Obama's paid staff dwarfing McCain's
Democrat targets 50 states as rival focuses on tossups
John McCain is sending smaller staffs to some states but spending more on TV ads
than his rival, Barack Obama. (Carolyn Kaster/associated Press)
By Brian C. Mooney
Globe Staff / July 20, 2008
Behind the headlines about the unprecedented success of Democrat Barack Obama's fund-raising machine lies a more prosaic
truth - his campaign will need every penny of its $300 million goal to bankroll an unprecedented 50-state general election
campaign with a massive army on the ground.
His campaign already has by far the largest full-time paid staff in presidential campaign history, and unlike Republican rival John
McCain's, continues to grow by the day.
National polls show the race remains close between Obama and McCain, but the Obama campaign is paying closer attention to
polls in more than a dozen states that show Obama has a chance of winning in November. The states were won four years ago by
President Bush, in many cases by huge margins. In theory, at least, Obama's effort could nudge states such as Virginia, Indiana,
and North Dakota into the Democratic column and produce a surprising Electoral College boost.
McCain so far is running a more traditional campaign, targeting perennial tossup states such as Florida and Ohio, sending smaller
staffs to those states than Obama, but spending more on television ads. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, said recently that his
staff will eventually increase to about 450. By earlier this month, it had opened 11 regional offices in key states and another 84
offices across the country in a joint effort with the Republican National Committee.
\"It is an incredible amount of progress for a campaign that ended the primaries with no money, little infrastructure, and no formal
organization outside the early primary states,\" Steve Schmidt, who was put in charge of day-to-day operations this month, said in
a memo. \"By putting emphasis on our regional operations . . . we have built a campaign that will be nimble when it counts and
close to the ground where grass-roots activity will drive our message and efforts.\"
Obama, meanwhile, is already running uncontested television advertising in seven of the historically Republican states and is
sending in large paid staffs.
\"Between the Obama staff and the Democratic Party staff there will be several thousand\" paid operatives on the ground deployed
across the country, deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand said in an interview. \"I don't want to get too specific; it gives away
strategy.\"
Large staffs are working in traditional battleground states and every state will have at least some paid staff, with \"large-scale
operations in 22 states, medium operations in many others, and small staffs in only a handful of states,\" Hildebrand said.
Obama and the Democratic Party have about 200 paid staffers working in Florida and more on the way, 90 in Michigan with plans
to expand to 200 by August, at least 200 each eventually in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and 50 in Missouri with plans to expand to
150, according to published reports and interviews with Obama campaign officials.