Inside the Democrats' Plan to save Arkansas - And the Senate

The Atlantic ^ | August 24, 2014 | Molly Ball

[Din Maker]

Arkansas—No sign announces the purpose of this little storefront. It's a Democratic Party field office. Democrats aren't advertising this office and 39 others; their locations are a closely guarded secret.

Arkansas is home to one of the nation's most intense Senate races. Democrat Mark Pryor and GOP Rep. Tom Cotton.

Democrats have mounted an ambitious organizing effort of technology intensive on-the-ground engagement.

The Republicans don't have an office in Pine Bluff. They have 11 offices open across Arkansas. They've recruited "hundreds" of volunteers, and the RNC has had staff here for almost a year. "We clearly have the largest mobilization we've had in my memory, which is pretty good," said state GOP chairman, Doyle Webb.

But the Republicans' effort pales in comparison to what the Democrats have built: Democrats are spending more than five times as much money in Arkansas, and have four times as many field offices and triple the number of staff. Republicans now have 11 offices open across Arkansas, party officials told me, all of them staffed by field organizers. They have recruited "hundreds" of volunteers, and the RNC has had staff here for almost a year. This effort is indeed bigger than anything the party previously built in this state. "We clearly have the largest mobilization we've had in my memory, which is pretty good," the state GOP chairman, Doyle Webb, tells me, crediting the RNC for stepping up its game. "We've been waiting for the cavalry, and now it's here."

But the Republicans' effort pales in comparison to what the Democrats have built: Democrats are spending more than five times as much money in Arkansas, and have four times as many field offices and triple the number of staff. In the month of July alone, the Arkansas Democrats spent nearly $900,000 while Republicans spent $155,000.

[Din Maker]

OK... Dems have 40 Field offices, Pubbies have 11. Dems outspending Pubbies more than 5 to 1. And people wonder why the polls in Arkansas, Alaska and other States with small electorates are so close? I'm hearing that old song in my head: "Slip, slip, slippin' away......"

[gr8eman]

Inside the Democrats' Plan to save Arkansas - And the Senate

If the frst paragraph in this piece does not mention vote fraud it is not worth reading further.

[9YearLurker]

GOP, incompetence is thy name.

[Liz]

SEN MARK PRYOR RECEPIENT OF COVETED "OBAMA RUBBER STAMP AWARD" Pryor doesn’t waver; said he would vote for Obamacare all over again. That's why Pryor recently got the coveted "Obama’s Rubber Stamp" award. Let's hear it directly from the horse’s mouth.....go to the video, where Sen Pryor avers that knowing what he knows now, he would still have voted for Obamacare back in 2009.

VIDEO at hotair.com web site.

=============================================

STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE As far back as 2008, at the presidential debate in Nashville, Democrat candidate Obama advanced his signature healthcare plan---ultimately enacted, by an historic straight Democrat party-line vote, into the "Affordable Care Act"

QUOTING 2008 OBAMA: "No. 1, let me just repeat, if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. All I’m going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You’ll still have choice of doctor.” Repeated over and over ---- with the promise that every American family would be saving $2500.00 on healthcare costs.

Significantly, Obamba NEVER corrected lock-stepping Democrats, all reading from the same Democrat talking points, all of them repeating the same Democrat promises---over and over again.

LOCK-STEPPING PARTY LOYALTY NOT SEEN SINCE 1930-40's ERA EUROPE Obama And The Dems marched in lockstep. The persistent Dumbocrat drumbeat ---- in obeisance to Obama ---- kept ringing reassuringly in our ears: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."

============================================

Here, Mark Pryor looks for (1) Arkansas Obamacare enrollees
who've paid for insurance, (2) who are actually insured,
(3) for millenials duped into paying for other people's h/care,
and, (4) for the "underserved" who had no insurance before ACA took effect.

[TomGuy]

The race for governor is leaning toward the Pubbie.

Asa ‘I will run for any office, please vote for me’ Hutchinson holds a 5-6 point lead.

That could be doubly troubling for the Dem Senator Pryor who is lagging behind Rep. Cotton by 2-3 points.

Cotton has lost a couple of points since June, however.

==

If both Cotton and Hutchinson (Rs) win, that will make Arkansas RED, since all 4 Reps and the other Senator are Republican.

[Din Maker]

If the first paragraph in this piece does not mention vote fraud it is not worth reading further.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

There you go again, gr8eman, with that same old bullsh** again. When are you gonna quit blaming vote fraud and put the blame where it belongs; on the fact that our team is freakin’ inept. The DemocRATS are more street-wise than our team and this article proves it. If our team would quit whining about vote fraud, like a little playground sissy, and start kickin’ some a**, we might win more elections.

[anton]

There has probably never been an honest election in Arkansas.

[Din Maker]

So, the bottom line, Liz, is this: You’ve given us the diagnosis, now, WHAT’S THE FREAKIN’ CURE???

I’ll tell you. It’s not sitting around and b**ching about the DemocRATS, it’s taking off the gloves and kicking some a**; which this article proves we are NOT doing.

[Din Maker]

Asa Hutchinson; wow, that’s a blast from the past. Didn’t he lose a very important election some years ago?

[Din Maker]

There has probably never been an honest election in Arkansas.
______________________________________________________________

I think you’re prolly thinking of Louisiana or Mississippi.

[tanknetter]

You can’t open and staff field offices with money you don’t have.

GOP fundraising sucks. Ordinary Conservatives have stopped giving it money and the Koch Bros. well only goes so deep. And I don’t know if anyone else has notced all the Koch Industries ads, but they’re pumping a LOT of money into their own Corporate PR, money that isn’t going to Republicans.

The Dems, on the other hand have many Koch-level donors. AND they’ve proven adept at separating their own idiot small-dollar donors from their disposable income. How much $$$ did they raise off of two weeks of a contrived impeachment scare campaign?

[TomGuy]

He lost to Beebe for governor in 2006.

[txrefugee]

How much are they paying per vote to rescue the ObamaCare senator, Pryor?

[tanknetter]

There’s a term in politics called “EMILY”. It stands for Early Money is Like Yeast. It’s been a cornerstone of Dem political operations for decades, and the Dem organization dedicated to electing women is named after it (EMILY’s List)

You can’t run effective political operations with money you don’t have. Volunteer work only goes so far: you NEED professional, experienced campaign staff to build and manage campaigns that can win.

That staff needs to be paid. And paid early enough where they’re actually running campaign ops when needed, as opposed to building the organization necessary to run them.

[tanknetter]

If the Dems hold the seat, and therefore retain the Senate, does the per-vote cost really matter?

[9YearLurker]

And why don’t the GOP have more donors?

I think the answer is pretty clear.

[ExNewsExSpook]

Straight out of the Obama playbook...after the 2008 campaign, Obama’s handlers maintained full-time staff in battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia, while the GOP shuttered its offices and waited until 2012. Of course, that gave the Dims a huge advantage four years later, while Republicans were playing catch-up (again).

I’m not sure how much of a permanent presence the Democrats have had in Arkansas since 2008 or 2012. But when you have a permanent campaign organization, it’s easier to mobilize the required foot soldiers and get them to the next contest.

Having spent a part of my life in the Land of Opportunity, I’ll make a little prediction. Those field offices are concentrated in Little Rock, Pine Bluff and the Delta counties. The Obama/Pryor machine knows everyone in those areas who are registered Democrats, or have voted for the Dims in past elections, dead or alive. And they will turn out to vote in record numbers in November, probably surpassing the 100% turnout we saw in some Obama precincts two years ago.

The GOP better put some money in this race and mobilize their own voters for the fall. Tom Cotton should have a much wider lead, and if he’s only 2-3 points ahead on election day, he may very well lose, since that puts the race in the “MOF” or margin of fraud.

[tanknetter]

The question for me isn’t why the GOP doesn’t have more donors, but whether donations are flowing instead directly to acceptably Conservative candidates running on the GOP ballot.

I don’t think they are. Cotton seems to be a decent candidate, worthy of support. But is, unfortunately, falling victim to the general dissatisfaction driven by the GOPe.

In a way Conservatives are smarter than Democrats in that we don’t fall for the overwrought chicken little sky is falling rhetoric the Dems use with great success to separate their base from it’s disposible income. But we aren’t smart enough to realize how well that works for them, and that we need to to fund out side with the same level of enthusiasm (driven by ruthless cynicism rather than rank gullibility, tho) in order to win.

[longtermmemmory]

Obama was opening massive amounts of campaign offices and each office had make work PAID staff. They were buying votes with paid staffer jobs.

The GOP might as well be working with commodore 64 computers.

[tanknetter]

The Democrats have a MUCH broader, and better, campaign apparatus. By that I mean pervasive: they cultivate activism in high schools and colleges, at work (through unions), professional activist groups (Comparable Conservative groups like Heritage tend to be intellectual and not activist in nature) and local and state campaign apparatuses.

They can do this because they have MONEY that the GOP doesn’t.