Andre Carson and the Art of Staying Uncommitted

Cynics on politicians: “See how crafty they are! They always take special interest money, give the interests a blank check, and lie to the public about it!”

While this probably won’t make you feel any better, more misdirection and outright deception in politics is directed toward “special interests” than anybody. They are repeatedly fooled into thinking they will get something the politician never intends to deliver.

That is real political skill – to speak in code or through emissaries so well as to suggest favor that never existed, to perform an interpretive dance of “no” without ever mouthing the word, let alone saying it.

And let’s be honest about two points. First, almost every political decision has a loser, so there’s a lot of misleading. And, second, the most “special” of “special interests” are other politicians seeking favors for themselves, their causes, or their families and friends.

So what does a smart politician do with competing suitors? Play on the fear each has of being outside the tent.

Say what you want about Representative Charlie Rangel, the Harlem Democrat, but the man is a fundraising genius. If Fed-Ex gives him money, UPS gets scared and matches. Then Rangel hoses them both and stands with the postal workers union. So the postal workers double-down on their donation, then Rangel hoses them on the next issue. Rangel’s campaign finance reports are littered with donations from diametrically opposed interests, prompting any objective observer to ask, “How can the bankers keep giving this man money when he keeps screwing them? Easy. Bankers fear the mortgage brokers will get LESS of a screwing at their expense if they don’t. Plus, since all these interests know they’ll need Charlie again, they cannot complain too loudly. Ahhhhhh, it’s good to be king….

….which brings me to Andre Carson. My man! You are sitting in the fundraising "catbird seat," to quote James Thurber. You have a cadre of Democrats jockeying early to challenge Greg Ballard, and they ALL want your magic finger to point at them prior to any slating convention. In fact, they all hope that finger will make slating unnecessary. The list of prospects I have heard (which is not exhaustive because it only includes those I’ve heard have personally confirmed interest) is, in alphabetical order: Joe Hogsett, Melina Kennedy, Woody Myers, Kip Tew, and Brian Williams.

Oh! And what do you know?!?! The first four of those folks are co-hosting a fundraiser at 300 East on April 17 for Rep. Carson and his alter-ego, Lacy Johnson, at $250 per head on the low end. (I promise you you’ll see a lot of $2,400 max out contributions). And I would bet that every one of these fiery competitors will host more Carson fundraising events on their own. Melina already has one on the books.

Were I the Congressman, I would feel like Yo Yo Ma right now because there’s no way to play this badly…as long as he stays publicly uncommitted. Every candidate can take his every cryptic pronouncement as indicia of tacit approval or support, but since they never know for sure, they have to keep sprinting to the finish line for fear that pulling up leaves them out of the race at the end. In addition to insane money, you are going to see the strongest GOTV effort for somebody without a real opponent in history.

If Rep. Carson says, “I value loyalty,” maybe it’s spun as support for Melina or Joe Hogsett's public speaking efforts on behalf of the Congressman. If Rep. Carson says, “We need bold new leadership,” maybe it’s a signal that Melina is too “Peterson-bound,” and Rep. Carson fears a replay of the past election. Or maybe it’s a putdown of Joe Hogsett and Kip Tew for being too old school political guard. These are, of course, made up examples, but I assure you the shamans of political spinnery in each campaign will be dissecting Rep. Carson’s every word, which probably explains why no fewer than 20 Marion County Democrats have told me which way Rep. Carson is leaning, though I’m pretty confident he hasn’t even twitched in anybody’s direction.

But most of us don’t know. And that’s the beauty of his position. Rep. Carson reminded us all of the critical difference between knowing early and saying early. I short-sightedly called out Rep. Carson for political cowardice because I felt he should have endorsed Senator Obama early to give Obama an Indiana boost. I'm told the Congressman always knew he would endorse Obama, but by playing coy and delaying, he negotiated an endorsement from the President. That’s political genius, folks.

Rep. Carson may know right now the horse he's backing, and maybe he knows he’s going to avoid alienating the others by sending his support through “back channels.” Or maybe that’s just what everybody vying for the mayor’s chair wants to believe in their heart of hearts. Or maybe that what the Congressman wants them to believe…that he will come out to play.

Stay inside, Congressman. There will be dollars raining all around you for a while.

Andre Carson and the Art of Staying Uncommitted

Melina Kennedy's Great News

Remember when I said Hayden Christensen was a disaster in the Star Wars prequels because he was miscast as Anakin Skywalker? This same guy in the right vehicle, a movie called Shattered Glass, was a complete genius.


(If you haven’t seen Shattered Glass, do it immediately. This is the story of Stephen Glass, a journalist who essentially made up his stories while working with the New Republic. Peter Saarsgard also gives the best performance of his career).

Anyway, being completely wrong in Role A doesn’t mean you can’t tear it up in Role B. And that’s the great news for Melina Kennedy.

If Kennedy wants to stay in politics, she can make big moves in both the legislative and executive branches (and probably the appellate judiciary as well). She’s intelligent, well-known, very respected in the party, capable of raising money, and “resume right.” She has the right mix of private legal and public service experience to do a great many things. They key is just to make sure that, on the next one, it’s the right fit. Unlike the last time.

Melina Kennedy's Great News

O'Connor Has Left the Building!

In today’s Indianapolis Star, Matt Tully provides a balanced perspective on Mike O’Connor’s term as chair of the Marion County Democratic Party. Many want to hang O'Connor in effigy. In every venture, be it athletics, business, or politics, the “leader of the team” often gets too much criticism or credit for what is essentially a team game.

In the interest of full disclosure, Mike O’Connor is an affable fellow, who I’ve always liked personally. I have no interest in hearing people tear him for things he could not control. Once you’ve been a campaign manager, you know that the role does not convey the ability to make a candidate do something uncomfortable to him or her. But having said this, O’Connor was involved in several disastrous tactical decisions that spanned two campaigns.

First, he made a horrific call by signing off on the Melina Kennedy’s candidacy for Marion County prosecutor. As IPOPA stated previously, Kennedy was handicapped by a complete lack of prosecutorial experience.

Let’s be clear on something. The Marion County Prosecutor is mostly a manager. Unlike in smaller counties where the prosecutor actually tries cases, in Marion County, the prosecutor recruits talent, sets office policies, administers a budget, helps coordinate anti-crime policy for the city, and occasionally plays Jack McCoy on a lay-down trial so he can say, “I put (insert heartless killer’s name here) on death row” in a TV commercial in the next election cycle.

But the public can’t be sold on this idea; voters expect a trial lawyer. And without criminal law experience, Kennedy could not counter the preconceived notion, held still even by many women, that women are “soft on crime.”

Moreover, Republicans have an elephant as their mascot for a reason. They remember everything. In 1996, when Jeff Modisett was elected Attorney General over out-going Attorney General Steve Carter, we attacked Carter for never having prosecuted a case. “Not One.” That was the name of the ad put together by Christopher Klose, our campaign’s political consultant(and a guy O’Connor knew well from their mutual work with Joe Hogsett years earlier).

In candor, I can say I do not know an Attorney General who HAS personally prosecuted a case of any type, and yet, Carter’s lack of experience helped us defeat him. How surprising would it be that Republicans were lying in wait for Democrats to put up somebody without experience in a job where it would acyually matter. Not surprisingly, Brizzi’s attack ads basically mimicked “Not One.” We set the table for Republicans by selecting Kennedy as our candidate.

In addition, if you can get any Democrats to speak candidly, many will comment on Melina’s lack of “physical presence.” Ms. Kennedy came across as a confident speaker, but that confidence was somewhat belied by her physical bearing, which struck me as mousy at times. Also, the photographs on her billboard actually made her look somewhat sickly. I would have reworked those and had her work on posture and presence.

But the coup de grace that really doomed Kennedy was….say it together everyone – GANG AMNESTY!” I’ll never forget reading Kennedy’s plan a few days after it was released and getting to that dreaded proposal. I called a high-ranking Democrat in Mayor Peterson’s administration and said, “We just lost the prosecutor’s race.” I knew Republicans would find and exploit this proposal.

It could have been the single greatest law enforcement strategy in history, but it wouldn’t matter. “Amnesty” means ONLY forgiveness in the public mind. Mitch Daniels engineered taxpayer amnesty, and everybody loved him for it. It brought in tons of money, just like Kennedy’s plan might have arguably given law enforcement tons of leads. But Daniels wasn’t a woman running for prosecutor, and nobody finds people who skirt paying state taxes terrifying enough to make bad Sean Penn movies (Colors) about them.

I don’t understand how that proposal saw daylight. In every campaign, there has to be somebody (usually the manager) whose job is to be the “(excrement) catcher.” That person’s critical function is to make sure nothing idiotic leaves the building. If that person is doing his/her job, every statement and proposal is subjected to a mental review process during which “the catcher” attempts to figure out how the other side can turn the idea on its head. On gang amnesty, somebody fell down on the job, and when they did, Melina Kennedy couldn’t get up.

As Jon Easter properly noted in a comment on this blog, Brizzi and the Republican Party put heavy bank into this race and outspent Kennedy because it was (at least then) thought to be the setting sun for the R’s. Easter is right, but TV ads don’t move numbers without something compelling to say. We wrote their script.

Still to come…

…O’Connor’s Mayoral Mishaps

…How Pam Carter Got It Right in 1992

…The Great News for Melina Kennedy

…Who Looks Good as Your Next Prosecutor

and

…An intriguing experiment to help you determine whether you hate black people as much as George Bush

Stay tuned!!!

O'Connor Has Left the Building!

Miscalculating Compatriots Condemn Melina Kennedy to Consolation Prize

Take a great acting talent with an appealing public persona. Have his management team convince him he’s right for a role that plays completely “against type,” and you might see Denzil Washington holding an Oscar for Training Day.

But what is 1000 times more likely is the sight of Meg Ryan playing a boxing coach in Against the Ropes, Tom Hanks making us forget he’s Tom Hanks in The DaVinci Code, or Hayden Christensen in ALL of the Star Wars prequels.

There’s a political counterpart to this phenomenon. It’s Melina Kennedy playing a candidate for Marion County Prosecutor, a roll for which she was horribly miscast.

Sure, any actor or political figure makes the ultimate decision to run, but the point of having a team of advisors is to make sure you have a sounding board to keep you from doing something silly or out of character.

And when a handful of Democratic political higher ups met in a conference room with a list of names on a board to handicap their potential prosecutor candidates, Melina’s name wasn’t on it. When Kennedy was finally proposed, everybody in that room, no matter how ingenious or astute they had been politically up to that point, caught a bad case of electoral tin ear.

They completely failed to consider IPOPA’s “opportunistic sexism” theory, which is hardly revolutionary but now confirmed (at least for me) by some intriguing psychology in Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.

I’m sure there is a better phrase for the phenomenon, but "opportunistic sexism" (or "opportunistic racism" for racial minority candidates) means simply that while most Americans are not overtly sexist or racist, their subconscious is bombarded with imagery or data that creates perception streams. If the perception streams are negative (which is historically the case for women and minority candidates), images or ideas that play on the negativity resonate easily with voters. Thus, when given an opportunity to reach a subconsciously racist or sexist conclusion, voters will.

And therein lies the formula for political success for minority candidates in all elections with diverse voter pools. They have to “salmon slalom,” and make several strong pulls against the stream until the voter’s unconscious path is altered and actually starts to move the other direction. Then over time, as more women or minority candidates fulfill “untraditional” roles, the negative perception streams gradually slow and ultimately dry up. But political reality demands you look at the current as it exists now. That's how you achieve the victories that allow you to change the perceptions (though clearly a colossal screw-up might make it harder for the next candidate who tries to run against the perception stream).

Ask an objective political strategist about the historic view of women as it pertains to law enforcement, and (s)he’ll tell you that women are not perceived as “being tough on crime.” This is why Indiana does not have a single woman sheriff in its 92 counties. To my knowledge (and apparently to the knowledge of those who care about such things), Indiana has NEVER had a woman sheriff.

Look at the Sheriff’s Association of Indiana’s website, and you’ll see 91 white men and 41 moustaches (the one African-American, Frank Anderson, has a moustache). The facial hair quotient might be higher, but two sheriffs had no photos and I couldn't tell whether another five had only slight facial hair or five o'clock shadows.

Fortunately, ladies fair better in the prosecutor position. Elected county prosecutors Sonia Leerkamp (Hamilton), Patricia Baldwin (Hendricks), Karen Richards (Allen), ClaraMary Winebrenner (Dekalb), Stacy Mrak (Pulaski) and Amy Richison (Huntington) come to mind.

But one thing you’ll notice is that the ladies must come up through the ranks. Leerkamp worked extensively with Steve Nation and Steve Goldsmith in Marion County before she took center stage. Richards assembled a lengthy and impressive record as a sex crimes prosecutor. While it is conceivable that a man with a strong record as a trial lawyer might win without ever being a prosecutor, its less likely a woman could. To be accepted as prosecutors, women need to show their “toughness” by vocation because they can’t convey it in words.

Perhaps the inability to shake the anachronistic notion that “woman control the home sphere” accounts for these women almost all cutting their teeth prosecuting “family-related offenses,” such as child homicide, domestic violence, and sex crimes. Whatever its reasons, this kind of track record is what you seek for electoral viability in a woman prosecutor candidate.

But what does that room of Democratic heavyweights bring you? Melina Kennedy, a woman who never prosecuted a case.

This is the tip of the iceberg, folks. I am geared up on this subject. IPOPA’s finest might be coming, including…

…a further discussion of subconscious sexism/racism and a fascinating self-test to detect your own subconscious on sexism and racism

…key lessons from Pam Carter’s campaign for Attorney General in 1992

…how Melina Kennedy’s campaign made matters worse

…the great news for Melina Kennedy

…who looks good as your next Marion County prosecutor

The onslaught is coming!

Miscalculating Compatriots Condemn Melina Kennedy to Consolation Prize