Friday, February 15th, 2008...7:13 am
Stuff I’ve Been Meaning to Write About
Here ’tis, a delayed reply to the good folks at Wactivist and a late post-mortem for the Obama for America-Arizona campaign.
Last week, Tom-AZ over at Wactivist put up a couple of posts (here and here) asking why Barack Obama lost here in Arizona. He took an uneeded swipe at their political director, Toni Morales. I was a volunteer on the campaign only a couple of weeks, so it is hard for me to judge the inside decisions and who was responsible for them. However, I thought that the political operation, which Morales was in charge of, was successful. Of the magnaty that endorsed candidates that dropped out, the only one I can think of that didn’t go for Obama was Ed Pastor. A big one, for sure, but the fact that it seemed like former John Edwards and Bill Richardson endorsers went en masse for Obama says that she must have been doing something right.
For me, the big mistakes that the Obama campaign were what seemed to be the lack of presence in most of the rural counties (ironically, the reason for his showing in Nevada was that he had a strong “Cow County” operation) and I think that Obama should have made an appearance in Tucson instead of a second in Phoenix (at the same darned venue!). They may have been been targeting too small a voter universe with their contacts as well. Shoulda woulda coulda.
All told, I don’t think Obama did poorly here. A couple of weeks before the primary, he was supposed to lose here by margins unseen since the last time Afghanistan played a World Cup qualifier. Some December and January polls showed him losing by 25 points. He went on to lose by only nine points. If this were a race for US Senate, a win by 100,000 votes or 1 wouldn’t matter, but since this is a race for delegates, the margin is a big deal. Given this, the question should be what happened to Hillary Clinton’s campaign here?
I know that AFSCME was making calls for her, but other than that, what was the field operation? When I would talk to people who had been contacted by her campaign, the “contact” was more likely an automated “robo call” than a knock at the door or a call from a volunteer (and, aren’t those robo calls so popular?). When I worked for Wesley Clark in 2004, we’d trip over Howard Dean volunteers all the time. In my time volunteering for Obama, I never saw any evidence of a Clinton field operation.
I have talked to a few elected officials and party leaders and it was fascinating how their support was never solicited by the local Clinton campaign. One official who had endorsed Edwards was contacted by the Obama folks while he was still an Edwards supporter. The Obama campaign invited him to events, and even got him up close to shake hands with the candidate. The Clinton folks didn’t bother with him. Guess who he endorsed when Edwards dropped out? I managed to talk to only two people, a local party leader and an elected official, who were solicited. One was so turned off by the ham-handed rhetoric from a local Clinton leader that she didn’t endorse anyone, the other was contacted by the national campaign last year, but never had any contact with the state campaign.
The other night, I went to my district club meeting. The district chair allowed folks in the room who were running for delegate to speak. Six or seven candidates spoke, and not one was running as a Clinton delegate. This was a room full of Democratic activists, but not one of them was running to support person that just won the primary. This is despite the fact that it would be easier to get elected since she has slightly more delegate slots. Remember that these are hardcores, folks who stick with their person despite what the “national momentum” is (for example, there was at one person in the room that told me that he voted for Edwards on election day, despite the fact that he had already dropped out.) This says a lot about the lack of outreach of her local campaign, and tells me a great deal about why the campaign is in so much trouble nationally.
15 Comments
February 15th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
un-needed? How is that? Is she not responsible? She is the local. Their state director is a good friend of mine and is from New Mexico. Their field director was the deputy students for Obama person who was mysteriously dispatched to Arizona ( of all places ) a month before the Iowa caucus. She left her job at the Democratic Party to basically run the Obama campaign in Arizona. Her state director left 2 weeks after he landed to work in Iowa and then in New Hampshire before coming back to Arizona and he had responsibility for Utah as well.
I am not trying to be mean but a campaign structure is VERY much like a military or corporate organization. SOMEONE must be responsible and the enigmatic “D.C” too often takes the blame “NEEDLESSLY”.
Also, if you actually read my posts, I state very emphatically, that being critical of her is simply a vehicle to de-construct what went wrong here in Arizona. There are some great responses and I encourage everyone to actually read them. RubenX thinks it was demographics. Lisa thinks it was dis-organization at the state and Chicago level. Nathan thought it was the VBM program.
Point is, a lot of things went wrong and A LOT of things were great. The Obama volunteers were more organized and active than the Dean campaign was by about 100x ( in phoenix ), but your point is very well noted that there was little to no effort in Tucson and the rurals.
The TRUE failure here is that there is this notion that I am “Attacking” Toni Morales. I am not. She is a very nice person and now has been tested in some true flames of a Presidential campaign. She now has my respect.
I am de-constructing her experience so she and we can learn from it. If people cannot take criticism, they should get out of the life now as ya won’t make it very long.
February 15th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
While I don’t have the acutal metrics, from anecdotal evidence, I think Pima County pulled their weight in call volume.
Especially considering that, while there were staffers in Tucson, they were pulled from the volunteer corps, so it was essentially an all-volunteer operation.
I don’t think you were trying to disparage their efforts, but I just wanted to point out that Tucson did their fair share.
February 15th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
That being said, we all could’ve done better. Myself included…
February 15th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
you guys would be the best judge. I know THIS also, that in terms of call volume, Arizona is the #1 state for calling other states and volunteering in other states, according to an Obama staffer still working for them.
SO, AZ’s volunteer effort was by far , A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.
It could be as RubenX says, simple demographics, but Democrats don’t usually accept things as that simple.
February 15th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
It’s a Vote By Mail thing folks! Obama came on too late and of those Democrats who voted in the Primary 35% had already voted by the time Obama was hot. They voted by mail. Obama had a great field campaign and certainly secured the strongest list of endorsements but ultimately their strategy was off. Every hack in the state knows that Election Day in Arizona is 30 days. You have to hit the early voters hard with an ID campaign and make sure they vote.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Bubba’s right, and I think, subject to correction by those who know better, the lack of a VBM effort at the outset was more a question of resources for the national campaign (IA, NH, NV, and SC were receiving nearly all) and not a strategic blunder on the part of AZ staff.
I was on a call where VBM strategy was discussed, and the AZ staff definitely understood what needed to happen, but what you submit as a proposal to the national campaign and what actually materializes are often two very different things.
Demographics aside, though I think that mattered an awful lot, when Arizona began to vote, we were 20 points down. I think most of that was a name ID/familiarity issue. A lot of ballots go in that first week. That’s something hard to recover from.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
And, also, final thought.
Whatever you think of Tom’s analysis of the Obama campaigns successes and failures in the race, I’m glad that we’re looking critically at what went wrong and what lessons we can glean for the future.
I think it’s important that we can be honest with each other when talking about what happened in a campaign, and that we don’t let the desire to spare feelings get in the way of much-needed analysis.
God knows I’ve fucked things up; I think we all have if we’ve been around long enough. It doesn’t hurt to talk about it as long as it’s not mean-spirited.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I think the point about Obama contacting “too small a voter universe,” had something to do with it as well. I was undecided for a long time until it became clear it was Clinton vs. Obama and decided on Obama. In the two weeks leading up to the primary I received four lit pieces and one phone call where I told the caller I would be voting for Obama. Instead of canvassing my neighborhood four times maybe twice would have been fine so that they could branch out into some others that hadn’t been targeted yet.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
LOL Pat -
Its like the Obama Camp calling me on Feb 5th to remind me to vote… she was a VERY nice volunteer and I thank her for the reminder, but I should have been removed from the Obama universe in July of 2007 when I said I was backing Hillary.
Then I got an email invite to the Obama Feb. 5th party on Feb. 6th -
The Obama Camp did a great job - Many of the Volunteers I know personally… but I think its always good to do a de-briefing and look at the campaign after the fact. I love that Tom-AZ breaks things down and asks questions. He should be appauded.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
“Applauded” too. :rollseyes:
February 15th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Count my vote for the universe being the problem. The anecdotes I heard about the universe sounded way off base to me.
February 15th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Now wait a gall-darn minute! Obama took Yavapai and Coconino Counties. Read the “Sun” Feb 6th and 7th editions. Headline: “Obama Mania Sweeps Flag”. There were two great staffers and some bust-a-move (…pardon the cheesy eighties reference) volunteers up here that did a fantastic job. The problem overall for Obama’s lack of success, were the establishment Dems that went for Clinton.
Toni Morales did an awesome job, if anything just by pulling in Janet was quite a coup.
February 16th, 2008 at 1:13 am
LOL. Toni Morales pulled in Janet? Did she tell you that? I think someone might want to consult with the Governor’s political advisor, Noah, before saying THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh man, if she is telling people that…. HAHAHAHAHAH
February 16th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
The reason why Clinton won our county was because she had a good organization on the reservation, and she had visited the reservation several times over the past few years (including meeting with a lot of the leadership in Window Rock.) So she won big there, and Obama didn’t have enough time before the primary to make it to Window Rock or elsewhere on the reservation.
I voted for Obama, but it’s hard in a couple of weeks (after Richardson dropped out) to compete with several years that Clinton spent cultivating the native American vote in northern Arizona.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:43 am
The golden rule of a campaing is you will never have enough time, money or people. With that being said, the Hillary campaign did reach out to all elected officials early on. As far as the Governor not being contacted that is simply a mystery, calls were made by high level people. Hillary tried to meet with the Gov. when she came to Tucson, the request was made not sure what happened. Many electeds went with Richardson and when he dropped out calls were made ASAP. I was told by one elected, the campaign sure is aggressive I have had 3 calls in the past day. If someone was missed that could be. As for Hillary’s base we stuck to the plan where she had support, Seniors and Hispanic voters. As for voter contact we started calls back in November with a concentration on VBM. We did do some door to door but very little. Door to door in a presidential campaign is a cadilac model, time is better spent on live calls. If you didn’t get one, you were not in our targeted universe- it is that simple. As far as closing the gap- this will happen as people start engaging in the campaign. I recieved 3 mailers and two calls from the Obama camp. I should have been taken off the list last January- why waste money on a 40 year old woman?
Hillary started off with great name ID so we always new VBM was key. I think Hillary had a plan and we worked the plan. We worked hard for the votes, but the votes were targeted.
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