Oh, and yes I am writing a much less cranky diary than yesterday. As I noted there,
Just cranky.
All the teahouse nattering about what the teams on the field are going to do on these caucus/primary days makes such a massive difference to what the Daily Kos was when I first signed on it tends to get me a bit aggravated.
What people should be doing if they are sitting around waiting is getting ready for the next campaign which always starts the next day, win lose or draw.
Its not the candidate diaries saying obscenely or, worse, absurdly nasty things about Y in support of X that get me as much as the genteel sniffing from the sideline from those putting on the airs of those studying an anthill under a magnifying glass ... as they talk about their fellow ants deciding the future of the anthill rather than diving in.
But now primary day is over until February 5th, so we've got something approximating normal primary season Daily Kos back.
Dear John Edwards,
Why, and How, you can make Ohio your Firewall state.
Ohio is, of course, voting on March 4th. The conventional wisdom would make that a little late to make it a firewall state. And, of course, part of the strategy is to have something for the punditry to chew on ... if "senior campaign strategists" let leak out that Ohio is your firewall, that is a frame they understand. And yet the timing is something for them to fuss over.
All of which will serve to improve your prospects here in Ohio. Like a whole lot of other states, as the series of "early decision" primaries has evolved, Buckeyes got sick and tired of having no voice in the primary process. So the state political parties did what a lot of political parties in a lot of states did, and decided that if they could not be an "early state", we in Ohio would joined a "Super Tuesday".
And at the time, it looked like a good idea ... after all, the last time that any states other than early states were decisive in putting a candidate on track to the nomination was 1992, and it was the Super Tuesday framework that did it.
But then, a funny thing happened. The SOB's up and moved Super Tuesday to early February! And without a native son/daughter in the race, and with Ohio in the middle of a state level party transition that will take another four years to work through, Ohio by default ended up with Texas in a mini-super-Tuesday on March 4th.
Now, I am not saying that you ever say that Ohio is your firewall state. With the issue out there, you can say,
"I very much like campaigning in Ohio ... as you know, the Kerry campaign sent me to campaign in rural and outer suburban counties all over Ohio. And it may have been out of the media spotlight, but I very much enjoyed my opportunity to meet the people of Ohio." [NB. These "quote in block quotes" are hypotheticals ... the quotation marks, in other words, are "scare quotes".]
... and, of course, the most important,
"The general election is winner take all by state, but not the primary race ... the primary race is about getting your share of the state vote in delegates. But, yes, I would very much like to win Ohio in the Spring, because I intend to win it in the Fall."
Making Ohio important to your campaign ... in the way that Senator Clinton has tried to build her delegate count by supporting the Republican parties of Michigan and Florida in their effort to break the Democratic Party effort to work toward a better primary calendar ... that is, for one thing, good for attracting attention in Ohio.
It also lays the foundation for the question ... after your not accepting the proposition that Ohio is the firewall state, but the press is too lazy by and large to listen to the answer to a question, and will go ahead and ask the next question anyway ... "What about Texas? Isn't that an important state?", opening up the answer:
"Yes, Texas is a very important state. And Texas Democrats know full well that the Republicans in their state have worked hard to gerrymander Congressional Districts. As a side effect of that partisan gerrymander, all three of us have Congressional Districts where we are likely to do well. But I intend to be campaigning for, and winning delegates from, Congressional Districts all through the state of Texas. Indeed, Texas on March 4th is a big reason why this primary season will definitely not be over on February 6th.
And the, of course, after going to Virginia to campaign for the February 12th primary, Ohio is a very compact state in terms of getting your message out directly to large numbers of people if you criss cross the state for three weeks in a bus tour. And of course, doing that, punctuated with some flights out to campaign in big rallies in key areas in Texas, keeps the "Ohio firewall" meme alive, which continues to support the "Battle for Ohio" theme.
And since you can campaign in Ohio by criss crossing the state by bus, you can maintain a strong local presence entirely independently of the willingness of the national media to cover the campaign. Indeed, at some point, the national punditry ... "The Village" ... saying over and over that your campaign is done and finished becomes the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" ...
... and, indeed, you can use that in your appearances. Let me say this straight out: pander to the local press and local television in this state ... but, as I illustrate here, in an aggressive pander ... with a hurdle that they have to jump in order to earn the pander. In your speeches, say straight out that:
"The National Media are like the Boy who Cried Wolf. They declared my campaign finished when Hillary hit a massive lead in the national polls in the summer of 2007. They declared both my campaign and the Obama campaign dead and buried in the fall of 2007. They declared my campaign dead in Iowa ... and then the people of Iowa said, no, Edwards is still part of this race. They declared my campaign dead and buried after I fell short of the 15% threshold in most of Nevada ... then the people of South Carolina said, no, Edwards is still part of this race."
"The local press here in Ohio, they know that Buckeyes are smarting after fifteen years of President Clinton's NAFTA. They know that roads and bridges and public transport in this state need help after sixteen years of Republican Governors and twelve years of the Gingrich Revolution ... and I am so happy that Ohio helped turn both back in 2006, but the fight is far from over. They know that its not a beauty contest ... its a fight about who has the best ideas to turn the nation's economy, foreign policy, and health care system around."
"And if you stand up to be counted, they will be the first ones to hear you. Let your local paper and television station know that I am still part of this race, and give the national media the exact same level of respect that they give Ohio in the years between Presidential Campaigns."
Hell, come to Ohio with 100 delegates in February 13th, criss cross the state and get that message out, alongside the rest of your Movement strategy for change, and we'll happily double it for you.
How to run in February 5th, on Stranded Wind, to make Ohio you firewall state.
Now, Buckeyes will forgive you if you do not do tremendously well in The Two Senators Three Home States, and if you do not do well on the West Coast. However, every delegate you win in flyover country ... every state in flyover country where you show up as part of the mix ... will be good for additional confidence that supporting you is a worthwhile use of our vote in March 4th.
So that is part of your campaign strategy between now and February 5th ... do better than the mass media expects you to do in flyover country.
And, I'm going to have to level with you, but your bronze medal speech last night just did not cut the mustard. You are going to have to do better than that. Its a great message, and you deliver it very well when you are on your game, but there is very much a ceiling to how much of the vote you can get with that message alone.
So my suggestion is to hit The Two Senators where it hurts ... by putting out yet another solid, innovative policy plank that they will be forced to slowing edge toward supporting themselves. The best way you have to undermine Senator Clinton's "Ready on Day One", is to be able to say on the trail in Ohio, "If she's going to be ready on Day One, how come she adopts watered down versions of position after position from my policy platform, but only after they have been out there for weeks or months?"
And the place to hit them is infrastructure investment for renewable energy ... and the issue of Stranded Wind.
Think about it ... this is the February 20th map:
This is the national wind resource map (a little obsolete, but only in the direction of there really being more resource than the map shows):
See anything? Exactly. And the people in those states understand full well that they have a ceiling on their local power demand, as well as understanding in their gut the need for their state economies to have an export base ... which can be readily framed as the need for them to have an export base of renewable resources.
However, to get it through in, basically, a week, you have got to make your Stranded Wind policy straightforward and easy to understand. So here goes:
- The Federal Government invests in publicly owned infrastructure to electrify the main railroad
- In return, the owners of the right of way cede use of the right of way above the part that they need to public use, together with access to the ground level right of way for support structures
- That right of way is used to establish long distance High Voltage DC trunk lines to bring sustainable energy from the places that have it to places the need it
- In areas where there is a commercial wind resource, the usage rights above those trunk lines are available to be leased out for wind farm operators, with the lease payments rolled back into the funding for the program
Now, Stranded Wind is so much more than this program. However, if you want to have a policy proposal that cuts through the media brownout and general noise, its important to have a strong visual.
And the visual for this can be strong as hell. A US state boundary map. A big bold percentage in black, that shows the total wind resource in the state, on current estimates, as a percentage of total current US electricity use. And include offshore wind resource within state boundaries in that percentage. A big bold percentage in red, that shows the state's share of total electricity consumption. And in blue, the main existing trunk line rail network, with blue lightning bolts laid out alongside the ones that link up wind power surplus states with wind power deficit states.
Oh, and people will say, "long distance power transport loses power". To which you answer:
"Wind Power is use it or lose it. If we do not burn a ton of coal this year, we can burn it next year, or next decade, or a century from now. And if we wait, we may be able to use it in a way that does not damage the environment. But every Terawatt of Wind Power that we leave untapped is just gone."
Oh, and people will say, "The Federal Government should not subsidize the electrification of the freight rail grid. To which you answer:
:The reason we subsidized the Interstate Highway system was national defense. But back then we were an oil exporter. Now we are a massive oil importer. We have to be able to move essential food, supplies, and defense material from one side of the country to the other without having that hostage to events in the Middle East. Sustainable electricity supplies let us do that."
Oh, and people will say, "We cannot rely on wind power to always be there. To which you answer:
"Its a big country we have here. There is always some wind blowing across some part of our country. But its true that sometimes there will be more wind power than other times. As long as the federal government makes sure that that power can be transported and sold at times that it is needed, I am sure that enterprising private firms will find ways to store it in times that it is abundant."
How to frame the candidate choice in the LA debate to set the strategy up.
OK, the debate in LA is the best time to launch this policy program. There is certain to be an opening ... for one thing, the recession is going to be mentioned, and you can say:
Some people thing a temporary tax cut is the solution to the problem. But we have gone more than half a decade without any real economic progress for more than half the Working Families in America ... we need more than a temporary band-aid. Tonight, immediately after this debate, I shall be announcing my policy to make permanent economic progress, by tapping the renewable Wind Resources that we have in abundance and making it available where it is most needed."
And if there is an objection about you referring to a policy you have not yet presented, that allows you to say:
I know that it takes weeks, sometimes months, for Senator Clinton to adopt one of my policy positions as her own. However, Senator Obama is quicker on his feet than that, and I wanted the chance to talk about some of my policy before hearing a watered down version of it from one of the two senators.
However, the main thing to do in the debate is to get a sharper edge on your "the choice is what strategy for change do you prefer". Because you have put that out there previously ... but only as a lure to dump Senator Clinton and then you will get explicit when it is just you and Senator Obama.
Well, it aint gonna happen ... this is going to be a three person race until June 3rd. No matter what happens on February 5th, both of the Sitting Senators are going to have too many delegates to drop out or be declared out by the Mainstream Press. And, of course, having put your faith in your own bloc of supporters amongst the netroots, we are going to keep you in the race one way or another.
So you have to find a frame that says why someone should vote for the underdog in a three person race, rather than voting the lesser of two evils amongst the top two contenders. And that frame, I believe, is this:
We have a very familiar situation in this campaign. We have one product being advertised as being "New and Improved", and another product being advertised as "A Name You Can Trust".
My campaign is different from that, because in my view, if we continue the politics of selling the candidate as an attractive product, we continue to get the political results that we have seen since the 1980's. In my view, what politics in this country needs is a campaign that first focuses on a real, coherent system of real solutions to real problems, and then works to to build a movement of supporters to get those solutions put into place."
"That is why I am not going away, no matter what the Mass Media says. Because the fact is that the Mass Media does not understand this type of change. When it happens, it always catches them by surprise."
"So they can go ahead and declare my campaign dead and buried every day from now to June 3, but no matter whether I have a hundred, five hundred, a thousand or two thousand delegates supporting me, I am taking the campaign all the way to the convention. Once there, I will stand up and fight for the interests of the people who support this strategy for change."
Conclusion
Well, this is far too long, which means that I am not really addressing you, John, but at best addressing one of your tired and overworked staffers (pssst ... hi, tired and overworked staffer! Thanks for your hard work!). So I'm going to stop here, for fear of breaking their spirit if I go on at any more length, and sign this,
Sincerely,
Dr. {BruceMcF in lieu of real name} (Economics)
Northeast Ohio
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