Congressional Candidates: Link With McCain

Note: Tomorrow, I'll write about what a "unified national campaign" means -- and why it makes sense for John McCain and other GOP candidates for federal offices. The material below is the beginning of a sustained effort to wage unified, national campaigns against the Democrats -- from John McCain on down. Conventional wisdom and conventional practices won't be enough this year. Please join mccainnow today . . . and read on . . .

URGENT TO GOP CANDIDATES AND STAFFERS: I just received the following e-mail from Brad Marston, who heads the (huge and effective) "unofficial campaign" (the "ecampaign") for John McCain. He agrees completely on the concept of a single, unified, national campaign for Senator McCain and GOP congressional and senatorial candidates. Here's what Brad asks (in italics):

Thanks so much, Steve. The link to McCainNow.com is below, http://mccainnow.com. People can register by clicking on the link on the main page.

As far as the need to make this a combined, national campaign, I could not agree more. With your contacts with other campaigns I would offer the following:

1) Send me a 60 H x 180 W Campaign Graphic and the url of their campaign website. We will convert it into a graphic link.
2) Send me the url of their Slatecard donation page and we will add it to the McCain Now slate to hopefully give their fundraising some additional visibility.
3) If they aren't using Slatecard, urge them to sign up and then send me the URL.

Obviously I don't have any control over how the McCain Campaign or the RNC are going to run this campaign. However I do have some control over how e-McCain and our efforts are carried out. I am doing all that I can to see that at least the volunteer on line fforts are run in a unified manner. It is the key to any hope of victory.

Regards,

Brad

Brad Marston

Support John McCain Online
http://McCainnow.com
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Brad Marston is reachable at: bmars90@comcast.net.
Slatecard is reachable at: Joe@slatecard.com or David@Slatecard.com.
I'm reachable at: TalkTop65@aol.com (If you need technical support with your web site or other online matters, contact either me or Rajan Vaish at: vaish.rajan@gmail.com) Let's go out and win these races.


Brad Marston, a leader in the McCain Campaign, sent out an e-mail today urging all Republican candidates to combine their efforts with those of our GOP presidential candidate. John McCain looks like a big winner in MOST congressional districts in the U.S. He should help carry many Republican candidates to victory. I sent the following message to Brad

I am forwarding your request to several congressional candidates in PA (and elsewhere), and I'll forward it later to hundreds of activists across the nation. The most important step people (including candidates) can take is to join http://mccainnow.com/. As John McCain goes, so will go the fate of many Republican candidates in PA.

The usual way of conducting a "down-ballot" campaign is for the candidate to run as if he or she was engaged in the nation's only race. That's an extremely bad idea this year, because McCain has a good chance of carrying all but about 4-5 counties in PA.

I'm also asking all McCain Supporters (and have had some success) to back congressional (and senatorial) candidates who are truly outstanding. In some vigorously contested PA congressional districts, John McCain will win by 50,000-plus votes, and the challenge is to make sure that MOST of those McCain votes go to other fine GOP candidates.

Right now, this effort is tough sledding, but in July and August this approach should pay dividends both for McCain and other candidates. "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately." (B. Franklin)

Kathy Morrison has started new blogs -- one focuses on local Republican races and the other on "battleground states." Both are worth supporting and can help top-flight congressional candidates. I've written columns on both sites and will do more.

It's critical that great GOP candidates raise enough money to get their messages across, and our constant refrain should be for people to contribute to the limits of their financial ability. Also, if the candidates can develop "small armies" of volunteers, they have great chances to pull off upsets. We do need to elect John McCain as President, but we also must make sure he has a Congress that supports his initiatives.

I fully expect John McCain to spend a lot of time in Pennsylvania. He should appear with congressional candidates, and they should all express their mutual support for one another.

God bless everyone receiving this message. Let's go out and win races where right now we're behind -- but not as far behind as some pundits think.