Lessons to be learned in Arizona, Alaska primaries

By Anjeanette Damon

Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may actually have a lesson or two to learn from last week’s Republican primaries in Arizona and Alaska.

The basic narrative goes like this: Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are both incumbents facing an angry, anti-incumbent electorate and a base fueled by even angrier Tea Party activists.

McCain finds a way to channel that anger, basically by doing an about-face on immigration and other issues. Meanwhile, Murkowski focuses her campaign on proving to voters she can use her position to deliver for the state.

McCain spends $20 million, mostly on a negative ad campaign destroying his opponent, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. Murkowski stays positive.

McCain wins by a 25-point margin. Murkowski’s future hangs on a few remaining absentee ballots, but as of Friday it didn’t look as if she would win.

The narrative prompted the political team at MSNBC’s “First Read” to opine: “Incumbents who run on what they’ve done in D.C. and for their constituents back home are wasting their time and money.”

Reid, who is locked in the political fight of his life with Tea Party favorite Republican Sharron Angle, is basing his own future in office on convincing voters his position as majority leader allows him to deliver more for Nevada.

Although they live on opposite sides of the political spectrum, Reid and McCain face the challenge of shaking off the anti-incumbent furor this cycle.

Both prepared early for what they knew would be difficult races. Both pulled opponents with inherent weaknesses, opening up plenty of attack opportunities.

But the dynamics of the race begin to diverge there.

First, McCain never suffered as dramatic a likability problem as Reid does. Nor did he ever trail in head-to-head polls with Hayworth.

“He was never in that bad a shape,” said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report in Washington. “There are conservatives who don’t like John McCain and will never like John McCain, but the absolute disdain they hold for Reid they never really held for McCain.”

Murkowski, on the other hand, had a job approval rating in the high 60s.

“It showed voters are so angry they are actually willing to vote out an incumbent they like for a new person,” Duffy said.

McCain knew early what issues he needed to neutralize with his conservative base. First on the list: immigration.

Over the course of the campaign, McCain morphed from pragmatic supporter of comprehensive immigration reform to vocal supporter of the state’s controversial law cracking down on illegal immigration and a solid border security champion.

That helped him channel much of the voter discontent in Arizona into his own campaign.

Bruce Merrill, a public opinion pollster and professor at Arizona State University, said immigration has eclipsed the economy and jobs as the top issue in Arizona, which also allowed McCain to blunt some of that anti-incumbent zeal.

Next, McCain initiated what Politico described as a blitzkrieg of negative advertising against Hayworth. Most notably, he discovered a gem of an infomercial in which Hayworth promoted ways to obtain free government money — not the message a fiscal conservative wants to send.

Reid, with his big war chest, is similarly attacking Angle, boosting her unfavorables.

Reid, however, has little room to initiate an about-face on issues Nevada voters are angry about, such as health care reform and the stimulus.

“To do a 180 right now looks disingenuous,” Duffy said.

Instead, Reid is working to harness voter anger through empathy (emphasizing his own hardscrabble upbringing) and by redirecting it to Republicans.

“Growing up poor in tiny Searchlight, Sen. Reid knows what it’s like to struggle, and is as frustrated as anyone that recovery from the disastrous Bush economic polices and Wall Street abuses isn’t happening more quickly,” his spokesman Kelly Steele said.