Souped-Up Ground Game Could be GOPs Key to Winning Senate
Posted: March 22, 2014 Filed under: Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Barack Obama, California, Democratic, Democrats, GOP, Reince Priebus, Republican, Republican National Committee Leave a comment
Republicans are trying to copy an operation that the Democrats have been building, perfecting and training on for 10 years. (Getty Images)
This article caught my eye, mainly because of the bitchin’ headline. Souped-up. Yes, if the GOP can assemble a souped-up campaign Hot-Rod, in the old establishment’s spare garage, then things could be interesting.
David M. Drucker reports:
If Republicans win control of the Senate in November, they could owe their victory to a bunch of computer geeks and data nerds holed up in two offices 2,800 miles apart.
“We can’t, as a national committee, get to becoming a better presidential party unless I can build the tools, the data, the infrastructure, right now, in 2014…”
— Reince Priebus
The Republicans need to flip six seats to wrest the Senate majority from the Democrats on a playing field that is expanding in the GOP’s favor. Up to a dozen Democratic-held seats could be up for grabs — more than half of them in red states — as voters continue to sour on President Obama‘s leadership, health care law and stewardship of the economy. Only two Republican seats threaten to be competitive.
“We committed ourselves to a permanent, coast-to-coast, year-round ground game.”
The battle could go down to a photo-finish in a half-dozen races to determine which party runs the chamber during Obama’s final two years in office — and the parties’ voter-turnout operations could be the difference.
Enter the Republican National Committee‘s newly hired geeks.
Working out of RNC headquarters in Washington and a recently opened annex in San Mateo, in California‘s Silicon Valley, a growing staff of 40 has been working since last summer to bring the GOP’s antiquated ground game into the digital age. Their goal: catch and surpass the Democrats who — bolstered by the groundbreaking innovations of Obama’s two presidential campaigns — had a 10-year head start. The RNC believes its effort has turned a corner.
“We committed ourselves to a permanent, coast-to-coast, year-round ground game,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said during a roundtable with reporters. “We’ve invested in new predictive analytics that are revolutionizing how our campaigns are targeting voters.”
Color the Democrats skeptical….Read the rest…
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