When it comes to fundraising in a presidential race, it's the expectation game, every candidate has a different bar they're going to have to clear.

Craig Robinson

Categorized in : Politics

If that's the Democratic Party, they won't have to think too hard... by Craig Robinson

If that's the Democratic Party, they won't have to think too hard about it.

We have a three-way race. by Craig Robinson

We have a three-way race.

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It's not like something magical happens once you complete the 99-county tour. What matters is what you do while accomplishing it.

When you have a straw poll, it forces you to turn out people to an event. They make a bigger commitment of giving up their day in the summer to go vote for you at an event. Even though it doesn't matter, it's not binding, it forces you to organize early, it would have forced everyone to organize because the risk of not organizing is that you might get ejected from the race. Not having a straw poll hurt.

Trump can bring new people in and activate people who might sit o... by Craig Robinson

Trump can bring new people in and activate people who might sit on the sidelines.

While someone like Ted Cruz appeals to the activist. Someone who goes to the caucus on a regular basis, Trump appeals to someone who caucus is a complete foreign word to them, it's a heavier lift for the Trump campaign to get their people out. The advantage Trump has is he hasthe highest ceiling of all the candidates. He has broad appeal. That's great.

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This isn't just vote on your way to work or on your way home at night, you’ve gottashow up at a certain time, gotta sit through a meeting and gotta vote so you're gonna have to do some work to get people to turn out.

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All along, I’ve never really thought this was a serious presidential campaign in that it is actually operating and doing things to get elected.

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Trump's field staff makes a difference. They are from the communities that they are responsible for organizing. They lean on their own personal networks to get people to attend and motivate other supporters to do the same. It's really peer-to-peer turnout, and they are probably the best campaign at doing that.

They have been in existence for quite a while, long before Carson even started showing up in the state. That longevity gives them an advantage, because for a long time, it was people's only way to contact anyone in the Carson orbit, so people are used to dealing with them, i think the big problem is that campaign is going to be in the dark about what the PAC is doing. For example, does the PAC have someone lined up to speak at my caucus or does the campaign? What if there are two people who think they are going to do it, or worse, nobody? Caucus campaigns require a lot of attention to detail, so extra hands in the kitchen on caucus night could make things messy in a hurry.

Candidates either speak the same language as evangelical voters or they don't -- and caucus voters tend to have a way to figure that out over time.

We are still in the stage of discovery for voters... People are still kicking the tires. They like what they see, but they really haven't done the research.

Over time they always tend to drift back to their natural harbor -- candidates who are with them on the issues and speak, and even think, like they do.

When they see him on the debate stage, they're not seeing the candidate they've heard about and all been intrigued by, and when those two things don't match up, they start to look elsewhere.

This is a pretty clean hit on Donald Trump all wrapped up in an easy way for people to watch and share.

Now team Walker is ready to go, and a lot of the excitement is gone, you have to harvest support whenever the crop is ready. For Walker, that was a couple of months ago.

When Donald Trump comes to town, we want him to bring the entire circus with him because we want to see it, it's important for Trump to make himself available to Iowans, but I don't think it's required of him to have to go to the 900 town hall meetings and make himself available that way.

I do think there is some cause for concern if you are someone like Walker or Bush, both are well known, and have been labeled front-runners in the race prior to the debate.

In the minds of voters, Walker is supposed to be this conservative reformer who will stand firm on difficult issues. That didn't come across in the debate at all, and Bush is supposed to be the clear front-runner and commanding figure in a huge field of candidates. He was overshadowed by everyone he shared the stage with, and there is not one memorable moment from him in the entire debate.

They want someone who's an outsider, who can upset the applecart, they're willing to deal with a less-than-perfect candidate if they believe it will actually change things in Washington.