Hush
Little GOP, Don't You Cry
Demos gonna sing you a lullaby... The "leak" that the Kerry campaign has
written off Virginia may be meant to put Republicans to
sleep.
A
headline in The
Washington Post on October 4 read, “Kerry Team
Reassigned As Va. All But Conceded.” Oddly, the
accompanying article about the Kerry campaign’s
decision to reassign 20 of the 30 Kerry staffers to
other states was prompted by a telephone call from a
spokesman for Kerry’s Virginia
campaign.
Why
would a member of a campaign staff take the
initiative to assure that the news media knew of
such a reassignment? There are two explanations that
immediately come to mind. The first is that the
Kerry staffer who contacted reporters was
disgruntled and wanted to vent. The second is that
the announcement reflected a conscious decision to
put the Bush campaign to sleep here in Virginia.
There
are reasons to doubt that the story was given to the
media by a spiteful staffer. That staffer continues to work for the Kerry
campaign. His
call to the media came only after the most important
phase of the Kerry campaign effort, which includes
registering new voters, identifying likely Kerry
supporters and training volunteers had already been
completed. Finally,
no one with the Kerry campaign followed up with the
expected spin that Kerry had not given up on Virginia
and intended to win here.
The
more likely explanation is that the Democrats know
they have a shot at winning in Virginia
if they can make Republicans overconfident, while
simultaneously energizing and turning out the voters
who have already been identified as likely Kerry
supporters. Even
a closer-than-anticipated vote in Virginia will
allow Gov. Mark R. Warner and Virginia Democrats to
claim that the Commonwealth is moving toward the
Democrats and away from its 40-year tradition of
dependable support for Republican presidential
candidates.
Whatever
the motivation of the Kerry campaign in contacting
the media, the reassignment-of-staff story elicited
responses from the Bush campaign in Virginia
that serve the Democrats’ interests. Ken Hutcheson, the Bush campaign’s state
director, might as well have sent sleeping pills to
the Republican grassroots when he responded to a
reporter’s request for a reaction, saying, “The
Kerry camp has realized after numerous polls that
the campaign is under water and has no prayer in Virginia.”
No
prayer? Voter
registration in Virginia
increased this year by about half a million voters
to nearly 4.4 million. Given all the months-long agitation against
the Bush administration by liberal groups,
Democratic turnout is certain to be higher as a
percentage of registered voters than in 2000. If Republicans want to sleepwalk through
Election Day, Democrats have an excellent chance to
win Virginia.
Intensity
matters in elections. Hutcheson obviously should realize this.
His response to the news of the staff
reassignment by the Kerry campaign should have been
an exhortation to the GOP grassroots to match the
vigor and organization of the Democrats. This is the time for Republicans to give up
evenings and weekends to work for the GOP ticket.
Republicans
have never been guaranteed victory in Virginia.
Electoral
success depends on hard work, grassroots enthusiasm
and effective communication of their message to the
voters. The
campaign is more about identifying and mobilizing
voters who already agree with the Republican agenda
than about persuasion.
The
new chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia,
Kate Griffin, seems to appreciate the need to light
a fire at the grassroots level.
That’s the only way to match the intensity
of the Democrats in this election.
--
October 18,
2004
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