SPECIAL REPORT: A Different Kind Of Race National Journal goes behind the curtain of campaign 2008. Friday: Heir Unapparent · Monday: The XX Factor · Tuesday: Seeing Blue · Thursday: Changing Horses In Midstream · Magazine subscribers can read the full issue online

By James A. Barnes, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007

Get ready for the longest general election campaign in the history of presidential politics.

The current crop of White House contenders has already accelerated the political calendar with more-concentrated campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire than we've seen in any previous cycle. And just over four months from now, the battles for the two major party nominations could effectively be over -- decided by the mountain of primaries and caucuses on February 5.

If, as widely expected, February 6 dawns with one candidate in each party far ahead of the competition, the news media will unofficially crown the winners. Never mind that it may take a while for the losers who survived until February to make their withdrawal speeches and for the victors to claim the extra convention delegates needed to officially clinch the nominations.

Few party operatives believe that either nomination will be seriously contested beyond February 5. "I think it will be all but over by then," said Republican strategist Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. "This front-loaded calendar continues to put importance on Iowa and New Hampshire and the slingshot you get from the early states."

But presidential nomination contests have ended early in the year many times before. What's likely to make the pace of 2008 different is that both parties will hold their national conventions very late. The Democratic nominee won't deliver the acceptance speech until August 28. The Republican nominee won't take the podium until September 4 -- the first time that a major party has waited until after Labor Day.

The gap between the effective end of the primary season and the "I proudly accept" declarations that kick off the general election campaign will be nearly seven months long. And some astute political observers believe that the de facto nominee who makes the better use of that time will become unstoppable.

"It's a much different ball game. And I think people will have to be adaptive and look to alternative strategies," said GOP media consultant Mark McKinnon, who headed the advertising efforts for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 and is currently advising GOP Sen. John McCain's White House campaign. "People who run the last campaign likely won't be around in January 2009."

A significant gap is a relatively new phenomenon in presidential elections. Between 1964 and 1984, the outcome of at least one major party's nomination contest remained unsettled until the final round of primary balloting in early June.

In 1988, more than a dozen states crowded their primaries and caucuses into a single day, March 8, that was dubbed Super Tuesday. Vice President George H.W. Bush was able deliver a knockout blow that day to his Republican rival, Sen. Dole of Kansas. In the Democratic race that year, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis won a plurality of the delegates at stake on Super Tuesday, but he didn't become the de facto Democratic nominee until April. Even then, he still had to fend off a symbolic challenge from civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson.

In 1992, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton limped through the Democratic primaries in the spring, nearly overshadowed by the independent candidacy of Ross Perot. Clinton wasn't able to ignite his campaign until his successful national convention in mid-July, after Perot had temporarily withdrawn.

In 1996, the first real preconvention gap emerged. Dole swiftly won the Republican presidential nod by rolling up a string of victories in early primaries after suffering a momentary setback when he lost New Hampshire to commentator Pat Buchanan. But with his campaign treasury almost depleted and no game plan for the next phase of the contest, Dole foundered. President Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, kept up a steady barrage of negative advertising that defined Dole as a creature of the past who marched in lockstep with the controversial Republican speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

"We died," recalls Republican media strategist Don Sipple, who was directing Dole's advertising. "Nobody had planned for that period. And I remember trying to engage him in that process and couldn't."

Dole didn't unveil his economic and tax-cut plan, the touted centerpiece of his general election campaign, until a week before the convention began on August 12. His selection of a running mate was a similarly haphazard affair. After settling on three finalists -- former Gov. Carroll Campbell of South Carolina, Gov. John Engler of Michigan, and Sen. Connie Mack of Florida -- Dole swerved and tapped former Rep. Jack Kemp of New York.

In 2000, a new kind of gap emerged. For the first time, both major parties settled wide-open races early -- and, coincidentally, on the same day. On March 7, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore swept their Super Tuesday states. Bush then managed the time leading up to the conventions much better than his rival did. Bush had opted out of the federal matching funds system -- and its restrictions -- for the primary season; Gore had not. Unencumbered by federal limits, Bush outspent Gore by more than 2-to-1.

Tony Coelho, who was Gore's campaign manager at the time, says, "After we won in March, we should have been putting the [next phase] together much more aggressively." But internal divisions and a tight budget -- Gore didn't have much money or preconvention leeway under the Federal Election Commission's rules -- prevented the Democrats from using the spring and early summer to their advantage.

Bush, by contrast, succeeded in repositioning himself. Having run to the right to win the Republican nomination, he steered back to the center, stressing education and other issues to burnish his image as a "compassionate conservative." He had hawked a tax-cut proposal during the primaries to attract Republicans eager to restrict the growth of government; during the gap, the campaign repackaged the plan as a stimulant for a sagging economy. Bush also got kudos in the run-up to his convention for beginning to address the problems facing the Social Security program.

In 2004, the battle of the gap may have been pivotal. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts wrapped up the Democratic nomination on March 2, Super Tuesday. Just two days later, sitting on a $110 million war chest, the Bush re-election campaign launched a TV advertising blitz. Kerry had only about $2 million in the bank.

At that point in the race, Kerry was ahead in the polls. A Gallup Poll conducted March 5-7 for CNN/USA Today showed Kerry leading Bush among likely voters, 50 percent to 44 percent. And an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on March 7 found Kerry leading Bush among registered voters, 48 percent to 44 percent.

But the Bush campaign was already working to define Kerry as a flip-flopper. And on March 16, the Democrat inadvertently handed the opposition a big new piece of ammunition when he told a West Virginia audience, "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it," in trying to explain his position on a spending measure for the Iraq war. Two days later, a Bush ad was mocking those very words.

Both candidates had turned down federal funds for the primary season. And after Kerry became the Democrats' de facto standard-bearer, he quickly reached financial parity with Bush. Contributions poured into his campaign coffers at rates that stunned his fundraisers. Yet Kerry's team was slow to respond in kind to the Bush ad salvos and didn't launch its own national advertising blitz until early May. By April, Bush had drawn even or slightly ahead of Kerry in the polls as more and more voters said they had an unfavorable image of the Massachusetts senator.

"Perceptions can be created and locked in during that period," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who conducted surveys for the Kerry campaign. "It's easy to say, 'It's early, no one's paying attention,' but that's not really true in presidential politics. These days, people are paying attention [early] and are developing real images of these candidates."

Getting Creative
If recent history is any guide, both the Democratic and Republican 2008 presidential nominations will be settled by the first Tuesday in February. If that's the case, strategists in both parties think that the nominees will probably be strapped for cash, having exhausted their treasuries by trying to run ad campaigns in the 20 states with February 5 contests.

But the pace at which Kerry raised nearly $200 million in less than six months before the 2004 Democratic convention suggests that the 2008 nominees will be able to quickly replenish their coffers. That task will be even easier for a candidate who has a well-honed Internet fundraising operation. And as soon as the money pours in, the ad wars are likely to commence.

Even with the daunting length of the expected gap, the candidates should be wary of pausing too long to catch their breath. "What we learned in 2004 is, you fill the gap immediately," says McKinnon. "The breach will be longer this time, but that doesn't mean you are any less aggressive."

And Coelho predicts, "It's going to be one of the most negative campaigns we've ever had, no matter who the nominees are -- because of the time, the money, and technology to advance it."

The candidates will not be the only ones seeking to fill the gap, however. Independent "527" organizations are likely to wage air wars of their own. Indeed, with more time to raise money and plot their strategies, the 527 advocacy groups may well be even more active than they were in 2004, when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth inflicted lasting damage on Kerry.

Democratic media strategist Tom O'Donnell said, "I don't see anything to bring about a reduction [in the role of 527s] or see them going away. There will probably be more money spent on this" type of political advocacy.

If one party chooses its nominee early but the other race drags on, 527s could serve as aggressive stand-ins for the party that is still battling internally. If the Democrats, say, reach a decision by early February but the GOP struggle continues for another month or two, Republican-leaning 527s could start to fire away at the Democratic choice while the Republican candidates are still fighting among themselves.

The tenor of the gaping preconvention period could change when the putative nominees announce their running mates. In recent cycles, candidates have used the VP announcement to generate excitement and press coverage immediately before their conventions. In 2004, Kerry announced his running mate, John Edwards, on July 6, four months and four days after Super Tuesday and 20 days before the opening of the Democratic convention in Boston. But many party operatives think that the 2008 nominees would be unwise to delay their vice presidential selections until the conventions, because they are scheduled so late.

The biggest argument in favor of an early veep announcement is to bring a running mate on board to help the nominee campaign and raise money during the gap. Another is that an extended selection process can detract attention from the candidate's chief message. "Six months of speculation is not a great thing," observed a veteran Democratic strategist familiar with the vice presidential selection process.

Some observers even suggest that a nominee might name prospective Cabinet members during the gap, especially if the candidate can point to members of the opposite party who are willing to join the team and broaden the nominee's appeal to swing voters.

Another possible focus for the candidates could be fact-finding missions overseas. Unless an incumbent is running, it's rare for a presidential candidate to travel abroad in the middle of a campaign year. But a long gap might give candidates time to use trips to Iraq or elsewhere to polish or establish foreign-policy credentials. "It's almost a sure bet that both nominees will go to Iraq," said GOP media strategist McKinnon.

Several party operatives said that this year's lengthy gap should prompt the nominees and their top advisers to re-examine the current rhythm of modern presidential campaigning. The message-of-the-week, put-the-candidate-on-the-plane-to-hit-13-media-markets-in-five-days style of campaigning could become stale, they argue, if candidates try to keep it up for seven months before the general election campaign officially starts.

"Maybe in the prolonged environment [of the gap] there's some rethinking," said Democratic media consultant Bill Carrick. "Maybe they do more editorial boards, get into some more long-form exchanges with the media that are more than the message-a-day sound-bite campaigning."

He also suggests that the interim period gives campaigns "more room for creative scheduling." Candidates might try to take the "retail" politicking they do in Iowa and New Hampshire to other parts of the country. They might try to use the gap to put new states in play.

One custom that probably won't change is that the two nominees aren't likely to debate each other until after the conventions. Some observers call for rethinking even this fixture of the fall campaign, however.

"There is a hunger for an elevated discourse in this country, and I can [imagine] a smart campaign putting on the table a package of debates and joint appearances and not waiting for the Commission [on Presidential Debates] to negotiate this," says GOP media strategist Sipple.

The idea of joint preconvention appearances tickles the imagination of some operatives, and it brings to mind that President Kennedy and GOP Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona had talked of traveling the country on the same campaign plane in the 1964 election. Wags joked that the feisty Arizona conservative sought the exposure he would gain from stumping side-by-side with the telegenic president and that Kennedy wanted to draw attention to some of Goldwater's more extreme ideas.

Of course, if voters are to see anything creative or different during the 2008 gap, both parties will have to get their nomination contests over quickly. Neither party wants to be fighting with itself long after the other side is unified.

As Democratic strategist and lawyer Tom Donilon warns, "Your chance of success in the general election is inversely related to the amount of time it takes you to get the nomination."