Can this be true?

Josh Micah Marshall quotes a "friend in DC republican circles"



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From a friend in DC Republican circles ...

I think you may be missing a key element of McCain's strategy. Remember, he has NO national ground game to counter Obama's vaunted field organization. No Bush-style 72 hour GOTV operation, no large and disciplined staff -- just a small core staff and media operation. In order to win without a ground game he literally has to destroy Obama as a viable alternative -- it isn't enough to just get close. That means the ads will be harder edged, more plentiful and more relentless than we've ever seen. I think Mark McKinnon realized that early on, and didn't want to be the guy to do to Obama what has to be done to win, as that person will become a political scourge (a la Atwater) when all is said and done, even if it works.

But can this really be true? I mean, can it be true that McCain will have "no ground game" and no "72 hour GOTV operation?" How would we know? The republican party, contrary to all reports to the contrary, is not dead. And it still has plenty of money. And it still has a reach into the churches which have their own "ground game" called Sunday Huckstering. Look, they went bitter and angry or, as Perlstein so memorably puts it, Faggot, N-gger, Bitch *because that is who they are.* and as for someone becoming a "political scourage a la atwater" scourge doesn't mean *pariah* it means *successful bastard on our side*. There are plenty of wannabe Roves, Atwaters, and Ailes's out there still. And not one of them would shy away from an ugly, gutter, campaign. Just because, perhaps, one of McCain's true believers would doesn't excuse the rest of them from calculating that this is a winning pitch. Its always been a winning pitch. Bush may have had a ground game too, but he took to the gutter early and often.

aimai