James A. Thurber, American University

Did the collective shock and tragedy of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States influence the "permanent campaign" that has dominated politics for the last three decades? Sidney Blumenthal called the permanent campaign the "political ideology of our age" and described it as a combination of image making and strategic calculation that turns governing into a perpetual campaign and "remakes government into an instrument designed to sustain an election official's popularity".¹ Was the permanent campaign "ideology" fundamentally altered on 9/11? Have the terrorist attacks of September 11 impacted the major players in the permanent campaign: the president, Congress, political parties, interest groups, campaign consultants, and the voters? Did the sobering consequences of 9/11 have an impact on the insatiable money chase to support candidates? Has the use of "wedge issues", the perennial policy battles that are kept alive in order to help elect and defeat members of Congress, declined? Has the pervasive use of opinion polling in the continuous quest for public approval in the White House and on the Hill diminished? Have the corrosive, hard-hitting negative campaign strategies used by professional consultants been moderated? These questions outline a rich research agenda about the potential effects of September 11 on the permanent campaign.

Defining The Permanent Campaign

The permanent campaign has been a predominant feature of American politics for at least the last three decades. It is shorthand for the use of governmental policy to build and keep public approval by politicians in their drive to win and sustain partisan control of the White House and Congress.² It is a term commonly used by campaign consultants, academics, candidates, and the media to describe a deep-seated political pattern in our Democracy. In 1983, Democratic campaign consultant Wally Clinton sought new business from candidates with an argument that the "endless campaign" was an essential characteristic of American politics:

Whether we like it or not, the day of the 'Endless Campaign' is here. No longer can an incumbent simply go about his or her business after winning an election, waiting until a few months before the next election to think about campaigning. In fact, any official who intends to stay in office would be wise to view his or her victory speech on election night as a kick off-off speech for the next election.³

Reliance of those in the White House or Congress on public opinion is not new. However, as Hugh Heclo argues,

the permanent campaign is something different from government's perennial need for public support. Every day is Election Day in the permanent campaign. Such campaigning is a nonstop process seeking to manipulate sources of public approval to engage in the act of governing itself.⁴

Bill Clinton was the first "permanent campaign" president.⁵ Clinton used the party organization to promote his agenda, he established custom designed "war rooms" to promote policies (e.g., NAFTA, budget priorities, health care reform), he built broad based coalitions among interest groups, he used grassroots tactics to push his policies, and he developed and used the White House line of the day.⁶ President George W. Bush continued the permanent campaign in the same tradition of President Clinton, although he criticized the practice during his 2000 election campaign. President George W. Bush pledged new bipartisan policies and a change in the way those policies are made. He denounced decision-making by poll and promised an end to the permanent campaign. However, the strategy, tactics, and early policy successes (passage of a large tax decrease, increase in defense expenditures, establishing new budget priorities, movement toward a bipartisan education bill) of the Bush presidency looked like Bill Clinton's first year. Carl Rove, Bush's campaign manager and later presidential aide, outlined the campaign to pass President Bush's policy agenda by constantly measuring the president's job approval, establishing a "war room" for his policy agenda, and encouraging him to "go public."⁷ The president used dozens of tracking polls and spent 26 out of the first 100 days outside of Washington actively using grassroots lobbying tactics for his tax cut and for increases in defense spending and other policies. After U.S. Senator James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) switched parties and the Democrats gained majority status in the U.S. Senate, the three months leading up to 9/11 more closely resembled Clinton's last six years of divided party government and constant White House polling in pursuit of public support for the president's policies.

There is no doubt the tragedy of September 11, 2001 fundamentally changed American politics. It changed the national policy agenda and instantly created a public demand for international military action and domestic policies to combat terrorism. It dramatically improved public attitudes about the president, Congress, and the role of government generally. The Congress and the president responded quickly and decisively with bipartisanship and comity. However, did it change the underlying negative tendencies of the permanent campaign? Did the president and Congress return immediately to the old habits of the permanent campaign?

Six Trends of the Permanent Campaign

One way to answer this question is to compare the trends in the permanent campaign before and after 9/11. The authors of The Permanent Campaign and Its Future suggest that six interrelated trends define the permanent campaign.⁸

• Political party organizations are weaker than they were thirty years ago at the birth of the permanent campaign. They have little control over candidate recruitment, voter mobilization, and the strategy theme and message of candidates. Candidate individualism dominates the campaign scene. Parties finance campaign consultants who advocate the use of ideology and attack politics to influence voters.⁹
• Second, the expansion of an open, extensive, and in many cases well funded system of interest-group politics is a source of attack issue advertising and massive amounts of campaign money directed at defeating candidates not in support of narrow interest group policy preferences. For example, the National Rifle Association in 2000 spent $23 million on hard-hitting sometimes negative issue ads, get-out-the-vote, and grassroots activities to defeat Vice President Al Gore in his own state of Tennessee as well as Arkansas, West Virginia, and other states with many gun owners.¹⁰
• Third, the new communications technologies of modern politics, media specialists, television, the Internet, grassroots professionals (including a focus on "Astroturf" and "top-roots"), and coalition building specialists can be brought to bear to help deter potential candidates from running for public office, defeat candidates, and change elected public officials' minds about policies.
• Fourth, the advanced techniques of campaign consultants, pollsters, direct mail specialists, media professionals, and campaign fund raising experts have expanded the permanent campaign by using sophisticated attack tactics politics and by totally destroying opponents with massive amounts of campaign funds to control the message of a campaign.¹¹
• Fifth, the demand for campaign money is insatiable and endless (even with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002). The more one candidate gets, the more the opposition needs.¹² Members of the House are in a perpetual quest for campaign dollars having to face reelection contests every two years. Senators are also forced to begin fund raising throughout their six-year terms. Viable presidential candidates must win the money chase before they are taken seriously.
• Sixth, with close elections and partisan parity in the House and Senate, there is a drive to control both houses of Congress using any means do to do so and higher stakes for interest groups backing one party or the other.

Even though members of Congress sang America on the steps of the Capitol in a moving demonstration of bipartisanship and they quickly passed a retaliation and reconstruction bill in a strong show of comity, these six patterns of the permanent campaign have not changed since 9/11. Following the immediate response to the tragedy, the president and Congress set aside their kinder and gentler bipartisan politics that briefly had been characterized by comity and civility. Although much more time is needed to measure the full impact of 9/11 on the permanent campaign, it is very much alive and well. What is the evidence for this hypothesis?

The Impact of September 11 on the Permanent Campaign

The communications strategies used by the president ("war rooms") and Congress ("message politics") characterized by the permanent campaign have expanded since 9/11, not retracted. In an example of the public relations war between the parties, in April 2002, Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster, said that voters are worrying about health care costs (especially prescription drugs), retirement security, and jobs. In response, Bush strategists admitted they are conscious of those polls and Bush's aides hold an "economic conference call" three mornings a week to counterattack. The calls help to establish the public relations message of the day and help to remind White House and Cabinet aides of parts of the economy that are rebounding. They argue that this helps to counter the Democratic attacks on the administration's economic performance and domestic health and retirement policies.¹³ If anything, the tragedy of 9/11 showed how wired the world is and how important it is to coordinate all forms of communications (e.g. the Internet, cable television, network television, newspapers, radio) in a 24-hour seven-day-a-week news cycle.

If anything, the professionally coordinated communications strategy characteristic of the permanent campaign became even more sophisticated as a result of 9/11 with daily news conferences and public relations campaigns from the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Justice Department, the White House, the head of homeland defense, and the congressional party leaders and committee chairs. The growth of advanced techniques developed by campaign consultants and their strategies and tactics have not changed since September 2001. If anything, they have continued to be more sophisticated and hard-hitting and have adapted in anticipation to the new world of campaign finance.

The most significant negative and debilitating effect of the permanent campaign, the money chase, was not diminished by the tragedy of September 11. There is strong evidence that campaign fund raising activities did not stop immediately after 9/11 and some evidence that it increased dramatically two short weeks after the attack on the United States.¹⁴ The increasing costs of winning office, and the fact that House members seem never to stop campaigning due to the two-year election cycle and Senators solicit funds throughout their six-year term, have contributed to the growth of war chests and the permanent campaign. The incentive to build large campaign war chests did not change as a result of 9/11. There is strong evidence that large amounts of campaign funds deter challengers from entering races, especially high quality challengers, and that this has not changed in the 2002 cycle. The parties and candidates seem to be frantically soliciting funds for 2002 and before the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 goes into effect after the November election. As of early spring 2002, only about 30 to 40 House seats were deemed competitive (where candidates would win by less than fifty five percent).¹⁵ In the early spring of 2002, incumbents have a monetary advantage of ten to one over challengers, not unlike previous off year elections.¹⁶

Finally, divided party government (the norm of the last twenty years), close margins in the House and Senate (basically the institutions are tied . . . they have partisan parity on major policies), close presidential elections with no clear mandate (the last three presidential elections had candidates win with less than a majority of the popular vote), the loss of comity and civility (intraparty combat has increased in the House and Senate) are both consequences and factors contributing to the permanent campaign. None of these phenomena have changed as a result of 9/11.

Policymakers are not insulated from the pressures of the permanent campaign as a result of 9/11. If anything, there is more pressure for transparency in decision making. Access to vast amounts of information about the policymaking process and the issues has become wide-ranging. There is instant and costless communication over the Internet between voters and their elected representatives. The tragedy of 9/11 has not returned American politics to the earlier and simpler era in which campaigning and governing were distinct and separate. Parties have not become stronger, political money has not vanished (even with the prospect of implementation of the new campaign finance reform act), civility and comity have not returned to governing, modern telecommunications technologies have continued to present politics and government with new challenges.

Charles O. Jones suggests that the permanent campaign is a "reality Americans need to recognize, and politicians need to accommodate, so that they can channel the phenomena that reinforce the permanent campaign to best advantage in their desire to govern."¹⁷ The post 9/11 world of politics has adapted and continued if not expanded the permanent campaign. It is still alive and well with President George W. Bush, the parties, the interest groups, the consultants, and the congressional leaders in the House and Senate.

The president, congressional leaders, lobbyists, the media, parties, candidates, and consultants did not replace the permanent campaign with a kinder and gentler bipartisan politics sprinkled with comity and civility. Although positive public attitudes about the president, Congress and governmental institutions generally are at historically high levels, the actions of those in public office and politics have not seemed to change. The permanent campaign continues.

In 2002, control of the House and Senate is up for grabs. This partisan parity in the House and Senate contributes to the intensity of the permanent campaign and is not overcome by the external attack on the United States. Congressional leaders are constantly calculating how to maintain or win control. In that competitive context, deadlock on the major issues seems inevitable, deliberation is weakened, legislation often becomes the next campaign issue, and comity loses to conflict. Even after the terrorist attack on the United States, Brady and Fiorina seem to have it summarized correctly by stating, "The motives of today's members revolve around destroying their enemies rather than developing a legislative product broadly acceptable to the electorate."¹⁸

Conclusions about the Future of the Permanent Campaign, Post 9/11

Very little has changed in the permanent campaign and the future does not look bright. David S. Broder argues that, "Unless someone steps in to stop it, the descent to bitter partisanship in Washington will increasingly jeopardize the functioning of government. The looming crisis requires President Bush himself and the leaders of both parties in Congress to act in concert to reverse this dangerous trend."¹⁹ Ornstein and Mann argue that, "Campaigning intrinsically is a zero-sum game with a winner and a loser. Governing, ideally, is an additive game that tries to avoid pointing fingers or creating winners and losers in the policy battles."²⁰ The reaction by the President, Congress, and political parties to the terrorist attack on September 11 seems not to have changed campaigning and campaigners and those in government. Finger pointing and trying to create winners and losers continues in Washington on the major policy battles (e.g., blame for the deficit, health care policy deadlock, lack of consensus on social security and Medicare funding, blame and credit for domestic and international security). Members of Congress and the president still use the language of warfare where their rivals are more than opponents in a competitive democratic system; they are enemies to be vanquished. The language of bipartisanship occurred in the initial reaction to 9/11, but the collective action of political allies with a common enemy quickly turned into the language of adversaries in the permanent campaign, straining intraparty relations to the breaking point.

1. Sidney Blumenthal, The Permanent Campaign (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 7.

2. The endless campaigning and drive for reelection for Congress were documented in David Mayhew, Congress: the Electoral Connection (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974). 3. Wally Clinton, "Endless Campaign," pamphlet, The Clinton Group, Washington, D.C, November 1983.

4. Hugh Helco, "Campaigns and Governing: A Conspectus," in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, ed. Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute and The Brookings Institution, 2000), 17.

5. See Charles O. Jones, "Preparing to Govern in 2001: Lessons from the Clinton Presidency," in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, ed. Ornstein and Mann, 185-218; Charles O. Jones, "From Campaigning to Governing," The Brooking Review, Winter 1997, 34-37; and Richard L. Berke, "Clinton and Aides Lay Plans to Repair a Battered Image," New York Times, 21 December 2001, Section A; Page 1.

6. See Kathryn Dunn Tempas, "The Presidency: Surviving Amidst the Permanent Campaign," in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, ed. Ornstein and Mann, 121-125, for illustrations of the permanent campaign in the Clinton White House.

7. See Samuel Kernell, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1997) for a description of the tactics of presidents going public.

8. Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann "Conclusion: The Permanent Campaign and the Future of American Democracy," in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, 222-223.

9. See James A. Thurber, David Dulio, and Candice J. Nelson, eds., Campaign Warriors: Political Consultants in Elections (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000); and James A. Thurber, ed., The Battle for Congress: Consultants, Candidates, and Voters (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).

10. Glenn Caroline, Grassroots Division Director for the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, "Membership, Grassroots, and Coalition Building in the NRA", speech at Institute on The Art and Craft of Lobbying, American University, Washington, D.C., 3 January 2002.

11. See Thurber, et. al., Campaign Warriors.

12. Anthony Corrado, "Running Backward: The Congressional Money Chase," in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, ed. Ornstein and Mann, 75-107.

13. Mike Allen, "Bush Wary of Upturn in Economy," Washington Post, 8 April 2002, A-1.

14. Data analysis of monthly campaign fund-raising from the Federal Election Commission provided by Douglas Weber, Senior Researcher, the Center for Responsive Politics, 2 April 2002.

15. Charlie Cook, "The Cook Report,"National Journal, 23 February 2002, 566.

16. Weber, Center for Responsive Politics, 2 April 2002.

17. Jones, "From Campaigning to Governing," 37.

18. David Brady and Morris Fiorina, "Congress in the Era of the Permanent Campaign," in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, 156.

19. David S. Broder, "Stop the Party Sniping," Washington Post, 20 March 2002, A-22.

20. Ornstein and Mann, "Conclusion: The Permanent Campaign and the Future of American Democracy," in The Permanent Campaign and Its Future, 225.