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TESTER / WEBB DEBRIEF

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Dec. 1, 2006

Session 3

Auditorium A (lower level)

 

Panel members: Unfortunately two could not be identified (they ran out before I could catch their names). Perhaps the other panel members would know?

 

• Ken “Teacher Ken” Bernstein

• Kevin Druff – Kevin@webbforsenate.com

o Internet director for Webb

• Lowell Feld – Lowell@webbforsenate.com

o Manager of Raising Kaine blog

• Annabel Park

o Korean outreach for Webb campaign and major organizer for Real Virginians for Webb

o Is starting Real Americans for Democracy

• Eric Byler

o Film producer for Real Virginians for Webb (on YouTube)

o Real Americans for Democracy

• Wasim Entabi

o Major organizer for Real Virginians for Webb

o Real Americans for Democracy

• Mathew Gross from Tester campaign

• Male speaker from Tester campaign (unidentified)

• Female speaker from Tester campaign (unidentified – ran out before I could obtain her information!)

 

 

Session content

• Lowell:

• Campaign did not start in a normal way. Started by asking Webb if he could interview him. Webb had apprehensions:

• Affiliation with Reagan campaign

• Didn’t know if wanted to put in time and raise money

• Lowell started website: draftjimwebb.com – 1,000 signatures and $40,000.

o Upon Webb’s return, Webb was shocked. → helped in his decision to run

o Sen. Bob Kerry helped, Steve Jarding became senior strategist

• Formally ran Feb. 7, Formally announced March 7

o Had 0 staff, 0 money – very basic.

o The first thousand netrooters were the core

• Kevin Druff:

o He was 7th or 8th staff person employed: after Colbert Report announcement of his running (March 8th)

o Remmeber the Friday where they cashed Jim’s check – they had no base and no money.

o Starting from there, went through primary, with 3 to 4,000 volunteer signups

o Outspent 3 to 1 by $1 million in the primary. The campaign had no money:

• August : raised $290K online, after macaca (good).

• 1st of September – 17th of September: $200K online

• 17th-30th (after Meet The Press) – 1.1 million

• $4 million raised in October overall ($1.5M online)

o Finally, we had 18,000 volunteers, and every volunteer counted – esp. as we won election by 9,239 votes.

• Ken

o The first big announcement was in Arlinton.

o Event around Memorial day – gave free beer at an event at campaign HQ and talked about Scottish-Irish battle. Talked about over-the-mountain force arrived and there was no time to integrate them into military units. Each man was told to take initiative and “go do what needs to be done.”

• Webb said, “that’s what we need to do for the primary.” Since the campaign had no money, it worked well.

o 2 days after the election, the campaign staff started going around to the volunteers to thank them. Some people gave up jobs, some took every spare minute – if something had to be done, they’d do it.

• Wasim

o Would like to share a little part of life… had been businessman all his life, and decided to ride on bandwagon “because I believed his philosophy.” And “had been following him since 2003, before even.”

o Jumped into campaigning and was campaigning 24/7. Did not just want credit – wanted to win, and win by a lot.

o Moved by taking every single name on database of former customers – and telling them what he wanted to do. After weeding out the non-participants, emailed people everything “when did we paint the office, when did we change the lightbulbs, when did we change from Windows 98 to be able to call people…”

• $1 to $5 to $10 dollar donations, a little at a time, even in repeated instances, helped ultimately – donated $1000s of dollars total.

o Did religious outreach – esp. as Wasim, not being a formal part of the campaign, was still able to quote Webb. He quoted Webb’s direct statements on religious messaging.

• About 86% of the vote in Wasim’s area was for Webb.

• Mathew Gross

o Let’s give an introduction, how he came to run.

• Unidentified male speaker

o He came to a bar in Missoula and was told he should run for US Senate. The people at the bar became the people who’d run his campaign.

o Announced in June of 2005 would run. Ran against strong RNC candidate with DC insider support. Managed to use grassroot leader connections to keep visibility on blogs and on TV, even in the last days. The polls didn’t turn favorably except for a few weeks before primary. The last week was “on the phones”. The competitor, who outspent Tester by $1 million, was doing more on advertising and less on phone.

• Result: won by 25%.

• Mathew

o Started with a couple of assets:

• Authentic candidate, like Jim Webb. “It’s worth a couple million bucks.”

o Started off online, had support of Marcos in pushing the narrative of John Tester to the forefront. Also know that, to run an insurgent campaign, it would have to be grassroots, because campaign didn’t have money to do otherwise. They had to grow a list above the size of the Montana Democratic primary list.

• Couldn’t afford a pollster, only read public polls

• But campaign could feel the momentum.

o It was difficult to run against John Morrison (sp?), who’d previously won the whole state.

o In August of 2005, Pearl Jam event ($450,000 raised for only $200,000 costs at the concert), as a member of the band had connections with campaign.

o Raised $800,000 in primary, and had run $5.5 million by end of campaign, including over $2 million online. Like Webb campaign, money came late and continued to.

• Unidentified female speaker

o Conrad Burns had $6 million in the bank at the point when we had $20,000. “It’s really scary stuff.”

o “There is a certain liability that goes with…an association with netroots, or the blogosphere. …It’s interpreted by a section of the population…in Montana as something that they don’t connect with. It’s sort of counter to the things they hold dear.”

o “We had to raise the money. And we had to take that leap of faith that we needed to reach out to these communities, and that if we had that backlash… we’d need to increase our playing field.”

o “You have different things going on in different places and you have to be sensitive to that.”

• Lowell

o We raised 60% of the money online. The Allen campaign accused Webb of raising money from these crazy liberals.

• Unidentified female speaker

o Burns campaign had mailings with people in Halloween costumes to represent the terrible liberals

• Mathew

o The Burns campaign did a daily press release on how we were taking money from those people. Check out the “bandwagon” ad on the Conrad Burns website to see what they said.

• Lowell

o They republicans were saying everything.

• Kevin

o “NRSC spent all their money, about $1 million, in the last week attacking Kim because he wrote books.”

• Question 1:

o There was a politician on C-SPAN yesterday asking… lost train of thought

• Question 2

o To Tester: we had impression that by election day, it wasn’t much of a contest. Was that perception wrong?

o To Webb: Mike Snark (sp?) is a blogger who did a lot of stuff on Allen… what was his role? What did the campaign think of him?

• Kevin

o First of all, Mike Snark had nothing to do with the campaign.

o In the summer, Snark asked Allen if he’d used the “n-word”. I don’t think it played that much of a role at the time. By the fall, Allen had boxed himself in with the denial of ever saying the world, and in combination with macaca, it was hard for people to believe him.

o Same goes for “spitting on wife.” Even though the questions to Allen didn’t necessarily play a huge role, they definitely fit to the profile.

o Macaca: it wasn’t calling the kid "macaca" that was the problem – it was the “welcome to the real world of Virginia,” which demonstrated that he was a bully.

• Unidentified female speaker

o We never believed what we saw in the polls. Our numbers were closer. And we seemed to have a huge (10%) independent vote. Those of us who were there weren’t surprised that it the election day was that close.

o The President’s visit – people who were voting Republican weren’t happy about it, about 6 days before the election. That was impulsive in the turnaround.

• Mathew Gross

o Some of the things that hurt the Dems in the last days:

o 1. Conrad Burns is a good closer.

o 2. Mail works. Never underestimate mail. Conrad Burns is very good at mailing.

o 3. This is the most expensive race in Montana history. The most aired, etc. – people were sick of it and disbelieving of the “change” message. We probably made too much of an argument on taxes – it wasn’t always safe ground.

o “This is Montana.” There is a movement turning left in the Rockies, but on the ground, the situation is still really close.

• Kevin

o Our internals put us up three. We really got hurt by the rain.

• Unidentified male speaker

o I was talking to volunteers. The taxes thing was also huge. Conrad Burns endorsed the national sales tax. The problem – Dems started talking about national sales tax and even the volunteers didn’t like that position. We didn’t focus enough on Abramoff (in the last weeks).

o There was also an issue with hunting – a photo of Tester with a gun even though he didn’t have a license…

o Even if we were up by 5, we’d only win by 2 on election day. That’s how it is in Montana.

• Ken

o When you’re throwing together a staff for a February, you’re going to make mistakes. We had an opportunity to work out the kinks through the primary.

o One of the campaign platforms: the candidate's not going to ask for money for himself. When he realized that asking for money meant asking for money for the campaign – for the staff who’d asked him to run – a light bulb went off in his head and we were finally able to raise money. The perceived reversal was only a slight problem in the Washington press.

• Kevin

o A lot of the Democratic vote in Northern Virginia consisted of people who looked to Washington for their politics. Chuck Schumer’s endorsement was critical.

• Mathew Gross

o Without the primary, there would have been much less fundraising. National attention, the “here’s the guy effect”, was a big factor in giving people money. Without a primary, candidates just can’t gather that momentum.

• Question:

o The big hype was YouTube – Burns and Allen. The big question: how did videos get up there? And how much did they figure into the strategy?

• Kevin Druff

o Got a call from research director on a Friday afternoon. Macaca was on Friday AM. He said, “you’re about to get the best tracker video ever.” I didn’t believe him as most "good" tracker videos are simply a candidate misspeaking which, in the larger scheme, isn't all that bad.

o “It’s worse than I ever imagined.” Said a campaign staffer who watched the tape over the weekend.

• It leaked onto the NotLarrySabato blog on Monday afternoon (Ben Tribbett) that George Allen “had really stepped in it.”

• “He shot himself in the face,” said a campaign staffer.


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