It’s clearly laid out in 140 pages of printed text, handwriting and spreadsheets: The top-secret plan for Rudy Giuliani’s bid for the White House.
The remarkably detailed dossier sets out the budgets, schedules and fund-raising plans that will underpin the former New York mayor’s presidential campaign – as well as his aides’ worries that personal and political baggage could scuttle his run.
At the center of his efforts: a massive fund-raising push to bring in at least $100 million this year, with a scramble for at least $25 million in the next three months alone.
The loss of the battle plan is a remarkable breach in the high-stakes game of presidential politics and a potentially disastrous blunder for Giuliani in the early stages of his campaign.
That’s probably a little overstated, but it’s certainly damaging to have such a sensitive internal document — basically the entire early campaign strategy laid out over 140 pages — leaked to a reporter by “a source sympathetic to one of Giuliani’s rivals for the White House.”
Going through the report, the Giuliani campaign is, not surprisingly, acutely aware of the candidate’s flaws — namely the divorces and extra-marital affairs, the connection to Bernie Kerik, and his left-leaning positions on social issues. It’s safe to say the campaign is taking these concerns very seriously.
One page cites the explicit concern that he might “drop out of [the] race” as a consequence of his potentially “insurmountable” personal and political vulnerabilities.
In terms of damage, the report seems to have two angles. One, which Greg Sargent highlighted, is “the extent to which [the campaign document] reveals the Giuliani camp plotting to steal away John McCain’s top donors.”
The detailed fund-raising plans depict a campaign scrambling to catch up with the organizational advantage of Giuliani’s Republican rivals, particularly Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Some of the leading figures in American business and finance appear as the “prospective leadership” of Giuliani’s campaign, and their names appear elsewhere with instructions for Giuliani to call and seek their support. Two of the top figures on Giuliani’s list, New Jersey mega-fund-raisers Lew Eisenberg and Larry Bathgate, have already signed on with McCain, as has another Giuliani target, FedEx CEO Fred Smith.
In a memo that appears in the dossier, Giuliani aides Dickerson and Roy Bailey urge him to court financier Henry Kravis particularly avidly.
The other angle is a point James Joyner raised: “[I]f your chief selling point is executive competence, such stumbles aren’t good.”
I suppose if you’re going to have these kinds of errors, it’s best to have them in early January, before they cause too many headaches.