Allow me to recommend Ed Gillespie’s new book “Winning Right: Campaign Politics and Conservative Policies.” It is highly readable and very shrewd. Just two quick examples. Here is Gillespie on the closing days on the 2004 presidential campaign when the Kerry campaign obsessed on that ammunition dump in Iraq story:

Campaigns are shaped more by what you’re debating than by how you’re debating it. If Medicare is front and center in a campaign, it’s not likely the Republican candidate is going to win. If tax cuts are the central issue of a campaign, the Democrat is probably in trouble. One of the challenges of any campaign is agenda setting, and at the end of the ‘04 presidential campaign, the Kerry team could not resist the temptation to fight on terms historically favorable to Republicans.

This provides some insight into the current dynamic with the conversation having shifted onto terrorism. Democrats might think they’re fighting back, but if they’re talking about terrorism at all they’re probably losing ground.

And I love this bit, which those who know him will recognize as very Gillespie:

After one meeting with Specter, the Judiciary Committee chairman asked Alito to autograph a baseball for him, noting their shared affinity for the Philadelphia Phillies.
“That may be the most important thing you’ll do in this entire process,” I said to Alito afterward as we walked through the wide marble hallway of the Hart Senate Office Building.
“Why?”
“What do you think a baseball signed by an appellate court judge is worth?” I said with a smile.