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Fri May 14, 2010 at 04:58 PM CDT
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(A terrific piece from Left of College Station, one of the best political blogs in Texas. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
All politics is local. That is, unless you are a Republican campaigning against an incumbent Democrat. Then all politics becomes national. At least that what Republican Bill Flores is hoping, as he campaigns against Democratic Congressman Chet Edwards. While Edwards campaign strategy is centered around painting Flores as an outsider to the district who was picked by Washington, D.C. insiders (and who accumulated his personal wealth in the oil business), Flores is going to attempt to connect Edwards to President Obama and the Democrats in Congress. The problem is that one strategy has worked before, and one strategy never has.
The Rothenberg Political Report reported on the results of a Republican poll which shows Flores leading Edwards by twelve points, 51% to 43%. Surveying 400 "likely voters" OnMessage Inc, a Republican firm, conducted the poll from May 2nd through May 3rd. Although, it appears that Edwards has a strong approval rating of 53% and only a 38% unfavorable rating. While 53% of those polled do not have any opinion of Flores at all, who has 37% favorable rating and 10% unfavorable rating.
The pollster, Wes Anderson, is framing the election as a referendum on President Obama and the Congressional Democrats:
"There are a whole bunch of Republican voters who like Congressman Edwards. They say that they voted for him in the past, but they aren't going to do it this time. This election isn't about Chet Edwards."
But Edwards responded to the poll by stating that Republican challengers and the RNC have release several polls over the years to predict defeat, and that this election will not be about President Obama and Congressional Democrats:
"I have my toughest time against a generic Republican who isn't well-known. By the end of this race, Bill Flores will not be a generic Republican. I intend to demonstrate by the end of this race that my values reflect this district better than his do."
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It is likely that as the campaign continues Flores will attempt to tie Edwards with President Obama and the Congressional Democrats, as according to the OnMessage Inc poll the President has a 66% disapproval rating in the district. Apparently Flores is already shopping quotes to Politico, and was quoted in a recent article:
"It's time for Chet Edwards to stand up, show some leadership and demand that Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and the Democrats take some responsibility and pass a budget."
The article itself was a broad article about the budget's affects on the midterm elections, but that did not stop Flores and his campaign manager from misrepresenting the article on each of their Twitter feeds. Flores claimed that Politico was reporting on the TX17 campaign, and Edwards's "failure to be responsible and pass a budget."
It isn't just the Flores campaign that is attempting to made the midterm elections about national issues, and to turn ever district campaign into a referendum on the Obama Administration. According to a recent report by Talking Points Memo, RNC political director Gentry Collins said that the Republicans are targeting 122 districts, and a big part of the overall strategy is to nationalize the campaigns.
"We didn't win in 1994 because of infrastructure. We won in 1994 because we had a nationalized election with a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress that overreached."
If the Republicans are planning of a repeat of 1994 because that the circumstances are the same and because they are using a similar strategy, then they are misjudging the political history, the current political climate. The voters that respond to the national issues that the Republican Party is framing are not going to vote for a Democrat in the first place. Over the course of the next several months the polls are going to get closer, and the voters are going to start responding to the candidates that are talking about local issues. But apparently for Republicans, all politics are national.
Political and Social Thought...
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