Joseph Mercurio on "Field Operations Ruled: Republicans Used Field Operations Just When Democrats Were Ignoring It"

Republicans Used Field Operations Just When Democrats Were Ignoring It

There is shock in Democratic circles because there will be a massive staff change on the Hill and the appointment of Republican federal judges because the Senate will switch parities.

If Republicans picking up a few seats in the House and the Senate were not enough, there were also problems with governor races. There were more Republican seats up and many of those seats were open (no incumbent running for reelection). The Democrats in state races, it was thought, could also take better advantage of issues.

Democrats won some big states—Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania. They took a total of ten states away from the Republicans who were defending 23. The expectation was that Democrats would gain a net of six or seven seats and some party leaders were even talking about a nine-seat blood bath.

No incumbent Republican governor lost, however, and on the other side, of the eleven seats Democrats were defending eight were lost including three incumbents. The incumbents who lost were in the South where there are three additional Democratic governors up over the next two years. In the Northeast, George Pataki was joined by a group of Republicans who picked up open Democratic seats.

Most of the media chatter is directed at a supposed failure of Democratic ideas. Democrats, it is said, did not say what they would do to improve the economy, the leadership had no big initiatives and they were just negative. Or Democrats were drowned out by the Republicans use of Iraq and terrorism to block campaign coverage as did the sniper story. As if press coverage is the only communication in a political campaign.

Democrats had no more trouble getting their message out than did Republicans. And the Democrats have been so good about ideas the Republicans were triangulating them. The difference this cycle was that Republicans were much better at field operations than the Democrats who, in many places, sat out the election organizationally.

After the last presidential race, the Republican leadership’s assessment was that the Democrats out-organized them in both field operations and GOTV (get out the vote) activities. They also realized that the almost obscene levels of television advertising on both sides had reached the limit. Though they did not abandon television—still the most powerful communication tool—they devised a plan to grow other aspects of their campaign. Radio, phones, internet and direct mail saw greater use by Republicans in contested races.

Ken Mehlmen, White House Director of Political Affairs (Josh Lyman in TV’s Democratic West Wing) spelled it out at a dinner speech in Washington: the "72 Hour Campaign" was their secret weapon.

E-mail lists, sophisticated computer programs, voter lists on Palm Pilots, cell phones, traveling call centers, busloads of workers being taken directly from rallies where the President spoke to walk neighborhoods canvassing Republicans, IDing (phone and walk identification) favorable voters, calling the positives, often with neighbors calling neighbors, and taking favorable voters to the polls. The renewed uses of traditional shoe-leather campaigning were emphasized with bigger budgets and advanced technology.

In contested campaigns there was often a separate staff devoted to Election Day. While the normal campaign staff toiled on the day-to-day concerns of fundraising, scheduling, press and all forms of media, the other campaign staff, for weeks in advance, worked just on Election Day and in the end everyone worked for them.

It was field operations that made the difference -- not manipulating press coverage. Journalists largely ignored the substantial expansion of organizational operations by Republican and the neglect of it by Democrats.