The Baumgarten Report

In this era of fractured partisan politics it was heartening to hear a Republican and a Democratic strategist agree over why the John McCain presidential campaign failed.

Democrat Hank Sheinkopf and Republican Steve Goldberg both believe McCain lacked a simple, direct message to present to the American people. While Barack Obama was clear, concise and consistent.

Both agree that McCain allowed the party to dictate how he conducted himself and that hurt him in the long run. The race, Goldberg suggests, might have been closer had McCain been permitted to be himself.

The two were my guests today on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com.

Goldberg says McCain failed to define himself. Sheinkopf said Obama told the truth to the American people, while McCain, he believes, “didn’t want to tell the truth.”

Veracity, they agreed, is what a voting public, dissatisfied with the current administration and even more discontented over the performance of Congress, sought.

Both believe Obama faces immense obstacles. But both believe that and failing he has in delivering promises can be attributed for a long time to the state of the nation when President Bush left office.

All he has to do, says Sheinkopf, is be successful in several key areas to be considered an effective president.

Sheinkopf

Two political strategists, one a Republican, the other a Democrat, will be my guests on News Talk Online on Thursday November 6 to analyze the presidential election and take a look at what the two parties must do now moving forward.

Democrat Hank Sheinkopf makes a return engagement to the show. Sheinkopf has been a political, public affairs and governmental relations consultant for nearly 30 years. He has worked on political campaigns and issue campaigns in four continents, 10 foreign nations, in addition to more than 600 domestic political and issue campaigns in 46 American states.

Sheinkopf was a member of President Clinton’s re-election media team producing ads for the only Democratic president re-elected since FDR.

Joining Sheinkopf will be Steve Goldberg, who pioneered some of the most successful consumer outreach and voter contact strategies employed today by candidates across the country.

Goldberg was recruited by Lee Atwater to work on President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984. Following his involvement in Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984, Goldberg was asked to join then Vice President George H. W. Bush’s campaign for the presidency in 1988. He helped devise and implement Bush’s comeback victory in the New Hampshire primary, the contest that is credited with securing his party’s nomination.

During 1988’s general election contest, Steve became the architect of a controversial direct-marketing telecommunications program which proved to be the largest voter contact program ever performed in the history of U.S. politics.

To talk to Goldberg and Sheinkopf at 5 PM New York time Thursday November 5 CLICK HERE. There is no charge.

Paltalk is the largest multimedia interactive program on the Internet with more than 4 million unique users.

News Talk Online is also syndicated by CRN Digital Talk Radio to an additional 12 million households.

HARRISBURG, PA – I’m back in Pennsylvania, a swing state in this election, and I’m learning about an e-mail that went out to some Jewish voters from a Republican organization here warning them to not vote for Barack Obama. The e-mail says that would be making the same mistake that led to the Holocaust.
The Republican Party of Pennsylvania is repudiating the mailing, which it says it did not authorize. The e-mail was signed by the Republican Federal Committee of PA – Victory 2008. CampaignMoney.com, a non-partisan site that tracks contributions to federal political campaigns, lists the group as a political action committee based in Harrisburg at 717 N. 2nd Street, the same address as the state Republican Party.

According to the Associated Press which received a copy from the Democratic Party, the e-mail reads, in part, “Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let’s not make a similar one this year!”

These are politics of fear, designed to scare Jewish voters who might be inclined to cast their ballots for Obama into voting for John McCain. It, like many of the negative campaign tactics employed by members of both parties, is distasteful and reprehensible.

It’s a real shame that, with heightened interest in this presidential campaign, opportunities to address the issues have been squandered in favor of campaign slogans and character assassinations. The number of encounters I’ve had with voters who don’t even know where Obama and McCain stand on key issues is disturbing. Sadly, many people are basing their decisions on who to vote for for president on appearances and impressions rather than on facts.

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania state GOP deserves credit for quickly disavowing the e-mail and firing the person who wrote it.

Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin was a no-show for his scheduled interview today on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com, but the discussion about the possibility that a third-party candidate might someday win the White House continued in his absence.

Many callers agreed with me that the nation is ripe for an independent candidate who puts the people ahead of party. Even though the Republicans offer a slogan suggesting that attitude, the bosses of both major parties largely drive the political debate.

Should a candidate with the temperament, intellect and ability surface in the next four years, I believe it’s likely that he, or she, might successfully run for president of the United States.

I am shocked by the number of people of first-time voter age who have told me they will be sitting out this important and historic election because they see no real difference between the Republicans and Democrats.

As for Baldwin … I don’t want to hear any complaints from him that he’s not getting the opportunity to get his views out to the American people. Not after he missed today’s chance to talk to the News Talk Online audience.

I really didn’t believe this when I heard it first discussed on Patalk. Republicans in Michigan trying to block people whose homes are foreclosed from voting? No way, I thought. Just some Democratic propaganda to whip up sentiment against the Grand Old Party.

Although the state Republican official who allegedly first suggested this insists he was misquoted, it indeed is being reported in Michigan that such a tactic was proposed. In fact, the Obama camp takes it seriously enough to file suit to block it.

Let’s examine the mindset that would cause a country Republican chairman in Michigan to allegedly propose such a tactic. Michigan is hard hit by the economic crisis facing this nation. The economy in the Great Lakes state is, well, in the toilet.

Lots of people have defaulted on their mortgages. Many of them from inner city communities like Detroit. Many of them African-Americans.

The have-nots in Michigan aren’t pointing fingers of blame at the Democratic governor. They’re letting the buck stop on George W. Bush’s desk. So it’s safe to assume that many people who are in danger of or who have lost their homes are at least contemplating voting for Barack Obama.

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