Friday, June 06, 2008

JOHN MCCAIN

Team McCain Offers Their Outlook on the General Election

Several senior staff members of the McCain campaign, including campaign manager Rick Davis, held a briefing for a handful of campaign correspondents today.

Finances: In the past 60 days, the McCain campaign’s finances have improved dramatically – Davis describes it from “being even” to “a place where we have a significant cash bank account… Going from zero to $30 million is pretty significant. We’ve expanded our capability to fundraise, and not spend too much over past 60 days. We chose to consolidate.”

“It’s a much more egalitarian environment, moneywise, than anyone’s willing to report,” Davis said. He explained a chart that showed John McCain’s campaign and the RNC having a combined $85.1 million ( 53.6 for the RNC, $31.5 million for McCain and their “what we believe, pretty confident” estimates of their counterparts – $46.5 million cash on hand for Obama, $4.4 million for the DNC

“We’re at least $35 million ahead of them in terms of cash on hand,” he concluded.

What happened to all of Obama’s money? Ask Hillary Clinton, it would seem. The McCain folks noted that their “burn rate” in April – where their primary was over – was 45 percent; Obama’s burn rate for the month that included that key Pennsylvania primary was 114 percent.

“I realize Obama is the greatest fundraiser in American political history, but he blew through a couple hundred million over the past few months,” Davis said. “Barack Obama will not have 60 days where he effectively doesn’t have competition the way we had.”

Asked about public financing, Davis said, “it’s an option for us, and it’s a pretty good option. But we’re raising a lot of money. If Obama would make this deal with us today, we would take that deal. But all we’ve seen is obfuscation and avoidance from the Obama people.”

The Environment: Davis: “Our greatest hurdle is the political environment. You guys know the numbers – wrong track, generic ballot, etcetera. A third term for the party in power is always difficult – our president has very low job approval numbers. it’s a tough environment We get it.

Davis noted the issue environment has changed dramatically since the beginning of the year. In most of the country, energy and jobs ranked as the number one issue. Iraq, the top issue in many parts of the country, is now second almost everywhere. Only in the Southwest did health care rank as a top issue.

The campaign showcased an intriguing chart that compared poll results whan Americans were asked to describe themselves ideologically and then describe McCain and Obama. McCain’s graph largely matches the public – 17 percent see him as “very conservative”, and 17 percent of the public describes themselves the same way, on through “somewhat conservative,” moderate, and liberal.” Obama’s chart is very discordant; very few Americans see him as very conservative, and 55 percent see him as “liberal” – a much higher percentage than the 21 percent of the public that sees themselves as “liberal.”

Perhaps most ominously to those who would prefer a Republican presidential candidate who echoedtalk radio on the issue, illegal immigration, Davis noted that McCain’s history of stands on immigration that caused him such grief in the GOP primaries “may suit to fit him in a general election.”

The States: McCain’s first general election ads went up in 54 markets in 10 states today – Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. They noted that while they did not purchase ad time in West Virginia, several of the stations in adjacent states reach the West Virginia market.

Team McCain is thinking bigger, though, and they also have a broader map of “in play states” or states that they are watching that includes the 11 above as well as Washington, Oregon, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Jersey, Delaware (I am skeptical), and Maine.

Some of these states appear to be holdovers from a McCain vs. Hillary matchup. Davis noted that they trailed Hillary by 10 points in Arkansas, but lead Obama by 10 points.

Davis rattled through the list of potential target states.

California “interests our campaign a lot” because of the “unique appeal that McCain has to independents.” “I wouldn’t say we’ve got it identified as a target state, not going to commit a lot of resources – Arnold is very popular there, and we paid up well with his reputation and imagery.”

The southwest, Nevada and New Mexico – he is a natural fit and is very familiar with the dominant regional issues — water, development, land use, property rights. Throghout his career, he received 70 percent of Hispanic vote in Arizona consistently.

In Wisconsin and Michigan, “polls show we’re very competitive.”

In Connecticut, “polls show us within the margin of error. The strong association with Senator Lieberman helps McCain… I wouldn’t have said this was a targeted state a month ago, and I might not say it is a month from now.”

New Hampshire: “It’s John McCain’s second home. He has a history of success there.”

Ohio, Pennsylvania: “In Pennsylvania, 12 percent of the electorate identifies as Democrats who say they won’t vote for Barack Obama. We’d like to take those voters up on that.”

Race Coverage: “In the past few days, we’ve seen significant difference in the coverage, particularly from your colleagues in the electronic media,” Davis said. “On Wednesday, our press conference was covered start to finish. One of our town hall meetings this week was covered by all three cable networks, start to finish.” He joked that he was pleased to see McCain’s name on the front page of the Washington Post, instead of page A23. He said traffic to the web site had doubled, and that donations were increasing accordingly.

Charlie Black noted, “the June polls will probably show Obama with a 10 point bounce. We’ll see how long and wide it is, but that’s not where the race is going to settle in.”

Almost every publication covering the race has noted that McCain is running significantly ahead of the generic Republican in the generic head-to-head matchup; very few have noted that in virtually every public poll Obama underperforms the generic ballot, and this gap is even larger in swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Winning Over Hillary Democrats: Asked about Democrats who are not yet sold on Obama, Davis offered an intriguing comment: We have seen significant uptick in calls from states that have those voters. They have a lot of people who want to play with us." Later in the conversation, asked if he could be certain these individuals would really vote for McCain, he responded, "they're talking about endorsing us, so I think they'll vote for us." Asked which states they were getting the calls from, they said all over, but specifically mentioned Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Maryland. "In almost every state, there's a core that's starting to build, and we're putting names on paper."

The Ground Game: While conceding Obama’s huge crowds are an accomplishment, Sara Simmons, deputy director for strategy, noted that on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign, they decided that massive rallies weren’t always the best use of resources. It’s a huge resource allocation question of the staff’s time and effort,” she said. “We never did it for Schwarzenegger, even though he could have brought out huge crowds.”

Senior adviser Mike DuHaime noted Obama’s rally in Philadelphia, where 35,000 showed up; he went on to lose the state’s primary by almost 10 percent.

DuHaime also noted an anecdote from his counterparts on opposing campaigns in 2004, that the Democratic 527s couldn’t get Kerry and Edwards to do events where they really needed them, the exurbs outside the major cities. (They were forbidden by law from coordinating messages.) The candidates kept showing up in urban areas where the base was already motivated, ginning up enthusiasm among those already certain to vote.

06/06 04:08 PMShare