One Giant New Hampshire
Dante Atkins on McCain's campaign strategy:
Running a general election campaign where there is one nationwide election day to focus on is not the same as a primary campaign, where (at the beginning at least) you can do retail politics across states with low population.
McCain's brand of retail politics may have been effective in Iowa (where, remember, he came in second) and New Hampshire (where he won in a state that has traditionally been sympathetic to him), at which point the Republican nomination had essentially come down to between him and Huckabee when it was shown that Romney was such a disaster that he couldn't even win in his own backyard.
But in a general election where you have to appeal to hundreds of millions of voters and get them to enthusiastically volunteer for your campaign and turn out all their friends and neighbors to vote for you as well, talking to 150 people in Cincinnati a couple of times a week just won't cut it.
Running a general election campaign where there is one nationwide election day to focus on is not the same as a primary campaign, where (at the beginning at least) you can do retail politics across states with low population.
McCain's brand of retail politics may have been effective in Iowa (where, remember, he came in second) and New Hampshire (where he won in a state that has traditionally been sympathetic to him), at which point the Republican nomination had essentially come down to between him and Huckabee when it was shown that Romney was such a disaster that he couldn't even win in his own backyard.
But in a general election where you have to appeal to hundreds of millions of voters and get them to enthusiastically volunteer for your campaign and turn out all their friends and neighbors to vote for you as well, talking to 150 people in Cincinnati a couple of times a week just won't cut it.
posted by hellisotherpeople at 10:05 PM
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