How dare blacks vote!

Chris McDaniel is planning to sue for a new run-off election for the Senate nomination in Mississippi. He, a Tea Party candidate, lost his run-off primary against Thad Cochran, an old GOP establishment type. Cochran was a long shot at winning until he used a clever, and legal, plan to get blacks to vote for him in the run-off. The plan worked.

Howls from the Tea Party, and even from their supporters in the UK. The loudest complaint is that the GOTV messages for black voters were "tinged" with racism. As though there aren't any tinges of racism in Tea Party campaigns. Nothing like black votes are bought with goodies from social programs, that they're happy to suck on the teat of government, that they're stupid voters, that they support Obama just because he's black, that Obama is not an American and actually hates America. There's nothing racial there.

What's so ironic is to label this statement as out of bounds:

"Say ... no to their disrespectful treatment of the first African-American president" 

Yet Tea Party supporters routinely say things like this:

"You know Barry, ... most people don't like you because you are a narcissistic, idiotic, anti-American moron."

The Tea Party treatment of Obama has been extremely disrespectful. People can argue about whether it's infrequently racially motivated or not, but it's clearly disrespectful. The TP is extremely disrespectful to lots of people, or they might get a better reputation.

If the black voters were already familiar with the Tea Party and knew it was a calm, level-headed, polite group, the ads against the Tea Party would have been ineffective and clearly seen as lies. However, the sense that the Tea Party has been disrespectful of the president correlates highly with real-life experience. That's what we usually call 'truth.' (By the way, it's also clear that tons of Dems are extremely disrespectful to conservatives, too. The crap doesn't flow just one way.)

The worst exaggeration (from a radio ad) was this:

"If the Tea Party, with their racist ideas win, we'll be set back to the 50's and 60's... Say no to the racist agenda of Chris McDaniel and the Tea Party."

That's on a par with typical Tea Party tripe about Obama/Dems hating America, and wanting to drive the country into the ground. I'm pretty sure I've heard that a million times.

However, the ads and robocall didn't stick only to racial issues. It tried to convince listeners with other relevant concerns like obstruction, cuts to public education, food programs, disaster relief, etc. That, like the comments about disrespect, sounds pretty accurate too.

Maybe instead of griping, the Tea Party should start inoculating itself against racial charges by: 1) being explicitly non-racist, and 2) caring about black people's concerns.

Image: kingsjester.wordpress.com

Extras. Listen to the robocall and the radio ads that ran on black-centered stations. The Tea Party not only hates Obama, they often hate everyone who voted for him or other 'liberals.' That's a lot of hate. According to this TP group, it's anti-American to say anything good about Islam. For a bit of balance, here is a potty-mouthed anti-TP organization.

The Tea Party is local, not national

Cantor's loss showed something that I already knew: the Tea Party isn't a national organization or closely-aligned or competing national groups. Most Tea Party groups are local networks.

This runs counter to a talking point that some Dems/liberals/progressives use. They claim that the Tea Party is astroturf--drummed up by political professionals whose salaries are paid by the Koch brothers and the like.

In Cantor's case, he was up against well-organized county Tea Party groups, as reported here. They turned out their voters--Cantor didn't. (I haven't verified this by checking this primary vs. typical primary and general election numbers, but it would be possible, if I was willing to commit to the effort.)

So the national Tea Party groups are probably a sham. Unless they have huge lists of voters, and can mobilize large numbers of those voters, they can't do anything but make a lot of noise. Nationally that's what they've done. It's been noise--not a coherent plan or coherent policy goals.

What has always been true is that the strength of the Tea Party is on based local conservative networks, so the real difference is at the local level. Does the Tea Party group have a large local network that they can turn out on primary and election day? Can the local Tea Party group decide on one candidate to support, or is their support split? Finally, how cohesive and influential are the Tea Party members? If it's all blather, it probably doesn't matter. However, if the Tea Party opinion makers are logical and influential enough, they probably can make a difference, like they did in Cantor's former district.

Image: greencountyteaparty.ohlc.org

Extra. Local reporting about the Brat/Cantor race showing that the locals were organized enough to defeat Cantor's choice for local convention chair prior to the primary. It should have been a wake-up call.

Grand promise of "Get out the vote"

Getting your voters to the polls is the bane of many campaigns. The numbers (and wishful thinking) say you can win if you can turn out many more of your supporters while your opponent only does as well as last time.

It seems that every political faction uses this great hope to explain why they can win, but few actually deliver. Well, I'm tired of the argument. Mike Huckabee is the latest politician to reach for this argument. He's pulling it off the shelf as he tries to keep the GOP as socially conservative as possible, even after their losses in the 2012 election.

No dice, Mike. I don't believe you have an extra 6 million SoCon voters whom you can get to the polls. But more importantly, Allahpundit at HotAir runs the numbers casting doubt on this too (same link). He shows that the SoCons are voting in large numbers for the GOP candidate, those numbers haven't dropped, so a logical conclusion is that few SoCon voters are sitting it out.

Although I'd love to vanquish this type of argument for good, it's not easy to do. American elections typically have turnout of 60%, so large numbers of untapped voters definitely exist. That doesn't even include citizens who haven't registered to vote but would be eligible.

Obama is the only candidate I know who has actually succeeded in greatly increasing his votes through registration and GOTV efforts. There's always been more potential among Democratic constituencies for higher turnout, but Obama turned the potential into actuality where others haven't been able to. However, he's not going to hand his secrets or his organization over to the Democratic Party as a whole.

This doesn't bother me at all. If he's the one who built the machine and knows how to drive it, he should be the driver. It's all too likely that no one else can keep his machine in working order. Anyone who owns a Rolls would be crazy asking me to fix it, and lots of Dems are less savvy than I am, even the ones who've gotten elected. So, Mr. Obama, hang on to those keys. I hope you can keep your machine polished and in good working order. If others want to repeat your success, let them built a machine themselves.

Image:   theobamadiary.com

Extras. Other views on why the GOP lost:

• Decent argument that it was the lost Libertarian vote.
• Round-up on who didn't vote--tries to look factual, but it's mostly interesting speculation.
• Long but readable article blaming it on the campaigns.
• God chose not to intervene. God may be less reliable than GOTV efforts.