Cruz and Carson did the best organizing, and it showed.
Yes, Cruz won handily, but if you work hard at something, success looks easy to a casual observer.
With a little more effort, Carson might have eked out a victory: We didn’t time his book tour vacation, he did. Nonetheless, NH Campaign Manager, David Tille, put out a great effort, and was quite close to Cruz’ count in the first round.
Fiorina’s PAC sent a couple of enthusiastic youngsters and came in a distant third.
Trump’s team supposedly made hundreds of phone calls, but failed to make, and grumbled about the 25 vote cutoff in the first round, even though it was clearly posted on the 603 Alliance website – where were the thousands of supporters? Do they only show for the spectacle effect?
The Paul campaign doesn’t call it rigged when they buy extra tickets to a straw poll event for the C4L kids. They call it organizing. Are you telling me that they could not have beaten at least Fiorina, if not Carson? If the supporters at their Hookset and Contoocook events had ben sent to the Caucus, then between 50 and 100 extra supporters would have been present.
Due to the lack of strong alternative pitches, and great staff on site, most of the voters released from the first and second rounds moved toward Cruz – Trump, Fiorina, and Paul, could have pulled in those voters with a stronger presence.
If the others had put in the same level of effort, or even sent the requested videos to make the pitch, we’d have had more rounds in the caucus and potentially a different outcome.
Imagine if all campaigns had made the same number of phone calls that the Cruz campaign did – there would have been 2000 attendees instead of 800 – a nice headache to have fitting them all in, but great fun!
Finally, remember the fear that some GOP groups had as we made our pitch to them – “What if Bush buses in hundreds of supporters?” ONE, count him, ONE, Bush guy showed up, too late to vote. 0.0 – that’s no way to go through a primary season, son!
