What Makes a "Good" Campaigner?

[Free Bird]

I've seen many call Gardner a good campaigner and Uterus a bad one for example. What makes a "good" campaign?

[RaphaelDLG]

Wait, there's a politician named uterus?!?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

There's more than one way to skin a cat. What matters is results.

[user12345]

Wait, there's a politician named uterus?!?

I think he's talking about Mark Udall

[Santander]

Ted Cruz is amazing. I know he's so full of crap, but he is so damn good.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Ted Cruz is amazing. I know he's so full of crap, but he is so damn good.

That reflects pretty negatively on the electorate. I don't think anyone comes off more insincere than Ted.

[Free Bird]

Ted Cruz is amazing. I know he's so full of crap, but he is so damn good.

But what MADE him good?

[Mr. Smith]

For one thing, you don't campaign on one single-issue and barely acknowledge your opponent [Udall]. That and you don't explicitly insult half your potential audience [Braley].

[Santander]

Ted Cruz is amazing. I know he's so full of crap, but he is so damn good.

But what MADE him good?

I'll give you one reason. The amazing thing about Cruz is that despite his bomb-throwing in the Senate, his smugness, and his economic positions, all of which I abhor, he somehow made me like him. His speech at the Values Voter Summit in 2014 was probably my favorite speech of the past 10 years - not just the words, but the delivery. Rafael Cruz is an excellent preacher, and he's definitely passed those skills on to his son.

George Wallace evoked anger and anxiety, but was only really about raw emotion. Trump is like that too. Preacher-candidates like Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson just played identity politics. Rick Santorum came across as too much of a zealot. Pat Buchanan was good, but his rhetoric was always too mean. Cruz doesn't sound like that - where Buchanan said, "We must take back our country", Cruz says, "I am convinced God isn't done with America yet." He can quote scripture and not come across as a zealot or a preacher because he does it while holding up the Constitution, not the Bible. Most of his audience believes that the Constitution was inspired by God, so it is not necessary to thump the Bible. This allows Cruz to evoke a crusader-like emotions in his supporters, combining religion and politics, that is far more intense than the crude anger of candidates like Trump.

Cruz @ 2014 Values Voter Summit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgMVlznqBJw

[Tartarus Sauce]

Ted Cruz is amazing. I know he's so full of crap, but he is so damn good.

But what MADE him good?

I'll give you one reason. The amazing thing about Cruz is that despite his bomb-throwing in the Senate, his smugness, and his economic positions, all of which I abhor, he somehow made me like him. His speech at the Values Voter Summit in 2014 was probably my favorite speech of the past 10 years - not just the words, but the delivery. Rafael Cruz is an excellent preacher, and he's definitely passed those skills on to his son.

George Wallace evoked anger and anxiety, but was only really about raw emotion. Trump is like that too. Preacher-candidates like Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson just played identity politics. Rick Santorum came across as too much of a zealot. Pat Buchanan was good, but his rhetoric was always too mean. Cruz doesn't sound like that - where Buchanan said, "We must take back our country", Cruz says, "I am convinced God isn't done with America yet." He can quote scripture and not come across as a zealot or a preacher because he does it while holding up the Constitution, not the Bible. Most of his audience believes that the Constitution was inspired by God, so it is not necessary to thump the Bible. This allows Cruz to evoke a crusader-like emotions in his supporters, combining religion and politics, that is far more intense than the crude anger of candidates like Trump.

Cruz @ 2014 Values Voter Summit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgMVlznqBJw

As a non-believer, that made him come across as an even greater zealot. His rejection of a separation between church and state while preaching himself as an upholder of constitutional ideals was downright horrifying, and his father's overt Dominionism was even more galling.

He was very much an excellent campaigner, but only if you subscribed to particularly religious values. Otherwise, he came across as purely toxic.

[Zioneer]

This is a bit down in the weeds, but I'll give an example of a good campaigner: current Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams. McAdams ran for County Mayor in 2012, the year Mitt Romney was at the top of the ticket. That being bad enough for Democratic chances in Utah, McAdams (who is mostly just known as "Ben" around here) was a first term state senator from the most liberal, LGBT-friendly district in Utah (though he himself is a moderately liberal Mormon), and had just come off from a fierce primary against a Latino state senator who had been working towards the nomination for a while.

McAdams gets former County Councilman Mark Crockett as his Republican opponent, and while Crockett has a few anger management issues, he also has money, Romney at the top of the ticket, and the much hyped Mia Love running for UT-04, which takes up a chunk of Salt Lake County. Everybody expects McAdams (and Jim Matheson and etc) to lose. Only he doesn't. He outperforms Obama by 29 points in Salt Lake County and wins by 9%.

See, McAdams figured out that despite being from a very liberal district, he could cultivate a moderate, wonky, likeable persona. Which he does. He rents a big orange campaign bus that he drives to all the cities in Salt Lake County, he puts up billboards saying things like "Eagle Scout not Eagle Forum" "A different kind of Democrat", "raises his kids, not your taxes", etc. He gets mentions in all of the Utah-based media, and comes across as a likeable guy as compared to Mark Crockett's angry, entitled attitude. And this year he's running for re-election, and his Republican opponent is a no-hope businessman who got 1% in a city mayoral primary last year.

And of course, Doug Owens in UT-04 managed to get within 5000 votes of winning in 2014, despite it being a Republican landslide across the country, a midterm to boot, and being very underfunded with little name recognition. So he's an excellent campaigner as well. Or perhaps Mia Love is just a terrible one (in her 2012 race, she underperformed Romney by 38 points).

[IceSpear]

The annoying thing is how often a "good campaign" or "bad campaign" is judged retrospectively solely based off the end result with little to no other considerations.

It's very possible to run a stellar campaign and still lose, if enough other forces are working against you (partisanship, toxic national environment, an opponent who is just as good, other fundamentals, etc. etc.) And vice versa, it's possible to run a horrible campaign and still win despite it. I recognize it's a lot more difficult to argue someone ran a good/bad campaign even when they lost/won, but it's still annoying.

For example, it was quite apparent Udall ran a terrible campaign early on, basically making the entire thing about muh abortion and birth control. Now, let's just say he somehow managed to eek out a victory, due to demographics or if the Republicans nominated a Ken Buck again or whatever. I bet a lot of people would have praised his campaign as an innovative strategy for winning a swing state. And it's hard to argue because you can always counter with "WELL HE WON!!!!!!!" By the way, an interesting factoid here is that he did only lose by 2 points, a lot less than expected and probably a lot less than he should have. So you can kind of see what I mean.

IMO, here's two examples from 2014:

Great campaign, still lost: Mark Begich
Terrible campaign, still won: Mark Warner

[Santander]

As a non-believer, that made him come across as an even greater zealot. His rejection of a separation between church and state while preaching himself as an upholder of constitutional ideals was downright horrifying, and his father's overt Dominionism was even more galling.

He was very much an excellent campaigner, but only if you subscribed to particularly religious values. Otherwise, he came across as purely toxic.

I can definitely see that, and it shows in how the primaries played out this year. Cruz was supposed to stitch together a coalition of movement conservatives and evangelicals, but the evangelicals broke and backed Trump. Unfortunately for Cruz, (I do not feel sorry for him) Huckabee and Santorum poisoned the well, and Evangelicals were sick of "their guy" losing and decided to back the winning horse.

[Tartarus Sauce]

As a non-believer, that made him come across as an even greater zealot. His rejection of a separation between church and state while preaching himself as an upholder of constitutional ideals was downright horrifying, and his father's overt Dominionism was even more galling.

He was very much an excellent campaigner, but only if you subscribed to particularly religious values. Otherwise, he came across as purely toxic.

I can definitely see that, and it shows in how the primaries played out this year. Cruz was supposed to stitch together a coalition of movement conservatives and evangelicals, but the evangelicals broke and backed Trump. Unfortunately for Cruz, (I do not feel sorry for him) Huckabee and Santorum poisoned the well, and Evangelicals were sick of "their guy" losing and decided to back the winning horse.

I'm not sure that's what actually happened. Santorum and Huckabee were barely blips on the radar in terms of support. Evangelicals did end up breaking for Trump, but that phenomenon---like all other instances---followed along class lines. Non-college educated evangelicals voted for Trump, upper-class, college educated evangelicals favored Cruz. Trump managed smash through every previous ideological barrier that categorized the Republican party and oriented a new axis over class and education. The era of the "Moral Majority" acting as the Republican kingmaker is over, as is every other aspect of the former Reagan coalition.

So yeah, Ted Cruz basically had the rug pulled out from under him, and the establishment only half-heartedly extended some support while the libertarian wing didn't even bother. He was left to the dust (although he is almost certainly scheming for a 2020 run despite him having no ability to construct a winning coalition).

[Santander]

I'm not sure that's what actually happened. Santorum and Huckabee were barely blips on the radar in terms of support. Evangelicals did end up breaking for Trump, but that phenomenon---like all other instances---followed along class lines. Non-college educated evangelicals voted for Trump, upper-class, college educated evangelicals favored Cruz. Trump managed smash through every previous ideological barrier that categorized the Republican party and oriented a new axis over class and education. The era of the "Moral Majority" acting as the Republican kingmaker is over, as is every other aspect of the former Reagan coalition.

You might be right about that. Huckabee and Santorum only really had any success because the voters were protesting against McCain and Romney, not because the voters actually liked them.

[IceSpear]

I'm not sure that's what actually happened. Santorum and Huckabee were barely blips on the radar in terms of support. Evangelicals did end up breaking for Trump, but that phenomenon---like all other instances---followed along class lines. Non-college educated evangelicals voted for Trump, upper-class, college educated evangelicals favored Cruz. Trump managed smash through every previous ideological barrier that categorized the Republican party and oriented a new axis over class and education. The era of the "Moral Majority" acting as the Republican kingmaker is over, as is every other aspect of the former Reagan coalition.

You might be right about that. Huckabee and Santorum only really had any success because the voters were protesting against McCain and Romney, not because the voters actually liked them.

True for Santorum, but plenty of people liked Huckabee in 2008.

[Tartarus Sauce]

I'm not sure that's what actually happened. Santorum and Huckabee were barely blips on the radar in terms of support. Evangelicals did end up breaking for Trump, but that phenomenon---like all other instances---followed along class lines. Non-college educated evangelicals voted for Trump, upper-class, college educated evangelicals favored Cruz. Trump managed smash through every previous ideological barrier that categorized the Republican party and oriented a new axis over class and education. The era of the "Moral Majority" acting as the Republican kingmaker is over, as is every other aspect of the former Reagan coalition.

You might be right about that. Huckabee and Santorum only really had any success because the voters were protesting against McCain and Romney, not because the voters actually liked them.

True for Santorum, but plenty of people liked Huckabee in 2008.

We were talking about the 2016 campaign.

[pho]

The thing all bad campaigns have in common is shark jumping. This can manifest in many ways. Firing the entire staff, flip-flopping on core issues, "everything but the kitchen sink" attack ads, and peddling conspiracy theories are all signs that a campaign is in decline.