GOP builds national campaign network from its grass roots

The Republican Party over the next few weeks will open a series of local campaign offices in a half-dozen key swing states to help mobilize GOP voters this fall and catch up with President Obama's head start in campaign organization.

By Jessica Kourkounis, Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop Monday in Aston, Pa.

By Jessica Kourkounis, Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop Monday in Aston, Pa.

Over the next two weeks, these "victory offices" opened jointly by the Republican National Committee and state GOP committees will develop and share voter contact information, grass-roots organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts with state party committees. By summer, the network will be at the service of the party's nominee, presumably former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

The new offices being established by mid-May in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Mexico, Iowa and Wisconsin join those opened by the Republican National Committee in March and April in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, Michigan and Colorado.

The plan, RNC Political Director Rick Wiley said, is create the network to get Republicans to the polls in the 12 battleground states that will determine who wins in November. The offices, he said, are "the ground game run by the RNC in conjunction with the states."

That ground game will ultimately become part of the Romney campaign.

Federal campaign law requires that the state party, national party and presidential campaign pay for some services themselves and not share money.

But as a practical matter, "There is not going to be an inch of daylight between us and the RNC," said Colorado Republican Party chairman Ryan Call. And once the Romney campaign ramps up, "there will not be an inch of daylight between us and the campaign either."

Much of the work has already been taking place, said Annaliese Wiederspahn, spokeswoman for the Republican Party of New Mexico. There, the state party has already been on the ground contacting voters for months, focusing particularly on state House races, where Republicans are only three seats shy of a majority.

"We have spent so much time, district by district, learning what's going on in these districts" that the state party can provide the national party a tremendous road map of what issues resonate in the state, she said. The big benefit the state party receives from the partnership is "having them on the ground and helping us to build infrastructure … and help us ramp up and scale up quickly," she said.

Republicans and Democrats agree that the Obama campaign has a head start in setting up state offices for the presidential campaign. "We did that slow build while they were in primaries," said Obama campaign spokeswoman Katie Hogan.

The RNC wanted to open offices in the 12 battleground states by May, even without an official nominee, Wiley said. That's because the Obama campaign has been "building this for a year. They have had an opportunity to get out ahead of us."

Obama's campaign claims to be a 50-state operation, and has offices in states such as Wyoming and Nebraska that the president has little chance of winning in November. Even if Obama won't carry those states, Hogan said, volunteers there "can just as well make phone calls into a battleground state."

Not so with the RNC, Wiley said. It won't open "victory offices" in states such as Alabama and Mississippi that are expected to vote Republican. "We don't have to," he said.

But in states such as California, New York and Illinois, "there will be places where the RNC spends money to ensure or maintain our House majority," Wiley said. There will be "some victory programs in those congressional districts as well," even where there is not a statewide effort.

Republicans generally believe that Democrats will need a bigger ground game effort because they face an "enthusiasm gap" — young voters, minorities and other parts of the giant coalition that elected Obama in 2008 are simply less excited about him and less motivated to get to the polls than they were four years ago.

"We're fortunate in the sense that there is a great deal of Republican enthusiasm to make Obama a one-term president, so the task is to harness that excitement and turn it into a network that gets voters to the polls," said New Hampshire GOP Chairman Wayne MacDonald.

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GOP Rivals Bond Over Conservative Roots (The Atlantic Wire)

DES MOINES, Iowa – There was plenty of good will and a few tears as six Republican presidential rivals gathered here Saturday afternoon for a forum in which they agreed more than they debated the role of government and religion in society before an audience of evangelical activists.

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The atmosphere turned emotional in the second hour as candidates recalled personal challenges and failures, prompting at least two – businessman Herman Cain and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum – to cry.

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The “Thanksgiving table forum” was hosted by the Family Leader, a Christian organization that encourages its members to consider their religious views in political decisions. Neither Mitt Romney nor Jon Huntsman, the two Mormons in the race, attended.

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The first hour featured questions about hot-button conservative issues, and prompted a discussion among candidates about whether more religious citizens in the country have been marginalized.

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“Those of us that are people of faith and strong faith have allowed the non-faith element to intimidate us into not fighting back,” Cain told the audience of about 2,500 in a West Des Moines church. Texas Gov. Rick Perry bemoaned a law that limits political speech from the pulpit, saying pastors needed to be talking about conservative values in church. “And let me tell you: it needs to be our values,” the he said. Agreed Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.: “That’s not the American way."

Related: Math Says You Should Take Herman Cain Seriously

That prompted the candidates to make a collective argument for getting the federal government out of education and allowing discussion of religion in schools. Leading that discussion was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who captured the first rounds of applause of the night and was a consistent favorite with the crowd.

Asked about what value he would most like to re-instill in America, Gingrich said, “I think it would be that every American understood that we were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, and I wouldn’t have anybody teaching who felt uncomfortable explaining what the Founding Fathers meant.”

Despite the candidates’ devotion to the 10th Amendment, upholding states' rights, nearly all came out in favor of federal laws or constitutional amendments outlawing abortion and defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

“When you look at issues like traditional marriage, when you look at issues like the human life amendment, the president of the United States can lead on those issues, can publicly proclaim support and go campaign across the country to get states to support those positions,” Perry said. “That is the virtuous direction that the next president of the United States needs to powerfully go down.”

The notable exception was Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who said he would leave the definition of marriage to the states in accordance with the Constitution. He went one step further, though, suggesting the entire institution would be best left to the church.

“I think the reason we fight and feud over this is because we have too much government everywhere,” Paul said. “I would say the church should make this decision.”

The talk about states’ rights turned to civil rights at one point when forum moderator Frank Luntz, a conservative pollster, asked Cain whether states had the right to say ‘no’ to Washington’s attempts to legislate on moral issues – such as segregation in the South in the earlier part of the 20th century.

The Founding Fathers, “set the bar high,” Cain said. “They didn’t set it where they were, they set the bar high hoping that this nation would aspire up to that level and that’s the journey we have been on since the beginning of this nation,” he said. Cain acknowledged that the federal government had the right to interfere with state law on that occasion because his state was “wrong.”

“I saw the separate water fountains. It wasn’t right, it didn’t feel right,” Cain said.

Although the candidates were in agreement for much of the night – and the tone was that of a group of friendly colleagues – Santorum at times angled for votes from the evangelical audience by saying he had done more to fight for the issues that were so important to them.

“That’s the difference between me and everybody else out here,” he said during a discussion of what the candidates would do to protect life. “You make the assumption that the Supreme Court’s going to overturn Roe v. Wade. I’m not going to wait,” Santorum said. He touted his efforts last year in the campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices who had ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.

The second part of the night featured Luntz asking candidates to share personal stories and challenges. Cain choked up and almost couldn’t finish a story about being diagnosed with cancer and having his wife tell him, “we can do this.” Santorum got misty-eyed when he talked about the struggles facing his young daughter, Isabella, who was born with Trisomy 18.

There was compassion among the rivals. Perry reached out to comfort both men, who flanked him, as they told their stories.

"I feel like Dr. Phil," said Luntz, referring to the TV psychologist.

Before the event, Family Leader CEO Bob Vander Plaats stressed that the goal of the forum was not just to elicit the candidates’ positions on certain issues, but to also elucidate why the believe what they do.

That goal was shared by moderator Luntz, who told crowd he wanted them to “understand [the candidates’] worldview.”

“There’s a reason Iowa goes first,” Luntz said, “and it’s because of you.”

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