“no wonder the GOP did so terrible in 2008, the Chairman was too preoccupied. Did he have some of his pardners on staff??”
Mr. Mehlman was not chairman of the RNC in 2008. The people in charge of the RNC from 2007 to 2009 were two great “heterosexuals” in the GOP, Senator Mel Martinez and Mr. Mike Duncan.
People can say what they want about this announcement from Mr. Mehlman, I only know the following about his politics, his political experience and his abilities.
As the head of the Bush 2004 re-election campaign, his candidate won when EVERYTHING in the public arena said the nation was so opposed to Bush over Iraq that Bush couldn’t win.
And, during that campaign, Mr. Mehlman created the first-ever nationwide, fully integrated, fully web-site and database integrated national and nation wide integrated get out the vote campaign.
I know, because I personally volunteered to work on it during the campaign and all the up to the final hours. As such a volunteer, you could access lists of GOP-registered and “Independent” registered voters, in your state or in other states, including their phone numbers; select them one by one from the list, note if you contacted them or not and note how you think they responded; all with a “pitch” that identified why your were calling (for the re-elect Bush campaign); and all with your actions continually updating the database everyone was working from.
It became a nearly full time operation for many volunteers in the final few days, and for many of us right up to when the polls closed.
Recruitment, sign-up and coordination was largely performed through Internet based promotion and Email.
How many Americans like me got involved? I was told that during the course of the entire 2004 campaign, about 1.5 million “grass roots” GOPers, like me, got involved.
And Bush won.
No doubt that was what led to Mr. Mehlman’s selection for RNC Chairman’s spot in 2005.
Like I said at the start of my note, Mehlman was followed by the Martinez/Duncan duo, who ran the oh-so-unsuccessful response to the Dims in 2008.
Oh no! You’re making sense!