Yesterday's big New York Times story on the state of the presidential race says the final days will find both campaigns buried in red states:
Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, are planning to spend most of their time in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana, all states that Republicans had entered the campaign thinking they could bank on...Republicans and Democrats said there were signs that two states that had once appeared overwhelmingly Republican — Georgia and South Carolina — were tightening, in part, because of surge of early-voting by African-Americans.
What's so remarkable about this is how arrogantly self-confident the McCain camp was about most of these red states just a few months ago, when they bragged about not spending money on television or hiring any staff or mocked the Obama camp's efforts and joked about their voter registration efforts.
We'll have plenty of time to dissect this pig after November 4th, but I wanted to get a head start on some of the most egregious acts of political malpractice I have ever seen at this level of politics in my life.
What's even more noteworthy is how we discussed -- in real-time -- just how absurd some of their actions were. We didn't need the benefit of hindsight to understand that the USS McCain was being navigated by some of the poorest political strategists ever to run a presidential general election campaign.
Exhibit A: McCain Electoral Strategy Briefing (June 6):
On June 6th, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis narrated a slick 14-minute video briefing where he laid out which states were solidly in the Obama and McCain camps and which states would remain as the battlegrounds.
First, notice how they began the general election believing that Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, North Dakota, and Montana were solidly in their column and not even worthy of battleground status. They simply added all of these 153 electoral votes into their column before moving on their pockets of opportunity and what they believed were the real battleground states:
Next, check out where McCain thought his pockets of opportunity were located:
That's right, the B Team thought they had an opening in California. Beyond this video, Davis said this to the the Arizona Daily Star a few weeks later:
"There are some states were we have really unique opportunities," Davis said, pointing to historically Democratic states like California, Michigan, Wisconsin and Connecticut.
Finally, here's how the McCain team saw the battleground -- and yes they really believed that Washington, Oregon and Connecticut were going to be in play, but not Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana.
Now, with just 8 days to go, half of the states where McCain is left campaigning are those he claimed were not competitive and certain to be in his column. It's pretty remarkable just how arrogant these guys were even a few months ago about some of these red states. Here are a few more examples:
Exhibit B: The New York Times (June 8th):
Mr. Obama’s aides said some states where they intend to campaign — like Georgia, Missouri, Montana and North Carolina — might ultimately be too red to turn blue. But the result of making an effort there could force Mr. McCain to spend money or send him to campaign in what should be safe ground, rather than using those resources in states like Ohio.
...Mr. McCain’s advisers dismissed the Obama campaign claims as bluster. “We’re confident about our ability to win those states,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain.
Exhibit C: McCain Campaign Blog (June 20th):
Obama will spend money in states that he has almost no chance to win, and he has money to burn now that he's broken his pledge to accept public financing. Frankly, we will need him to burn as much as possible in solid red states--better he spend $10 million in Texas than another $10 million in Ohio.
Exhibit D: McCain Camp Says Obama Staffing In Missouri Means They're "In Trouble" and "Have To Have A Surge" (July 9th):
“When you feel like you have to put that many people in the state to cover it, means you think you’re in trouble and you have to have a surge,” said Jack Jackson, McCain’s Missouri co-chairman.
Exhibit E: North Carolina GOP Not Convinced State Will "Be A Race" (July 23):
There remains some skepticism among Republicans about whether the Obama effort is for real or just a feint. Some of them think Obama is likely to refocus his efforts on more traditional swing states closer to the election.
"We are anticipating that it could be a race in North Carolina," said Ferrell Blount, a former state GOP chairman from Pitt county who is advising the McCain campaign. "But we are not totally convinced it will be at this point. But we want to be prepared to spend some money in North Carolina, and we are trying to make some preparations."
"If McCain has to play a serious game in North Carolina," said Blount, "then something is going on that is not very good for John McCain."
Exhibit F: McCain Camp Says No Plans To Open Indiana Office Despite 25-30 Obama Planned (August 4th):
Jonathan Swain, a spokesman for Obama's campaign in Indiana, said plans are to have 25 to 30 campaign offices in the state.
It's part of a push by Obama to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Indiana's electoral votes since Lyndon Johnson did so in 1964.
In addition to the offices, Obama has run campaign ads in Indiana -- one of 18 targeted states in which he has done so -- and has brought in staff to run the campaign here.
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is taking a different approach to Indiana.
Some might call it confident; some might call it laid-back at best.
Asked whether the campaign has any plans to open an office in Indiana, campaign spokeswoman Leah Yoon -- who is based in Michigan, not Indiana -- had a one-word answer: "No."
Exhibit G: Florida GOP "Not To Worry" About Voter-Registration Trends or Efforts to Link McCain to Bush (August 17th):
Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer told GOP activists Saturday not to worry about voter-registration trends favoring the Democrats or claims that Sen. John McCain represents "a third term" for President Bush.
...Registration figures released last Sunday indicated that the Florida Democratic Party signed up about 250,000 new voters in the first seven months of this year, while the Republicans gained just over 98,000. But Greer said the GOP has a better "get out the vote" operation in the closing days of a campaign.
"Don't be concerned about that because they register anything with a heart beat — anything — and our party and these leaders, all of you, have the best turnout-to-vote organization in the nation," Greer said. "They (the Democrats) might register a lot of people but they're not going to the polls on election day."
Exhibit H: Georgia Governor Mocks Obama, Invites Him To Spend Millions In State (August 28)
As for talk that Georgia is in play in the presidential race, [Gov. Sonny] Perdue invited Democrats to come and “spend as much money as possible in this state. Millions and millions of dollars.”
The outcome will be the same and the money wasted, Perdue said. “I think they are feigning a move that won’t happen.”
These items should simply whet your appetite for the full post-mortem that we'll be able to do following next week's electoral rout. Suffice it to say, the McCain camp will have re-written the book on how not to run a presidential campaign and will go down in history as one of the least competent teams ever assembled.
Mark Nickolas is the Managing Editor of Political Base, and this story was from his original post, "What Political Malpractice Looks Like"