Jim Messina, How Could You Flip From Barack Obama to David Cameron?
WTF, Jim Messina? How does a person go from running Barack Obama’s reelection campaign to working for David Cameron and the Tories? Well, you might be thinking, perhaps there really isn’t all that much space between Obama and Cameron. The big-C Conservatives over there, after all, aren’t remotely like our small-c conservatives over here. I say that’s about as faint as praise can possibly be. I also say, and will hope to show you, that it isn’t as true as you think it is. How an operative willing to tether himself to some of Cameron’s policies can come back home and work again in Democratic politics without facing some very tough questioning indeed is hard to imagine.
Let’s start with immigration. A pretty hot topic in America, and one on which Obama’s position—a course toward citizenship for 11 million people who are here illegally—is well-known and universally shared within the Democratic Party. Turns out immigration is pretty hot stuff in the U.K. too—specifically, illegal immigration. Earlier this year, the Home Office reported 863,000 undocumented people living in Britain. That’s about 1.3 percent of the total population, considerably less than the United States’ roughly 3.6 percent. Still, the people are in a state, or some of them are. So the Tory government has just recently begun a campaign. What kind of campaign, you ask?
Well, imagine if a border-state conservative governor—Rick Perry of Texas, Jan Brewer of Arizona—started sending a billboarded van into immigrant neighborhoods advising illegals to “go home.” That would be rather controversial here, don’t you think? And I daresay that nearly every Democratic politician I can think of, starting with Obama, would denounce such an effort.
Yet that is precisely what Cameron’s government is doing now, in six London boroughs. Vince Cable, the government’s own business secretary—he’s from the Lib-Dems—calls the policy “stupid and offensive.” That’s the kind of politics that Messina wants to sign on to? It’s Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” made flesh. It’s right out of the Joe Arpaio playbook, but I’m not sure even the Maricopa County sheriff would try that one. Closer to the Arpaio spirit, however, police have also just begun instituting spot checks of people acting suspiciously near suburban Tube stations. The Home Office defends this, as it does the vans, and says, of course, that a person’s skin “colour” plays no role in the spot checks.
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Maybe the same thing he was doing back in 2002, when he made what’s often called the most homophobic ad in U.S. political history for his old mentor, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). But Cameron, it seems, wouldn’t have liked that ad. Two weeks ago he said he wants “to export gay marriage around the world.” So at least Messina won’t be proposing any ads that poke “fun” at male hairdressers. I suppose that’s progress.
Political consulting isn’t a profession known for its demanding ethical standards. But no matter how flexible your relationship to the truth or how sleazy your ads, there is one line you aren’t supposed to cross—going to work for the other side. The Tories aren’t the Texas Republican Party. But they are the other side. I hope the Democrats who consider hiring him in 2016 understand that.
More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/05/jim-messina-how-could-you-flip-from-barack-obama-to-david-cameron.html
I thought the same thing.
I realize there is money to be had," but first, kill all the political consultants."
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