Karl Rove, chief political advisor to President George W. Bush, said Barack Obama's operation overwhelmed John McCain's campaign in North Carolina in 2008.
Rove, who was in Raleigh to help raise $425,000 for Sen. Richard Burr on Thursday, was asked about Obama's victory over McCain, Rob Christensen reports. It was the first time in 32 years that a Democratic presidential candidate had carried the state.
"President Obama had a big tactical advantage that allowed him to nip the state by less than four tenths of one percent or something like that," Rove said in an interview. "Between June and November he raised and spent $850 million to John McCain's $525 million. That's a big difference. If you can come in here and cover the state as did in the end with television advertising and McCain had no dollars to respond, that's a problem."
"The imbalance in organization, media and campaign activity in this state was enormous," Rove said. "Of course one out of every five adults in this state is African-American and they voted for Obama in numbers much larger than they turned out before."
Comments
Corporate Contributions
February 1, 2010 - 9:20am — TruthSquadHere is an interesting twist - celebs like Oprah, Springsteen, etc. can get personally involved in the campaign and thereby "contribute" millions of dollars in value through the use of their name and their forum. What's the difference?
Level playing field
January 29, 2010 - 3:46pm — tomyknowledgeIt looks like Obama had much more money to spend than McCain. I can see now why the Democrats oppose the corporate influx of money into campaigning. When you have the edge in fundraising you would not want a level playing field.