Good campaign, bad campaign

Perhaps just as important as a candidate's position on the issues or his/her charisma and speaking ability is the way they manage their campaign. I firmly believe that the way a campaign is run has a lot to say about how that candidate will govern if elected. Additionally, a well-managed campaign can keep a candidate on offense, while a poorly-managed one will put the candidate on defense, giving them a poor chance at success in November. Over this past week, I've been struck by two examples of campaign management, one good and one bad.

One of the best examples of campaign management in a long time has been Barack Obama. Time Magazine had an interesting article on "How Obama Did It." In the article, Karen Tumulty shows how Obama's steadfast leadership brought the campaign to victory:

About 200 of his biggest fund raisers were meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, and among them, near panic was setting in. His above-the-fray brand of politics just wasn't getting the job done, and some of his top moneymen were urging him to rethink his strategy, shake up his staff, go negative.

Obama made an unscheduled appearance that Sunday night and called for a show of hands from his finance committee. "Can I see how many people in this room I told that this was going to be easy?" he asked. "If anybody signed up thinking it was going to be easy, then I didn't make myself clear." A win in Iowa, Obama promised, would give him the momentum he needed to win across the map — but his backers wouldn't see much evidence of progress before then. "We're up against the most formidable team in 25 years," he said. "But we've got a plan, and we've got to have faith in it."

Obama's campaign hasn't been perfect, by any means. But through strong leadership, Obama managed to keep his campaign focused on the principles he had laid out. Partially because of his "above-the-fray brand of politics," even his worst gaffes and scandals have not caused much lasting damage. The Time article has some other great examples of how Obama's management-style has led to his success.

On the other hand, one of the worst-managed campaigns I've seen is Al Franken's Senate campaign. I've heard Franken speak a number of times, and he's great. He's entertaining, thoughtful, and he has a great grasp on the issues. But he'll never be able to stop playing defense long enough for anybody to listen to him. Franken's Playboy scandal has now been in the news for two weeks, and the campaign doesn't seem to have even made an effort to stop it.

Franken's history has always been his biggest weakness, but his campaign has insisted that the voters will understand that his past work was satire. But if the campaign can't put this ridiculous non-issue to rest, how can we ever expect them to defend Franken against the more substantive attacks he'll face once September rolls around?

I hope that more of our Democratic candidates can learn a few lessons from Obama:
1. Don't compromise your principles.
2. Minimize "drama" within the organization.
3. Respond to attacks quickly and re-focus the debate.

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