Election Night HQ

By Election Night HQ’s Publisher 

Earlier this week, I offered a detailed analysis, asserting that Senator McCain’s interests would be best served by abandoning Iowa and placing all of his political chips on New Hampshire.  As it turns out, Time’s Ana Marie Cox - perhaps best known for her irreverent alter ego, the “Wonkette” - gets serious on Time.com.  And Cox has come to the same conclusion.  Here is Cox’s case for bailing out of Iowa and going for broke in the Granite State… 

As noted in the original article, it’s only my humble opinion.  The campaign certainly has access to better polling data, finance receipts, etc., than I do - and they are professional campaign managers.  So my point here is simply to say that with all due respect to them,  I happen to disagree with the approach that they’re taking here.  I could very well be wrong on every point, and they could very well be right. 

After the article, I will comment on the defense offered for staying in Iowa, described within it, and provide counterpoints in favor of going for the big win in New Hampshire, instead…  This is a relatively long piece, but please stay with it, as I provide a detailed analysis, after the end of Cox’s piece:

Friday, Nov. 16, 2007

McCain’s Confusing Primary Strategy

By Ana Marie Cox/Concord

Talk to staffers on John McCain’s campaign — or staffers on rival campaigns — and they will all tell you the same thing: John McCain must win New Hampshire, where he won a key victory in 2000 and plans to campaign this weekend. He can’t come in third; he can’t come in second. One Republican strategist put it this way, “He should run as if he’s running for governor there.”

Which is why observers are puzzled that his campaign, currently almost $1.5 million in the red, spent another $100,000 to send 200,000 McCain flyers to potential supporters in — Iowa. He launched his health care policy rollout there and he was one of only two GOP candidates who participated in AARP’s debate there in September. The other was Mike Huckabee, whose attention to the state has been rewarded with a surprising jump to second place. But McCain, who has spent one out of every seven days since September in Iowa, with 11 days in total, has seen his poll ratings actually fall from 13% in August to 6% currently, just two points ahead of Ron Paul. By contrast, while he has spent almost the same amount of time in New Hampshire, 15 days combined, McCain’s numbers have risen six percentage points since August, to 17%, putting him firmly in third place behind Romney and Giuliani.

But with the caucuses less than 50 days away, observers wonder why he’s not spending more time and money in the state he can — and must — win. As the Republican strategist puts it, “John McCain has one chance, only one chance, to advance toward the nomination and that is by winning New Hampshire — anything that wastes resources from that goal is malpractice.”

McCain is going back to New Hampshire this weekend, on a Straight Talk Express tour designed with prickly and proud Granite Staters in mind. On Friday, Chuck Douglas, a former New Hampshire Attorney General, personally delivered, on behalf of the campaign, a strongly worded demand that the state investigate a series of scurrilous push polls that have been targeted at Romney’s Mormonism. McCain took this step hours before Romney himself did, and the McCain campaign hopes his display of devotion to fair play will appeal to the same New Hampshire voters who leveled the playing field for McCain, and gave him his greatest primary victory, in 2000.

After the campaign imploded earlier this year, staffers would use the “Fortress New Hampshire” scenario to explain to reporters — as well as voters — why, after all the media carnage, fundraising shortfalls and staff overhauls, a McCain nomination was still possible. A win in New Hampshire would undermine Mitt Romney’s organization, they said, and set up a showdown in South Carolina between Rudy Giuliani and McCain, where McCain should have an advantage with social conservatives. Then a McCain victory in South Carolina would, at the very least, make it a fair fight that McCain could win.

McCain advisers, in explaining the campaign’s Iowa rationale, bounce between the need to prove that their Iowa expenditures are money well spent and the time-honored political tradition of “managing expectations.” In one five-minute conversation, campaign manager Rick Davis both boasts that McCain has the “third largest organization in the state” and says, only barely joking, “One thing I’ve done well as campaign manager is driving expectations in Iowa to the floorboards.” Another senior adviser issues a reminder of the campaign’s brush with death — “This summer you wouldn’t have predicted we’d even be having this conversation” — before declaring that McCain could come in “third, maybe even second” once the caucuses roll around. The most direct answer is Davis’s, and it’s based on managing press expectations: McCain can’t pull out of Iowa, he says, because pundits “wouldn’t give us credit for making the decision, and still report we came in fifth.”

But the lack of a solid rationale for McCain’s use of scarce resources in Iowa suggests that the campaign’s leadership is not so much masterminding a comeback as holding on for dear life. Still, the campaign has had its moments of tactical ingenuity. After McCain’s debate zinger in which he noted that he hadn’t been to Woodstock because he was “tied up at the time,” the campaign produced a TV ad that probably got more attention via free publicity than its paid air time. And the evening after a CNN anchor criticized McCain for playing along with an over-zealous crowd member’s obscene description of Hillary Clinton, Davis sent out an e-mail solicitation alleging that CNN attacked because McCain would beat Clinton in a general election: “They are right to be scared. We are not going to back down.” That solicitation became the basis for the second best day of online fundraising the campaign has had.

Staffers there say that they are resigned to sharing the candidate’s attention. And Davis dismisses the second-guessing of McCain’s strategy bluntly. “Everyone’s caught up in this macro-strategy s—,” he says. “and it’s a big waste of time.”

There seem to be some disconnects between the campaign’s reasoning and McCain’s best interests.  Let’s break this down piece by piece:

“Another senior adviser… [is] declaring that McCain could come in “third, maybe even second” once the caucuses roll around.”

I do not believe that there is a ghost of a chance of McCain coming in second in Iowa, short of Mitt Romney’s campaign imploding between now and Iowa (which could happen, but doesn’t seem likely).  Third place means catching Rudy, which in the previous piece, I argued was virtually impossible (and even if it happened, the resources it would drain from NH, wouldn’t be worth the benefit.)

Also, why is this senior adviser trying to raise expectations for McCain in Iowa?  What benefit is there to telling a reporter that the candidate might do exceptionally better in Iowa, when polls are showing that he’s in fifth place (and has no significant money to spend there, relative to his rivals)?  It always seems to be the conventional wisdom to lower expectations (and in this case, since he’s not likely to do well in Iowa under any circumstances, the lower the expectations, the better).  And I must disagree with Davis on this point, here:

The most direct answer is Davis’s, and it’s based on managing press expectations: McCain can’t pull out of Iowa, he says, because pundits “wouldn’t give us credit for making the decision, and still report we came in fifth.”

Now, I agree with him 100% on that statement: Pundits probably wouldn’t give McCain credit for the decision, and they probably still would report that he came in fifth.  Here’s where I respectfully disagree with him:

1) There are two ways of coming in fifth. 

One way is to maintain this strategy, and spend precious time and money in Iowa - and come in fifth.  The other is to abandon Iowa and come in fifth.  Either way, McCain comes in fifth.  But by abandoning Iowa completely, he then is able to devote all of his time and money to New Hampshire - and that could very well make the difference between a victory or a close loss.  If he’s going to come in fifth anyway - why not save that time and money and pour it into New Hampshire?

More than any other candidate in either party, McCain is his own best asset.  Due to his tremendous candidate skills, his presence in a state makes a far greater difference to the success of his campaign, than the presence of any of the other candidates mean to their own campaigns.  Thus, where McCain spends his time, is a matter of far greater consequence to his campaign, than it is for the other campaigns.

2)   Senator McCain does not have the resources, time, or organization to do any better than third in Iowa.

3)   It is far from guaranteed that he would do better than fifth, even if he never spent another dime or day in Iowa.

4)   Even if he did come in third in Iowa - wouldn’t it be better to come in fifth in Iowa, and win (or at least come in a strong second) in New Hampshire?  The scenario he seems to be outlining is that it would be better to come in third in Iowa, no matter how damaging it might be to his prospects in New Hampshire.

5)  Granted, I think that I understand Davis’s thesis - and it’s a reasonable argument.  I infer from it that Davis’s thinking is that if McCain doesn’t do well in Iowa, there’s no hope of victory in New Hampshire.  Ergo, a respectable finish in Iowa is an absolute prerequisite to success in New Hampshire.  Without the momentum of positive free media and increased online contributions between Iowa and New Hampshire, McCain can’t win there.

I respect that strategy and he very well may turn out to be correct.  But I disagree with the underlying premise, as explained above, and in my original post, earlier this week.  I do not believe that a respectable finish in Iowa is a prerequisite to success in New Hampshire.  Moreover, even if I did believe that -

I don’t think at this point, that anything McCain does between now and January 3 in Iowa is going to materially impact his finish.  It might make the difference between fourth and sixth, or third and fourth (at best).  If he wins in New Hampshire, nobody is going to care whether he came in third, fourth, fifth, or sixth in Iowa.    (In other words, the only thing to do is to hope for the best in Iowa, endure the outcome, and keep plugging away.)  

There’s precedent for this.  In 2000, he didn’t contest the Iowa caucuses at all - for the same reasons why I don’t think he should contest them now.  Namely, he doesn’t have enough time and money to contest both Iowa and New Hampshire simultaneously.  In 2000, just as it is now, he had a great shot to win in New Hampshire, and no chance to win in Iowa.  That year, he disregarded the caucuses, and won big in New Hampshire.   After winning New Hampshire, nobody cared that he didn’t contest Iowa.  I believe that the same scenario would take place this year.

Granted, when the campaign was flush with cash and he was the front-runner, he had no choice but to contest them.  But it’s a different situation now.  When you’re the front-runner, you have to play everywhere.  But one of the positive aspects of not being the front-runner, is that you no longer have to play everywhere.  You can select favorable political terrain and fight for victories in places of your own choosing.     

And there’s a very real chance that anything McCain might do in Iowa might have a fatal impact in New Hampshire, because every dime and day spent in Iowa diminishes the New Hampshire effort…

To read Cox’s original piece, click here.  You can contact Election Night HQ at publisher@electionnighthq.com.