Tuesday, September 09, 2008
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Can McCain Win the Ground Game?
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Posted by:
Matt Lewis at
1:51 PM
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Despite the fact that the Obama campaign is pouring money into his "ground game," McCain political director Mike DuHaime is confident in McCain's turn-out operation.
The reason? DuHaime reminds me that his team is battle-tested.
This rings true; few Democratic operatives are experienced at running a sophisticated national "turn-out" campaign. In '04, John Kerry out-sourced most of this to 527's -- and frankly, they didn't do a terrific job of it. While the DNC has spent four years aggressively trying to develop and mimic Republican technology like microtargeting, their Republican counterparts are seasoned veterans at using this technology.
For example, consider McCain's team in Ohio -- a state that could predictably once again become the swing state...
McCain's Ohio team includes Chris McNolty -- and, having met him I can tell you that nobody understands Republican turn-out politics in Ohio better than McNolty.
It also includes seasoned operatives like McCain regional campaign manager Jon Seaton, who is a campaign veteran and Ryan Meerstein, who was an Ohio staffer in ’04, ran turn-out operation for Bob Corker in TN in '06, and then worked for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign in SC and FL. And lastly, it includes Matt Mason, the 72-hour director for OH in both ’04 and ‘06 ...
When you consider factors such as 1). how Palin has excited the grassroots, 2). how Obama has wasted millions of dollars in states he can't win (like Georgia), and 3). that McCain's team is more seasoned than Obama's -- it is entirely possible that McCain will be able to target his turn-out efforts into a hand-full of states like Ohio and Michigan, and arguably out-perform Obama at his own game...
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It will be his own fault. His intransigence on amnesty may cost him VA, GA, and TX. Game over. |
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How often does NYC go Republican? |
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Please, Republicans, go on and assume that Obama's ground game consists of nothing more than dirty tricks and speeches in front of large crowds. Ignore all the field offices he has opened. Pay no attention to all the new voters he has registered. Keep disparaging his background as a community organizer as completely irrelevant to this election.
I'll check back here on Nov. 5 and see how that all worked out for ya. |
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... beat Hillary Clinton just a few months ago. You guys are pointing to successes you had a very long four years ago, and ignoring the tromping you took two years ago. The only one you dared mention, Corker of TN, squeaked into Frist's old seat by less than 3%; Frist had previously won by 65% to 32%.
And there's the tiny statistic that Democrats have registered 2 million new voters and Republicans have lost 330,000 in those same states. |
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Obama will resort to nasty tricks, like push polls, send lawyers to threaten with lawsuits, send thugs to intimidate, send more lawyers to remove republicans from voter registration, bribe democrats with pre-paid gas/food cards to show up at election sites, voter fraud: dead people voting/multiple names/times, etc. He'll treat it like his Chicago run for state senate, and use every dirty trick in the book.
You stick with what you do best. Obama will also try to pack football stadiums in each swing state, and hope that suffices. It won't.
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McCain will win the ground game in the key states. McCain is using a veteran team. The Democrats continue to use unions to get out the vote. Unions are 40% Republican and would much rather be working. I live in NYC and all the union members handing out brochures on Election Day are miserable and beg you to take one so they can either go home or back to work. The Republican volunteers actually want to be there and are much more passionate. |
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17 year cicadas, I suspect the party can mount a pretty effective ground game. Plus the more depressed the Democrats get the better. |
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