What Can Democrats Learn From Frank Skeffington?

“What Can Democrats Learn From Frank Skeffington?”
by Chris Boundy

In Edwin O’Connor’s classic tale of city politics, The Last Hurrah, a mayoral campaign is fought in a large city (often identified as Boston) in the early 20th century. The incumbent, Frank Skeffington, has experience, a strong intuitive sense for politics, and an astounding charisma on his side. His opponent, Kevin McCluskey, is a handsome young war veteran with no political experience but who enjoys the support of a powerful group of newspapermen and financial backers. In the shocking conclusion Skeffington loses the election to McCluskey in a landslide.

In the end, Skeffington is undone through no fault of his own. Time has simply passed him by. A younger generation of voters now holds sway, and they are used to relying on the federal, not local, government for their needs. They are also more comfortable with television, a medium that Skeffington uses, but does not prefer, but that McCluskey excels at. In fact, the bulk of McCluskey’s campaign is tightly choreographed commercials that showcase his attractive family and home life. McCluskey’s backers recognize early that this new medium can showcase their candidate’s strengths while minimizing his weaknesses. In the end this awareness makes all the difference.

In our own day television hardly remains a novel medium. Still, technology has continued to evolve and politicians continue to learn, eventually, how to harness it to their needs. For instance, two and a half million people currently “like” Sarah Palin on Facebook, and she has more than three hundred thousand followers on Twitter. In the age of smart phones, that means that Palin’s thoughts can potentially reach millions of supporters instantly, no matter where they are or what they are doing. Moreover, both mediums encourage the kind of brief, catchy statements that Palin excels at, while discouraging longer more developed analysis that, at least according to her critics, Palin is less capable of.

The implications of her mastery of these new mediums often goes unappreciated. As Palin prepares for what most people assume is a presidential run there has been much talk about how she has failed to lay the proper groundwork for her campaign, either by not building relationships with party officials and media in early primary states, by not raising sufficient funds, or by not yet organizing her supporters effectively for a national campaign. But if Palin’s post-gubernatorial career has taught the world anything it’s that if she continues to keep in touch with and broaden her base, the necessary doors will open for her. Why cultivate relationships with the politicians and newspapers in Iowa and New Hampshire? If she builds her base sufficiently than both will come to her. As for raising money and organizing, it was, ironically enough, President Obama’s 2008 campaign that truly demonstrated the power of the Internet to do both. Given Palin’s success using the Internet so far, she might well feel confident about her ability to copy, and potentially improve, President Obama’s previous successes in these areas.

Undoubtedly, if asked, the Palin Campaign would claim that they identified the political potential for Twitter and Facebook early on and planned from the beginning to use them as an engine to power their political activities. Personally, I think it’s more likely that following several calamitous interactions with traditional media outlets, the Palin Campaign simply identified the avenues available to them and, by chance, those avenues had developed to the point where they could be used effectively as political tools. Whichever way the direction of causation runs, however, the end results are the same.

At the end of The Last Hurrah, O’Connor is carefully agnostic about whether McCluskey’s election will have a positive or negative impact on the city. McCluskey has shown precious little ability to assert his own views when faced with pressure from his backers. Skeffington, on the other hand, while likeable, is a bit of a rogue and has never been opposed to a little, or a lot, of graft. What is clear is that politics in the city are forever changed and that future campaign will need to take account of these changed realities if the wish to be successful. Failing to do so invites the kind of landslide that was the end of Frank Skeffington.