June 23, 2010

To Hawthorn Friends and Family –

Below is latest from Steve Lombardo.  Again, given our clients’ interests in the Gulf, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to comment on this situation which is difficult, complex and enormously challenging for all involved.

Recent events on the political front continue to be less than crystal clear in terms of projecting trends:

• Senator Lincoln DID survive her run-off in Arkansas . . . but heads into the general election badly damaged in an anti-incumbent and anti-Democrat environment.

• Senator Reid DID get his “most wanted” opponent from the Nevada Republican primary, a right-wing, Tea Party supported “extremist” . . . but several of us are left wondering if he should have been more “careful what he prayed for.”  We wonder what’s to stop the momentum that brought her from 30 points behind the party leader to win her primary from continuing the same momentum to victory in November?  Perhaps the “bloom is fading from the rose” for the Tea Party, generally . . . but if it sustains, she could be formidable, despite some of her positions (like on social security).

• Senator McCain IS enjoying a comfortable lead in the polls and in fundraising in his re-nomination fight with the “biggest mouth in the west,” J. D. Hayworth . . . yet his campaign and its challenges was still subject of a front-page article in the NEW YORK TIMES.

• In an “off-year” election, where turnout is always depressed and youth/minority turnout is expected to be remarkably lower than its perceived historic high in ’08 . . . the Democrats are reported as planning to spend up to $50 million to turn out younger voters . . . which some of us would few as an enormous waste of limited Democrat dollars, but perhaps we’re wrong.

• The White House IS getting hammered over the Gulf . . . yet the biggest headlines in recent days was Joe Barton’s “apology” to BP for being forced to a financial commitment, and his sort-of retraction, and the criticism from his fellow Republicans that could cost him his seniority position (and chairmanship if the GOP does win the House in November).

As things become clearer – or even less clear (more likely in the run-up to the election) – we’ll be in touch from the nation’s sweltering capital.

John

From: Steve Lombardo [mailto:steve.lombardo@lombardoconsultinggroup.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 11:44 AM
To: Ashford, John
Subject: LCG Election Monitor - June 22, 2010: Will the Oil Spill Disaster Lead to a Disaster at the Polls?

Friends,

It has now been 63 days since the Deepwater Horizon explosion and there is still no end in sight to the disastrous oil leak.  The Fish and Wildlife Service has now collected around 2,000 dead birds and sea turtles and dozens of marine mammals, including a dead sperm whale.  As the oil approaches more Gulf shores, the disaster will become more palpable, and voters will continue to become angrier.  But that’s not even the biggest challenge for the Obama administration.  While concerns over the spill and offshore drilling have grown tremendously, the biggest political issues they face continue to be the economy and job creation.

1.       The political apparatus at the White House knows that the Gulf oil spill is the defining moment for this administration—and a likely pivot point in the Obama presidency—and are acting accordingly.  That is why on Sunday Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was on ABC’s This Week and charged Republicans with “being on the side of BP.”  They didn’t need to see Frank Rich’s Sunday NYT column to know there was some blood in the water.  They saw last week’s Rep. Joe Barton fiasco as an opening and moved quickly to try to take advantage of it.  They have made a decision to try to paint the GOP as the defender of big business and the Administration as the protector of the people.  The White House decided that the best defense is a good offense; time will tell if this strategy works.  The move is a gamble, however, because, in essence, it is “playing politics” with an issue that is visceral and volatile for many voters.

2.       In one sense, the Deepwater spill has become a Katrina-in-reverse.  Obama’s characteristic style has always been deliberate and considerate.  In contrast to Bush’s “cowboy” ready, fire, aim approach; Obama is more ready, aim, study, appoint a commission.  After the Hurricane, there was a failure of local authorities to respond quickly and appropriately—the slow evacuation of New Orleans and activation of the National Guard—that then necessitated a federal response.  With the Deepwater Horizon, there has been a sluggish federal response—late approval to build barrier islands, boom sitting unused on piers—that has resulted in many local jurisdictions taking matters into their own hands.  After eight years of the Bush Presidency, most voters clearly wanted a more deliberative style from their next president.  But our sense is that the spill response may become a key element of the “Obama is too thoughtful and detached” narrative that underpins much of the visceral disapproval we have seen from voters in our research.

3.       The key players in the Gulf oil spill have taken a political hit as the growing crisis of leadership and finger-pointing has caused massive brand erosion for BP and is weakening the Obama brand as well.  Obama’s approval/disapproval ratio is virtually 1 to 1 now (47% approve/47% disapprove)—an electoral danger zone for Presidents.   On Saturday, BP’s chairman announced that Tony Hayward will be “handing over” oversight of the spill response effort to Robert Dudley, a BP managing director and American citizen.  It was never that likely that Hayward would be fired outright before the leak was stopped, because then his successor would have inherited a source of constant public ire.  But with everyone from the federal government to their partner in the Deepwater Horizon, Anadarko Petroleum, trying to shift blame in their direction, this signals that BP is shifting from damage control to survival mode.  The problem for the White House is that even if BP ultimately takes the lion’s share of blame for the spill and haphazard response, the buck will eventually stop with them.  While the President’s net approval rating has slid just a few points since the explosion, our sense is that its effect on perceptions of Obama will—much like the oil cloud—be slow to disperse.

4.       Obama’s speech on Wednesday was underwhelming and did little to stop the political bleeding.  Our sense is that the public, more than anything, is hungry for immediate, forceful action from the Administration on the spill itself.  Instead, Obama spoke in generalities about holding BP responsible through a blue-ribbon investigatory commission and then launched into a lofty speech on “our clean energy future” that even touched on the moon landing.  (The media didn’t do Obama any favors, either, by constantly making the link to Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” address before Obama even made it to the podium.)  With his actual clean energy legislation apparently stalled in the Senate, this appears to be an attempt to follow the Rahm Emmanuel dictum, “don’t let a crisis go to waste.”  Yes, there is broad public support for a clean energy agenda; a recent Pew poll found that 87% of Americans support requiring increased use of renewable sources by utilities.  But right now, virtually no one thinks that should be our top priority, as this recent Gallup poll shows.

5.       The oil spill has not overshadowed the other major challenge we’re facing: economic growth and job creation.  For nearly half of Americans, that remains the greatest problem facing the country.  And as the dismal May jobs report showed, despite the trillion dollar stimulus the economy has lost 2.2 million jobs since Obama took office.  While the recession may be decelerating, until we have several months of sustained job growth it will not feel like a true recovery to the typical voter.  Also, there is growing polling evidence that voters are very concerned about the level of government spending.  Clearly, people see the nation’s debt as another indicator that “real recovery” is not yet happening. 

6.       And as we said two weeks ago, the continued focus on the spill takes the President “off message” and further diminishes Democratic efforts to forge a winning agenda for the November elections.  With the relief well not online until August at the earliest, Democrats will spend the summer playing defense on the issues that currently occupy voters: the economy and the disaster response.  Part of this is a simple fact of our political system; the party that is out of power gets to play critic without taking much blame for the national state of affairs.  But 61% of voters now feel that the country is off on the wrong track, the highest level since Obama’s inauguration.  So it shouldn’t be any great surprise that voters now favor Republicans on the national House ballot by 5 points in the Gallup poll, the largest single-poll Republican margin in history.

Thanks to John Zirinsky and Peter Ventimiglia for their thoughts and insights.  Follow us on Twitter and read our perspectives and others’ on Pollster.com or the Daily Caller.

Steve

Steve Lombardo

President & CEO

Lombardo Consulting Group, LLC

1054 31st Street , Suite 330

Washington, DC  20007

Office   202.223.3460

Mobile 202.413.2141

steve@lcg-dc.com

www.lombardoconsultinggroup.com