Posted on 10/23/2011 2:35:52 PM PDT by drewh
The Iowa caucuses are now just 72 days away. Once Iowans vote on Jan. 3, the 2012 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination ceases to be about debates and gaffes and spin, and begins to be about actual results.
This week’s uproar over Herman Cain’s CNN interview with Piers Morgan will likely be a distant and irrelevant memory by Jan. 3. Despite Cain’s rhetorical difficulty in consistently articulating a pro-life position, his bona fides on the issue have long been established, as demonstrated in 2006 when he led a $1 million effort to encourage black voters to vote pro-life.
What should be more troubling for Cain’s supporters are persistent concerns about the strength of his campaign’s “ground game” in Iowa. Organizing for the Iowa caucuses is a time-consuming, labor-intensive effort and 10 weeks is a very short time in terms of building effective operations in each of Iowa’s 99 counties. That’s why many people were startled a week ago when ABC News showed Cain’s Iowa headquarters nearly empty:
Duane Lester of All American Blogger interviewed Cain’s Iowa communications director Lisa Lockwood this weekend at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Forum and asked her about that video:
Lockwood’s explanation — that many of Cain’s volunteers in Iowa are working from home, rather than from the campaign office in Urbandale — may help reassure Cain’s supporters, as do the latest poll numbers from Iowa. But the poll numbers also point toward a looming danger for the Cain campaign:
When you look at the RCP average, you see that every Iowa poll for the past two weeks (beginning with the Oct. 7-10 PPP poll) has shown Cain in first place and Perry in single digits. It is therefore scarcely surprising … that the prime directive of the Perry campaign is now “Destroy Herman Cain.”
Allahpundit yesterday explained what Perry’s situation means going forward:
[W]hile Perry can skip New Hampshire, I think he’s stuck having to compete in Iowa. Sooner or later he’ll have to suck it up and start attacking Cain in earnest.
And this is very much in line with what I wrote Friday:
That the Perry campaign has become a purely negative organization — a machine whose prime directive is the destruction of other non-Romney candidates, leaving Perry as the sole hope for the Anybody But Romney movement — is an inevitable consequence of how the campaign began with the goal of becoming the overnight front-runner. When you begin with that kind of plan, with your campaign organized around the idea of raking in front-runner money, you inevitably encounter a problem when, for example, a poll shows your candidate in sixth place in Iowa. … [T]he Perry campaign’s relentlessly negative message now – the turn to the Dark Side, as it were — is a predictable reaction to the failure of their original plan to become the overnight front-runner and Only Legitimate Alternative to Romney. Those who bought into the original plan, which fell completely apart within six weeks of Perry’s Aug. 13 announcement … are now trapped into an all-or-nothing effort to destroy Herman Cain.
That lengthy contemplation of the strategic logic of the Perry campaign was prompted by an item from Alexander Burns in Politico, showing how Cain has previously given ambiguous answers, based on a Human Events article in 2003, when Cain was beginning his campaign for Senate in Georgia. Having spent enough time on the campaign beat to know how these things happen, I observed: “$17 million buys a lot of opposition research, as well as a team of people paid to disseminate it. Excuse me for suspecting that Politico columnists don’t spend their spare hours reading eight-year-old back issues of Human Events, IYKWIMAITYD.”
Of course, there’s no telling who dug up that 2003 article. Mitt Romney’s also got an ace team of opp-research guys on their staff and, when I mentioned the Politico column in a phone conversation Thursday with Cain campaign communications director J.D. Gordon, he pointed out that Team Obama isn’t exactly shabby when it comes to planting oppo-research hits in the press. So it would be unfair to jump to the conclusion that Team Perry was responsible for that item, however …
The poll numbers in Iowa and the strategic logic of the Perry campaign point inexorably to the necessity of Team Perry “going negative” on Herman Cain — and doing so PDQ, while Perry can still get the maximum advantage of his fund-raising advantage.
Perry finished the third quarter with more than $15 million cash on hand, whereas Cain had about $1.5 million cash on hand. But the Cain campaign is now getting a huge influx of contributions and it has been suggested they may be raking in $200,000 a day online now, which would translate to more than $5 million by the end of October. That would be “Romney-esque money,” as one GOP consultant put it, and if they could keep up that pace, Team Cain might be approaching financial parity with Perry and Romney by Thanksgiving. So if the Perry campaign wants to strike hard on Cain with TV and radio attack ads, it behooves them to do it before the Cain campaign can accumulate the money and organizational resources to fight fire with fire.
And if Team Perry does mount an attack-ad campaign against Cain, they will almost certainly do so in Iowa. The combination of poll numbers and the campaign calendar explains this:
Iowa caucuses ………………… Tuesday, Jan. 3 New Hampshire primary …. Tuesday, Jan. 10 South Carolina primary …… Saturday, Jan. 21 Florida primary ……………… Tuesday, Jan. 31 Nevada caucuses ……………. Saturday, Feb. 4
Notice that there are 10 days separating New Hampshire (Romney’s must-win state) and South Carolina (Perry’s must-win state). If we assume that Mitt wins his must-win, Perry would be under extreme pressure in South Carolina, and the pressure would be even worse if Perry fares poorly in Iowa. And if recent poll numbers are any indication, Perry could fare very poorly indeed in the Hawkeye State:
Public Policy Polling (Oct. 7-10) ………….. Perry 9% (4th place) Insider Advantage (Oct. 16) ……………….. Perry 6% (6th place) University of Iowa (Oct. 12-19) …………… Perry 6% (5th place) Rasmussen (Oct. 19) …………………………. Perry 7% (6th place)
Can the Perry campaign afford for their candidate to finish fourth, fifth or sixth in Iowa? No way, José. They don’t necessarily have to win it, but if Perry finishes as far back as fourth in Iowa on Jan. 3, it’s unlikely he will do much better in New Hampshire on Jan. 10. By the time the South Carolina primary rolls around on Jan. 21, the media will have been doing “death watch” reports on Perry campaign for more than two weeks. If Perry then underperforms in “must-win” South Carolina, there will be another ten days of “death watch” coverage before the crucial Florida primary on Jan. 31. Romney is reputedly strong in Nevada, so by the time votes are counted there on Feb. 4, Perry could be batting .200 in the first five nominating events, and perhaps even 0-for-5 if he were somehow to lose his “must-win” state.
The strategic situation clearly indicates the necessity for Team Perry to leverage their current cash-on-hand advantage by mounting an attack ad campaign against Cain in Iowa, in hope of restoring Perry’s status as the most viable choice for the Anybody But Romney voters, who are a majority in the GOP primary electorate.
The reality is I don’t think Perry has any intention of going after anyone except Romney. That is where his energy is and has been directed."
REALLY? HOW ABOUT THIS?
The poll numbers in Iowa and the strategic logic of the Perry campaign point inexorably to the necessity of Team Perry “going negative” on Herman Cain — and doing so PDQ, while Perry can still get the maximum advantage of his fund-raising advantage.
Link to Perry's Strike Force Plan Against Cain
The campaign for Texas Republican Rick Perry is rallying a “strike force” of volunteers to work in Iowa right before the Iowa GOP caucuses, Politico reports.
Politico’s Mike Allen this morning shared a copy of the Perry campaign email, with the subject line: “Volunteer Need for Strike Force effort”:
“We are actively recruiting volunteers for the Iowa Strike Force effort. We are looking for about 1200 volunteers to be onsite the week of December 27 – January 4 or at the very least onsite no later than January 3.
If someone is asking you how to get involved in the on the ground operations in Iowa, you can have them e-mail strikeforce@rickperry.org for more information.
Please pass along to anyone who has expressed a desire to help. Thanks so much!”
The author is a blogger who calls himself “The Other McCain.” Perhaps the Admin Moderators could add that information.
He engages in “purely negative” quoting of other bloggers who claim that the Perry campaign is “purely negative.”
The whole blog post is “purely negative” speculation.
Perry has been the Establishment's back-up guy/Judas horse all along. Use his backers' money to drive out the other (or should I say "real"?) conservatives, then bring the conservatives voters to the altar of Moloch, god of the RiNO's.
We must draft, nominate and elect Sarah Palin president in the most crushing tidal wave of enthusiastic good judgment ever seen in the history of this nation. With that one bold move we will accomplish the dual goals of seeing America led by the greatest natural born leader in our generation, even as we witness the final implosion and last agonized shrieks of our endlessly lying extreme left loonies. Their entire movement, from the fabricated attacks on Bush beginning with ‘Blood For Oil’ to the crammed-down-our-gullets lies of Obamacare and the Shovel Ready Stimulus, have been nothing but one vile deceit heaped upon another. Such an absolute inability to deal in the truth or to face the facts of our situation and its solutions only proves that there is simply no place at the grown-ups’ table for these diseased sputa. Good riddance to rubes and bad rubbish. Time to usher in the American Renaissance, carried in on the invigoratingly freshening breeze of President Sarah Palin.
I feel this is from Mitt - just scanned it a bit and it just seems his style.
I agree.
I agree - Perry is the one attacking Mitt. This is Mitt’s hit piece.
HC: Not in my opinion, and in my opinion, it doesn’t have any reflection on Governor Perry. And I quite personally would rather people move on from that. It is a distraction. I want people to compare my economic growth and jobs plan to Governor Perry’s economic growth and jobs plan. I want people to focus on my economic growth and jobs plan versus Governor Romney’s economic growth and jobs plan. That’s what I want people to focus on.
HH: The other eyebrow raiser was when you told, I can’t remember who it was, and if I did, I wouldn’t give him the plug, that you couldn’t support Rick Perry right now. And I’m looking for all the Republicans except Ron Paul to say about all the other ones, I am going to support the nominee, regardless of who it is, that comes out of this process. Can you say that, Herman Cain?
HC: I’ve got to answer that two ways. Now that’s an entrapment question.
HH: (laughing)
HC: I did say, Hugh, that based upon Governor Perry’s positions on some of the things today like being soft on securing the border, providing tuition assistance for children of illegal aliens, I have a heart, but I happen to believe you cannot basically provide incentives for people to keep doing the same illegal behavior. And based upon a number of other things, I can’t support him today based upon his position on things. That being said, I don’t think he’s going to get the nomination. Now if it’s one of those other candidates up there, I am going to support them 100%. If Governor Perry gets the nomination, I will still support him, but it won’t be 100%.
HH: Okay, last question, in terms of the 999 plan…
http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/05446fb9-ebac-44e3-b373-a2213ecf916e
Are you kidding, I’m not a Perry supporter nor did I follow anything about him before the campaign and he was blasting the boy.
I saw that in the debate Perry was agreeing more with Cain but debating hard against Mitt!
If Perry's going to get the nomination then he'll need to knock off those ahead of him. Obama will come later.
I believe that is very obvious and MB is another one never attacking Mitt but protecting him.
You and I are seeing the same thing! Even his look towards Cain is gentler - you can see it change when he focuses back on Mitt with one of Mitt’s attacks. Mitt needs to work on his acting skills because he makes things obvious - he attacks Perry but not Cain. And Cain is passing him in the polls.
Who is your candidate? I remember you from that other thread where you posted that lie about Cain and then couldn't back it up.
Cain clarifies again: Abortion shouldn’t be legal, but some families might decide to break the law
NEWT’S on his way to NEWTER the boy.
Not for two reasons (and I'm not a Mittens fan, but interested in the tactics):
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