By Mosheh Oinounou

They could face an uphill climb to win the general election, but being cast as the underdog is a role they are comfortable with at John McCain’s campaign headquarters.

“We are very practical, I think, about the cycle that we are in … (and the) significant environmental hurdles that we have to get over,” Campaign Manager Rick Davis told reporters at the end of a nearly 90-minute, state-of-the-campaign briefing Friday. After all, it was only six months ago that McCain’s primary campaign was declared dead before recovering and finally laying waste to the Republican field within a month of his first victory, in New Hampshire.

Addressing about two-dozen political reporters at a temporary conference table on the 13th floor of the campaign’s Arlington, Va., headquarters, Davis ticked off the recession, record low presidential and congressional approval ratings and surveys that show 80 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, among other obstacles the presumptive GOP nominee will have to overcome in the next 200 days if he hopes to win the White House. Another historical factor is also staring the campaign in the face — a political party has only won a third straight term in the White House once in the last 50 years.

Click here to read more about the McCain campaign strategy.  

But for most of the briefing Friday, Davis and fellow senior advisers — Mark Salter, Charlie Black and Steve Schmidt — painted an optimistic picture of an eventual victory over Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton this November. In sum, they believe the senior Arizona senator is his own unique brand — different from the GOP or President Bush — and his policies and character will elevate him to victory over his eventual Democratic rival.

They were also quick to dispute a number of the political challenges McCain faces that are becoming conventional wisdom.

The Democratic strategy to paint McCain as a third Bush term? “I don’t think it will work,” said Schmidt.

What about those low Bush and overall GOP approval numbers? “It is exciting to us that the senator over-performs really any other Republican … it gives you a pause and some optimism,” Davis explains.

Will McCain have enough money to compete if he is restricted to public financing? “I’m not sure the premise that we are going to be outspent, 3-to-1, 4-to-1 is accurate,” says Davis.

And how will they address that age thing? “Senator McCain’s schedule has two or three times the number of events and press conferences Senator Obama does and Senator Obama often appears rather exhausted by his schedule,” Salter chimes in. (McCain turns 72 in August.)

With that out of the way, Davis and company went on to describe how — from fundraising to communication to voter outreach — the McCain campaign is putting the final touches on a campaign structure it believes will carry them to victory in November.

After winning the GOP primary with one of the smallest and cheapest operations in recent electoral history, senior campaign advisers told reporters that the campaign has nearly doubled in size during the last month but intends to maintain a sleek, efficient and decentralized general campaign structure in order to take on the behemoth campaigns of either potential Democratic rival.

As Davis tells it, “We are obviously a much smaller campaign than either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton have, at least numerically, but we have always prided ourselves on being able to get more done with less. We have proven our effectiveness in that regard … it allows us to function in exactly the way that we believe is necessary to win.”

Among the key campaign innovations for the general is a structure that puts an unprecedented amount of responsibility in the hands of 11 regional campaign managers who will oversee the communication, fundraising, budgets and key political developments in the field.

“It gives us the ability to sustain what we think is one of our most important strategic advantages that we had in the primary and into the general, and that is speed and agility to make decisions quickly and deploy our resources effectively in what we think is the most rapid news cycle in the history of presidential politics,” Davis said, noting that he believes that McCain can put “in play” double the number of states that were competitive for Bush in 2004.

When it comes to fundraising — in which McCain’s totals continue to look paltry compared with record numbers on the Democratic side — the campaign is also particularly confident in their “unique” victory fund.

Davis laid out the campaign’s “joint committee,” which seeks to seamlessly combine the Republican National Committee and the campaign and enables top donors to give up to $70,000 a piece to the campaign through four different avenues:

– McCain primary fund: $2,300 limit

– McCain general legal fund (discretionary fund): $2,300

– Republican National Committee fund: $28,500

– State funds (New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin): $10,000 per state (selected because they are historically under-funded but competitive)

Davis hastened to add that when combined, McCain and the RNC have more money on hand than either Democrat plus the Democratic National Committee.

But the creative structure that enables the wealthy to still donate tens of thousands of dollars could also open up McCain, who once made campaign finance reform and the end of soft money a top priority, to criticism for finding every possible loophole for donors.

While his advisers were extremely open about most issues, there was one topic that was not on the table Friday — the vice presidential selection process. Asked to talk about where they were at in the process, all four advisers said “no,” nearly in unison.

“Next question,” Davis said.

Click here to read more about what political oddsmakers think of McCain’s VP candidates. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 11:11 am and is filed under John McCain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.