No, not Gordon Smith, the Republican from Oregon. The Senator Smith I'm talking about has never served in the Senate, or any other legislative body. But they have run for president before.
Perhaps some explanations might seem in order. You see, back in 1973, a young Democratic pollster by the name of Pat Caddell wrote a lengthy memo, in which he described and designed the candidacy of a fictional politician named "Senator Smith." Caddell, who had recently graduated from Harvard after taking a year off to run the polling operation of the McGovern presidential campaign, did provided a ready-made candidacy for Senator Smith in the memo. He wrote speeches, designed advertising, and scripted mock interviews with the candidate.
What made Senator Smith so different from the real presidential candidates was his decidedly anti-Establishment rhetoric. Described by Caddell as a "consummate insider," Smith runs as an outsider, an economic populist whose "protest candidacy" endorsed campaign-finance reform and embraced "people power." Senator Smith refuses to accept big money donations, calls on people to make sacrifices for the common good of the country, and talks about the campaign "empowering people" to "take back our country." Is any of this sounding familiar yet? If not, here's an excerpt from an actual Smith stump speech in Caddell's memo:
"America's leaders--not just in the Republican Party, but in the Democratic Party as well--have failed America! The moment has come for you, the people, to take back our politics and our country! The experts and the failed elites say I am wrong. They say my message is too unconventional, too unrealistic, too idealistic, too extreme. They say that a vote for me is a wasted vote. But I tell you, it is never wrong to vote for the truth!"
If you think that sounds an awful lot like Howard Dean, you'd be right. But you'd also be wrong, because it also sounds an awful lot like Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, Joe Biden, Jerry Brown, and Ralph Nader. You see, Pat Caddell worked for all of those men's presidential campaigns. He polled, spin-doctored, and wrote speeches for Carter, Hart, and Biden, and he "consulted" and "advised" Brown, Nader, and Dean, the latter of whom was managed by Joe Trippi, who learned everything he knows insurgency campaigning from his work with Caddell on Brown's campaign.
The tip-off that Caddell was the guiding force in shaping those men's messages in the Senator Smith mold is in their speeches. And not just in the themes, but also in the phrases. Count how many of them want to inspire new voters, how many want campaign finance reform, how many predict an impending national decline, how many reference the fears of Jefferson and Madison, and how many want to take our country back. Just for fun, count how many times each man blames the troubles of the world on unnamed "special interests."
The fact is that Caddell has run a Senator Smith in every presidential election since 1976, with the exception of 1980 and 1996. The reason is that the Senator Smith message is powerful. In 1984, when Hart's Smith-like campaign took him from 1% in the polls to winning primaries in 26 states, Caddell's polling found that Senator Smith would have blown away the entire field if he had been able to run. I have no doubt that Caddell, who will then be only fifty-seven, will find a new candidate in 2008.
So the question is: Who will it be? While the role seems to lend itself to liberals like Hart and Nader, moderates like Carter and Biden have also worn the mantle. The only two requirements seem to be that the candidate must be a political unknown outside of his home state and the pundits must declare him to have a snowball's chance in Hell at getting the nomination. Only then will Caddell take over.
So who fits the bill? Who will carry on the legacy of Senator Smith in 2008? Will Feingold, Bayh or Warner, or someone as yet unseen?
http://primary2008.typepad.com/
