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"I know what you know. We're all reading the same stuff and we're all talking to each other."Reporters love to say things beginning with, "I'm hearing ..." which is designed to draw you out by agreeing or disagreeing at which point the good ones will pounce and ask you how you know. I responded with, "Well, then you already know more than I do," as this is not my first rodeo. I didn't know what happened, but I had a pretty good idea. From the very beginning this campaign has been in trouble:
-- that false start in Atlanta back on March 3, -- through the weak Twitter/Facebook/YouTube announcement in May, -- to the appearance on Meet the Press for which Gingrich was ill-prepared and got into the public fight with Rep. Paul Ryan over Medicare, -- then the $500,000 line of credit at Tiffany's story, and -- ending - literally - with the luxury cruise through the Greek Isles.On TV yesterday and last night I guessed that while Newt and his wife were in Greece, the staff was fuming over their refusal to allow the people who do campaigns for a living help get this campaign on the right path. Somewhere in the discussion - maybe high up in the discussion - money would have been mentioned. I have said before that the lack of chatter from the campaign about how much money Gingrich had raised was telling. If they were raising large amounts every day, the campaign would have been telling reporters about it. Gingrich has raised enormous amounts of money over the years, but this is a different kind of fundraising. This doesn't pour in at $5,000-$10,000 per bucket (as it did when I ran GOPAC) but dribbles in at $5-$10 per drop. To raise money from large donors requires start-up money: Halls have to be rented, stages have to be built, food has to be ordered, invitations have to be printed, addressed and mailed. That money - the $2,500 a pop money - comes from the candidate getting on the phone and hitting his long-time supporters for their large checks and to beg them to opened their Rolodexes and raise money from their friends. That is very hard to do from an ocean liner in the Aegean Sea. Information from the former staffers started coming out by early evening. No surprises. The staff was made up of campaign professionals who wanted to run a professional campaign. Gingrich and his wife wanted to campaign where, when, and how they wanted; a different kind of campaign. But, they ran afoul of the rule that campaigns look like campaigns look, because there's a design solution that works. The Gingrich campaign was like an airliner with no wings, no engines, and no landing gear. It was a different kind of airliner. But, it couldn't get off the ground.
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