You have got to be kidding, right?
NOWHERE was McCain ever considered a strong candidate and he would have sunken if not for Palin. Look at vote totals and tell me he was strong.
McCain is not to blame here.
Absolutely is. He ran a poor campaign and wasnt even the favorite Republican candidiate, just the one left standing. He was the problem and his organization was to blame. That means him.
I sat there through 3 debates yelling at the TV – “don’t let that liar get away with promising 95% of the people a tax cut” – yet McCain just sat there and let him sell it to the millions watching. That was the beginning of the end…
Why was this such a big deal? I got on the Obama website and signed up to do phone calling. The script to be read for phone calling was “Barack Obama is the only candidate that will give 95% of the people a tax cut. That’s what we need.”
Other than Bush, that was their entire campaign. A little opposition research would have gone a long way!
Of course I called the names from the Obama site and said “I got your name from the Obama website and I am supposed to say Barack Obama is the only candidate that will give 95% of the people a tax cut, but I can’t because it is a lie.” Without exception, everyone believed the 95% line, but I did get several of them to check it out.
Two days later a guy from the Obama phone bank called me and ask how I was doing – and how pleased they were to have a registered republican supporting Obama – well, of course, I let him have it – telling him that, among other things, obama was a liar with his 95% crap – the poor guy really believed the lie and argued – and after a half hour I excused myself – and he promised to check it out – this poor guy really choked on his Kool-Aid.
A few days later I received a very nice letter and a bumper sticker. They were organized – of course the extra money helped – but when you’re fighting unethical people, you simply cannot let them run over you. The majority of republican male Senators have lace on their shorts – and very few have a backbone.
In the early eighties I wrote a computer program for the State of Washington that was far more sophisticated that what the RNC used 25 years later. For example you had to make LOCAL phone calls for the phone bank which was impossible since all mine were an average of 500 miles away. A simple match of area codes and prefix would have solved their problem – not to mention the jumbled up mess they used for their walking lists. Of course the state party in the early eighties (headed by the future congresswoman Jennifer Dunn) was more interested in getting contributions and throwing expensive parties for the ‘in crowd’. That year they sent out via snail mail a letter for contributions where one was to check off the percentage of their contribution to go to each candidate listed. None of the candidates got the money – it went to pay their huge salaries – that, my friends, is mail fraud.
In addition, that year we, personally, received numerous expensive pieces of mail – up to 5 a day (at that time they sent out gold leaf cards asking for contributions). I called the RNC to offer my help in eliminating duplicates to save them a considerable about of money and they told me they didn’t care how much money they wasted, all they wanted was for people to send $1, as they would then be committed.
This year they talked about the strong ground game in Florida – let me tell you the truth. There was no ground game. I had to drive an hour to pick up phone lists – I walked into this hole-in-the-wall where about 10 women were sitting around in the ‘waiting’ room visiting (Lord only knows what they were ‘waiting’ for) They steered me to the head of the phone banks – an elderly man with an Alaskan cap on – thinking he might be a fan of Sarah, I mentioned it to him. He didn’t seem to know who I was talking about, but bragged about all the Romney signs he had put out (this was late October). I gave up on the phone calling because most of the numbers were in Miami and I couldn’t understand them. So then, my daughter and I, together with my little grandson, decided to do the walking thingy – so, again we traveled another hour to the hole-in-the-wall to pick up the door hangers. I had left my purse in the car and ask if the buttons were free – no they were $1 and I ask if they could deduct it from the $100 I gave – no because the RPOF was separate from the RNC. But they did invite us to a party that evening at the club house (actually 2 blocks from my home). We ask them if anyone needed rides to the polls and they wrote our name and phone number on the back of an envelop along with that of another interested volunteer. (Of course no one ever called…)
We set out in my golf cart trying to follow the randomly listed walking list - and finally gave up on that too. Then we decided to go out at night and hang the door hangers – we did about 500. During this exercise we went back and forth to the clubhouse ‘party’ to pick up more supplies – a grand spread (estimated cost several thousand dollars). They were going to do phone calling, but when we stopped in for the last batch of door hangers – they were still eating and drinking… This was the night before the election…. I’m sure there were lots of frustrated volunteers ready to work – but the local organizations are sadly lacking…
The very dumbest thing about the mccain website was that they had no “contact us” form. They should have had volunteers monitoring the contacts, if for no other reason than to make people feel like they are really part of something – and to scan for any important information that might come in – like the obama phone bank (above).
Anyway – fire them all – Sarah needs a loyal group to work with!
Thanks to anyone who read all this mess! GretchenB