The campaign of Republican Sen. John McCain is promising a political comeback of epic proportions—of course, that is their job at this point in the race.
“We fight back,” Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager told reporters on a conference call Friday. “And we are witnessing one of the greatest comebacks you have seen since John McCain won the primary.”
What does Davis have to back it up? The campaign says its internal numbers show a much closer race in some states than the public polling suggests. In Iowa, the campaign says McCain has pulled even with Obama—most public polls show a double-digit Obama lead there.
Still, lead pollster Bill McInturff would go no further than a promise that McCain could make Election Day close. He again dismissed some polls relying on forecasts of much heavier Democratic turnout. McInturff notes that the recent Pew and CBS polls that show Obama with sizable leads assume a party id spread that history suggests may not materialize Nov. 4.
As for the ground game, McCain’s political director Mike DuHaime fired off a tally of GOTV benchmarks to reporters that he says show the McCain ground effort has surpassed President Bush’s effort four years ago. Among them…
-The campaign boasts at least 17 million targeted voter contacts in just the past few days. Close to 25 million in the campaign so far. DuHaime says that’s a more than 60 percent increase.
-More than 1 million active volunteers
-More than 200 million pieces of targeted direct mail in the final weeks aimed at boosting turnout
Rick Davis’ closing message: “We are ready, willing and able to win this election.”
Shane D’Aprile is web editor at Politics magazine. sdaprile@politicsmagazine.com