Posted on 12/20/2007 2:57:29 AM PST by billorites
IT'S TIME FOR FUNDAMENTALS. There are just 19 days to go until the leadoff primary and the holidays are stuck in the middle.
Campaign strategists say it's difficult to know how distracted the New Hampshire electorate is this week or will be next week. But one thing is for sure. The race is in flux.
For example, last week it appeared that Hillary Clinton was falling fast. Pundits had predicted her demise. Her firewall had fallen and she was in a desperate way, they said.
She had fallen into a statistical dead heat with Barack Obama. Now, according to the latest CNN/WMUR conducted by the University of New Hampshire, she's back where she was -- with a 12 percentage point lead.
How can a candidate move up so dramatically after having had a bad week, highlighted (or low-lighted, as the case may be) by Bill Shaheen's comments, picked up nationally, about Obama's drug use?
Andy Smith, the poll director, says one possible explanation is the weather.
Yes, the weather. He said the poll released last week was taken Dec. 6-10. He pointed out there was "beautiful weather" on the weekend of Dec. 8-9.
So?
"Hillary Clinton is targeting working-class women," said Smith, "and two weeks ago they were probably out Christmas shopping." The latest poll was taken in part during last weekend, when, he pointed out, people were stuck at home, he said, giving a more accurate all-around sample.
"This is one explanation that's plausible," he said, adding, "It is still highly in flux and it is not going to be anywhere near decided until the final week."
Another help for Clinton and hurt for Obama, Smith noted, is "the Iraq issue has dissipated" and is now tied with health care as the top issue for likely Democratic primary voters." Clinton is viewed, by far, as the candidate best equipped to handle the health care issue, according to the poll.
But for all major candidates, there's more now, much more, than polls, television ads, visits and surrogates.
It's staff and volunteers making countless voter identification calls regardless of the good or bad news swirling about their candidate. It's state campaign officials insisting that the candidate get to the state as much as possible and work in retail settings to reach out to the multitude of undecided voters.
It's figuring out how to effectively navigate the uncharted waters of having two weeks to go before the primary and trying to appeal to an electorate distracted by the holidays.
During the first few days of January, expect New Hampshire to be virtually devoid of candidates as they blitz first-caucus state Iowa. The night of Jan. 3, after the caucus results are in, will begin what is widely considered the most exciting five days (it used to be eight days) in American politics.
The final push is on already. While the airwaves are stuffed with political ads and while political mailers compete with Christmas cards for room in your mail boxes, the races, especially if they're close, will be won or lost in the end with the so-called ground game, the get-out-the-vote effort.
All campaigns are gearing up. The good ones are readying troops that will canvass the state in the next few weeks with person-to-person, retail politicking.
While the media focused on Shaheen's blunder and the alleged Clinton collapse, both Clinton's and Obama's New Hampshire campaigns last week were well under way with get-out-the-vote meeting in towns across the state. We reported last week on the big turnouts at the Obama gatherings.
As Clinton came to the state last weekend and received positive coverage going door-to-door in Manchester, her troops did not panic. A field staff meeting last weekend drew 90 people. Her delegate selection caucus in the 1st Congressional District, drew more than 250. A Manchester volunteer get-out-the-vote meeting drew about 100 people.
Campaign co-chair Kathy Sullivan said, "I'm really pleased with where the campaign is right now. We have the best, most experienced candidate who has a record of making change happen, and the best organization. It will be an exciting 19 days."
In the Republican universe, Mitt Romney's campaign must have the "disrespect" sign, formerly used by the New England Patriots, in its proverbial locker room.
Yes, the race is highly subject to change, and yes, John McCain has displaced Rudy Giuliani for the number two slot, but Romney maintains a strong lead.
Campaign strategists are never truly comfortable with the New Hampshire electorate, but they point out that their man is the only Republican playing strongly in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
McCain and Giuliani have essentially blown off Iowa. Giuliani's campaign says that despite appearances to the contrary, Rudy is playing for keeps in New Hampshire. More about that later.
The Romney mantra is "keep your head down and keep going," said one Romney strategist. "We never thought this was a 15-point race. We think it's an 8- to 10-point race."
Indeed, it's been rare in primary history for a candidate to have maintained such a strong lead through the year leading up to the primary. It's not over, but the Romney camp believes it can finish the job because it believes it has as good of an army on the ground in New Hampshire as any candidate.
Romney returns to the state tomorrow for three days of campaigning that will take him from Nashua to North Conway to Milford.
"In these last few visits, we're trying to make sure we hit as many towns and meet as many people as possible," said spokesman Craig Stevens.
The campaign is confident that it is regaining strength in Iowa and looks forward to upcoming polls there. While the veteran Granite Staters in his campaign know that New Hampshire voters do not necessarily follow the lead of Iowa caucus-goers, they know it certainly can't hurt him here if he wins the Iowa caucus.
Relying on early-state momentum rather than a 50-state strategy, the campaign believes it can build unstoppable momentum toward the nomination by winning the first two states.
As for Romney's ground game, Stevens said, "I think that, indisputably, folks will say we are the strongest organization."
Campaign adviser Rich Killion says the campaign has been phone banking since the spring "from Berlin to the Seacoast to Keene. We're doing all the blocking and tackling that has to be done."
McCain's organization has picked up steam as he has gained in the polls.
Political director Mike Dennehy said since a successful pre-Thanksgiving visit, "We've been able to increase our volunteer base by about 30 percent."
He said the campaign has quickly organized an independents' coalition of 300 to go along with its coalition of GOP officials and activists, veterans, women and business leaders. He said this year's veterans group is stronger than the 2000 version, when McCain won the primary.
The current volunteers are recruiting more volunteers, participating in phone banks and going door-to-door.
"We have large-scale phone banks in all corners of the state," Dennehy said. "We have volunteers here and over the next few weeks, about 250 volunteers will be coming in from out-of-state on their own dime."
How are the candidates handling the holidays in their television and mail advertising?
Very differently.
Mike Huckabee looks you in the eye and, with "Silent Night" playing in the background, softly says this is the time of year to "remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends."
Giuliani, in a red sweater vest, talks about "a safe America" and other issues -- and fruit cake.
Romney, in a very serious spot, unveils former business partner Robert Gay to tell the story of how Romney closed down the Bain Corp. in 1996 to search the streets of New York City, along with company workers, for Gay's missing daughter.
But perhaps the most powerful is McCain's "My Christmas Story" mailer.
He tells how, during his POW days in Vietnam, one of his prison guards quietly loosened the ropes that painfully bound him through many nights and then met him in the prison courtyard one Christmas Day.
"He walked up and stood silently next to me, not looking or smiling at me. After a few moments had passed, he rather nonchalantly used his sandaled foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas, even in the darkness of a Vietnamese prison camp. After a minute or two he rubbed it out and walked away."
Last night, Dennehy said, "The mailer had such a positive response it will likely be turned into a television advertisement."
Wayne Semprini says the "story" of Giuliani blowing off New Hampshire is old, and false.
He bluntly denies that the campaign is making any staff shifts out of state.
"If there are any staff shifts, it's going to be more people coming into New Hampshire," he said.
Yet, Giuliani continues to fade, if the new poll is to be believed. Semprini says it's because voters aren't yet paying full attention.
He said decisions to move advertising money from state to state "is done in response to when we think people are listening. We're in uncharted waters right now. I'm not so sure people are listening."
Semprini said the campaign's voter identification callers are working tirelessly, "and they're finding that people are undecided. But we are where we need to be so that we can do what we need to do to get out the vote," he said.
"We've got this guy (Giuliani) coming up here a lot and we're trying to be very, very disciplined in how we use his time," Semprini said. "But he has been here a lot and he will be here a lot through January 8. He has more visits here than he has in any other state, by far."
The non-profit group making thousands of calls into New Hampshire on behalf of Huckabee says they're not push polls.
After a front-page story appeared in the New Hampshire Union Leader, Patrick Davis of Common Sense yesterday issued a statement saying that they're different because "each one is based on the individual. Push polls are designed to be a one-way communication. During a personalized educational call enabled by our voice recognition artificial intelligence technology, a participant has a two-way dialogue."
But, legal issues aside, isn't Davis concerned that these calls are hurting the candidate he supports more than helping him?
"No, I'm not," he said. He said, "and what would show that is what kind of responses we get."
He noted that the recorded calls end with a telephone number that goes to his office for anyone with questions or complaints.
"As of (Tuesday) night, we had received eight calls from New Hampshire and only three of them asked to have their number removed from the list," Davis said.
Davis said the calls will end after tonight "out of respect for the holidays" and will begin again after the New Year.
McCain's campaign yesterday joined the Huckabee campaign in asking for an Attorney General's Office investigation, which it is already conducting.
In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch, McCain campaign attorney Chuck Douglas says, "We demand a full inquiry into these distressing and illegal calls."
Veteran communications expert Doug Hattaway has joined Clinton's New Hampshire campaign as a paid consultant and communications advisory.
Hattaway is also working on Jeanne Shaheen's U.S. Senate race, but says that will go quiet for the next couple of weeks.
Assisting state communications director Kathleen Strand, Hattaway said he will be on the ground in New Hampshire for the next few days and then back for the Jan. 1-8 primary push.
Hattaway was a spokesman for Shaheen when she was governor and for John Kerry when he was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004.
John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader.
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