But, even with money - they are grossly incompetent. Nothing has changed in 25 years, as with the example I stated in #426 - they didn’t care about wasting money. It has always been a group of elitists that are more interested in being important and throwing parties. In some cases they just lucked out - but to be able to beat the democrats - the party has to have devoted people to run it.
Good management is a wonderful thing. But would Bush have beaten Kerry if he only had $80m against Kerry's $577m? I don't think so. The reality of political campaigns is that they are ad hoc organizations slapped together for a year or so. There's no time to get everything rationalized. Workers are self-selected in part because of zeal or political connections rather than ability. I can't blame McCain for bad organization - what I will blame him for is making that $80m mistake.
You are right - even with $600 million, the grassroots Bush campaign in 2004 really wasn’t all THAT much better.