Scott Brown’s historic vic tory in the Massachusetts special election might signal huge Republican victories and massive Democratic bloodletting up and down the ballot in November.
But the operative word is might.
No two elections are the same, and GOP candidates who try to achieve Brown’s results without actually learning what he did right might find that Massachusetts magic elusive.
What Tuesday showed is that Republicans can win victories in the unlikeliest places by fusing 1) conservative resistance to the Obama/big-government agenda and 2) rising independent frustration with Washington’s failure to “change” as promised.
Some of that anger comes from continued massive job losses; some of it, from self-serving inside deals like the “Cornhusker Kickback” and “Louisiana Purchase” deals in the Senate health bill.
Brown was perfectly positioned in this environment as a populist. With his now-iconic pickup truck, he was a figure people could relate to and trust. Indeed, his unique qualities — such as his ability to turn a phrase his opponents would spend the rest of the campaign reacting to (“It’s not the Kennedy seat — it’s the people’s seat”) — had as much to do with his victory as the overall political climate.
(And Massachusetts, despite its image as a bastion of Ivory Tower elitism, has always been a blue-collar, populist state — and blue-collar cities like Lowell, Quincy and Worcester turned out in a big way for Brown.)
But behind Brown’s direct and down-to-earth style is a larger point: It’s not enough to talk against the establishment — you have to somehow embody what the establishment is not.
Candidates who were part of the establishment during years of GOP rule may win this fall because of the underlying political dynamics, but they won’t stage thrilling come-from-behind wins or exceed expectations.
Indeed, in the battle between the Republican establishment and the Tea Party grassroots, all the momentum is now firmly on the side of the grassroots.
Nowhere was this more apparent in the Massachusetts race than online. (Full disclosure, my company provided technology to the Brown campaign.) Brown raised over $12 million online in just 18 days in January. The single-day “moneybomb” that made news for raising $1.3 million wasn’t even the first (or the second) heaviest online fund-raising day of his campaign.
Ironically, this torrent of online money, likely the largest for any nonpresidential candidate ever, came not in response to a top-down “ask” from the campaign, but emerged spontaneously after bloggers noticed a (partly inaccurate) article about the national GOP committees not investing in Brown’s candidacy.
From that day on, online activists were sold on the idea that they would make this happen on their own, with or without national party support. It was the ultimate blessing in disguise.
Brown’s online showing shows the power and potential of the grassroots Internet to outmatch traditional donor networks. But others may not be able to reproduce it without a compelling populist message or the potential to capture a highly symbolic piece of enemy territory.
In other words, candidates can’t repeat Brown’s success with tactics alone.
If Brown’s victory were about tactics or arithmetic, all but 93 House seats would fall to the Republicans this fall, according to calculations by liberal blogger Ben Tribbett that assume the national electorate shifts as much as the Massachusetts electorate did Tuesday. Clearly, that’s too extreme an assessment.
Republicans rejoicing in this victory would also do well to remember that it didn’t come easy. The unique dynamics of a special election — where voters in one state feel the burden is all on them to “send a message” to Washington — created “perfect storm” conditions that won’t exist in every state and district this fall.
Candidates and campaigns still matter, and no victory is guaranteed. Capitalizing on this rising political tide still means running a skillful campaign that genuinely connects with voter anger with Washington.
Patrick Ruffini is a political strategist and a partner at the new media firm Engage.