April 13, 2012

By Michael DeCrescenzo

Down goes Santorum. Now we know what we didn’t even need to hold a primary to conclude: Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee.

Moving into the general election isn’t turning the page to a new chapter so much as beginning a separate book entirely. The rules of the game are different, the characters, the audience, the issues…

And because talking politics is always a little bit competitive, here are a few tips to guide your observation of the upcoming campaign season, in hopes that you might impress your friends and maybe learn something on the way.

**FIRST,** keep the national tracking polls at arm’s length. National survey samples give you some information but not the right information. They ignore the reality that the general election isn’t a single, national election — the Electoral College divides it into 51 separate elections among the states and the Washington D.C. area. Any poll that doesn’t read state-by-state shouldn’t matter as much as we let it matter.

**SECOND,** study the messages of the campaigns. Try, if you can, to extract the most essential information from them — not just the campaign slogan but who the candidate is supposed to be, what he represents, whom he fights for, won’t fight for and can’t afford to fight for. Candidates try to stimulate voters’ emotions, so listen for a candidate’s appeal to conservative or progressive morality. Pay attention to specific language: responsibility, fairness, competition, strength, freedom, energy exploration, energy security, the “most fortunate” among us, big banks, our brothers and sisters, government takeover of health care…the candidates will use these words to contextualize American democracy until it lines up with their particular ideologies.

Recently Obama used the phrase “social Darwinism” to characterize Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, and columnists and politicos echoed the phrase. If “social Darwinism” becomes a heavy Democratic talking point, let it be known that I predicted it about two years ago. I tweeted Claire McCaskill about it and everything. She never got back to me.

**THIRD,** step outside of the echo chamber of the campaign and remember the broader picture of who these candidates are. While it’s popular in the news to frame Romney as the Republicans’ best-but-still-last alternative, we’ve forgotten that President Obama shares much of the same reputation among his own base of support. From committing more troops to Afghanistan, expanding covert drone bombings and expanding executive authority over the “War on Terror” to his weakness and flops on important economic, fiscal and social issues domestically — all of these are failures of being too Republican — he’s been a letdown.

In this regard, Obama and Romney are something like kindred spirits. They are both disappointing, but electable. They are both essentially capitalists. They’d both use the next four years to gobble up as much executive power as they can. But they also seem like the two most realistic candidates 2012 has to offer.

**FOURTH,** don’t forget that Obama can stand to lose a lot of ground on the electoral map. Next to both of George W. Bush’s underwhelming Electoral College majorities, Obama’s in 2008 was enormous. I suggest finding the video on Obama’s YouTube channel of Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina (laying out some different strategies of reaching 270 electoral votes)[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Y-Q9ZY5Ao
]. Each of the pathways starts all the way back with only the states Kerry won in 2004 as a baseline, for some perspective.

**FIFTH** and finally, politicians are seekers of benefit. If lying can benefit them more than hurt them, they will lie. Your candidate is no exception.

Time to give that Etch A Sketch a shake.