Kerry campaign bullied local activists & party and blew it in Ohio

[Kolesar]

PERSPECTIVE: Consultant says Mahoning typical of Ohio campaign

JOHN McCARTHY

Associated Press


AKRON, Ohio - A new study found that John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign bullied its way into a traditional Democratic stronghold and ignored local party officials and their knowledge of the area.

The study, prepared for a conference on the election at the University of Akron this month, contends the Kerry campaign brought in outsiders to run the Mahoning County campaign, staged poorly organized events and angered union leaders.
...
Similar gaffes occurred across the state and were typical of a campaign that didn't know the political territory, said Greg Haas, a consultant who has worked on Democratic campaigns since the 1970s.

"The national campaign completely discounted what was being said from the state, what they were hearing from the ground up," said Haas, who was not part of Kerry's campaign. "They decided that whatever they thought was best, was best."
...
"Had they been listening to their state director and listening to the local parties, I think they could have won the state comfortably," Haas said.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/12981231.htm

[Kukesa]

1. Sounds like what happened in Montgomery Co., too. n/t

[liberalnurse]

6. Ditto Kukesa......

his handlers shoved him down our throats.

[AngryOldDem]

17. Yeppers....

It was a disgrace and became even more so the closer to the election.

[ClevelandSportsCurse]

2. In Summit, they did GOTV, which was what the local party was doing anyway

The local party would have achieved the same results in a GOTV effort. The Kerry campaign would have been better off targeting rural Republican areas. It ended being a giant waste of resources.

Ohio is a difficult and complex state to understand. That is why one has to live here for awhile to fully understand it. The Kerry people had no interest in learning the dynamics of the state. They came in with a smarter-than-thou attitude and were going to do things their way.

[WCGreen]

3. They sent in a lot of kids from out of state...

And turned a lot of party activists off with their arrogance...

MoveOn was also not organized in the Cleveland area...

[Kolesar]

5. The Bostonian they sent in to my county was a blockhead

I think it was a woman named Joisette from Moveon who organized a great media event when we were protesting * in my community. They drove to the fundraiser with boxes of thousands of pink slips for George. She even achieved getting TV time.

[WCGreen]

8. They were doing this huge walking and Id'ing voters in

the precincts/ The ones they picked were handing out came from god knows where... Didn't follow through on the legal precincts so it confused the hell out of the volunteers...

Also, I went in and told them that I had been an officer with the party for the last eight years...

And they kind of looked at me and said, in a very condescending way, how good for you....

This was after I had gone to Kerry HQ about three months before the election and asked if they needed some help with targeting or strategy since I had run several county wide elections...

And again, the same condescending answer...

Then they said, could you answer phones for us.....

It put me out...

[AngryOldDem]

18. This sounds familiar

<<<Didn't follow through on the legal precincts so it confused the hell out of the volunteers...>>>

My husband volunteered to be a precinct captain and he spent countless hours walking around and trying to gauge support for Kerry in a highly GOP area. The results were extremely encouraging, but when he showed his results to the people at HQ (including a spreadsheet he had done with percentages, etc.) they acted as if they didn't care. He more or less got a head-pat and a "That's nice." He was very put off by that and more or less walked away from the campaign. If this was a sample of their attitude concerning all precincts, then no wonder Kerry lost Montco the way he did. Losing Montco was (and still is) inexcusable.

What was really galling was the change in personnel from the summer (around the time of the convention) to the weeks just prior to the election. Apparently most of us volunteers were under the mistaken impression that who we were working with in July were full-time, paid staffers who were there till November. Nope. They were all college kids who were gone by the end of August. They were replaced by some of the most clueless people I'd ever met. I was down at HQ the week before the election, and it was pure amateur night. (It was great, though, if you wanted to stuff literature and sell campaign paraphernalia.)

Kerry, in my opinion, lost Ohio because of stuff like this. He has no one to blame but his own campaign.

How much on target am I, Kukesa?

[WCGreen]

23. I use to be the treasurer for the Cuyahoga County Democratic

PArty, did targeting and all the stat work for the county party...

these kids came in with the attitude like we were rubes or something...

Everything was going through Jane Campbell's office...

I think in the county, they go for the mayor of the most high profile city to be their go to guy...

Clinton did the same thing...

He neglected Dimora, who was the county chair and is the best political mind in probably the whole state, and went with former Cleveland mayor, Mike White, who was insulated and protected by the corporate powers...

That is why I find local politics much more rewarding...

You are never going to break through that cabal that the east coast ivy league schools have over the campaigns....

[Rick Myers]

4. They had to use force in Mahoning County

The local Party Chair (and the local Dem party) is bankrolled by a Republican. Even the asshat mayor (a Dem) came out PRO_BUSH!!!

[Kukesa]

7. Hey, Rick, who is that Repuke who

did the bankrolling?

Since I'm originally from Youngstown/Mahoning Co., I'm still interested in politics up there in the NE park of the state.

[Rick Myers]

14. Clarence 'Sonny' Smith

[Kukesa]

15. Thanks, my friend. n/t

[OzarkDem]

12. I wondered about that

Agree, some local party organizations are dysfunctional and its hard to blame any presidential campaign for taking charge to keep its own campaign on track.

Can someone explain how so many Dem leaders in Ohio end up being "owned" by Republicans and how we fix the problem? This isn't the first case I've heard of.

[Botany]

9. I worked for Kerry in Ohio ...

Columbus OH sure mistakes were made but ......

Ohio was lost due to criminal acts of the bush cheney campaign
and the Ohio Republican party.

The mistakes made by the young and out of state folks were many
but nothing compared to the fraud and crime that changed the outcome.

Remember Kerry won according to the exit polls.

[OzarkDem]

11. We have to learn from the past

Regardless of election problems, a lot of dumb mistakes were made in Ohio and we still have to learn from them. Columbus hasn't run a good presidential campaign since 1992. The entire state party leadership needs a shakeup.

[Botany]

13. Agreed

Denny White is awful and should be gone yesterday.

But Kerry's loose in Ohio was due to criminal acts ..... not
unless Kerry won by 25% "they" had the structure in place to steal
the election have you seen this from Ken Blackwell's web site?

[OzarkDem]

10. Campaign in a Can

Gore did the same thing in 2000 and Kerry followed a similar game plan. Dems suffered the last 2 presidential elections because they both fell for the idea that they could create identical portable campaign units that drop into an area a few weeks or months before election day.

Its more expensive to come into an area farther in advance, but well worth it. IMHO, the Gore campaign was much worse in this department than Kerry's. Gore's people were downright rude and incredibly inexperienced. Kerry's people were nicer, but you had the impression they'd been trained to ignore any input from the local level.

[Kukesa]

16. And they did "ignore any input from the local level."

They told us we didn't need yard signs because yard signs don't win elections.

This is SW Ohio where yard signs are important. My co-chair (visibility committee) funded the first yard sign purchase ($2K) and we sold them out of our car trunks.

Ya know, I'm not hiding my bitterness very well . . .

[AngryOldDem]

19. Yeah....this kind of brings it all back, doesn't it?

It's one thing to run a well-managed campaign and lose. Quite another to lose it due to flat arrogance and incompetence.

[Kukesa]

22. It sure does, AOD, it sure does. n/t

[johnsauter]

20. ODP Blog

I've started a blog thread about this very AP article over at the Ohio Democratic Party blog (www.ohiodems.org). Feel free to drop by and give us your thoughts.

I'll do my best to stop by the DU and post from time to time.

[Kukesa]

21. Oh, honey, I gave up on the Ohio Democratic Party

a long time ago.

We'd love to have you drop by and post on DU whenever you can.

Welcome to DU.

[WCGreen]

24. Lieberman should be the state chair...

I know Dimora, here in Cuyahoga, always favored Lieberman to be the state chair....

ODP is too obsessed with pleasing Washington that they rarely look at any other races....

[newyawker99]

27. Hi johnsauter!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Selteri]

25. Add Lucas County in as well, that's what happened. N.T

[WLKjr]

26. I was in Cincy helping a friend

and I witnessed this crap as well. The leader of the group I was helping was getting phone calls from a kerry staffer constantly, she would give the staffer ideas on what needed done in that crucial few last days, and kept getting shot down time and time again. She finally blew up at the staffer on the phone and then refused to talk about it to the rest of the group.