May 1, 2004
THE CAMPAIGN ISN'T WON ON CHRIS MATTHEWS:
Kerry organization lacking in key states (Donald Lambro, April 30, 2004, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Sen. John Kerry has yet to establish campaign organizations in battleground states that likely will decide who wins the presidential race in November, Democratic strategists said yesterday.The Democratic presidential candidate's campaign has been almost invisible not only in pivotal states, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, but also in the South, a region that some party strategists fear he will "write off" to focus his resources elsewhere in the country, according to Democratic officials.
Mr. Kerry's campaign apparatus is nowhere to be seen in Michigan, a critical Midwestern prize with 17 electoral votes that Democrat Al Gore captured in 2000, but is now a neck-and-neck race where President Bush has the edge in some polls, Democrats say.
"It's dead even here but there is almost no activity in the state" from Mr. Kerry's campaign organization, said Michigan Democratic pollster Ed Sarpolus.
The lack of a Kerry ground organization at this point is in sharp contrast to Mr. Bush's campaign, which has a state-by-state pyramidal organization of precinct, county, state and regional volunteers that already number in the hundreds of thousands across the country.
Hardly surprising that a campaign obsessed with Dick Cheney's every obscure utterance doesn't have time for the grunt work. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 1, 2004 7:14 AM
For a man who never even had a real campaign organization in his home state, why should this be a surprise?
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 1, 2004 9:45 AMIn Michigan the Teachers and AutoWorkers' Unions will provide all the support and manpower he needs, and them doing themselves rather than paying Kerry's campaign to do it is how you get around CFR laws. I suspect similar situations will crop up in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Even with that, he'll need to take all three, and I just don't see him doing that when Gore couldn't 4 years ago.
Posted by: MarkD at May 1, 2004 5:40 PMAgain, if they won't do the work, why are they bothering to run a candidate in the first place? (I seem to be asking this question, or variants of it, an awful lot these days.)
Posted by: Joe at May 1, 2004 8:21 PMCould this be spun as good news for Kerry in that he is tied or close to Bush in these states despite not having a state apparatus?
Posted by: AWW at May 1, 2004 10:46 PMThis article is true enough. I keep trying to volunteer and get nowhere. Some idiot called up asking for money for Kerry, and I asked if I could donate my time....she couldn't help because it wasn't covered by her script. If it keeps going like this Bush will win in a walkover, God help us.
Noel Erinjeri
Posted by: Noel Erinjeri at May 2, 2004 11:21 PM