While much has been made of the money the Romney campaign has gone through in the first six months of 2007, at least some of it may have been well spent. Romney's Iowa organization has already caused Rudy Giuliani to opt out of the Ames Straw Poll next month - which in turn gave John McCain's flagging campaign cover to pull out, too. With Fred Thompson not really building an organization yet, Romney may have a virtual lock on Iowa already, reports Jonathan Martin of The Politico:
Six months before the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney has taken a commanding organizational lead in this traditional kick-off state.
Arizona Sen. John McCain's financial difficulties have forced him to dramatically scale back his Iowa campaign, and it's not clear whether former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani or ex-Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson will fully engage in the Hawkeye State caucuses.That leaves Romney as the sole representative of the GOP top tier to commit to the traditional Ames Straw Poll and offer himself to voters for up close and personal inspections.
The former Massachusetts governor has 20 full-time staffers, coordinators in most of the state's 99 counties, and a group of about 50 "super volunteers" that has already swept through the universe of likely caucus-goers with initial phone calls and have begun going door to door in key precincts.
Read the whole article at the link above. Giuliani apparently wants to keep just enough presence in the state to eke out a plurality win or second place after the conservative vote is split between Romney, Fred, and perhaps a bit for Brownback and Huckabee if they can raise enough to stay in the race through Caucus Night. Fred hasn't even visited Iowa yet, but he could grab some experienced staff by hiring the ones McCain is letting go.
While Romney is clearly the man to beat in Iowa, he cannot afford to lose the state. Normally, the others could simply walk away and avoid being seen as losing, but Romney also holds a steady lead in New Hampshire, the next state to vote. The risk of spotting a candidate the first two states clear, as when the same candidate wins IA and NH, the race has been over for practical purposes in both parties' histories.
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Filed under:
2008 Presidential Race, Iowa, Primaries, Republican, Romney
Tags: iowa, presidential campaign, primaries, Republicans, Romney
Comments (2)
Look, it is the MSM and man... (Below threshold)1. Posted by Glenn Koons | July 10, 2007 3:31 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Look, it is the MSM and many commentators that give these two early states, Iowa and NH such importance. Who cares nowadays about these two states ELECTORALLY?? Apparently, Fred and Rudy do not and they should not. Mitt is expecting the big MO after these two wins. With exactly how many electoral votes is that in the nominating convention?? Please. On Feb. 5, if Fred or Rudy get the majority of those states on Super Sun., they should get the nomination.
1. Posted by Glenn Koons | July 10, 2007 3:31 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 10, 2007 15:31
2. Posted by Jim Addison | July 10, 2007 5:04 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Of course these states aren't critical in terms of numbers of delegates. However, since the Iowa caucuses gained traction around 1976, no candidate who has won both Iowa and New Hampshire has failed to win his party's nomination, and only one candidate who won neither contest managed the feat: Bill Clinton in '92, when Iowa had Tom Harkin running as a "favorite son" candidate, and the rest of the field ignored the state.
Now, it is certainly possible the early successes (presuming Romney actually wins both states) could be overwhelmed by the closely following mass primaries in larger states. But primary voters tend to go with the early winners to get on the bandwagon. The level of commitment of pre-primary support to candidates isn't very strong for most people, beyond each man's "true believers."
A candidate winning both those contests will get a couple of weeks of free media, especially so for a guy from back in the pack. The coverage for the ostensible front-runners will be of the nature of "What went wrong?" and "Can you recover?" and "Are you going to withdraw?"
I won't say it can't be done, but allowing Romney to walk away with the first two contests would be extremely risky politics for those supposedly ahead of him. In any case, it certainly is Romney's most likely scenario for success.
2. Posted by Jim Addison | July 10, 2007 5:04 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 10, 2007 17:04