Here's a Conventional Wisdom-on-the-hoof Politico piece on the lack of political infrastructure in the Cain campaign. It almost seems like they got out the Palin-has-no-pros essays and applied them to Cain.
Do you need a big campaign infrastructure with state insiders in each key state? Only if you think it helps; if you're running an insurgent outsider campaign, the insiders aren't easily interested and get in the way if they were. Also, it's veteran insiders who are in the reporter's Rolodex for such pieces, so such pieces have pro-insider slant to them.
In states like Iowa, where caucuses last all night and people will need to be strongly nudged to the caucus sites, having local organization is needed. But in a social media era, a string of Tea Party contacts could organically generate a network in short order.
In primary states, where only a garden-variety 10-minute trip to the polls is needed, you might not need as much infrastructure. Getting the message out might be all that is needed.
Cain's already in a novel setting, where he's the first person to be a serious presidential candidate who'd never held a elected position since Ike. His campaign might prove to be both unorthodox but effective, since the pros that are giving advice in the piece would have given him a snowball's chance of getting here in the first place.
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