As someone who has stressed the under-covered role of organization in most campaign coverage, I recommend the latest from Jason Zengerle at TNR, tracing the fall and rise of John McCain’s campaign through the lens of organization and the infighting of his closest advisers, primarily John Weaver and Rick Davis.
The quick overview is that Weaver brought Davis into McCain’s 2000 campaign to run the campaign’s administration, while Weaver handled strategy — but Davis (a lobbyist by trade) wanted a role in the latter as well. Davis was thought to have the upper hand for the 2008 campaign, particularly as Weaver battled leukemia. But Davis’s role in the Reform Institute earned him and McCain bad press, so Maverick turned again to Weaver, who built an organization using alumni of the Bush 2004 re-elect team.ÂÂ
McCain gave Davis a fundraising role for the 2008 run, but this only ensured a rerun of the 2000 intra-campaign sniping. It also caused strategic organizational conflict:
As Weaver and [Bush ’04 political director Terry] Nelson worked from the top-down Bush playbook, Davis pushed for a radically decentralized campaign, with regional offices around the country–going so far, at one point, as to line up space in Beverly Hills and Manhattan before Weaver and Nelson quashed the idea. But the bigger problem was that the factionalism created a situation in which the people raising the money (who reported to Davis) didn’t communicate with the people spending it (who reported to Weaver), and the campaign soon faced a cash crunch, as inputs didn’t keep pace with outputs. “Whoever heard of setting up a system where the strategic and political arms are so separate from the finance arm that they don’t know how much money they’re raising and can’t be told?” asks one Republican strategist. “And that’s the system McCain set up, because he didn’t want anyone to get their feelings hurt.”
But McCain was not comfortable with the Bush-style campaign and its lack of fiscal conservativism. When the campaign foundered last July, McCain ultimately installed Davis as campaign manager:
Even then, McCain didn’t totally break from his passive management style by taking the logical step of firing Weaver and Nelson. Instead, he left it to them to resign.
Davis took the few remaining McCain diehards and built a new staff, including longtime GOP uber-lobbyist Charlie Black as the strategist replacing Weaver.
However, as Camp McCain heads toward the general election, various anonymous McCainiacs refuse to give Davis credit for turning the campaign around, crediting McCain instead.   They snipe that the new team has no one who will say “no” to McCain and rip that running the general election campaign through ten regional offices is “Davis trying to prove, once and for all, that he’s not just a rainmaker–but a master strategist.” Meanwhile, Weaver and Mike Murphy (who was with McCain in 2000, but neutral in the 2008 primaries due to Mitt Romney) still lurk in the background whispering sour nothings about Davis in McCain’s ear:
Laments one prominent McCain supporter: “I think the campaign would be well-served if they had more of them involved. But I wonder if the organization could withstand the personality differences and the insecurities that would come along with that on both sides. The only way it would happen is if McCain brought them together and forced them to work together and took control of it, and that’s not necessarily his management style.”
Regular PW visitors may recognize in this piece many similarities to Hillary Clinton’s dysfunctional organization – free-spending campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle demoted in favor of Maggie Williams and Roy Spence (brought in to lurk after Clinton lost Iowa), now-demoted strategist Mark Penn fighting with ad-maker Mandy Grunwald, Harold Ickes and others, claims Clinton won OH and TX despite her staff, etc. There was also Clinton’s presumptive front-runner strategy that failed to anticipate Barack Obama’s organization-based strategy to snag cheap delegates in caucus states.
The main difference between Clinton and McCain is that the latter’s front-running strategy imploded before people started voting, because McCain was never generally seen as inevitable. McCain thus had time to regroup and retool his campaign in a way that matched his personality, eliminated most of the infighting, and allowed him to win a war of attrition against a divided field.ÂÂ
In contrast, Clinton did not see Obama coming until late 2007. Her third-place showing in IA and squeaker in NH fueled campaign infighting, even as Clinton brought in shadow replacements. Obama’s fundraising and organizing talent swept lesser candidates aside quickly, allowing the NotClinton vote to gain critical mass. And the escalation of infighting among her staff prevented them from aligning her organization, message and strategy. Her campaign was left trying to repair the bus while it was still moving.
This is not to say the McCain campaign is in the clear, whatever the GOP’s internal polls might say at the moment. McCain is taking a decided gamble in sticking with Davis and his unprecedented plan for a decentralized general election organization. Moreover, that plan may not be the mere projection of Davis’s ego. McCain’s anemic fundraising and Internet operations may be due to a less-enthused GOP base, organizational blundering or both. His apparent leaning toward public financing reflects this as well. Ironically, McCain may end up having to rely on the 527 independent expenditure groups he has crusaded against and the party he has made a career of annoying to make up for these flaws.
Update: Insta-lanche!
A longtime Senator running a sloppy campaign for president? Who knew?
“Whoever heard of setting up a system where the strategic and political arms are so separate from the finance arm that they don’t know how much money they’re raising and can’t be told?†asks one Republican strategist. “And that’s the system McCain set up, because he didn’t want anyone to get their feelings hurt.â€Â
Boy, I can’t wait to see this guy in charge of the Executive Branch, how about you?
Listening to him say twice “but the point is,” while being interviewed by Megyn Kelley, made my heart sink. Just rhetorically awful stuff.
B Moe,
McCain was just trying to take the money out of politics. ;-)
<plaintively>Can’t anybody here play this game?</plaintively>
Regards,
Ric
Very interesting post, Karl. I’m enjoying your election series.
“McCain’s anemic fundraising and Internet operations may be due to a less-enthused GOP base, organizational blundering or both.”
Last week McCain was against housing bailouts, today’s he’s for them. What made him change his mind, his new/old Bush strategy? It makes me sick to see these candidates throw money at flakes to get their votes.
Yes, as I see the ugly spectacle of another “compassionate conservatism” campaign, I am not enthused.
I’ve twice tried to buy McCain bumperstickers via his website — got two “Thank you for your $5 donation” emails in response (in addition to the thank you for the more substantial donation that wasn’t intended as an overpayment for a lousy bumpersticker) — but no sticker.
This is crazy. Surely they want me to be giving them free advertising, don’t they? What kind of lousy organization would make this mistake?
It makes me fear for the election. McCain wasn’t my first choice, but I find him far preferable to either of the Dems — so much so that I want to put a sticker on my car. Obama can turn the internet into a cash cow. McCain can’t even send bumperstickers to his supporters.
What’s up with that?!
Thanks, Ardsgaine!
“I am not enthused.”
Patricia,
You’re very far from being alone in holding that sentiment. McCain’s campaign warchest is notably light and he will definitely be taking his tin cup to the FEC for filling. If the Dems had not decided to purge the Clintons this year, he would be beaten like a rented mule and the Arkansas grifters would start paying off their indebtedness to this years crop of Riadis and Chicoms in January 2009.
Fortunately, the purge has succeeded (so far) and you are left with a choice between a cheap Chicago race hustler and a narcissistic schizophrenic who generally sets his course by seeming whim. The hustler would definitely be more destructive (vide Zimbabwe) so the nutter is the obvious choice.
It’s difficult to fault the Dems in this because no true Dem centrist in his right mind would face off against the Arkansas grifters – and if any of them did, they would be ground to dust.
Karl,
Do you have the same level of detailed info re Obama’s team? I’m very interested in the makeup, especially any links to Dean/Soros and the SEIU. I’m wondering how the black bloc/MoveOn alliance will hold up after Obama is soundly beaten.
Rick,
I’ve looked at BO’s policy advisers, less so at his political people. I am familiar with David Axelrod, but I am unaware of any obvious connections to the axis you posit (though the SEIU is obvs on board with BO). I will look into it and report anything interesting.
Karl,
After Dean announced his 50 state “organizing” effort, I believe he turned to Stern and the SEIU for foot soldiers. He wound up with a bunch of ACORN/SEIU, straight from the prog plantation folks who have been excellent in corrupting the caucus process to the point where Obama has picked off a lot more delegates than would seem warranted for an unknown, untested and unskilled (nationally) politician.
[…] more exciting Flip-Floppery by Johnny InSane, like his dual positions on fixing the economy, his two competing campaign styles, the different hats his campaign consultants/lobbyists wear while working both sides of the street […]
Same concern here. I did get my bumper sticker,but that was back in October of last year. However, despite regular and sizeable gifts to the campaign, I was not personally notified in advance, by email or any other means, of his visit to my town today. I found out through the newspaper. That’s got to represent some problem somewhere, if you don’t identify and notify you strongest support base of a candidate’s visit with some sort of a personalized invitation. Oh, well. I will still be there and will still support him, because we cannot afford to do otherwise. I’m just concerned about what kind of campaign he will run.
Yeah, I set up a “team” on McCain’s website and donated like $50 to get it started so I could send emails to friends and family to join.
But my donations were never reflected on my “team” site (or whatever they call them), and after a few unanswered emails to the campaign, I gave up, and abandoned the idea.
Plus, I can’t figure out how I can help. The only emails I get are fundraising emails. I’m out of work, I have time on my hands. Use me.
After all that, I’ve come to realize that he probably doesn’t have the organizational ability to win this election. Especially in the face of a proven campaign organization like Obama’s.
I wish it wasn’t the case, but…
[…] the GOP’s presumptive nominee, John McCain, is supposedly running a decentralized general election organization. Campaign manager Rick Davis has been picking regional campaign […]
[…] previously noted McCain’s organizational and fundraising issues, I note that Heilemann highlights that […]
I think people here lamenting McCain’s organization on the basis of unreceived bumper stickers and emails are putting 2 and 2 together to make 5. (OK, maybe four-and-a-half.) All this suggests is that McCain’s campaign isn’t Internet-savvy, not that it is disorganized. The Internet is certainly a tool Republicans need to learn to use, but let’s be honest: it ain’t where their constituents hang out. The Internet is primarily the hobby of young liberals. Not McCain voters; not even Clinton voters. Obama outspent Clinton in Ohio and Pennsylvania and still got whipped. McCain’s campaign may be decentralized not because of the Bush model but because of the Clinton/Carville model, which recognized what succeeding Democratic campaigns have forgotten; namely, that above a certain minimum, a dollar spent in a state you can’t win is a dollar wasted. McCain isn’t even going to campaign in states like Massachusetts and Minnesota, so he may not even want a centralized campaign that funnels money there as a matter of course. If McCain carries the South and Texas, and wins Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida by one vote each, he’ll win the Electoral College in a landslide. I’m not suggesting, for the record, that McCain’s campaign is organized. It may be a mess, and he may get crushed. I’m just saying that a deficiency in Internet savvy doesn’t suggest general disorganization. Candidates were winning elections long before the Internet ever existed, and most voters are still far, far less Net-dependent than blog-readers.
Your site looks great! Best of luck to you.