There are many well-regarded Republican strategists out there — Karl Rove, Mike Murphy, Dick Wadhams, and plenty of others that you’ve no doubt heard of — but new media strategist Patrick Ruffini is a rare strategist who has also emerged as a a formidable writer and thinker in his own right. I think I’ve learned more reading Ruffini that I have from a dozen other blogs focused on campaigns and elections. As David Weigel observes in an insightful postmortem of the Massachusetts race, the very influential Ruffini played a not insignificant role in Scott Brown’s victory.
In late December, not far under the radar, the Brown campaign was sold to influential and far-flung activists as a winnable race–a chance to stop complaining and actually break the back of the Obama administration. In a December 30 blog post titled “Fight Everywhere: Scott Brown for Massachusetts,” GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini–who launched RebuildtheParty.com with Willington after the 2008 elections, and who provided some software support for Brown, made what was, at the time, a dreamy-sounding argument that Brown could win. “Any chance we have to take out the Obamacare abomination,” he wrote, “however remote, is a fight worth fighting.”
I remember the post well. It is vintage Ruffini: terse, tough, and very smart.
The case for a Brown upset can be summed up as follows: A January 19th special election would likely skew the turnout universe more Republican than it ever would be in the Bay State. The race has received comparably little attention, so turnout is likely to be low, and a minor surge in Republican turnout could go a long way.
Because Ruffini did a small amount of work for Brown, the thought crossed my mind that he was engaging in wishful thinking, but only briefly.
Though Ruffini has worked for a wide array of clients, including corporate clients, he does have a strong ideological core — my read is that he’s a mix of national security conservative and supply-side libertarian. Suffice it to say, we don’t agree on everything. There is, however, no arguing with his success. His work with Mindy Finn for Bob McDonnell’s campaign in Virginia was extraordinary: they crafted a new media strategy that allowed the campaign to deploy its resources in an extremely cost-effective manner.
Just as Karl Rove began in direct mail, my guess is that Ruffini is going to graduate from new media strategist to running a major campaign in the near future. I’m noting Ruffini’s rise in part because I saw it coming. He first came to my attention when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania in 2000, when he campaigned on behalf of Sam Katz, the Republican candidate for mayor. Some years later, I profiled him in an article that wondered whether the rightroots could ever match the netroots — a possibility that at the time seemed very much in doubt.
Outrage is the logistical backbone of any political movement, he told me—it’s the equivalent of Wal-Mart’s supply chain. No outrage, no ActBlue. No outrage, no Daily Kos. No outrage, no Obama.
“What are we outraged about?” Ruffini mused. “If the underlying message is not right, you can’t sell that. You can’t put a shiny package on it.”
This is not to say that infrastructure-building is trivial. Direct mail didn’t just reflect outrage; it helped deepen and define it. Shrewd political entrepreneurs don’t just push pet causes. They follow the grassroots conversation, whether it happens online or off, and identify potent sources of political discontent.
So what will outrage conservatives enough to spark a rightroots-driven revival? To find out, we may have to wait for an Obama administration.
I have to say, identifying Patrick Ruffini in 2008 as the go-to person for understanding the future of the GOP wasn’t rocket science. But I’m glad I landed the interview when I did.