West Wing 101

Criminally "dumb", not Criminal

My longtime friend Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post has weighed in rather heavily on the Obama Administration's press strategy of urging, and partially putting into practice, a boycott of Fox News. In a recent blog on the subject, she called the policy "dumb", then searching for stronger terms, suggested "Nixonian" or "Agnewesque" (sp?) I'll buy the first name she gives it, but I recoil from the second and third.

As she points out, the way the game is played is that administration leaks and interviews are provided to "journalists" who take good steno, and are withheld from those who fail to take good notes, or who take their inside information to write "yes...but" pieces that take advantage of their access to demolish the leaker's objectives. Extra credit is given in the scoring system for those who do more than reproduce the talking points and actually use them to come up with creative additional arguments, but that's hardly required.

The point is, the scoring is done outside the public eye in the political affairs office, not by the press secretary or his/her minions. The mistake the Obama press office made is to make public their aversion to Fox. Starve them, yes--maybe show the bad guys up by throwing a bone or two if there's a Chris Wallace or someone they think treats their tidbits properly--but don't go public with it. If the news they're giving has any value, viewers' and readers' eyes will follow their choices.

As for Nixon, though, the difference is that Nixon's political affairs desk (all administrations have one) looked for illegal ways to punish its enemies; as for Agnew, he was just a whiny, graft-driven mouthpiece. The comparison is inappropriate.

Amateur Hour
That's how Donna Brazile aptly described some Obama backgrounders' criticism of Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds' campaign.

OK, if they want to cut ties to Deeds and throw him under the bus, they can do it after election day when he's lost, but they're planning to send the President into Virginia to campaign for him, so that only reduces the value of the President's intervention.

I've said it before: I know Virginia's electorate and I don't trust it for a minute. There's plenty of reason to think they'll turn their back on a Democrat this time--there's a very fickle swing vote that decides elections there, and it's about time the pendulum swings back to the Republican side for them. In my view, they are searching for something they are never going to get; Virginia governors can't run for re-election, so their attempts to punish the incumbent always fail.

Of course, a politician can never blame the voters, who are always right. Neither can a journalist, who has to sell papers or TV ads and has to be nice to the public. That right belongs exclusively to me, and my ilk.

Measure of Success

I know that Rahm Emmanuel's job as chief of staff, controlling Obama's schedule and access to him, is important work. I'm beginning to think, though, that he should be shifted to a more overtly political job, like the one I described above. From his work heading up the Democratic Congressional campaign in 2006, we know his considerable acumen.

Obama has every right to get involved in state political races--indeed, it's pretty much an obligation: he is the leader of his party. But he needs to make sure than his subordinates assigned to the political process do it right. I'm afraid that the hamfisted political sensitivity shown by these two cases might be described as more "JimmyCarterian".

The most meaningful test of success of a new Administration is its ability to get re-elected after four years, and the main discriminator for that is its ability to get an uncontested re-nomination from its party. Jimmy Carter, despite his many talents and virtues, was not able to achieve that in 1980 and it contributed mightily to his defeat. Even George W. Bush, for all his defects, kept his party united in 2004, and his ability to keep his party together for re-nomination, and then in the general election campaign, made the difference.

Obama's proven that his electoral potential is huge, but if he allows his party unity to dissolve, he will fail that test.