McCain Is No Bush When It Comes To Organization

Posted by Ashish on 07.02.2008

Republican party frustrated with McCain's lack of organization...

After the state-of-the-art grassroots campaign George W. Bush ran in 2004, the Republican party is finding itself very frustrated with John McCain thus far. Here is a good write up from David Paul Kuhn about how McCain basically wasted the four months he had after he won the nomination and didn't set up infastructure anywhere. In a year where Obama already has massive organizations in every state, the Republicans can't really afford anything less than what Bush had in 2004, and so far, McCain isn't anywhere near that.

"Here is where the problem is: We had a nomination gap between when McCain was nominated and the Democratic race completed," a swing state Republican Party chairman said. "I think [campaign manager] Rick Davis and his team did not have an understanding of how the grass-roots, organizational part of the party works. They did not use what the [Republican National Committee] had done, or how groups like the [National Rifle Association] could have helped the McCain campaign locally.

"They are just now opening up campaign operations in most states. The RNC was ready to go in most states in March," the state chairman continued, listing off grievances ranging from the campaign's "dictating" the members of various RNC committees to the state party's having been "threatened" that, though McCain "couldn't afford not to play in our state," the campaign would not "recommend us for resources" if the state party did not abide by its requests. ...

"You are going to hear a lot of complaints from state party chairmen," one chairman said of his colleagues. "They are used to the Rove-Mehlman model. They were very good at finding the place they needed to win, down to the county they needed in Ohio.

"They are used to millions being raised for them, they're used Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman providing a lot of infrastructure for state parties," the chairman continued. "What people are being told is we are all on our own."

It's Obama that is following the Rove-Mehlman model this year, not McCain.