Posted on 04/17/2008 5:06:26 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
For reasons of financial necessity, personal preference and plain politics, John McCain is gearing up to run one of the least traditional presidential campaigns in recent history.
The problem is that even prominent strategists within McCain’s own party wonder if his unorthodox strategy will work.
Facing the prospect of competing against a Democrat who is on track to shatter every fundraising record — and confronted by his own inability to rake in large bundles of cash — McCain and his key advisers have largely been forced into devising a three-pronged strategy that they hope can turn their general election weaknesses into strengths.
McCain will lean heavily on the well-funded Republican National Committee. He will merge key functions of his campaign hierarchy with the RNC while also relying on an unconventional structure of 10 regional campaign mangers.
And finally — and perhaps most importantly — McCain will rely on free media to an unprecedented degree to get out his message in a fashion that aims to not only minimize his financial disadvantage but also drive a triangulated contrast among himself, the Democratic nominee and President Bush.
McCain advisers acknowledge they have little choice but to seek free entry into the media marketplace, as they have no chance of matching Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton in a dollar-for-dollar ad war, given that the Arizona senator’s fundraising totals pale in comparison to both his prospective opponents and the Bush-Cheney political machine.
But aides also hope they can turn necessity into virtue and argue that by facing tough questions from reporters on his bus each day and potentially even tougher ones from audience members at frequent town hall meetings, McCain will demonstrate how he’s different from two politicians who are far less accessible.
“People in the country are in a very bad mood, and they want to have change,” says Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to McCain. “And the first place they evaluate change is through the prism of what kind of campaigns candidates are running. Voters will have an indication of the different kind of presidency he would preside over by looking at his campaign.”
Mark Salter, another top aide to McCain, says Obama is running “one buttoned-up, conventional campaign.”
“Is new politics just stadium-sized crowds and lots of money?” he asks.
But the tactics aren’t solely meant to portray the Democratic candidates as distant and McCain as grounded.
McCain aides also want to paint their guy as different from an unpopular administration that prefers secrecy to transparency and friendly crowds to unpredictable ones.
“Sen. McCain believes every American should participate in the arena, and that includes people that don’t agree with him,” Schmidt says, taking care to note that such unscripted exchanges have waned “in the last decade.”
Additionally, McCain and his advisers want to pursue voters that look different than the bare majority coalition that Bush put together twice.
“We’re running a campaign that is not designed to get 50-plus-1 percent of the vote,” says Schmidt.
Even if they can’t win in places such as California or inner cities — both of which McCain will stop in during his different-sort-of-Republican tour starting this week — they want to send a signal that he intends to at least compete for nearly every vote.
“You want to make sure that you tailor the campaign to the candidate and not other way around,” said Charlie Black, a top adviser. “And McCain sincerely believes in campaigning everywhere.”
But McCain’s campaign plan is as much about pragmatism as it is perception, despite efforts by his campaign team to create the notion that they are taking this route of their own free will.
First, his advisers can read polls and recognize the daunting right track/wrong track polling headwind that is gusting in their face.
Differences between Bush and McCain will be “discussed at great length,” promises one aide.
“He’ll be direct about it. He’s never gratuitous, never disrespectful, but there are going to be policy breaks where it couldn’t be clearer.” Two areas of difference McCain will highlight: global warming and spending.
And, quite practically, McCain doesn’t have much choice but to run a campaign that differs from the Bush model, given his lagging fundraising performance.
“It is true we’ll be outspent,” concedes Black. “But between the RNC and McCain, we’ll raise enough money.”
Indeed, to help counter their money deficit, McCain strategists now suggest that the proper comparison should be between the combined assets of the campaign and the RNC and that of their opponent and the far less flush DNC.
“The McCain camp is funded jointly” is how one adviser describes it.
By taking federal funds — something they intend to do, campaign manager Rick Davis told a closed-door meeting of chiefs of staff on Capitol Hill last week — McCain will receive $84 million.
That money, McCain aides say, will be bolstered by the $20 million in coordinated funds that they can legally direct the RNC to spend on anything they want.
Further, they’ll rely on the committee-campaign joint Victory Fund run out of the RNC, which allows contributions of up to $28,500 per person — far more than the $2,300 donors can give to individual candidates.
The Victory dollars will go into the states and be used to hire staffers, who in some cases will serve as the de facto McCain aides.
Other elements of the campaign, such as those tasked with developing coalitions and lining up surrogates, will also be placed at the RNC to save on overhead.
“Those functions that can legally be done at either [the campaign or RNC], we’ll err on the side of doing them at the RNC,” Black says. “The whole thing is under one umbrella in the way we are budgeting.”
So instead of hiring a traditional political director and field director at the headquarters, for example, they’ve so far effectively merged the functions between Davis’ deputy at the campaign, Christian Ferry, RNC adviser and former Rudy Giuliani chief Mike DuHaime, and the regional managers themselves.
The 10 regional managers, the last of which are being hired this week, will have both autonomy over and responsibility for the key elements of the campaign in their area: the political and field operation, relations with state and local media, and fundraising.
Some will have just a couple of states, while others will have as many as six; the average will be about five. To spread the wealth, there will be at least one targeted and genuinely competitive state in each region.
They’ll have a daily phone call with McCain’s Arlington, Va., headquarters and answer directly to Davis. If Davis is absent, Ferry will ride herd. DuHaime will offer guidance from his role at the RNC.
The hope is to give these aides complete hiring and budget authority for their regions to make for a more responsive and agile campaign. As Davis told Hill aides last week, the goal is to have 80 percent of the structure in the field and 20 percent back at headquarters.
“You can get better service, better coordination and, most importantly, get decisions made much more quickly if it’s done in the states,” argues Frank Donatelli, deputy chairman of the RNC and the chief liaison between the committee and the McCain campaign.
“We have some confidence in it, because it’s kind of the way we got nominated,” adds Black. “Our people were out in the states. By definition, people in New Hampshire and South Carolina had a lot of authority.”
There has, however, been much private grumbling in the ranks of Republican operatives that such a decentralized plan, the campaign equivalent of federalism, will inevitably prove unrealistic and have to be scaled back.
First, says one prominent GOP strategist, Davis won’t be able to directly oversee regional aides with all the other responsibilities that come with running a campaign. And further, says this source, delegating so much decision-making authority to different individuals will lead to mixed results. “There are some things campaigns are going to do everywhere because they work and are fundamental to the campaign,” says the strategist.
“In every campaign, some people perform up to expectations, and some people don’t,” Black said by way of tamping down such criticism. “If some [regional campaign managers] don’t perform well, of course they’ll get more supervision.”
Other Republicans suggest McCain is overcompensating for his top-heavy early campaign last year, which went broke and forced him to the brink before his improbable comeback.
“The Mehlman campaign style of ’04 would never work for him, and the beginning of the campaign proved that,” noted another GOP operative with ties to Bushworld. “But I just don’t know if this is realistic — why experiment in such a large-scale way?”
McCain strategists insist their paradigm can work. And the sour national climate for the GOP, McCain’s limited money supply and his preference for an impromptu campaign style that he can take to all parts of the country mean there is no other option but to break the mold, says one aide.
“To run a normal, typical race like a normal, typical Republican, we would win 45 percent of the popular vote and 189 electoral votes,” this aide says. “You can’t just go to Columbus.”
Any $ from me is yet to be determined.
We better hope so. The prospect of a President Obama is too frightening to contemplate.
However it helps that his opponent is guaranteed to be a horse's ass.
He needs to get someone to help him who is a pro at free media, like say Mike Huckabee, to help him with this. One problem is that I am not sure he has the force of personality to handle this sort of thing day in and day out without blowing up in front of the cameras.
No.
I don’t care anyway. We still lose.
Its as entertaining as watching a train wreck. While being a passenger.
He needs to go home and sit on the porch.
We shall see if running fewer TV ads is a good thing. Put me down as skeptical.
McCain is GREAT at free media. He’ll need to continue milking that cow.
I think McCain’s plan to campaign nationally is risky, but a good strategy for HIM. Regardless of whether people believe it or not, McCain has strong appeal among Independents and Dems. He’ll be competitive in several blue states. If Obama is the nominee, McCain will do well among whites and Hispanics.
“Its as entertaining as watching a train wreck. While being a passenger.”
Couldn’t agree more. Well said.
Ha! How emblematic is that. McCain will get the votes of conservatives. He will not, however, get their money.
Thank you RNC.
Running against Bush will NOT help regardless of Bush’s perceived unpopularity.
How many times have we heard this?
I think MSM will turn vicious vis-a-vis McCain just as soon as the Democrat candidate is finally selected.
If Obama or Hitlery win; within 2 years, even the Rats are going to miss W.
This has gone from being the Democrats’ to lose to being McCain’s to lose and as soon as the Democrat nominee is successfully chosen it will swing back unless we get riots at Denver. That’s why we have to hope the Clintons make it to Denver and steal the nomination from Hussein.
Seems to me all he needs to do is run against the dim candidate using their own tv footage. There’s sure enough there to put together some pretty scary ads against either Osama or Hitlery.
“He needs to get someone to help him who is a pro at free media, like say Mike Huckabee, to help him with this.”
Well, I used to think the old Joe Isuzu commercials were fun to watch, once in awhile... but I never bought one.
Wrong, he got nominated because the MSM engineered it knowing he was the weakest candidate we had. The MSM won't engineer a victory over any Dem candidate.
True words.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.