Posted on 08/25/2014 5:22:45 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
The DEMS of Arkansas saw how far Blanche Lincoln was tossed and don’t want it to happen to Pryor.
As for me and my house-TOM COTTON gets our vote!
Too bad all my deceased parents, (Democrat to the core but never voted because they did not want to be called for Jury duty) will be voting for Pryor.
How much are they paying per vote to rescue the ObamaCare senator, Pryor?
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Not sure. I have a call in to Haley Barbour in MS to find out the going rate. When I hear from him, I’ll let you know.
And why don’t the GOP have more donors?
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Because Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove, Lindsey Graham and all the other RINOs hate the Conservative base who usually foot the bills. This year, Conservatives are telling the RNC and the RINO hierarchy.... “eff you”.
They can do this because they have MONEY that the GOP doesn’t.
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Well, the GOP should not have pissed off their Conservative base.
that is no excuse for the primitive and laughable web design. Pathetic micro targeting. They are stuck in the stone age with decrepit seniors running their local republican clubs. For them a clamshell prepaid phone is high tech.
I remember looking at the then website of McCain and noticing how even their metatags (which were actually used back then) were non-existent or weak at best.
As the house majority leader learned, money is not everything and arrogance is toxic.
not unless a GOP operative asks and uses their absentee ballots first.
Absentee ballot fraud is out of control.
It’s not just money alone. It’s the pervasiveness of it throughout the system.
Why is it that GOP IT employment sucks? It’s because the best political IT staff are Democrats. Why are they Democrats? Because they’ve been GROWN as Democrats, at every step along the way of their development.
When I was in undergrad, over 20 years ago, we had the College Republicans on campus. We also had a breakaway faction of pro-Pat Buchannan Conservatives.
There were at least a dozen different Dem groups. They were well-funded. They were everywhere. In many respects they dominated the social scene and in collision with the faculty they DID dominate the academic one.
I can’t imagine what it’s like today.
Like I said, we’re smart enough to be mad, stay mad and not fall for the tricks. Unlke the Dem base.
But not smart enough to realize what that does to us in the long-term. Cutting off ones nose to spite ones face generally doesn’t work that well.
The base would fund an honestly conservative GOP.
The current, dishonest and not-conservative GOPe? Not so much.
And there is value in organizing beyond what an individual candidate can muster in a single campaign.
True, but does it make sense to fund a dishonest and non-Conservative GOP now, in order to create the organizational infrastructure and opportunities that will force it to become honest and Conservative down the road?
Building a permanent, 50-state campaign apparatus (which was Howard Dean’s goal as DNC Chair) is going to open a LOT of paid opportunities for Tea Party and other Conservative activists. Who will then grow in influence within the larger GOP organization (formal and informal) over time.
But that sort of thing takes time, patience, the willinness to take intraparty political losses, etc without just upping and walking away in anger and frustration.
This is how the Progressives worked within the Democrats over the last few generations. The 1970s battles between the Progressives and the Dem old guard were legendary, for instance. And while progs like Patricia Schroeder got kicked in the teeth quite a bit by her own Party, she and her fellow travellers were patient enough to play the long game knowing their to e would come.
It did, and it’s now her/their political heirs running the Dems and the country.
But the GOPe is all around incompetent and corrupt—funding them doesn’t lead to positive results.
Just look at how good they are with advanced computer apps compared to the Dems—and then also look at how much insider dealing there is with top RNC staffers making millions off of providing failed applications to the RNC.
I witnessed it first-hand here in Virginia...yes the republicans ate their own and clinton’s henchman won the governor’s election...but it was the AG slot that the dem machine stole...which was critical. What they do is they wait to report their districts on election night until they know how many votes are needed. A close vote either way means a runoff. Do you really think somewhere like Fairfax county is going to vote “R” in a runoff? Unfortunately now McAwful can stack the deck for future legislation and won;t be investigated for crimes by the AG...that’s no BS!
The donations need to be, wherever possible, bundled so that conditions can be attached.
There was an article a while back, can’t remember where from but it spawned a number of threads here, about the tech savvy of the team that led Dave Brat’s successful insurgent campaign and how they leveraged technology (and some duplicity in getting Dems to give up details on how THEY use tech to win)
THOSE are the kinds of folks who need to be brought into the fold and set loose. But you can’t bring them in unless the money is there for paid positions for them. Paying for positions generates leverage to have them hired ...
Sounds to me like a propaganda piece written and leaked by the RNC to send the message “send us more money!”
No, that’s not the issue—the money is going to GOPe insiders and their cronies.
You are making the implausible argument that if only we give them more money they will stop sabotaging our cause. Not gonna happen.
Come now the Chamber of Communism is doing it’s best! It would seem that in the general election the liberal Republicans haven’t figured out where to buy their votes since their big money cronies only get one actual vote and the liberal republicans are not as adept at just stuffing ballot boxes, but they are learning. Perhaps Rove could ask the Barbour motorcycle gang in Mississippi for tips.
They can’t come out full blown socialist and compete with the democrats that way or they would lose some of the votes of the suckers who still think the Republicans are different so they can only show much of their leftist tendencies in public.
With it being a general election and democrats buying up their usual votes the leftist Republicans are stuck out in the cold with money to spend but no votes to buy. So what’s a socialist lite party to do???
The GOPe also aren’t nearly as motivated to defeat Dems as they are to squash tea partiers and conservatives.
What makes you think that both are not true, republican are stupid and there is vote fraud?
I suspect that Harry Reid would not have broken the Senate Rules if he though there was any chance they would lose the Senate and the only way he could be sure is fraud, where needed.
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