Using All the Tools
PROVIDENCE, R.I.-Just minutes after his tough primary victory, pulled off largely due to help from the national Republican Party and the White House, Sen. Lincoln Chafee described his special way of saying thanks:
Q: Are you going to bring President Bush here to campaign for you?
A: Unlikely.
Q: Why not?
A: Obvious reasons.
Q: And they are?
A: Approval ratings probably would not be helpful.
That's an understatement, particularly in this largely Democratic state. And it's also why the White House decided to back the liberal Chafee: They believe they need him to keep the seat, despite the fact that they have very little use for his politics. As in: He opposed the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. He is against the president's tax cuts, and doesn't agree with him on abortion, either. Chafee didn't even vote for President Bush in 2004. But he did vote against the war in Iraq-the only Senate Republican to do so.
But never mind. While White House aides sent the president across the country to preach that the war in Iraq is a necessary part of the war against terrorism, they were supporting a candidate in Rhode Island who couldn't disagree more. Forget that Iraq is the cornerstone of this presidency. With control of the Senate dangling by a slim six seats, this is not about ideology. It's about keeping the Senate majority. "A seat is a seat," one top White House adviser told me. "We're very pragmatic."
And very organized. The way in which the White House beat back the challenge from Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey (a conservative!) is the game plan that's bound to be used throughout this election-attack, then get your voters to the polls. Attacking, of course, is a tried-and-true tactic: It's always best in politics to define your opponent, which is what the Chafee ads did-calling Laffey, among other things, a tax-hiker, a mayor who backed illegal immigration. "Mayor Steve Laffey accepts Mexican ID cards that can threaten our security," intoned a be-very-afraid GOP ad. "Will he put our security at risk in the Senate?" Please. The poor fellow is a nice guy. In any other year, in fact, he might have been a nice fit with this White House. But not this year. The Washington GOP establishment ads that defeated him were "vicious," Laffey told me. "They've run nothing but vicious, mean, personal character assassination ads that are bold lies." They worked.
Taking no chances. Yet Chafee's victory wouldn't have been possible without the GOP voter turnout campaign-and that's the key to this entire election. Midterms are always about bringing your voters to the polls, but here's the real question: Will the Republicans' ability to turn out their voters be able to match the Democratic anti-Bush, anti-war intensity? If Rhode Island is any indication-and it is-the national Republicans aren't taking any chances. Consider this nugget: Early traffic at the polls here suggested a heavy turnout in Cranston, considered a Laffey stronghold. Word went out to the troops provided by the RNC, and they went to work-bringing their targeted pro-Chafee voters to the polls from the city of Warwick, where Chafee is popular because he once served as its mayor. All in all, sources tell me, the Republicans had about 20,000 pro-Chafee voters identified. In fact, since independents were allowed to vote in the GOP primary, they even pressed potential pro-Chafee Democrats to register as "unaffiliated" so they could vote in the primary. And they did.
The lesson? While the politics of this midterm election may be about the war and George W. Bush, it may, in the end, be about the technology of turnout. It's a huge worry for Democrats, who have about $30 million less to spend than the GOP-and are less wired to collect potential voters they can coax out on Election Day. It's not that Democrats aren't putting money and manpower into getting out the vote. It's just that the GOP technology leaves them in the dust-and it's already at work lining up voters in tight states like Missouri and Ohio. And that could make all the difference in a year that conventional wisdom now says will be a disaster for Republicans.
Chafee-and other like-minded Republicans-may not welcome an unpopular president into their states. But when the national GOP types come knocking, every door will be wide open.
This story appears in the September 25, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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