McCain Skipping Ames Too
by Patrick Ruffini :: June 6th, 2007 4:40 pmRudy won’t be the odd man out. Ambinder has the scoop that McCain is skipping Ames as well. From a statement by campaign manager and Iowa native Terry Nelson:
In light of today’s news, it is clear that the Ames Straw Poll will notbe a meaningful test of the leading candidates’ organizationalabilities, so we have decided to forego our participation in the event.
While not surprising in light of McCain’s overall strength, the news is still breathtaking. We had been led to believe that despite the McCain campaign’s public woes, internally they were solid as a rock and they had a stellar organization could go toe to toe with Romney. Now, the once prohibitive frontrunner is (at best) on pace with Giuliani in the money and organization game, and fares somewhat worse than that in the polls. Are the McCain campaign’s leverage points slowly disappearing?
Also keep this in mind. Watch footage of any McCain town hall meeting in Iowa, and you’ll notice the audience is very heavy on senior citizens. That’s good in terms of the Caucuses, but bad in terms of an all-day spectacle with people bussed in from other states.
Another point: Are we seeing an Incredible Shrinking Campaign? On January 1st, each of the campaigns teams reasonably expected they could raise $100 million in 2007. Now, they’ll be lucky if they close the year with $70 million. In the old world, the campaigns could have afforded to blow $1-3 million on Ames. Not anymore. That doesn’t bode well against the Democrats, who are raising more and spending less.
In the macro sense, it also means that late entrants (FDT, and on the outside, Newt) don’t need to do as much to catch up.
Tagged: iowa 
john mccain
Comments (0) 
Trackbacks (0) 
del.icio.us 
digg it 
subscribe
