Galen: Why Senators Don't Win the Presidency

RUSH: I talked to Rich Galen yesterday for an hour, he of Mullings.com fame, for an interview in the upcoming issue of The Limbaugh Letter. Now, I can't give away the whole interview because then there would be no reason for you to subscribe and become a purchaser of the newsletter, but we did talk about the current climate, future and the election and so forth and how the various candidates, political operations, are working in his view. And he has hands-on experience with political operations for candidates, Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle, and others. He's been intimately involved.

He just got back from Iraq, has written some incredible things about what he saw there regarding the mass graves and how they were dug and who was in them, and he said other journalists saw it, too, but saw no interest, found no interest in reporting it. All that will appear in the interview.

But he agrees with me that this election is not going to be close. His reason is not because it's odd to have, in a statistical sense, two such close elections in a row. I still maintain that that's a factor. I mean statistics are what you make of them, but that close an election is just like a 100-year flood. Hundred year floods don't happen every year. That's why they're called hundred-year floods.

But he said that's not his main reason. He said there's a reason why only two senators this century have been elected to the presidency. I'll give you the name of one, Warren Harding. Who's the other? [talking to staff] JFK. Way to go, H.R., got it. JFK is the only other U.S. senator elected. Most of the people, not all, but most of the presidents come from the ranks of governors. Now, the theory is that there's a big difference between the two, a governor and a senator, in the sense of how they govern and how they do things. A senator doesn't actually govern. A senator isn't an executive. A senator is an egomaniac. There's only a hundred of them at any one time and they're all very powerful, and they have a tendency to be unable to keep their hands off every last detail.

And he said since Kerry chose Edwards, now you've got two senators on that ticket, and he drew this analogy. He said let's take Bush as governor or any governor. There's no governor in the world that is going to go down to the DMV and have a meeting with all the people that work the windows and have long, drawn-out strategy policy sessions on how we hand out license plates. Should we hand 'em out lengthwise or should we hand them out wide-wise? I mean this is the kind of thing that wonks and egomaniacs who think they've got the answer to everything do. They'll go waste their time focusing on things that don't matter. Who cares what direction a license plate is given out? He said Bush would no more go to the DMV because he's got people to deal with that, delegates to people with the DMV and other things and he's going to deal with the things that are on his desk that matter statewide. He says this is what leads to great executive experience.

A senator on the other hand just can't. A senator is going to get his hands on every aspect of the campaign and in the process slow it down and give nobody any direction; everybody is going to be afraid to do anything on their own; he's not going to delegate because he doesn't trust people to do it. He said this is what did in McCain. As much as anything the Bush campaign might have did in South Carolina, this is what did in McCain. And he didn't mean this in a derogatory sense, you have to understand. When you're a member of a club of which there are only 100 members, you think yourself pretty special, and you think you have all the answers.

And you couple that with -- Have you ever thought about what it really takes to run for president? I mean who would want to put up with the media anal and all this other stuff that you get. Who would want to put up with that? You have to have something driving you. And one of the things that research into these people who run for president has shown is that there's a reason they put up with all of this. The loss of privacy, not just the loss, the invasion of privacy. The anal exam they get, and their family gets, on virtually every aspect of their lives. Give up their tax returns (except Teresa), do all these things, and the reason that propels them is that they think the country can't get along without them. They think the country cannot survive without them. Their ideas, and this is not again, I'm just giving you a character profile, personality profile. This is not a comment one way or the other on it. Just sort of a description.

Okay, so you take that kind of mentality: country can't get along without me, you couple it with the hands-on wonkish detailed egocentric characteristics of a senator, and what you end up with is a campaign that gets bottled up in minutia and irrelevancy. And the things that are important don't get done because the candidate is too busy managing every semicolon, every comma in every press release, making sure it's just right here and just right there. And he expects, now that there are two of these guys on the ticket, two senators, we'll never see this, but there's going to be infighting between the two groups as to who gets to ride on whose plane. Little things like this. You know, somebody upset, one of Edwards' guys might get upset because he didn't get to go on the Kerry campaign plane once in a while, or little things that really don't matter to anything. He expects that will finally bog down this candidacy.

So imagine after having heard that and doing feverish show prep today which, of course, is my trademark. I get to the Washington Post, and look at this headline. I'm holding it right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. "Kerry's Inner Circle Expands- Campaign Team Encompasses a Growing Army of Policy." (Gasping.)

[Reading story] "From a tight-knit group of experienced advisors, John Kerry's presidential campaign has grown exponentially in recent months to include a cast literally of thousands making it difficult to manage an increasingly unwieldy policy apparatus.

"The campaign now includes 37 separate domestic policy councils, 27 foreign policy groups, each with scores of members. The Justice Policy Task Force alone includes 195 members. The environmental group is roughly the same size, as is the Agricultural and Rural Development Council for the Kerry campaign. Kerry counts more than 200 economists as his advisors.

"In contrast, President Bush's campaign policy shop is a no-frills affair. Policy director Tim Adams directs about a dozen experts who make sure the campaign is in sync with the vast executive branch that's formulating policy. Adams' group also analyzes Kerry's proposals and voting record. Fewer than a dozen outside task forces with five to ten members also help out on education, veterans issues, the economy, and energy, environment, and natural resources."

Basically 12 guys on the Bush campaign do all this and you've got literally hundreds on the Kerry campaign. Now, if you've got 37 domestic policy councils? He's got a bureaucracy almost in his campaign. And he runs it. Now, this is essentially what Rich was telling me yesterday. You got all these councils and you've got 200 economists as the economics advisors, and then you have 27 foreign policy groups, and he's going to manage each one of them. And he's going to have detailed meetings and he's going to do this and that. He can't do it, obviously. He's going to miss something, but all this is going to end up in a bureaucratic bottleneck. And this, I think, may explain again -- there's another huge story about what the Democrat convention is going to be. The Democrat convention is going to be the introduction of John Kerry to America. They're going to bring us Teresa. They're going to bring out his kids, Teresa's kids. They're going to bring out these Vietnam veterans that have already been all over the campaign. It's nothing new, because they haven't gotten beyond the introduction-of-the-candidate phase.

By the time you get to the convention, I mean some introductory things some people don't know, but, for crying out loud, this explains a lot to me about why this campaign is not 20 points up when they should be, given all the assistance they've had from 60 Minutes and all these books and all these documentaries and the willing accomplices in the media that they have. So we'll see. But I just thought it really, really -- not so much ironic, but coincidental that this Washington Post story spells out exactly what Rich Galen said yesterday, the full interview coming up in the next issue of the Limbaugh Letter.

Let me give you the closing -- well, not the closing -- this is a middle graph of the Washington Post story. "At the very least, it has become draining for campaign staff members to finance and coordinate all the conference calls and meetings [between these councils and groups and economists]. Sarah Bianchi, Kerry's domestic policy chief, said her justice policy coordinator, Sarah von der Lippe, orchestrates four conference calls a week for her group. One campaign aide, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he feared angering task force members, said even the team names have developed 'their own microdynamics.' One task force is still arguing whether it should be titled the council on Babies, Children and Youth or just Children and Youth."

So they're arguing about the name of their council, which is irrelevant and meaningless. They're not advancing any policy or idea. It's no wonder Kerry says, [Kerry impression] "I'm going to make America better" How? [Kerry impression] "Well, we're working on that." And he's telling the truth. They haven't come up with a plan. They're still busy arguing with themselves over their titles. Plus you've got these guys now who are afraid to speak for fear of retribution. That's another characteristic that's going to happen, too, and when this gets really thick and deep, there are going to be some people with their noses out of joint because they're not being listened to. They think they're powerful advisors or whatever, and when that happens, you've heard the old whistle-blowers, a lot of people like to get even in strange ways. And one of the ways to get even is to go anonymously to your friendly reporter and say, "Let me tell you how it's really falling apart here." Thought this was fascinating.

I believe that the main reason senators don't win is that its tough to move to the middle when you have a voting record that your opponents can use against you. Wheras a governor doesn't have to vote on controversial bills such as gun measures or abortion as a general rule.

Wow! Thanks for the post!

Pretty soon he will have a cast of thousands telling him what to think. :)

No mas el waffle-politico!

3 posted on 07/15/2004 11:14:19 AM PDT by saveliberty (Liberal= in need of therapy, but would rather ruin lives of those less fortunate to feel good)

Good insight, but I think Rush missed a major point here.

The biggest reason why Senators rarely get elected President is that they usually spend years in the Senate casting votes on behalf of their own constituents, often at the expense of voters in other states. This means that they have to spend an inordinate amount of time on the campaign trail apologizing for their Senate votes, or twist themselves in a knot by flip-flopping repeatedly on those issues.

Years ago i read that one must remember that a senator is not one person but a court, and that court consists of about 300 members, grouped around the senator. The senate is the aristocatic part of the government and its members behave like aristocrats. That is why an increasing number of them are independently wealthy.

This is a timely topic for me because I was thinking about it just last night. It was spurred by the Senate's rejection of the marriage amendment, and it occurred to me that there is probably no group of people in the world who are so image conscious and fearful of the media than U.S. Senators. For me, the U.S, Senate carries a collective image of stupidity, cowardice, and pomposity unmatched by any institution I can think of. Since the Senate would seem - on the surface - to be the logical launching pad for the presidency, it is indeed amazing that a Senator hasn't been elected president in 40 years.

He said there's a reason why only two senators this century have been elected to the presidency.

Hate to nit-pick, but...

NO senators have been elected as president in the current century. Only two have been elected inthe LAST century

Besides that, interesting read ;-)

Also, it is difficult to complain about things going wrong in the country when a senator gets to vote on national issues.

People see them as "part of the problem" and as an insider.

Governors also run against Washington, D.C. They portray themselves as outsiders. They are coming from one of our states to "fix" Washington. Hard for an entrenched Senator to do that. Everyone in DC is "my good friend from the great state of ..."

"The senate is the aristocatic part of the government and its members behave like aristocrats."

Yes, it's become something like Britain's House of Lords, but with little semblance of real grace or substance. When I think of a U.S. Senator, I think of someone with absolutely no spine and no real convictions. What prevails is a sense of maintaining one's assumed dignity, of not rocking the boat, and of looking good in the press. For me a defining moment of the Senate was during the Clinton impeachment trial, when - according to David Schippers - not one Senator, of either party, ever checked in to the evidence room that had been set aside for them. The facts in the case meant nothing; all they cared about was how it would play in the media.

This is very significant. It helps explain why sKerry always just says, "I have a plan..." and then never backs it up with substance.

Here's a link to the Wash Post article. Lots of good stuff in there that Rush didn't mention.

I think this contains what could become the most powerful weapon against Kerry: imagine this mess actually trying to run the country. If he can't even run a campaign without creating a bloated beauracracy, well....

18 posted on 07/15/2004 4:38:09 PM PDT by Sofa King (MY rights are not subject to YOUR approval http://www.angelfire.com/art2/sofaking/index.html)

"Yes, it's become something like Britain's House of Lords, but with little semblance of real grace or substance."

With the 17th Amendment (popular election of Senators), the Senate became little more than an elitist H of R. The original intent was for Senators to serve in the interests of their states while the Rep's served in the interest of the electorate. Senator's get paid no more than their partners in the House...they only serve longer terms.

The make up of the Senate would be completely different if Senators still came to office in the manner our Founding Fathers intended, and this country would be run a whole lot differently.

Testing with pics. This is an image of a ball. The image is aligned to the left, and there is a horizontal space of 20 pixels. It looks nice this way. It helps to add a horizontal space to the image so the text is not so close to the picture.

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