Slideshow: Obama/McCain Headquarters
The parking lot of Sen. John McCain’s Southwest regional campaign headquarters in midtown Phoenix is nearly packed with cars. If there was any hope of the operation being clandestine, the McCain/Palin bumper stickers give them away.
Inside, nearly every seat is filled with a warm body, making calls on behalf of the home-state hopeful. It’s Monday evening, a week before the next president of the United States will be elected, and while most people are sitting down to dinner, this room is bustling with phone activity trying to get the Republican nominee into the White House. And with Democratic candidate Barack Obama closing the gap in Arizona in recent polls, the volunteers aren’t fazed.
Tonight, campaign workers are focusing on Arizona and the swing state of New Mexico, said Kurt Davis, co-leader of the Arizona McCain campaign. The remainder of the week leading up to Election Day, the campaign will be, as Davis says, “blocking and tackling” — going after Election Day voters, having rallies and making phone calls, some of this being done from the office at 16th Street and Missouri Avenue. It is the center of McCain’s campaign in the Southwest, with its arms reaching into New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Utah. The room is awash with homemade posters — “Students 4 McCain,” “Women for Palin,” and “Vets for McCain” — created by volunteers. Some of the volunteers have been involved with the campaign since its beginning two years ago, and some go beyond that to past campaigns.
“When I see the volunteers, it reinvigorates my belief in the political process,” Davis said. “It reminds me that it’s not just about consultants but the impact of the work that the volunteers put in.”
The McCain campaign has been working hard in recent weeks, with the race gathering steam in an election system that is much more complicated than it used to be, said Davis, who has worked on a number of political campaigns and was the executive director of the Republican Party in 1988.
Getting the vote out in this presidential campaign, Davis said, breaks down into three smaller campaigns: permanent early-ballot voters, early-ballot requesters and Election Day voters. The volunteers at the phone banks are targeting these three lists of voters. Sometimes this means getting up a little bit earlier than normal: Volunteers started phone calls at 6 a.m. on Monday. The usual workday is 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“It used to be that everything was geared toward Tuesday in November,” Davis said.
Of course, more extensive campaigning costs more money — a category that McCain is lagging in compared to his opponent. Davis said Obama is out-funding McCain seven to one. By the end of the election, Davis said, Obama will have raised almost $700 million to McCain’s $87 million allotted to him under the public financing system, which limits campaign funds.
“Obama says he wants to get lobbyists out of politics and get money out of politics,” Davis said. “He’s a hypocrite. He told the American people one thing one day and then told them the opposite thing the next day. McCain kept his promise.”
Volunteer Danny Mazza said McCain had to borrow money during the primaries to keep his campaign alive. Mazza has worked on political campaigns since 1998 and on this campaign since McCain formed his presidential exploratory committee. He volunteers at the Southwest headquarters twice a week.
Mazza said he watched McCain go from underdog in the primaries to underdog in the presidential race.
“We’ve seen the campaign go from living off the fat of the land to McCain becoming the nominee of the party to having offices across the country,” Mazza said. “It’s time for McCain to be voted president of the U.S.”
Accounting freshman Corbin Smith worked on the phones as the evening came to a close. He said he usually comes in with fellow ASU College Republicans but had some free time on Monday night. One of the things Smith said McCain needs to do this week is to attack the issue of the economy.
“McCain needs to focus on the fact that regulation caused this mess and not deregulation,” Smith said. “Taxing and spending will lead to inflation.”
Reach the reporter at philip.haldiman@asu.edu.
