A NY Times article today reveals an interesting gem about Ron Paul's campaign strategy. Apparently that $18+ million which has been sitting idle will be used to compete on Tsunami Tuesday.
A Feb. 5 strategy, also known as a "Big State Strategy," is intended to capitalize on a candidate's national name recognition. It's the core strategy that the underlies the Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson campaigns. However for Paul, it seems a bit counterintuitive because he doesn't enjoy widespread name recognition...or does he?
The latest poll undercounts him because many of his supporters are first time voters or not Republicans and wouldn't be included in the poll. His fund raising is impressive with over 100,000 donors in the fourth quarter alone. His online organization is equally impressive organizing money bombs and carrying the flag on blogs. And of course, who can miss the randomly placed (and homemade) Ron Paul signs that dot the landscape of every major city.
A Tsunami Tuesday strategy also means that Paul's camp may be waiting for the field to winnow. It's very likely that by Feb. 5 at least one of his opponents will have dropped out of the race. Similarly, the campaigns that are still standing may be broke and would be unable to compete with Paul on television.
Or maybe it's just an attempt to change the story on what has, up to this point, been the worst run campaign of the cycle.
Humm. Interesting strategy. The problem from my point of view is that his impact will be reduced as the field winnows. I mean, let's give him a huge assumption that he can achieve up to 20% of the Republican vote. Where will 20% be more effective? Iowa or New Hampshire where there will be 9 candidates and the winners will likely be less than 40% or on Tsunami Tuesday when the winners will likely get more than 50% of the vote?
Posted by: Joel | December 18, 2007 11:39 AM | Permalink to Comment