Monday, December 17, 2007
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Wanted: The Next Boy Genius
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Posted by:
Matt Lewis at
8:48 AM
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Aside from Ed Rollins, who recently joined the Mike Huckabee campaign, one thing is missing this election cycle: Celebrity consultants.
Every election cycle, it seems, the media discovers some eccentric adviser to turn into a star. It makes a great story, of course. But so far this cycle, our celebrity consultant is AWOL.
Sure, there are some big-name advisors on just about every top-tier campaign (most notably, Hillary Clinton has Mark Penn and Barack Obama has David Axelrod) -- but none of these names are in the same league as an Lee Atwater, James Carville, Dick Morris, Karl Rove, Bob Shrum, or Joe Trippi, just to name a few of the recent consultants who often garnered more press than the candidates they represented.
The media, of course, helped make these advisors celebrities. Sure, each of these advisers were smart and talented -- but there are hundreds of talented consultants living in relative obscurity (often, on purpose), who know just as much about politics as, say, Jim Carville.
The press has not ordained 2008's "Boy Genius" ... yet. One reason for this is that the early frontrunner, John McCain, had signed many of the biggest rising-star advisers, before his campaign imploded, so some of top-talent is sitting out this cycle.
Still, for all the talk of "horse race" campaign coverage this year, relatively few hagiographic exposes have been written about campaign advisers or consultants. This, of course, begs the question: Are the campaign staffs more disciplined these days, do their advisers lack panache, or is their a lack of big-name talent?
Someone's going to win Iowa, and my guess is we're just a few weeks away from some major profiles of the next "Architect" ....
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Any chance Hillary will sign up Bob Shrum? :) |
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Huckabee is the genius this year (or is it God).
Here's a guy with no money, no staff, no organization, no one in the GOP behind him. Yet he rose from the bottom to the top.
What's wrong with you guys, isn't that political genius?
Now, he's got EVERYONE distoring his record, deceiving the public over his positions and shutting him out - trying to keep him from being able to respond. Mitt and the money guys in the party are gushing money on deceptive ads. FOX is in full guerilla warfare against Huckabee. They are even putting their reputation of "Fair and Balanced" on the line, willing to sacrifice their own reputation to get Mike out of 1st place. Look at what they are doing with Frank Luntz. To me, it looks like he's putting his own reputation on the line too. Did he stack the deck with Romney supporters in his focus group the last debate?
So how does Huckabee respond? He plants explosive phrases in his own articles against Bush. He knows the leftwing media will give him air time. Pretty smart, wouldn't you say? I think the guy is a brilliant political strategist.
And, with his Fair Tax, Fair Trade, and Fair Capitalism he is hope for mid America's conservative base.
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Could you pass me some of what you're smoking?
Huckabee basically STOLE Nationl Review's immigration plan (it's pretty weak and unrealistic), he's got Chuck Norris and Tim LaHaye stumping for him, and his tax plan is also a totally unrealistic joke.
And HE'S the boy genious? Sorry man, this race already has one and his name is Mitt Romney.
If you didn't see him go through the minutia of policy details on Meet the Press yesterday - you should.
Romney is so smart he makes Alan Greenspan look like a community college dropout. |
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No. That's just a big slug in a suit. Throw salt on him and put him in jail. |
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Sure, they’re out there, not to name any. (employed or not) But to get status recognition, well, you have to win. Also be consistently smart in navigating your candidate. Either you are trying to be ahead of the tidewaters or you missed your own point. It is interesting though if McCain had several, what’s that say? Did they have a non-competition clause? I doubt such things in their “contracts”, but who knows. |
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HAHAHAHAHA!
Few things make me laugh harder than a liberal still bitter about losing 2000 and 2004! |
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Whoever is running Huck's campaign is very good at guerrilla marketing tactics. However, in the process of bootstrapping Huck's candidacy they have positioned poorly for moving into full campaign mode.
Huck needed someone who knew how to run a real campaign. Rollins fills that bill but he starts with a campaign that has a very difficult positioning strategy. I am very dubious that making personal attacks on Bush is smart. You can challenge his decisions but not make it personal.
Huck has personally needlessly galvanized the Bush Rangers against him. We all know Bush made mistakes, we all do. However, he did the best that he could given the intelligence and the Iraqis that he had to work with. The biggest problem in Iraq is not Bush or his policies it is the factions within Iraq.
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we are winning in Iraq as we will win in Iran.
How can we tell? Simple... Just note the absolute silence from the MSM and its cohorts on war matters, happenings, and events.
No news from them is good news, indeed. Always has been, always will be. |
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"Huck has personally needlessly galvanized the Bush Rangers against him. We all know Bush made mistakes, we all do."
When I heard the “bunker mentality” comment, I associated it with the domestic policy, soviegnty and security that Bush has lacked. He pushed the amnesty while saying it wasn’t. Then pushed the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership) while denying the North American union thing. One can make mistakes, but bunkering down in the face of opposition by your own base to them, and then say it really isn’t what you are seeing does not help one’s case.
Mistakes are mistakes, but a lie would be a lie too. Does Bush really need anyone galvanizing against him? Or, more to the point, does Huckabee need to defend Bush on those policies? The issues did the galvanizing. Approvals reveal it. As the saying goes, “Bush has left the building”
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