Politcal Gastronomica

The Guardian profile: Ralph Nader
Was reading this profile and remembered that one of the funniest stories I had when I first joined the campaign was what the organization was like back in September 2003. When I walked in, the number of volunteers I had seen in the summer had evaporated – all of the desks were either filled with chum from events for the campaign or the rest of the Internet staff on terribly uncomfortable desks.
People never really understand what it takes to run a campaign – and I never had a clue. I walked into this world – and had my eyes opened – something I did not expect.

After four weeks of hard campaigning, sleepless nights, hand-shaking seniors in Sunrise Lakes, Century Village and Tamarac – it came down to the debate in Tampa – and the polls that followed.

That weekend, I spent every day and night hanging flyers for Peter. The day before, Jesse Jackson spent the day flying with Peter to get-out-the-vote in various cities. That evening, I enjoyed dinner with Peter, Craig Kirby (Edwards’ Deputy Campaign Manager and Peter’s Campaign manager) and the Reverand. As the dinner came to an end, I was tasked with being Peter’s driver for the last night. We were to hit local diners from 10pm til 3am — where Peter would be hand-shaking with voters. The next day, I worked the senior communities in Tamarac — meeting most of the Broward County political candidates in from of the Senior Center — and spent the last three hours in one of the black neighborhoods of Broward — all to get out the vote. As the polls closed, I got a call from Jared Asch, Peter’s Fundraising Director telling me that we were doing great in all of the major cities. We had a victory party set up at Bahia Cabana Bar – and I had to clean up from the day of campaigning.

Showered, shaved and freshly dressed – and in the car, I get a call from my friend Lisa Lindsey at Visions for Working Families. She told me the opening numbers – and they were not good. All I could do is pray they would get better – 20 point spread – that couldn’t be right. But, by the end of the night, 25 points separated Betty from Peter – and Peter’s concession speech was one of the toughest experiences I ever had in politics.

You know – eight days from the primary – and things are beginning to heat up. Most recently, we launched an ad that challenges the Sam Al-Arian story – and how Castor handled the issue. Funny thing, the argument seems to be how Peter is acting aggressively and being “negative”, but the question I have is how did she handle herself in an important leadership issue – instead of addressing the issue head-on, it seems that she passed it onto a lawyer – and then handled it more like a “human resourses” issue rather than a “moral issue”.

I can understand where someone could say – that was a mistake – but instead, the answers that have been brought forth from the campaign is a denial of information, then a presumption of action (“suspension”) which may not be true (if the person could be suspended – with pay – then there was something to the issue) and then the accusation is an attack from Peter on Betty.

I used to say I was confused, but I am not any longer – the lesson is how to manage your relationships – with the press and with the stories – and to ensure that you communicate the message consistantly and effectively.

I am sitting in the Peter Deutsch for Senate offices working on a number of issues – and once again, I find myself in a situation of not knowing how the election will roll. With John Kerry, the polls that we (in the Internet team) were aware of were coming from CNN – we had no insight to the surge that was occurring in Iowa. Here in Florida, it seems to be a different situation – where the organization is completely different.

In DC, in December, I remember how the entire campaign staff were shipped out to Iowa into the Iowa offices – basically crafting an entire field team from every able-bodied person in the campaign. Our email composer was in a little town in Iowa (see the Kerry Blog for Richard Rho), Morra Aarons was working the ground in Iowa – getting little to no sleep, and all that was left in the Kerry office was Luis Miranda (the original Kerry Cyber-Organizer), Josh Ross (who I brought into the campaign to lead the team) and myself watching the servers. Every day at the DC townhouse, in the midst of the winter, we were amazed when the Iowa polls continued their uphill climb for Kerry.

Here in Florida, the awareness is almost non-existant – with people barely aware of the election – and I sit here wondering how this election will turn out. The polls say Betty Castor is up by single to double digits (meaning that she can be either 5-15 points up) but there are between 25% to 33% of the expected voters still not decided. We are spending a lot on media (read: television) and Castor is getting a lot of umph from her relationship with EMILY’s List.

Continue reading →