Campaign

Tuesday was supposed to be the night Paul Ryan ended his brief association with Mitt Romney. Speaking at the Kemp Foundation dinner in his first major address since the Romney-Ryan ticket bombed on Election Day, Ryan was going to show that he was not Romney, clueless rich guy and adversary of the welfare state. He achieved that in substance, but it took political shifting of the kind his running mate embodied to do so.

Ryan broke new ground for himself by calling for a stronger safety net. Instead of emphasizing the middle class, as Marco Rubio did in his address there, he focused on the poor. He mentioned the word “poverty” 15 times in his 20-minute address. There may not have been a more appropriate place to do it than at a dinner in Jack Kemp’s honor. But it begs the question, where is Paul Ryan going now?

The results of this election made one thing clear about the GOP and the era of digital politicking: we are doing it wrong.
 
It is not that Conservatives are not engaged online (in fact the opposite is true), or that the Right is not using the best tools or techniques. It is fundamentally that Conservatives do not have the correct view of the role of digital politics in campaigns.
 
After the ground-breaking uses of technology in Howard Dean’s presidential campaign and the game-changing use of the internet by Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, it became clear to many on the Right that the era of digital politics was here to stay. And while the Right has by-in-large embraced the digital arena, it is not enough to just engage in social networks, buy digital ads, send emails and engage in mobile campaigning.

This fall I ran for the U.S. Senate in Maryland as an Independent, and spent about $7 million of my own assets to challenge a man considered one of the safest incumbents in America. Through an abbreviated campaign launched just after Labor Day, I encountered most of the obstacles for those seeking major elective office in our country and when the votes were counted had won about 17 percent with the remainder going to the incumbent, who was handily re-elected, and the Republican nominee. What I learned is to win as an Independent in America, one needs either a household name, a machinery that can prevail over both major parties, or just the tremendous luck of both parties disgracing themselves to such an extent that voters are willing to take a chance on something totally different.

When it comes to the long-term future of the Republican Party in Georgia, the most important data from this cycle may not have come on Election Day, but rather from a regional survey the week before.
 
An October 26th poll showed Mitt Romney leading President Obama by an overall margin of 53-42 percent in the state. Of course, Romney went on to carry Georgia by a rough margin of 53-45, improving on John McCain’s statewide totals from 2008, which briefly saw the Obama team make a play in the Peach State.

With the presidential election behind us, attention has turned to the impending “fiscal cliff”. By New Year’s Day, the Obama Administration and Congress must identify $1.2 trillion in savings between spending cuts, revenue increases and entitlement reform. Otherwise, most federal programs will be cut by a staggering 8.2 percent. Read more...

I was in New Hampshire on Election Day 2012, when early reports of high turnout fostered optimism among Republicans who had bought into the conventional wisdom that Democrats, particularly the low-information voters that surged for Obama in 2008, simply would not be motivated to turn out this time. Then it became clear that the longest lines were at the same-day registration tables, creating confusion in Republican war rooms and foreshadowing the grim night ahead for the GOP.

The complications of Hurricane Sandy should prompt state and federal governments to adopt contingency plans for general elections.

Officially, the Atlantic Hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30. Every two years, Election Day occurs on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November and therefore takes place during hurricane season. Recent events have demonstrated how unpredictable and devastating weather patterns can be and will be in the future.

The presidential election is receding in the rear view mirror, but its lessons should stay with us. Just weeks ago, both sides agreed that the race would be won by the candidate who convinced voters that he would do a better job for the middle class and achieve growth and opportunity for all.

President Obama succeeded – overcoming the lingering impact of the Bush recession -- because voters rejected Mitt Romney’s recycled trickle-down policies of tax cuts for the rich and austerity for the rest of us.

Republicans, fresh from their electoral defeat, are considering their own legislation to compete with the DREAM Act. Sen. Kay Hutchinson (R-Texas) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) have put forward the ACHIEVE Act, similar to the alternative that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) worked on last summer and which would offer a untenable type of legal status for undocumented youth. However, a significant difference between this bill and the original DREAM Act is that the ACHIEVE Act does not even guarantee a path to citizenship.

The DREAM Act is already conservative in nature and has even gathered support in the past from prominent conservative leaders, including Senator Hutchison herself, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Hawaii’s political scene has a new queen. Last week Lauren Cheape, Miss Hawaii 2011, was elected to serve in Hawaii’s House of Representatives, representing the newly created District 45. It was the first campaign for the young Republican, who at 25 will be one of the youngest elected politicians in the state.

Cheape is the lone victor among the beauty queen politicians profiled on The Hill’s Congress Blog last month. She was also the only Republican beauty queen still in the race.