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Political strategist Mike Murphy makes a long overdue return to the Ricochet Podcast to discuss what really happened in the Cantor-Brat race. Was it immigration or is all politics local? Our old friend Mickey Kaus has a point of view on that, and he joins to give his boots-on-the-ground analysis of what happened in VA-7. Spoiler alert: he and Mike disagree — but in a very entertaining and knowledgable way. Finally, the answer is “This Ricochet editor is currently the reigning champion on Jeopardy.” Remember to give your answer in the form of a question.
Music from this week’s’ episode:
America from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, West Side Story
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
EJHill is 100% legal.
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Cross-posted from the member feed Mike Murphy on the Podcast:
One of Murphy’s go-to tactics is the reverse pejorative. I’ll be with Lindsay Graham in Mexico selling America’s sovereignty. Thad Cochran isn’t a good candidate because he shared an elevator with Lidsay Graham. Yada yada. His opponents are always making over-the-top arguments that make no sense. They are crazies and Murphy has to fight them.
Then Murphy swoops in with ‘data’ and ‘facts’. I don’t remember when polls were elevated to the ‘fact’ category. Mickey Kaus blew giant holes in every one of his assertions. Polls on immigration are notoriously suspect due to how they are worded – reform, amnesty, immigration (no one is bothering to make the legal/illegal distinctions any more) all these things mean different things to different people. Murphy really believes he can pour over data from his California home, and that trumps Mickey on the ground experience talking with people. I’ve worked for pollsters, both Gallup and Penn and Schoen, and I know something about polling. I also know something about anecdotal information. Funny thing about talking to people, you get a much clearer picture than reading a poll. You talk to enough people and you start to see what’s actually animating and motivating them. This is exactly why and how Mr. Murphy gets it wrong.
But lets cut to the core. Murphy is a shill for the Chamber of Crony Captialism and he’s throwing up any and every argument so as to advance his cause. It’s obvious that he’s got nothing. No real argument just assertions. Reminds me of Jay Carney and Obama and global warmers.
His appearance on the podcast was absolutely worthless. Sometimes having people like Murphy on is good because they are revealed as who they are at least. In this case I already knew, and so do most of the rest of us.
Also, he deliberately mispronounced Mark Levin’s name, calling him “Levine”. Mark Levin is 100 times the more important figure than Mike Murphy, and he’s much smarter too. (If it wasn’t deliberate, I ask, would you hire a political consultant who didn’t know how to pronounce the last name of one of the most influential figures in Republican politics for years with millions of daily listeners and three NYTimes best-sellers?) So it’s deliberate. I’m surprised he didn’t say Rush Lim-bow like some of the elite Dems do. He could use a little humility.
Now in my Mike Murphy voice, I’m going to the liquor store get some PBRs and shoot the empties with my rifle, imagining them as little Mexican children crossing the border.
Schemer would be in front of the microphones WITHIN THE HOUR saying ‘ Well, this is step one, we must move forward. ‘
I need help. I’m struggling to think of any point in history where a political party won a permanent or even long lasting majority by telling its base to take a hike on the off chance that a portion of the other party’s base might maybe some day come around to possibly considering voting for us?
I hear that from libertarians (regarding social conservatives) and amnestistas alike, and I can’t think of a single episode in history where that’s worked.
Peter and James both asked excellent questions and were summarily dismissed by Murphy with cheap rhetoric. You can get away with that kind of response on TV with the panel model and not-so-bright viewers, but not here with sharp people who understand the various facets of the debate.
Also, I thought Murphy’s speculations about how this will all play out through 2020 were hilarious. He has the ability to make straight-faced assertions about the aggregate results of elections, both congressional and Presidential for the next eight years! What a consultant!
But it’s all verbal razzle-dazzle. Meet the Press and Bill Maher love that stuff. They have audiences who think in bumper-stickers and sound bytes.
His use of the Lindsey Graham results as evidence that immigration isn’t a big issue shows that either Murphy doesn’t understand basic politics or that he’s just hoping that others don’t.
The fact that Graham had incumbency, plenty of money and a good organization and only got 60% of the vote reveals that something (immigration?) is seriously wrong. He was also lucky in having 5 bickering opponents instead of one.
Here’s some real analysis of these elections:
You would be amazed at the number of businesses who think they can do this and crash and burn never learning from others’ mistakes. When you take your base for granted and go after a different group, you will lose your base, and the new group won’t bite because they saw how you treated your base constituents/customers.
Murphy’s problem isn’t his message per se, although his message is essentially “stop being conservative on anything that isn’t popular at the moment”. That’s naked pragmatism, and it will win you elections. That it’s also short-sighted and focused on “win now so I can retire in comfort and leave the problems to someone else to clean up later” makes it a little less appealing. The problem is Murphy has all the subtlety of a braying jackass. He isn’t an idiot so he knows he is being fundamentally dishonest when portraying results from a broadly worded poll question as concrete proof of support of his biases. To wildly distort the other side’s positions, to talk over them whenever they try to respond, to be hectoring and dismissive, none of these are things done by someone who is arguing in good faith and who is trying to persuade people. These are the tactics of the insecure who cannot make their argument on its own merits. If Murphy has so little interest in listening to people who disagree with him, why would we have any interest in listening to him?
We’re on to Senik. We know he’s claiming to not have the prize money yet so we don’t stick him with the tab at the meet-up.
Murphy also had the gall to set up a strawman, and claim that argument was “disingenuous”. He said something like: It’s disingenous to claim that somehow these people are getting the vote right away. No one is claiming that. No one. Many are claiming that eventually they will have to be given voting rights. It would be un-American to have vast numbers of people, mostly from one ethnic group here working paying taxes and unable to vote. This will become the next civil rights issue, and there will be no good argument against it. “You promised” is not a good enough argument.
Does Murphy trust Democrats? If he does, no wonder his candidates have been losers.
And that, Peter, is why most of us don’t really understand why you all keep inviting Mike Murphy back – that kind of brush-off rather than engagement is antithetical to what we do here at Ricochet. Believe it or not, we can tolerate and even welcome dissenting views, but continuous close-minded condescension usually gets people ejected around here.
*cough, Kenneth, cough*
Franco, you have nailed this deeper and truer than I’ve seen done before. I had to snip most of the post to come under the 200 word limit, but it’s all golden. You have Murphy’s number, and it’s negative. Well done.
Long overdue? I think not.
As I recall, Mr Murphy was Mr Romney’s close (unpaid) adviser – how did that work out for us?
But then I am in the crazy stupid Ted Cruz wacko bird wing of the party, so whadoiknow?
Right. We all come here to Ricochet in good faith (the vast majority of us anyway) and it’s pretty grating to have the opposite of good faith presented to us as “entertaining conversation”.
I knew Alex Trebek was disagreeable, but I didn’t know to what extent. He always seemed to be a bit of a misanthrope to me; nothing like Pat Sajak who is amiable, friendly and puts people at ease.
Regarding immigration I agree 90% with Mickey Kaus and 0% with Mike Murphy. Murphy’s dismissive, condescending attitude made it difficult to listen to anything constructive he may have had to say. From what I heard, there was little constructive there.
Mr. Murphy’s “scientific facts” seem to come out of the McLaughlin polling after the election. McLaughlin showed Cantor winning by 34 points. Cantor lost by 12 points. This 46 point swing is explained by polling of only “Republican Primary voters”. This did not show great understanding of the open primary process in Virginia. This is a real problem since McLaughlin is based in Alexandria Virginia. They should be able to properly poll in their own State. Here is a list of other races ,including Virginia Races, that their polling was wrong on, not just wrong but wrong big.
https://storify.com/DKElections/mclaughlin-and-associates-terrible-2012-polling
I don’t think that a below average polling group, that missed the election results by 46 points, is the best place to go for “scientific facts” on the election.
Was it just me, or did it sound like James was barely holding back from spitting through his teeth when he was asking Mike Murphy about the hispanic uncle?
Rob “Squish” Long defending Obama’s handling of Iraq!?… More squishy stuff from Murphy about how the GOP must be ambiguous and weak on illegal immigration–keep the rubes on board with vague rhetoric about border security but be sure no to offend anybody by promising to “arrest their uncle”. What a crock. Don’t offend the minute sliver of the vote that is GOP-leaning yet easily offended and instead concede policies that swell the ranks of program-dependent core Democratic voters.
If not immigration, why the hell else would a prominent incumbent be so vulnerable? What else was it if not immigration? The sheer tone-deafness of establishment GOP types is amazing.
That doesn’t make what I said wrong!
I’m quite happy to have Mike Murphy on the show. He reminds me why I’m no longer a registered Republican. Why? Not because I disagree with Mike Murphy and the GOP on issues. I’ve disagreed with it on particular issues my entire life. I left the party because too many in it, like Murphy, convey the same disdain for me and my views as the Left does. If I were just smarter, less emotional and as “scientific” as the Murphy’s of the world then I could purge myself of my hayseed predilections, come to my senses and the GOP would win elections. With friends like that, who need Democrats.
Mike Murphy sounds just as condescending as the President did when he talked about people clinging to their guns and religion. As condescending as the Left sounds when they mock anyone who doubts the absolute “settled science” of computer generated climate models.
Mickey Kaus, et al aren’t just wrong. They’re ignoramuses because they doubt the absolute scientific precision of polling data.
Yes, the Party, and country are in the best of hands…
Yeti, it was nice of you to let Peter pick the music this week.
The craziest thing I heard Murphy say was that if only the Republicans would get on the right side of gay marriage and immigration, they would be in power for a long time.
This is an incredibly naive reading of the situation. Gay marriage and immigration are big issues because they hurt Republicans. The minute they stop hurting Republicans, they will stop being major issues and new ones will appear. For example, the anti-war movement vanishes the minute a Democrat takes the White House, no matter how many drone strikes he orders. Gay marriage was used to pummel Bush, but Obama was allowed to say he was against it with very little backlash. The ‘war on women’ is turned on and off like a light bulb as Democratic political expediency requires.
This is a standard political tactic, and Murphy should know better. You find issues on which your opponent is vulnerable, and you try to elevate them to being the great issues of the day. That doesn’t mean they are. Constantly conceding those issues just encourages the tactic and helps split your party, while also dragging it in your opponent’s preferred ideological direction.
Mike Murphy: I interpret the facts as I see them. Egads, that is the only explanation for ignoring Mickey’s dissection of the McLaughlin poll. And does anyone listen to him anymore?
Kaus: on twitter previous, I heard him rant about Republicans like they are a “we”. He was demanding Republicans had to do this or that on immigration. Sure, I agree with his position, but didn’t he run for US Senate as a Democrat. Does he think he is Chuck Schumer or something advising Republicans? On Kaus, the above is said with tongue in cheek, but true on his Republican leanings and dictates.
To my Canadian ears, the American immigration debate always seems incredibly shallow, and mostly from the pro-immigration side. ‘We need amnesty, because… millions of people!”. That seems to be the entire argument. The questions I would want answered are:
1. With a border this porous, how do you possibly defend yourselves against terrorists, weapons and drug smugglers, etc? If millions can just walk across unmolested, so can a suitcase nuke or a team of suicide bombers.
2. How do you afford it? These people will be seeking medical care and social assistance. Who pays for that? How do you pay for their retirement if they never contributed to the system in the first place? And if you don’t, what happens to them when they retire?
3. How will this not create a moral hazard that teaches everyone in Mexico that a better life is just one unpleasant trip away? Reagan signed an amnesty – did it make the problem better?
4. Isn’t it kind of crazy to have a policy of wide-open immigration for people who are poor and uneducated, while forcibly ejecting newly graduated scientists and engineers whose educations you partially subsidized?
Dan Hanson – How would Justin “Shiny Pony” Trudeau react if millions of conservative Americans who felt disenfranchised in their own country pour across the 49th?
When I listen to Murphy, I realized we are done as a country. We have the choice between electoral disaster in 10 years or electoral disaster now, and he (perhaps wisely) chooses electoral disaster in 10 years.
The best I can hope for is to use that 10 years to teach my children to get the H-E-Double-Hockeysticks out of this country. We were a proud nation once. No more.
Thank god it’s Friday b/c I need a drink
Murphy is a double-talker and blowhard. He doesn’t make a solid case so relies on bombast, quick-witted cutting responses that mean nothing and filibuster.
And Mickey Kaus got short shrift. He came in late and had the bad fortune of the guys allowing Murphy talk all over him.
And once again, James’s excellent feedback gets truncated.
I agree we are done. But where can we escape to?
We have a few years to figure that. Some country will choose capitalism and freedom if America no longer wants those virtues.
One thing I can say for Mike Murphy, he certainly gets a lot of us riled up.
Fair market wages he says… in a market where you’ve artificially constrained the supply? What’s fair about that? And what is the end result of this increase in the price of labor but an increase in the cost of goods and services to the consumer?
14 likes for this bit of leftist lunacy…
Are you claiming that violating employment laws is required or there is no fair market?
Illegal immigration artificially inflates the supply by allowing a group to be unconstrained by the agreed on laws.
I would guess the rest of those 14 likes do not consider “equally applying the laws” to be “leftist lunacy.”