My job at the Democratic Convention was credentialling the bloggers.  Bloggers would often contact me prior to the Convention, and ask me logistical questions since there were a variety of special events set up just for bloggers.  One such event was a blogger breakfast.  A blogger that we credentialled asked me if we had received their RSVP to that breakfast, so I went to check; the person in the events department who was handling that blogger breakfast event told me that I had to get permission from her superior to release that information.  This meant that I had to go to my superior who would then have to advocate in a meeting with the event person's superior for the information.  All so I could let the blogger know that yes, we had received their RSVP, or no, we hadn't.  My superior decided it wasn't worth his limited internal political capital to have that fight, so I could never actually let the blogger know if he had sent his RSVP in.  I just told him to chance it.  This wasn't any one person's 'fault'; it was simply how the culture of Democratic Party politics has been for quite awhile.  I mean, I was working at the Convention so it's not like I can say I wasn't part of the mess.

When I went to the Republican National Convention, by contrast, the level of transparency was remarkable.  I sat in on a grassroots training session where a senior Bush advisor openly unveiled the campaign strategy and messaging.  She started out acknowledging that the Bush campaign's messaging was a failure where women were concerned, and then described how they were fixing the problem.  She demonstrated this with video clips of focus groups, and internal polling.  After the seminar, I was well trained on how to talk to women about the Republican Party brand.  It was impressive.

While the Republicans weren't advertising the session to the press, it was an open event, created to teach their true believers what to say and think about the Republican brand.  The Republicans recognize the value of populism, of word-of-mouth networks.  When they talk to their base and there's no direct mail fundraising involved, it's often honest in the sense that they really see their base as valuable in spreading message at the water cooler.

Ever since then, I've taken what the Republicans say to their base seriously.  They have no problem lying or spinning nonsense, but they take their politics seriously and have a plan that they want used across the country in 2006.  So I read this interview from Ken Mehlman on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, and I think it's well worth going through.  In particular, this part is instructive.  Mehlman starts by discussing how Massachusetts hasn't had a Democratic governor since 1986, and what they did in MA is replicable on a national scale:

Because in 1990, Bill Weld ran as a reformer, and got elected as a Republican. In '94, he ran a different kind of campaign. He said I've done some reforms. Here's my new model. Four years later, a guy named Paul Celucci came in and offered another vision.  Then came in Mitt Romney. Everyone of those Republicans replaced an existing Republican, yet every one of them was seen as a reformer, not a status quo guy.

Mehlman sees 2006 as a change election, and he says that the Republicans are well-positioned even though they control everything.  And the 'I'm not a Republican' Republican trick has been used successfully since, well, Nixon.  In 1973, Nixon resigned over Watergate.  While 1974 was a brutal year for the Republicans, Carter lasted a quick four years before being replaced by someone who brought in a Nixonian crew that allowed Iran-Contra and the Savings and Loan disaster.  Somehow, two years after elder Bush was out of office, the Republicans marched into Washington again as 'reformers'.  The Republicans are getting better at this.  Enron, which was a Republican scandal, didn't touch the Republicans at all.  And somehow, Newt Gingrich is now an elder statesmen reformer.  At this point, with GW Bush, we're at Nixon on crystal meth levels, and if we don't stop the reactionary soon, the next Republican crew that comes into power will simply end American democracy.

Right now, there are a bunch of Republicans trying the 'we're not those Republicans' playbook - McCain is the most prominent, but the wingnut caucus in the House is there too with their whining about the government spending they have enabled.  McCain himself is a conservative Republican, always has been, and he was caught up in the S&L scandal in the 1980s as a member of the Keating 5.  Yet he is considered a reformer, and is proposing easily circumvented lobbying restrictions just in time for the cameras.  Even Rick Santorum, who I'm more convinced by the day is an unprincipled corrupt politician that attached his star to the religious right, is now in on the lobbying reform racket.

This is political theater, pure and simple.  And it's worked since 1972, for a number of reasons, including media corruption, the gutless faction in the Democratic Party conducting sabotage, the dropping voting rates of younger demographics, pure economics, and a long-term conservative shift in the country.

As a party, we are beginning to realize that political theater is an important part of their arsenal.  As such, they are running as the party of change in 2006; that's what Ken Mehlman just told us.  It's our job to point out, again and again, that (R) stands for more of the same.  

UPDATE: Lynn Allen has more on this.