“assimilate these core beliefs”, junior ...
Matt Lewis was dominant in Morton Blackwell’s Conservative / Campaign Leadership Institute CLI. He’d teach classes in VA and fly around the country with his crew of Campaign staffers allegedly teaching candidates, and activists how to win.
I’ve taken several of the classes with friends. I’ve argued with him and his colleagues extensively in person and by email. The CLI strategy is partially responsible for why we did so well in 2010 and 2014. It is also why the Presidential race is not so easy.
CLI teaches to calculate how many votes you need to win. Then focus on the hard R areas. Totally write off the Blue areas. Only go to the Purple areas if you can’t win in the Red areas. Of course, at the same time, they are all about reaching out to minorities. But that’s mostly about making themselves feel less guilty than about winning. Go figger.
The result is winning most congressional districts in 2012 but losing the Presidential race. The reality is that we cannot write off all kinds of voters and expect to win long term.
CLI is very much short term focused because that is the nature of a campaign consultant. After a candidate has decided to run... and usually after he has publicly announced... and often after he has filed ... then belatedly the candidate brings in the outside campaign consultant. The consultant is there for the short term...to win in 60 days at a very high consulting fee and then move on to the next race ... or to write his book he knows everyone else is dying to read.
We need a ground game that builds everywhere and persists 365 and not just the 60 days before an election. We cannot afford to write off the purple and blue areas. The major reason is that people can feel it when they are being written off. They don’t like it. So even when they agree with you on the issues, they won’t vote for you and will either stay home and not vote, or vote against you to “teach you a lesson”.