party did so well across the country.
The Bush White House recruited Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R) to run against Cleland, a Vietnam triple amputee who had never lost an election, early this year. Chambliss's campaign manager, Bo Harmon, said today that phone canvassers discovered almost immediately that even though Chambliss was a four-term incumbent, no one outside his district had ever heard of him. A flicker of recognition -- and often a promise of support -- came when the voter remembered Chambliss "was the guy President Bush endorsed."
But presidential coattails might not have worked for Chambliss or George E. "Sonny" Perdue, the first Republican elected governor since Reconstruction, had not Georgia Republicans signed up for the national party's rigorous new voter mobilization effort.
Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition organizer now heading the Georgia GOP, believes in face-to-face political communication, the mantra that the 2000 Bush campaign imposed on a media-and-advertising-oriented party. The first step was to recruit candidates and convince them they had a better chance of winning as a team under a manifesto modestly titled "Declaration for a New Georgia," than they would running individual races.
Next, Reed signed up an army of volunteers and subjected them to training on such practical skills as the art of the "lit drop," the right way to distribute literature to minimize the chances of it being discarded unread. He also asked volunteers to sign a contract promising to spend 20 hours in door-to-door campaigning during the last three days of the campaign. And dozens of young Republicans, many of them culled from congressional staffs in Washington, provided additional organizational muscle.
In the absence of exit polls, neither the unions nor the Republicans can be sure what part Bush coattails, particular issues or identifiable constituencies contributed to Republican victories such as Georgia's. But the evidence suggests the organization drive counted a lot.
The most thorough post-election analysis was done by the Republican polling firm, Public Opinion Strategies, based on interviews with 1,000 voters who had just finished marking their ballots.
Bill McInturff, the partner who interpreted this particular poll, said that Bush had "clearly transformed this election." The survey found that his overall approval rating of 65 percent -- which he has held for well over a year -- rose to 69 percent among those who said they had made up their minds about voting in the last four days of the campaign, and peaked at 74 percent in the retrospective ratings of those who had just voted.
"There was a late surge to the Republicans," McInturff said. That surge, the survey found, enabled Republicans to prevail, 48 percent to 36 percent, among senior citizens, who always weigh disproportionately in the reduced size of an off-year electorate. And it gave the Republicans an 11-point advantage "among the critical sub-group of white women voters."
Other pollsters and political analysts agreed. "Clearly," said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said, "Sept. 11 changed the arc of the election and it changed President Bush's political persona in ways that made this different from any midterm election in history."
Traditionally, the party controlling the White House loses seats in Congress in the midterm election as the president loses support. But Bush's popularity is much higher now than it was when he ran in 2000.
Scott Reed, who managed Sen. Robert J. Dole's losing campaign for president in 1996, said he was as surprised as anyone to see Republicans recapture the Senate and make other gains on Tuesday. "I attribute about 85 percent of it to Bush and his polling numbers," Reed said, "and to the fact that he closed his campaigning on such a strong note."
"The other 15 percent," Reed continued, "I would say goes to the Democrats for being so weak, so dysfunctional, so completely without a message that Bush was able, in effect, to nationalize the election around himself."
Criticism of the Democratic campaign came from many quarters, including organized labor. At a news conference in AFL-CIO headquarters today, John Sweeney, the federation president said that Democrats "weren't able to crystallize their message. They have to do a better job."
Garin, whose clients include many congressional Democrats, said he agreed that his party "never was able to create any other focal point to the election, and never figured out how to make the economic argument."
Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that complaint was off-target. "From Colorado to Arizona to New Mexico, the candidates were talking about the economy, prescription drugs and Social Security privatization." But Lowey said, the Democrats had a hard time being heard after the terrorist attacks, because the president "was consuming all the air."
Strategists in both parties said they suspected -- but could not prove -- that turnout patterns also contributed to the Republican successes, especially in the South, where they not only defeated Barnes and Cleland but successfully defended four open Senate seats.
University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock told the Associated Press that "either blacks didn't turn out or . . . were voting Republican. I think blacks not turning out is more likely." But others were skeptical.
In South Carolina, Democratic officials said it appeared that it was a decline in white support, particularly in Columbia, Charleston, Greenville and Spartanburg, that denied Gov. Jim Hodges a second term. Hodges's totals in such predominantly African American counties as Williamsburg, Clarendon and Orangeburg were down only marginally from his 1998 race.
In two other states, where Republicans defeated incumbent senators, the numbers suggest that the GOP had succeeded in expanding the electorate.
In Missouri, Sen. Jean Carnahan (D), received 81,000 more votes in losing Tuesday than Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R) had pulled in winning reelection in 1998. But winner Jim Talent (R) pulled out an extra 104,000 Republicans -- enough for a 23,000-vote victory.
In New Hampshire, the total Senate vote Tuesday was almost 40 percent higher than it had been in 1998. Tuesday's loser, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen fell only 9,000 votes short of the tally for 1998 winner, Republican Judd Gregg. But that was not enough to hold off the winning Republican, John E. Sununu, in the expanded electorate.
And here in Georgia, Barnes's vote was only 15,000 below his winning mark from 1998, but Perdue drew almost a quarter-million more votes than Barnes's 1998 opponent. Republicans hope it was all just a warm-up for 2004, and at least one Democrat fears it could have longer-range effects.
"This isn't an aberration," said Strother, Barnes' strategist. "We held back the dam for so long, but the dam has finally burst. I don't know if we'll have another Democratic governor in my lifetime."
Broder reported from Washington. Staff researcher Brian Faler also contributed to this report.
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