Oct 27th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
RNC Up in Montana
This seems like a terrible waste of money. Montana may or may not be competitive at the moment, but any universe in which Barack Obama wins Montana is a universe in which he’s winning the election anyway. And that’s money that could be spent on shoring up Chambliss or Wicker.
34 Responses to “RNC Up in Montana”
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October 27th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Bingo. The only possible benefit here is saving the GOP from the embarrassment of losing Montana. Those 3 electoral votes certainly doesn’t have any impact on the outcome of the election.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Hey, if the Republicans knew how to spend money our country wouldn’t be $7 trillion in debt, and they might have a chance to win the election.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
My first thought on reading the post was “loose lips sink ships”, but I doubt any Republican with the power to follow Matt’s advice is reading this blog… or listening to anyone who does.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I would prefer to see this spent on Governor Pailin’s wardrobe.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Well, they needed to do *something* with that refund from Nieman Marcus.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Maybe they are concerned about the long-term implications of more states being considered toss-up states as opposed to safe red states.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
our country wouldn’t be $7 trillion in debt
The national debt is now over $10 trillion. Bush will have doubled the national debt during his term.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Considering they haven’t done anything right so far, why spoil a perfect record?
October 27th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Worst. Campaign. Ever.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Let’s remember that Bush around this time in 2000 was campaigning in California. If that “genius” Karl Rove had had him in Florida instead, the recount might never have been necessary. Sometimes stupidity is the only explanation.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
The problem for McCain in Montana is that Ron Paul is on the ballot there.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
From a vanity point of view, Montana is a large state so any red vs blue map it adds a lot of color to whichever side takes it.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
There’s no Senate race, Schweitzer is polling in the high 50s, the House seat is safe GOP. Montana’s dirt-cheap for advertising — Mississippi’s fairly cheap too, but Georgia’s more expensive — so the money goes a fair way, but it’s money the RNC shouldn’t need to spend. What a pity.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
It’s pretty easy to explain actually: Montana is a really big state. In fact, due to the oddities of projection, Montana seems even bigger on maps then it really us.
If Obama wins Montana and South Dakota, then the electoral map will literally look a lot different, and the huge swaths of blue across the map would be demoralizing for the next four years.
See this
October 27th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I wasn’t enthusiastic about Howard Dean when he ran to run the DNC – he’d been a fairly conservative governor and although I admired the enthusiasm he inspired, I thought he had been a poor candidate and run a monumentally incompetent campaign. Needless to say, I think I was wrong and he’s done a great job making the decisions for the DNC. The fact that it seems he gets to make the decisions for the RNC too is pure bonus.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
If Obama wins Montana and South Dakota, then the electoral map will literally look a lot different, and the huge swaths of blue across the map would be demoralizing for the next four years.
It won’t matter. I remember the Bush 2000 map done county by county to show this big red land…filled up with more rattlesnakes and woodchucks than humans. That’s the map they will be looking at with tears in their beer on Nov. 5th.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I think David’s right, given the way that wingnuts waved around the ‘vast red splodge in the middle’ maps in years past: the RNC want to be able to point to the red Mountain Time block running from north to south, Block Busters style.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Occam’s razor says:
the RNC has one, or more Daddy Warbucks in MT, who
would be displeased if the state went blue …
October 28th, 2008 at 2:25 am
The Constitution Party is running Ron Paul’s name for president in Montana? I didn’t know parties were allowed to run different names in different states. Last time I heard of that were some Southern states substituting Strom Thurmond for Harry Truman on the Democratic Party line in 1948.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I appreciate the idea that there is literal map-management going on, but I’m still puzzled that this is the strategy. If the GOP defended its senatorial delegation and lost the presidency in unexpected places, they could blame McCain-as-RINO.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:09 am
From a vanity point of view, Montana is a large state so any red vs blue map it adds a lot of color to whichever side takes it.
I agree completely. It looks terrible to lose Montana, and the RNC, in a very serious way, needs to avoid the impression that this election is a landslide.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
How much money? I bet you can get the entire state for a week for $50,000. And if it keeps America looking divided and half red, well that’s not a bad price and potentially a victory for morale.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
It makes sense if you consider it as (a) a morale booster no matter what happens and (b) possibly part of some all-in strategy that involves ceding all of the Kerry states, plus some combination of New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico to Obama, except for Pennsylvania, where efforts are doubled up, along with Virginia, Florida, and Ohio, and perhaps Indiana. Of course, there’s no apparent logic to the second option, since the RNC is also buying time in West Virginia and, my guess, in Georgia by week’s end. So my guess is, it’s more for show than anything else.
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