Why Labour are now borrowing more from the Bush campaign book than the Tories

Vanity Fair has a long series of interviews looking back on the Bush presidency. A lot of the ground covered is familiar—9/11, torture, Iraq and Katrina—but this comment from Mark McKinnon, Bush’s chief adman during his presidential campaigns, touches on an aspect of Bush’s election victories that people don’t think about enough:

“The interesting thing about both Bush campaigns is that they strategically defied conventional wisdom and turned it on its head. In 1999, on the old “right track, wrong track” question, which we ask on every poll—the reason we ask it is because it determines whether or not it’s a change environment or a status-quo environment—in 1999, the “right track” was 65 percent or 70 percent, which under conventional wisdom would indicate that it was a great environment for the Democrats and for Al Gore. The strategic challenge we had was—we were in the position of trying to argue everything’s great, so it’s time for a change, right?

Flash forward to 2004. It’s just the opposite. This time, the “wrong track” is like 65 or 70 percent. We’re in a very difficult war, uncertain economy, and so now we’re in the strategic position of saying, you know, everything’s all screwed up. Stay the course. We’re all f’d up. Stay the course.”

This means that the Bush machine has laid down templates for how to run two very different races. The 2000 campaign was about how a challenger can win in circumstances that are essentially benign. The Tories borrowed more than a couple of moves from this playbook at the beginning of Cameron’s leadership when they thought they would be fighting an election with the economic question essentially settled.

In 2004, the Bush team demonstrated how an incumbent can win when things are off track. Labour is now consciously or unconsciously aping several of the Bush campaign tactics. It is portraying itself as the do something party against the do nothing party, arguing that only its leader is strong enough to take the necessary decisions, attempting to energise its base with divisive measures—for Bush’s endorsement of a constitutional ban on gay marriage read Brown’s proposed 45p tax rate, and trying to portray its opponent as an elitist, out of touch, flip-flopper.

I don’t think Labour’s effort will work because the economic crisis has not forged the kind of bond between Brown and large parts of the country that 9/11 did with Bush and much of the American electorate. David Cameron is also a lot better politician than John Kerry and Gordon Brown is nowhere near as good a campaigner as George W. Bush. 

PS The other point that isn’t made enough about the Bush presidency is just how much he has done for Africa. Just consider this section from the Vanity Fair article, which is generally extremely critical of Bush:

“May 27, 2003 Bush signs legislation authorizing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). He visits Africa, a main focus of the legislation, soon thereafter. PEPFAR commits some $15 billion for AIDS prevention and treatment over a period of five years. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof concludes, “Mr. Bush has done much more for Africa than Bill Clinton ever did.”

Michael Merson, M.D., international AIDS researcher, who has evaluated the relief program: Look, PEPFAR is the largest commitment ever made by any nation for a global health activity that’s dedicated to a single disease. I mean, that’s just not disputable. It has a prevention component, a treatment component, and a care component, but treatment is the centerpiece. The last number I’ve seen is that this initiative has led to treatment of more than 1.7 million people, most of them in Africa. Now, that’s not all the people who need treatment, but it’s a huge amount. PEPFAR at least tripled our aid flow to Africa—I’m talking about total aid flow.”

PPS It we’re talking about the 2004 campaign it is worth watching this ad produced by a 527 which was probably the most important ad of the cycle It was blasted out across Ohio, the key swing state in ’04, in the final weekend of the campaign and is generally held to be responsible for Bush’s margin among white women, which was what propelled him to victory there.