About These
Campaign Organization Pages last revised
on March 25, 2009 please
e-mail suggestions for improvements to
any of the campaign organization pages to action08 a
t
gmail.com
Democracy in Action/Eric M. Appleman
has put together the
campaign organization pages in an effort to show who was who on the
campaigns and to give a sense of the experience and education they
brought to the effort. These pages are based on conversations
with many people, online research and media accounts and have been
refined and upgraded over many months. Every effort has been made to get
the facts right, but these pages should not be considered definitive.
Campaigns are fluid and ever evolving entities. Titles at times
do not adequately convey individual responsibilities. Department
headings are approximate; some of the departments in these listings are
well developed and others have big holes. Omissions, gaps and the
occasional error are
inevitable. While campaigns are hierarchal, the linear
presentation of campaign organization as a listing on a page has its
limitations. These do
not take into account grassroots organizations, which sprout up
independently to support a candidate, and can provide a foundation for
the formal campaign organization to build upon. Every successful
campaign has its supervolunteers and interns. Readers seeking detailed
information on
the precise roles and responsibilities or experience of an individual should contact him or her directly. In sum,
any and all shortcomings on these pages are the sole responsibility of
Democracy in Action/Eric
M. Appleman. These organization pages are sketches which
hopefully will help readers understand how things were organized on
this historic campaign.
General Observations on Campaign
Organization
Ultimately the success of a
campaign depends on the qualities of the candidate, but a candidate's
campaign team can make a difference. Modern political campaigns
have many
areas of responsibility: political, field, communications, research,
outreach/coalitions, data/voter file, scheduling and advance,
operations, get out the vote,
legal and of course finance. From the campaign manager or state
director
and top staff in headquarters to the field organizer, to the unheralded
intern or the volunteer making calls at a phone bank in an office off
main street in small town, a campaign depends
on people willing to work long hours for modest or even no pay.
Because of the demanding nature of the job, many campaign staffers are
in their 20's and 30's, but there are also the "gray hairs" who can
call on their experience working on a succession of presidential
campaigns. Campaigns typically also have
a stable of consultants and senior advisors to help with specialized
tasks such as polling
and media.
Presidential campaigns represent the state of the art of modern
electoral campaigns. Most obviously they have more resources and
are bigger than any statewide
campaign. They are also able to attract the best people and put
the most recent techniques into play. Even before the campaign
starts, a potential candidate usually has a political organization, be
it a leadership PAC or a re-election campaign. With the formation
of an exploratory committee or campaign committee, the first staffers
get to work setting up headquarters, sometimes in a temporary space,
and bringing on new staff. The location of the national
headquarters can make a difference. Recent campaigns show their
may be an advantage to being outside the Beltway as evidenced by Obama
(Chicago), George W. Bush (Austin), Bill Clinton (Little Rock).
In 1999, when Vice President Al Gore's campaign appeared to be
floundering he shut down his DC headquarters and moved all those
willing to go to Nashville.
The representation
of a presidential campaign out in the states is uneven. During
the primaries in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire campaigns develop massive organizations over a period of many month or even a
year, while in later states campaigns may be active for just a few
weeks. Success in an early state will typically lead to influx of
people and interest that can challenge the ability of a campaign to
make
effective use of it. Once the nomination is secured or in view,
the campaign will bring on new talent as it builds out a national
organization. The campaign will also place its own people in key
positions at the national party committees (DNC and RNC) as well as
naming people to work with the convention committees. Some staff
will be assigned for the vice presidential nominee, and he or she will
also bring some of his or her own people.
In the Fall, out in the states, three entities
help bring a presidential candidate's message to the voters: (a) the
candidate's campaign
organization; (b) the unified effort designed to elect party members at
every level from the court house to the White House (known as the
coordinated
campaign for Democrats and the Victory campaign for Republicans); and
(c) the state party. Also note that interest groups working
independently of
the campaign may also activate for or against the candidate. Electoral
math and the quest for 270 electoral votes dictate that a presidential
campaign should focus its resources on certain states, while other
states may
be largely bypassed.
The 2008 campaign saw a number of interesting developments in campaign
organization. During the primaries, the McCain campaign, having
fallen well short of fundraising projections, underwent a major
restructuring, really a near implosion, in July 2007. This may
have been beneficial in allowing McCain to shed some consultants; in
any event he went on to win the nomination. Among other
Republican campaigns, the Giuliani campaign looked very good on paper
in terms of building a national organization, but when it came to the
ballot box his effort folded rather quickly. Ron Paul probably
inspired the most grassroots activism of any Republican candidate, but
his campaign organization itself was unable to leverage that. On
the Democratic side, the Clinton campaign had a share of infighting and
ultimately in Feb. 2008 Clinton let her campaign manager and deputy
campaign manager go. Throughout the primaries, the Obama
campaign was characterized by an unprecedented field organization,
starting for example with about 37 offices in Iowa; three months later
it had about 39 offices in Pennsylvania and this continued right to the
last of the primaries with seven offices in Montana and 12 in South
Dakota. The
Obama campaign seemed to play hard in every state, building
organizations in states like Kansas (Feb. 5 caucuses) where the Clinton
campaign did not fully engage.
In the
general election the McCain
(and then McCain-Palin) campaign had 11 regional campaign managers,
each
with significant responsibilities and each headquartered in what was
expected to be a battleground state. In quite a few states, the
McCain
campaign did not have a person on the ground and relied on the state
party. By contrast Obama for America, by virtue of its
fundraising
success and vast resources, was able to put together an unprecedented
field organization including approximately 770
field offices around the country, and at least one staffer in every
state. In competitive states OFA typically had a state director,
political director, communications director and a new media
director. The coordinated campaign/field component called the
Campaign
for Change encompassed the many field organizers. Its initial
focus was on voter registration. Because the Obama campaign did
not take PAC or
lobbyist money, there were several instances where state parties ran
their own coordinated campaigns with their own set of field offices in
addition
to the Campaign for Change and its field offices. In every state
the Obama campaign had many more people on the ground than did the
McCain campaign. Beyond the many field organizers, the campaign
had deputy field organizers, committed volunteers who went through one
of the many Camp Obama two-day training sessions held around the
country and then relocated for five weeks or more to a targeted state.
Once the election is over, the
process
of packing up and winding down the campaign, built up over so many long
months, took place bringing with it a sense of nostalgia. Many members of the winning campaign team
found places in the inaugural committee or on the transition, while
hoping for jobs in the new administration. For members of the
losing campaign it was also time to dust off the resumes and try to
figure out what to do next.
