SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2010
POLITICS THE NATION Outsider candidates seek insider help
&
Shoestring campaigns in primary give way to more money, expertise
by Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane
House candidate Raul Labra- dor won his May 25 Republican primary in Idaho with a brain trust that included a high school student and a budget so meager the campaign’s ad operation con- sisted of a few radio spots and a flier mailed to 2,500 voters. “We hoped most of them had multiple personalities,” joked Labrador adviser Dennis Mans- field. Labrador, along with Senate candidates Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sharron Angle (R-Nev.) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), won their races in part because they didn’t come across as overly polished pols. Their shoestring budgets and rickety campaign operations gave them an authentic, unpackaged appeal. But while “tea party” and other grass-roots activists may have helped propel these candi- dates in the first round, the next one requires competing in “very sophisticated, expensive and probably negative” general elec- tion contests, said Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “That calls for a dif- ferent kind of discipline and ex- pertise.”
And so, as they prepare their
general election campaigns against well-financed and well- prepared opponents, some out- sider candidates — who made their names denouncing Wash- ington’s professional political class — are quietly looking to in- sider political consultants, fund- raisers and admakers for help. Labrador spent three days in
Washington last week meeting fundraisers, advertising consul- tants and other D.C. power bro- kers of the sort he pilloried on the campaign trail for playing favor- ites with his primary opponent, Vaughn Ward. The two-term state representative now knows that he needs their dollars and expertise to unseat a well-funded Demo- cratic rival, Rep. Walter Minnick. The same is true of Angle, whose victory on Tuesday means that she will go up against one of the Democratic giants on the bal- lot this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid. Angle is scheduled to visit Washington this week to meet the GOP brass she ridiculed in her long-shot pri- mary race. And later this month, Paul is scheduled to attend a Washington fundraiser with Sen- ate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who backed Paul’s primary opponent, Trey Grayson.
Moving quickly Angle is moving quickly to pull
together a professional operation. She has hired a team of Washing- ton-based consultants and signed an online fundraising outfit that worked for Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s winning campaign in Massachusetts in January. By day’s end Friday, Angle’s cam- paign expected to have collected more than $500,000 in online contributions since she claimed victory Tuesday night. This is quite a change for Angle.
In her primary-night speech, she thanked two staffers — Terry Campbell and Jerry Stacy. She didn’t thank anyone else — but there was almost no one else. Campbell and Stacy served as consultants, each collecting $2,000 a month, with Campbell effectively holding the post that would normally be called cam- paign manager and Stacy serving in the press secretary job. A half-dozen other consultants
were on the payroll, but no one worked for the campaign full time. As of Friday morning, the campaign’s news releases were still coming from an AT&T e-mail address. She outsourced some campaign jobs to conservative in- terest groups, such as the Club for Growth and Freedom Works, which made get-out-the-vote calls and sent e-mails on her behalf. Outsiders win primaries and
general elections in every election cycle and usually are quickly em- braced by their parties. But this year, making the transition from outsider to insider might be trick- ier, given that they were propelled at least in part by voter anger with the political status quo. Larry Hart, a media consultant who ad- vises Angle, said her team is fully aware of the risks of appearing to have “gone Washington.” That won’t happen, he said. “She’s down-home.” On the Democratic side, Sestak
ran a successful primary cam- paign against Sen. Arlen Specter by attacking Democratic leaders for sticking with a party switcher. Like Paul, Sestak had ample fi- nancial resources but chose to run his campaign with little profes- sional help from inside the Belt- way. Now Sestak, too, is turning to
national Democrats to help him outmaneuver his Republican op- ponent, former representative Pat Toomey. “There are credible por- tions of the establishment that we want to be aligned with,” he said. This could mean a slightly re- duced role for Sestak’s siblings, who have helped to run all of his previous campaigns.
Siblings for support
In 2006, Sestak approached Rahm Emanuel, then the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who told him that he wasn’t ready to run for the suburban Philadelphia district where the retired admiral
NATION IN BRIEF TRAVEL
Spirit pilot strike strands passengers
Discount carrier Spirit Airlines canceled its Saturday and Sunday flights because of a pilot strike, stranding thousands of travelers. Spirit carries more than 16,000
passengers on about 150 flights a day, mostly among the eastern United States, the Caribbean and Latin America. The airline is re- funding fares and giving passen- gers a $100 credit toward future flights. The carrier and its pilots have been in negotiations for more than three years.
—Associated Press
Seattle apartment fire kills 5: Five people were killed Saturday morn- ing in a fire that destroyed an apartment in Seattle’s Fremont
crat Tom Hayhurst already has his name on the ballot for the general election.
Four dead after plane crash into Ariz. school: Authorities searching through the wreckage of a small plane that nosedived into an Ari- zona high school and exploded found four bodies Saturday. Offi- cials had previously thought only two people were aboard the single- engine Piper that crashed Friday afternoon into a two-story build- ing at the school in the small east- ern Arizona town of Eagar.
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES Spirit Airlines pilots picket at the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., airport.
neighborhood, north of down- town. Four children were among the victims.
Replacement picked for Ind. race: Republican officials in Indiana se- lected state Sen. Marlin Stutzman
on Saturday to replace former U.S. representative Mark Souder (R) on the November ballot and to run in a special election to fill the remain- der of his term. Souder resigned in May after admitting to an extra- marital affair with a staffer. Demo-
Gambling parents charged in Conn. with leaving kids in car: Po- lice say two Massachusetts parents left a 1-year-old and a 10-year-old alone in a car for more than an hour as they gambled at a Connect- icut casino. They were charged with reckless endangerment —From news services
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had grown up. So Sestak turned to brother Richard, a Los Angeles at- torney, and sisters Elizabeth and Margaret to serve as his campaign manager, top fundraiser and treasurer. He won. “The only ones who were sup-
porting me were my family,” Ses- tak said in an interview last week. In both the 2006 House race and the 2010 primary, he said, his team made some mistakes, “be- cause we weren’t politically aware.” But he expects to continue to rely on his family for advice. “The results speak for them- selves,” he said. Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), chairman of the Democratic Sena- torial Campaign Committee, said having help from Washington won’t necessarily damage candi- dates’ efforts to promote them- selves as outsiders. “Joe Sestak is still going to be an outsider no matter what we do in helping him with his campaign,” he said. “There’s a difference between structure and independence and your approach to the campaign.” That might come as a relief to
Labrador, who is losing two of his most valued aides. Mansfield, a state political veteran, is return- ing to his consulting business. Mansfield’s son, Colin, a volunteer who developed Labrador’s elabo- rate social-networking operation, will report to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in two weeks. Labrador said he’s not worried
that bringing in a team of pros will undermine his appeal as a regular guy. “I think what people are look- ing for is authenticity. And some- one they can really feel in their heart believes the statements they’re making,” Labrador said. “The only concern that I have, and I’m working on that right now, is raising enough money to get my message out.”
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