It’s the morning after the night before in south Florida and it’s raining. Here and across the US, Democrat campaigners, staff and supporters are waking up and trying to figure out where it all went so horribly wrong.
In Florida it was as bad a night for the Democrats as everywhere else, with the senate seat going to the Republicans by a mile and, after a close contest, a Republican also elected as governor. Here in south Florida the incumbent Congressman Ron Klein lost the marginal District 22 to Republican Allen West – the Tea Party and Fox News favourite.
I have spent the past nine days as a volunteer on the Ron Klein campaign, working in two campaign offices (both on strip malls with nail parlours and gun shops as neighbours), and in the election day ‘boiler room’. The experience has helped me to begin to understand the grind of US political campaigning and the challenges faced by staff, candidates and volunteers. These midterm campaigns lack the fizz, glitz and glamour of the presidential campaigns. In fact, they are very similar to a UK general election. I’ve made over 1000 phone calls – many using the excellent ‘HubDialler’, handed out leaflets at shopping centres and at the Delray Beach Hallowe’en parade, knocked on a few doors, held Klein banners above my head and whooped and hollered at rallies and speeches in a very un-British fashion.
But now that the fun of campaigning is over and Americans have cast their votes, the questions we’re left with are: what are the consequences here in the US and what can the left in the UK learn from these elections?
On the first issue it’s clear that Obama will have to think carefully about how he manages the next two years; as he struggles with domestic policy he will need to find his voice again. It means there will be renewed debate over healthcare and the extension of tax cuts. As the Tea Party-backed Republicans flex their newfound muscles, expect to see cuts to the overseas budget and don’t hold your breath for ratification of missile reduction. Their influence might mean a tougher line taken on talking to Iran and any talks with the more moderate Taliban. All in all, the Obama progressive agenda will be somewhat muffled.
So to the second question – what can the UK left learn from these elections? Firstly the Labour party must wake up and realise that the US Democrats do not have a magic formula for winning elections – there is no silver bullet and no secret code for recruiting community activists. US campaigning differs from the UK mainly because of the amount of paid-for advertising and the resulting stratospherically high campaign budgets. Unless there is a radical change of culture in the UK we will never be in remotely the same place as the US on this.
In south Florida the West vs Klein battle will have cost close to $10 million with about 90 per cent being spent on advertising. That still leaves a lot of money for other elements of the campaign and this budget is spent on high staff levels, paid-for data, literature and the fabulous HubDialler call system. But while there might be more money in the system that doesn’t mean that the techniques are that different to the UK – and we need to realise this.
The obsession in some parts of the Labour party and the media over the Obama campaign needs to end. That campaign was a one-off, a moment in history that is unlikely to be repeated. There was no magical community programme that has remained in place. What Obama created – using massive amounts of money en route – was a system of paid-for community organisers that enabled his campaign to gather momentum at a local level, engage with people’s imaginations and emotions, create the ‘Movement for Change’ and deliver an historic victory. The campaign was undoubtedly a great one, but it was built on the back of awesomely high levels of fundraising – levels which are completely unrealistic in the UK.
Here we simply do not and will never have the funding needed to maintain the staffing levels you see in the US. Make no mistake, it is paid staff that make the difference. Everywhere I looked during the Klein campaign there was a paid staffer or paid canvasser. There was a field director with two assistants, a chief of staff, a number of outreach organisers, two finance staff, field office coordinators in each of the five offices, a diary secretary and then the congressional support staff ‘on vacation’ to name but a few. Certainly there were also large numbers of fantastic volunteers, used mainly for phonecalls and events, just like the kind of hard working dedicated activist we are lucky enough to have in the UK. Yet it was paid, experienced staff that were calling the shots. Compare this to most UK marginal campaigns which may have one young organiser, and possibly a couple of staff from the constituency or House of Commons. Then there will be the unpaid agent, unpaid constituency chair, maybe some trade union staff on secondment, and on the sidelines a regional director and regional press officer and then the volunteers. That is not a huge team.
Obama and the Democrats have taken a drubbing, but are a long way from being beaten. Obama will fight back; he will now have to appeal to moderate America and moderate Republicans. He has pledged to work further with the business community and will look again at tax cuts for the middle classes. He will start to re-build his coalition but will be doing this with fewer congressmen, senators and governors. It is a tough challenge and the next presidential election will not be an easy ride, but I believe the people I have met and worked with over the past week have it in them to win again.