There were veteran political activists with decades of credentials, frustrated newbies outraged at Washington gridlock and disaffected Republicans drawn to something new.
What the 100 or so people packed into a Marietta library on Tuesday night did have in common, though, were bright-red Donald Trump hats, stickers and buttons. They flashed them as they gathered around Frank Molesky, an ardent Trump supporter there to train them on the painstaking behind-the-scenes work crucial to building a campaign.
“The people who wrote the rules know what they’re doing,” he told the crowd of Trump’s more politically experienced rivals. “We have to be better, faster and quicker than they are.”
Though Trump is waging an unorthodox campaign, his Georgia operation is using the traditional building blocks as it seeks to answer the nagging question ahead of the state’s March 1 primary: Will the voters who flock to Trump events and support him in polls actually show up to cast a ballot?
His top rivals are setting up extensive operations in Georgia to be ready for the so-called “SEC primary,” when a swath of Southern states hold their presidential votes. Each needs manpower to launch phone-a-thons, knock on doors and organize voting drives.
The campaigns also have their eye on the possibility of a brokered national GOP convention, which would put loyalty and training at a premium. If that happens, delegates committed to each candidate will be at the center of deal-making that will test even the most hardened supporter.
‘A training ground’
Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has what many consider to be the most extensive operation in Georgia, including a campaign office in Valdosta. His campaign snapped up many supporters of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s aborted presidential bid, and it boasts of thousands of volunteers for Cruz.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was the early favorite of most establishment Republicans in Georgia, garnering the endorsements of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, Attorney General Sam Olens and others. And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie earned the support of House Speaker David Ralston, though his campaign is less visible than others.
Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who is trying to appeal to both rank-and-file Republicans and the party’s more conservative wing, has landed a clutch of younger supporters. The campaign plans to send some of its volunteers to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — and it expects them to come back to Georgia with tactical advantages.
"It's a training ground," said Jason Anavitarte, a leader of the Georgia For Rubio group. "There's short-term gains from getting that experience. And they will also be ready for November. We're just as strong as anybody else out there."
Same goes for Bush, said Eric Tanenblatt, the GOP fundraiser and longtime Bush family ally who is promoting Jeb Bush’s Georgia efforts.
Bush raised far more money than his Republican rivals in the early going in Georgia, and his super PAC reserved television ad time for February months ahead of time. But as Bush has struggled in the polls, he has turned increasingly to the early-voting states to survive.
Tanenblatt said the Bush campaign is staying in touch with more than 5,000 Georgians who have expressed interest, and some are making calls and traveling to help out in early states. Tanenblatt said 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney shifted resources to Georgia only after the Iowa caucuses, and he expects Bush to do the same.
“Obviously, people want to see Jeb do well in the early primary states, and it’s very quickly going to shift to SEC primary states,” Tanenblatt said. “That’s showtime for us here in Georgia.”
Then there’s the campaign of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the GOP primary in Georgia in 2008. Many of the prominent activists and politicians in Georgia who backed him eight years ago have abandoned him for other contenders, as have some voters who were once die-hard Huckabee fans.
“I am so impressed with Ted Cruz,” said Lee Southwell, who attended a recent Huckabee event but left unswayed. “He can communicate with a broad audience and answer combative questions. And he does so with respect.”
Trump’s durability a question
Trump has dominated polls in Georgia as well as across the country, but his campaign has fought to put to rest talk that his support is not durable.
A small bronze bust of Trump’s head donated by a North Georgia supporter greets visitors to the billionaire’s Georgia campaign headquarters, across from the rising spires of the Atlanta Braves’ future ballpark in Cobb County. It was bustling with activity at midday on Wednesday as Trump staffers chatted about new county-level volunteer “managers” and prepared for a grand opening party for the office three days later.
Behind Trump’s bluster and unorthodox style is a campaign doing the nuts and bolts of hiring staff and recruiting volunteers to make phone calls and knock on doors.
Trump ditched his original Georgia state director, Seth Weathers, and in November hired GOP consultant Brandon Phillips, who was Mitt Romney's Georgia director in 2008 — back when Romney was the anti-establishment foil to John McCain.
The campaign is looking to add regional offices and will in the next few days announce a state leadership structure. The party establishment is not flocking to Trump, of course, but Phillips said “you’ll also be surprised at the number of elected officials we roll out.”
Among them is former state GOP chairman Sue Everhart, who became Trump’s biggest endorsement in Georgia yet when she announced her support of him at a gala at the Atlanta campaign office on Saturday. In a phone interview, she said she picked Trump over Cruz.
“He’s got his finger on the economy, on economics, and the country sure needs that,” said Everhart, a retired banker. “He certainly won’t back down. It was a hard decision to make. But Lord, it will be fun.”
Phillips said the campaign’s strategy is to seek out regular primary voters as well as the less-engaged supporters drawn in by Trump’s singular style.
“Whereas a traditional candidate would only get one pool (of voters) to go chase, we’ve got two pools to chase,” Phillips said.
The billionaire's network in Georgia has been later to form than that of some of his more traditional rivals, but it includes hundreds of active volunteers, juiced by attendees of Trump's pair of large rallies in the state in recent months. While Cruz and other candidates rely on grass-roots super-volunteers, Trump is the only Republican with paid Georgia-based organizers so far.
One activist said she designed 10,000 of her own Trump logos when the national campaign told her it had run out of material for Georgia. And some Republicans report a recent flurry of calls, some of them awkward, from phone-bank volunteers.
State Rep. Buzz Brockway, R-Alpharetta, got a call on his personal cellphone the other day from a Trump fan asking for his support. When he told her that he was committed to Rubio, she pressed on.
“Well, when he drops out, we’ll be back in touch to see if you would like to join us then,” he recalled her saying. Brockway then tried to flip the script, asking her to support Rubio if Trump drops out. The caller, he said, laughed out loud.
At the Marietta library, the Trump organizers briefed the volunteers on how to hand out “Trump cards” to voters who show even the slightest interest in the candidate. Molesky urged the crowd to attend as many local meetings as they can — and volunteer for any leadership role that pops up.
“Getting out the vote is nice. Wearing T-shirts is nice,” Molesky said. “But we have to start participating in the delegate process. Because if not, our best efforts are for naught.”
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