Saw this on Daily Kos on Tuesday:
From Iowa City, Iowa, a friend of mine writes:
“I saw am interesting omen last night. They’ve closed the local McCain campaign office. I go by there once or twice a week and I noticed last night that it appeared to be empty. I double checked this AM and, indeed, it appears abandoned.”
After the jump I’ve posted addresses for the “victory offices” currently listed on this page of the Iowa for McCain-Palin website. The contacts listed for each office appear to be employees of the Iowa Republican Party.
Clearly the Iowa Republican Party will keep some field offices open to GOTV for statehouse races, even if the McCain campaign has transferred staff out of Iowa.
Bleeding Heartland readers, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to check whether any McCain offices you’ve noticed in your area are still open. You can post a comment in this thread or e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com to let me know whether the offices have been shut down.
UPDATE: An alert reader writes:
I swung past 413 Northwestern Ave in Ames this morning. It looked like mostly a Latham operation. There are 15-20 Latham signs plastered across the front of the building but only one McCain-Palin sign, on the lower portion of the front door. There is also a single Reed sign and maybe one sign for someone else, but I didn’t get a good look at that one. I didn’t go inside but there were cars parked outside and it looked like it was still open.
Thanks, and keep e-mailing me with reports like these.
Central Iowa Victory Office
2775 86th Street
Urbandale, IA 50322
Contact: Nick Frommelt
nfrommelt@iowagop.org
AND
Contact: Melissa Subbotin
msubbotin@iowagop.orgNorth Central Iowa Victory Office
413 Northwestern Avenue
Ames, IA 50010
Contact: Garrett Payne
gpayne@iowagop.orgMarshalltown Area Victory Office
32 West Main Street
Marshalltown, IA 50158
Contact: Luke Hannan
lhannan@iowagop.orgWaterloo Area Victory Office
2307 Falls Ave
Waterloo, IA 50701
Contact: Rachel Larios
rlarios@iowagop.orgCedar Rapids Area Victory Office
2240 7th Ave East, Suite 5
Marion, Iowa
Contact: Luke Martz
lmartz@iowagop.orgJohnson County Victory Office
411 Second Street
Coralville, IA 52241
Contact: Nicholas Karellas
nkarellas@iowagop.orgEastern Iowa Victory Office
1880 E. 54th Street
Davenport, IA 52807
Contact: Amanda Sebastian
asebastian@iowagop.orgWarren County Victory Office
1214 North Jefferson Street
Indianola, IA 50125
Contact: Heather Hooper
hhooper@iowagop.orgSoutheast Iowa Victory Office
2775 86th Street
Urbandale, IA 50322
Contact: Louis Vander Streek
lvanderstreek@iowagop.orgNortheast Iowa Victory Office
2560 Dodge Street
Dubuque, IA 52003
Contact: Catherine Eng
ceng@iowagop.orgNorthwest Iowa Victory Office
4281 Sergeant Road
Sioux City, IA 51106
Contact: Nathaniel Cram
ncram@iowagop.orgSouthwest Iowa Victory Office
1851 Madison Avenue, Suite 716
Council Bluffs, IA 51503
Contact: Andrew Northwall
anorthwall@iowagop.org
6 Comments
How sweet it is.
Guess they won’t be doing that GOTV thing.
riverdog9 Tue 23 Sep 9:58 PM
Good for you, bad for us...
McCain is down by double digits in Iowa with 6 weeks to go. It’s a lost cause. This means he might send his people to Indiana, where he has an unexpected battle with Obama.
vox-populi Wed 24 Sep 2:28 AM
I figured he would have to get serious
in Indiana. Their internal polling must have them worried.
I think it’s a little late for the Republicans to build a field operation from scratch in Indiana, don’t you? They haven’t had real competition for a while.
How do you feel about the down-ticket races in your state?
desmoinesdem Wed 24 Sep 7:50 AM
I plan on releasing my next diary later this week...
The Republicans definitely aren’t building a field operation from scratch. Indiana has had 20 years of contested elections and the Republican organization is strong. Indiana Democrats controlled the Governor’s office for 16 years and held the lower house in the legislature for a long time as well.
Sadly, our candidate for Governor has turned out to be weak (she has closed down her field operations, relying on the Obama campaign and she’s off the air 40 days before election day). And the Republican incumbent has been spending millions since April and hasn’t left the airwaves. He’s improved his standing a LOT. He also has a good turnout machine which helped him defeat the incumbent Democratic governor in 2004.
As long as McCain wasn’t playing in Indiana, Obama was going to win. I think they were expecting Obama to pull out sooner than this but it seems like he’s investing more. He, Michelle, Biden, Sebelius, and Madeline Albright have all been here recently. You don’t send yourself, your spouse and your VP to places you aren’t fighting to win.
vox-populi Wed 24 Sep 10:19 AM
sorry to hear about the governor's race
but the rest sounds encouraging.
That’s yet another reason to be grateful Obama didn’t pick Bayh.
desmoinesdem Wed 24 Sep 11:05 AM
Actually...
I think if Obama had chosen Bayh, there would be a huge focus on the governor’s race. Funds would pour in from across the country because it would be a de facto Senate race. And Obama would have won the state without question.
vox-populi Wed 24 Sep 4:06 PM