Word: mehlman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...were having lunch with Ken Mehlman, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, and you asked him, “Why did George Bush win the last presidential election?” Mehlman’s answer would sound a lot like an investment banker’s. His words would be complemented by heaps of data and statistics that elucidate not only why voters made the choice they did, but where the country is moving...
...Mehlman would say: America is changing. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our political parties are very strong. Most independents are actually partisans who refuse to describe themselves as such. The number of “ticket-splitters” has been cut in half since 1988—from 16 to eight percent. And our country is closely divided. Until last year, no presidential candidate had won a majority of the popular vote since the President’s father ran 17 years ago. Americans face a wealth of information, and a poverty of attention. The average home...
...Mehlman would explain: the Bush campaign won because we had a four-year plan to register and motivate Republicans and conservatives, and produced an electorate that was 37 percent Republican and 37 percent Democratic—the most conservative in 80 years. We didn’t just target areas of strength, and we increased our share of the Latino vote from 35 to 44 percent. We invested in new media—and placed ads in places that the Democrats didn’t see: health club networks, and metro traffic reports. We believed in a volunteer-based workforce...
...lunch, after fighting you for the check, Mehlman would lean in and say: above all, Bush won because we understood what this election was all about: the single most important issue to Republicans and swing voters was the war on terror—and we were disciplined and focused about making sure Bush seemed like the better commander-in-chief...
...Mehlman, the Harvard alum, said that while Hanfstaengl was “no portrait in moral courage,” Professor Norwood “may have been naïve to be that shocked, given the sense that Jews had been systematically excluded from Harvard in the 1930s...