A couple of items on Creigh Deeds and his campaign made me think of the (strained?) car metaphors. First, there's an actual car crash:State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, a Democratic candidate for governor, was involved in a minor traffic accident in Louisa County on Saturday evening that sent two people in a car he rear-ended to the hospital.I'm glad to here that everybody's ok in the actual car incident. But what about the metaphorical stuff - bumpy roads, lane changes, etc. - that might spring to mind after reading this story:
According to the Louisa sheriff's office, Deeds collided with the car as it was slowing to make a left turn. Deeds was uninjured. The two people in the other car were taken to a Charlottesville area hospital as a precaution and released that evening. He was issued a $30 ticket for following the vehicle too closely.
Sen. R. Creigh Deeds' gubernatorial campaign is shedding staff to help finance a media buy to help him compete for undecided voters in the homestretch before the June 9 Democratic primary.I asked some knowledgable observers what they thought, and here's some of the reaction I received (along with a few thoughts of my own).
"As this race approaches primary day and we continue to see the majority of the electorate remain undecided, we've had to reassess our strategy and shift some of our resources," campaign manager Joe Abbey said, in a statement released to the Times-Dispatch this afternoon.
"Just recently, we had to make a tough decision and release a handful of our staff members."
[...]
Dumping staff in the homestretch of a contested primary election is generally not considered a sign of a campaign's financial strength. But with an estimated 45 percent of likely voters still undecided on whom to support, Deeds officials characterized the move as a necessary shift in strategy.
"In a primary with such a high number of undecided voters, the reality is that television is the most efficient way we can communicate with voters," said Abbey.
*Arlington County Democratic Committee chair Peter Rousselot, who has endorsed Brian Moran, said on the record: "You would only do this if you don't have enough money for both the amount of media you want and the amount of staff you want."
*One Deeds supporter worries that recent polling data may have "dried up contributions to both Creigh and [Brian] Moran in a big way, as the people with money don't want to bet on a losing horse and there are only so many $20 donations that you can get in an election that folks don't seem too fired up about."
*Another Deeds supporter said that he didn't really know what to think about the campaign's decision to fire field staffers, but that "[p]olling probably indicates the need for the TV" and that "[g]rip and grin can only go so far." The Deeds supporter added that he "believe[s] that low turnout will favor Creigh."
*Which raises the question: in a low-turnout election, is field or TV more effective at targeting your voters and getting them out to vote, but not having much spillover into supporters of other candidates? I'm not sure, although I don't disagree with Ben's analysis that "Creigh doesn't need to be running a statewide turnout operation, he needs to be running a statewide persuasion campaign for people who are going to vote that are undecided." On the other hand, I had always thought of broadcast TV as an expensive and relatively ineffective way, compared to field, to narrowly target your voters. I guess I'm torn on this one.
Personally, I'm puzzled at how shedding a few field staffers, each of whom might make $2,000 or $3,000 per month, is going to buy the Deeds campaign much in terms of extra paid media. Let's say they cut a dozen staffers making $2,000-$3,000 per month each, that would save the campaign $24,000-$36,000; enough to buy perhaps a week of TV in less expensive parts of Virginia, or maybe a couple weeks of radio. How helpful will that be compared to what the dozen field staffers would have brought the campaign? Doesn't a low-turnout primary provide even more of a reason to have a strong get-out-the-vote effort aimed at identifying your voters and ensuring that they turn out?
In the end, I'm not sure exactly what to think of this move by Creigh's campaign, especially since I respect Joe Abbey's campaign management skills (and smarts) so much. Also, Ben's convinced that "there is no way [Creigh] can spend too much money on persuasion mediums like TV, radio and mail." So, maybe that's all there is to this story...or not. What do you think? Was this a metaphorical car crash, just a "bump in the road," or simply a lane change before hitting the gas once again?
