I tend not to read the Washington Post’s Michael Gerson, let alone columns titled, “The McCain Miracle,” so I almost missed this:
The style and approach of general election campaigns are often conditioned by the method of victory in the primaries. The Obama team ends the season like a battle-worn Army division — organized, relentless and skilled at fundraising, registering voters and getting them to the polls. Members of the McCain team feel more like survivors of a near-death experience — convinced that the virtues of their candidate and the blessings of the political gods matter more than the money, phone banks and door-knocking of traditional politics.
This worries some Republican strategists. One recently described the McCain campaign to me as the political equivalent of a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movie: Every morning a few guys get together and say, “Let’s put on a show!” McCain’s state campaign organizations, coalition outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts are weak or nonexistent. But McCain campaign officials are convinced that they will win — if they win — in a different manner from that of the methodical Bush campaigns of 2000 and 2004. McCain will either catch fire, or he won’t — and traditional efforts to boost turnout, in this view, are not likely to make the difference. Given its history, the McCain campaign is understandably proud of its stripped-down, seat-of-the-pants, insurgent style. But it may eventually be useful to have a serious campaign organization in, say, Colorado.
TNR’s Noam Scheiber adds:
In fairness, Team McCain is right to believe they’ll get crushed if this becomes a contest of mechanics. The mistake is to conclude that that means they should mostly ignore mechanics.
Yet, as noted here previously, some in the GOP have a very blasé attitude about it. Combined with the McCain campaign staff’s weaknesses in staging events, those worried about Team McCain’s attitude seem justified.  Camp McCain’s strategery briefing was not all that impressive from the outset. Lackadaisical execution could be fatal in a close race.
I don’t know how to reconcile myself with the idea that marketing strategy and business models are what it takes to get a person elected POTUS, and I should be ok with this, and dissappointed that the candidate I’m tepidly supporting hasn’t embraced this idea.
Hmmmm.
Meh.
Obama sucks. McCain sucks.
Sorry I just can’t get worked up about it.
McCain?
Dole with two good hands.
Is it 2012 yet?
Sounds to me like they’ve realized that reminding Republicans who they’re voting for when they vote against Obama will suppress turnout.
If it were my job to get McCain elected, I’d hide him.
And I’d kill myself.
psycho, I was going to tell you to vote prior to killing yourself, but dying isn’t necessarily an impediment to vote.
– Bye the time we get to the elections we’ll have one candidate that has to add a mortician to his staff to deal with the pi;e of bodies under the back of the MagicBusâ„¢, and another candidate that has to have a lapel microphone clipped to his oxygen mask so he can give speeches from St. Vincents rehabilitation center whenever he wakes up from his sedatives.
– If anyone would have predicted this campaign season, he would have been locked up for the publics safety.
It is if you’re not voting Democrat.
I actually get to talk to some campaign advisors next week at a fundraiser event. I’d be glad to pass on any suggestions. I know I have a few.
Rightwingsparkle,
1. Drill for oil in San Franscisco
2. Waterboard SCOTUS
3. Deport the DHS
4. Force FDA director to act as official Obama food taster
Roboc, how will any of that help Michelle get fresh tomatoes for her children?
Fresh salmonella tainted tomatoes, you mean? As much as I dislike what the Obamaworker stands for, I couldn’t wish that upon his children. The old addage, “you can’t choose your relatives” applies.
No no — the salmonella-tainted ones are for the rest of us.
I think McCain should hire Jeff as a speechwriter. We’d find out just how confident and strong McCain is while completing some of Jeff’s prizewinning compound-(compound-complex-compound-complex) sentences.
It would make this election fun.
[…] earned media, but if you wanted or needed further evidence of Karl’s point that Team McCain doesn’t do well with staging events, here you […]