Guest AuthorI hate reading lists that begin with long-winded explanations of what’s to come. So let’s get down to brass tacks and examine three of the biggest myths about the special election in Florida’s 13th Congressional District.
- Big data is king
To be sure, knowing who your voters are, their beliefs and motivations, their habits, and a myriad of other data is essential to a modern campaign. The recent launch of the RNC startup, Para Bellum Labs, is a welcome development so long as it remains focused on data and not policy or personalities. But to hail the arrival of GOP “Big Data” as an electoral savior or “game changer” misses the actual utility of data.
Let me explain.
In 2012, Barack Obama operated the single biggest data mining and exploitation regime this nation, politically, ever witnessed. Using this massive data mining effort and deep statistical analysis, he then went on to win Florida by a 0.9 percent margin and won the 13th Congressional District by 1 percent.
Meanwhile, in 2012, Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson, presumably without access to the vaunted Obama “big data” machine, won Florida with 286,000 more votes than Barack Obama (granted, against a weaker candidate) and won the 13th Congressional District by 18 percent.
Ironically enough in 2010, a GOP “wave” year, Alex Sink also won the 13th Congressional District, by 3 percent.
Enter Bill Young, in 2012, without access to such data — beyond polling, WebElect, etc. In the district carried by Obama by 1 percent, Nelson by 18 percent, and Alex Sink by 3 percent, Young won re-election by 16 percent.
The lesson here? Big data won’t replace likeable candidates, fundraising, and retail politics. It won’t save bad candidates like Sink or carry decent ones across the finish line. What it will do is provide good candidates with demographics and targets to expand their margins and/or enlarge the overall vote pie like David Jolly’s campaign did.
Big data is a duke or an earl. Compelling, charismatic, and disciplined candidates will always be king.
- Primaries are to be avoided at all costs
I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve heard someone at the party level (local, state, national) say, “we want to avoid a primary here.” The question I have always had is, “why?”
Take the Republican primary in district 13 as a great example. Jolly faced opponents on the left and the right. Kathleen Peters had deep roots in Pinellas County (arguably deeper than Jolly recently) and Mark Bircher had decades of service in the Marine Corps and solid conservative credentials.
Did honing his stump speech, getting the kinks out, walking doors, meeting people, and participating in debates hurt Jolly? On the contrary, it helped separate the wheat from the chaff.
Another aspect of this myth is the notion that primaries force candidates too far to the right or the left. What hurts candidates in primaries is not competition or winning the base. What hurts candidates is a lack of discipline and a naivete (especially in the GOP) toward knowing when they are being set up by the media. Jolly went right because it is what he believes. Sink tried to embrace the middle – and lost. As did Mitt Romney. As did John McCain. As did Al Gore. The list goes on.
Did the primary hurt anyone? Yes, it hurt Kathleen Peters. But not because it was a bruising primary. Instead, it exposed Peters’ lack of depth on the issues and her petulance as a candidate.
This was only made more evident after the election when she refused, for a time, to endorse Jolly and later issued what can only be described as an endorsement so cold you could chill beer on the paper it was written on. This earned Peters not only taunts and questions from many in Pinellas and Tallahassee, but it also drew her a top-notch primary opponent for her State House seat in businessman L.J. Govoni.
- Big turnout favors Democrats
This one is pervasive. In a discussion with a Florida reporter, we discussed the notion from camp Sink that she needed high turnout to win. Polling, both public and private, showed this to be utterly false, yet the meme persisted throughout the campaign. We didn’t understand it.
Again, allow me to explain.
It was clear that Sink was taking more Republicans from Jolly than Jolly took Democrats from Sink. It was also clear that Sink would win or, at worst, split independents. There came a point during absentee voting where the uptick in Democrat returns, coupled with the previously stated partisan reality, actually put Sink in the lead by more than 3,000 votes. (Early and absentee results bore this out and was the case despite a late GOP “surge”).
Fast forward to election day. In 2012 the GOP won election day by 7 percent in District 13. So it was safe to assume — as occurred in 2008, 2010, and 2012 – that if past is prologue, the GOP would win election day in a special.
But if Sink was up 3,000 votes, and 30,000 voters came out on election day, Jolly would not have enough raw Republican votes if Sink kept stealing Republicans to make up the difference.
So what happened? Almost 53,000 voters voted on election day. Nearly twice what some predicted. Jolly won that vote by 6,445. Cut the number of voters in half and Jolly skims by or perhaps, Sink does. But the fact remains, greater turnout saved the Republican.
The question is, why? One word — intensity.
We saw this phenomenon in 2004. After the narrow Bush victory in 2000, pundits predicted that high turnout would spell doom for the GOP. In reality, Bush got 11.5 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000. The War on Terror, his leadership in a crisis, charisma, and a booming economy gave his voters a reason to vote. Their energy was palpable.
Fast forward to 2012. Hillsborough County, Florida.
Obama is energized, his supporters are in a fighting mood. The GOP has nominated an immensely qualified candidate who excites almost no one. Turnout nationwide falls below 2004, yet Obama increases his total vote in Hillsborough by 67,000 voters.
He narrowly beat McCain as well in 2008. Romney, in the meantime, increased the 2008 GOP vote total by only 40,000.
But the most startling demonstration that turnout is a matter of energy?
In 2004, Bush received 245,000 votes in Hillsborough County. In 2012, Romney barely matched him with 249,000, despite the county growing by almost 200,000 residents between elections.
The lesson for parties is this: candidates matter. Issues matter. Policy matters. In other words, good policies, actually doing what you said you would do, and consistency equals leadership. People follow leaders. It’s as old as Moses.
There are many more myths about this election: from the idea that outside groups and party committees won the race to District 13 being a “Republican seat.”
Myths will persist so long as there are elections in this country.
From the perspective of someone who works to get Republicans elected, there is a sense of relief and joy at seeing a friend elected to Congress. David is smart, dedicated, and I believe will do a good job and serve constituents like Bill Young did.
But that joy is tempered by the reality that the GOP in Florida and nationwide needs to start abandoning conventional wisdom, embrace an intellectually consistent and expansive agenda of individual liberty and economic liberty, and get back to the nuts and bolts of growing a movement, not expanding office space in Washington D.C.
Having grown up voting for Bill Young, I am glad his seat remained red. But I am not so young that I can’t see the danger on the horizon if the way we do business doesn’t change. From discouraging competition, to becoming part of a corrupt culture in Washington, to demanding blind obedience. Rather, we must share goals.
We are operating on borrowed time.
The rise in absentee and early voting, the decentralization of information, and the ascendency of the independent requires change. Or else this week’s celebration will be tomorrow’s hangover.
Fred Piccolo, a former congressional chief of staff, is a political consultant based in Tampa Bay. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
