This guy should have been top tier from day one, and he can’t get out of the basement. To me that says his campaign is poorly organized.
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You’re right about that. He didn’t even have a web site for a couple of months after he announced. He never went to Richard Vigurie for help and support. He never got the mailing lists from groups like the NRA, The National Conservative Political Action Committee, ACU PAC, Focus on the Family, Gun Owners of America, JPFO, and the national right to life groups.
All these groups are natural constituencies for him and have a history of raising money as well as a natural source of volunteers for the campaign.
He didn’t seem aware that the MSM and the Republican Party insiders were going to ignore him and that he had to go around them like Reagan had to do. Some of the same Republican insiders who opposed Reagan are still in positions of power in the party and don’t want a conservative nominated.
Donald Rumsfeld’s May 1976 memo to Ford’s Chief of Staff, Dick Cheney, regarding Reagan’s growing popularity and poll numbers states:
“THE MEMBERSHIP
— Many of the members of these groups are not loyal Republicans or Democrats. They are alienated from both parties because neither takes a sympathetic view toward their issues. Particularly those groups controlled by Vigurie hold a “rule or ruin” attitude toward the GOP. They are deeply interested in their particular issues, they will work to support their positions, they will turn out to vote in larger numbers than party regulars.
THE POLITICAL OPERATION
— The fund raising capability and the mailing lists enable these groups to carry out effective political operations in the primary cross-over states and in the caucus states through the use of three techniques:
a. Independent advertising. Being well funded, they can afford to conduct independent advertising campaigns on behalf of Reagan. Such expenditures are not chargeable to Reagan’s campaign.
b. Direct mail. They can target an effective direct mail campaign based on responses to fund raising mail using outrageous literature designed to motivate people interested in a right wing cause.
c. Voter turnout. The mailing lists can be turned into telephone lists and door-to-door canvassing lists and used to turn the vote out. These lists can be given to Reagan county chairmen or to the active organization members in an area for use in the voter turnout program. In a state where the GOP vote is traditionally small such an effort can be devastating. In caucus states where a few people attend the county caucuses such an effort can control the state conventions.
CONCLUSION
We are in real danger of being out-organized by a small number of highly motivated right wing nuts, who are using funds outside of the Reagan campaign expenditure limits. This fact explains the Reagan position on the FEC. If he can keep the FEC immobilized, this assistance to his campaign will not come to light. He is thus able to operate a relatively moderate campaign to capitalize on his natural support and obtain the winning margin from the right wingers support.”
Reagan lost to Ford and the elites in 1976, and Ford lost to Carter. But in 1980, Reagan and his “right wing nuts” went around the Party elites, and the media, got their message out early, won the nomination, and won the general election in a landslide. Hunter could have done the same thing Reagan did in 1980 if he had managed his campaign better at the start.
It was like he and his team weren’t around in 1976 and 1980 or weren’t paying attention back then. Whatever the case, he and every other conservative candidate, should study the Reagan/Ford battles and understand that they are fighting the Rockefeller Republicans who run the party as well as the MSM in the primaries.
Hunter could win in a Reagan sized landslide, but he’ll never get nominated now.
“Hunter could win in a Reagan sized landslide, but he’ll never get nominated now.”
That is ridiculous, after 26 years those of us that vote for him barely know who he is, he isn’t even well known in California.
He is retiring and is running this race to boost his son to take over the seat, while the district is a safe seat for any conservative, there are a number of local conservatives that are going to challenge the Hunter dynasty.
This race adds a dimension to the Hunter family claim on this congressional seat that is all.
Do you think that after 26 years in a sleepy right wing comfort zone, that in the year of his retirement that Duncan Hunter really expected to throw himself into the national scene and be transformed from a wall flower, work horse congressman, into a charismatic “New Reagan” that was going to sweep into the White House in a wave of newly born celebrity?
Excellent analysis.