The Washington Times reports that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani "is maintaining a lead in Republican presidential nomination preference polls, but his campaign team appears disorganized and lacks visible 'ground troops' in key states," according to campaign professionals interviewed by the paper. So, who has the best organization?
Arizona Sen. John McCain "remains the early leader in getting the best campaign talent available nationally and in several important states," the paper says. And former former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may trail Giuliani and McCain in polls, but, "he has impressed Republican campaign professionals as having the best-organized and most-efficient operation and also by lining up support among social conservatives in South Carolina, a key early primary state."
Romney also has a good ground operation up and running in Florida, a delegate-rich state that has moved up its primary date to Feb. 5, the paper says.
"As of right now, the Romney campaign is the only one with numbers of bodies on the ground in Florida," a Florida Republican Party official said privately. "McCain has been working hard behind the scenes and is rumored to start ramping up staff in May."
The Washington Times reports that McCain has hired the team that did "opposition research" for the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney campaigns and for the Republican National Committee, and that they are providing McCain "with information useful in attacking Mr. Giuliani and his record in office."
But Romney may have trumped McCain in that area, too.
Romney has hired Matt Rhoades, who as RNC research director assembled enough material to damage the war-hero image of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Why is that maybe even better than McCain's hiring the Bush-Cheney oppo research team? Rhoades, says the Washington Times, "is close to Matt Drudge, whose constantly updated Internet postings are influential among TV, radio and print news reporters."
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