Earlier this year, I sat down with a smart strategist who has been actively involved in the independent expenditure side of the campaign world for the last couple cycles. When I asked this Democrat what he learned from 2012 that he was going to put into practice in the upcoming midterms, he said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “I’m not interested in rehashing 2012, I’m focused on running the best campaign for 2014.” In other words, he wanted to build a campaign for the individual cycle instead of simply improving on the tools/infrastructure that worked in the last campaign.
This cycle, however, we’ve seen plenty of instances where both sides have looked to the past to guide them forward, instead trying to frame the campaign around the individual circumstances of this cycle. CONT.
Amy Walter, Cook Political Report