By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Two whiz kids who managed the remarkable primary-election campaign that toppled powerful U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) in 2014 told The Wanderer they think Sen. John McCain will lose the Arizona GOP primary in 2016 as he seeks to retain his national seat for a sixth six-year term.
Upstart strategist Gray Delany tied McCain’s fate to swelling national disgust with the “one-party” political system and out-of-touch officeholders that also defeated Cantor.
Delany was 24 years of age when he served as deputy campaign manager for Virginia economics professor Dave Brat, who, Delany said, decided to challenge Cantor for Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District seat out of disgust with the party machine system.
Brat’s campaign manager, Zach Werrell, was even younger, 23 last year.
Werrell and Delany were on a nine-day December speaking tour in Arizona about their successful campaign effort, which they recorded in the recently released paperback How to Bag a RINO (Calamo Press), with a cover illustration of Cantor’s head on a rhinoceros body.
“The voters are fed up and they’ve caught on” to the “one-party” system in Washington, Delany told The Wanderer before he and Werrell spoke to about 70 people at the Arizona Project Tea Party here on December 14.
“What have the Republicans done? What has McCain done” to stop socialism and “the creeping administrative state?” Delany asked.
“Nothing,” he answered himself, describing Republicans as “bought and paid for pretty much by the Chamber of Commerce. . . . They’re not fighting for the American people. . . . The Republicans hate the Tea Party as much as the Democrats do. It’s go along to get along.”
Illegal immigration was one issue in the Virginia campaign, with Cantor being accused of favoring “amnesty.”
Delany said an immigration-amnesty bill was ready to be delivered to Cantor’s desk just after the June 2014 primary, but his shocking loss stopped that effort immediately. This shows voters can make a difference, Delany said.
Werrell said earlier, “The quickest way to change policy is to change the people making the decisions.”
McCain, 79, apparently has been struggling to arouse voter enthusiasm. He was joined for a December 12 campaign rally by 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the large Phoenix suburb of Mesa, which has significant Mormon numbers among its population of nearly a half-million people, but the turnout still was unimpressive.
The conservative “Seeing Red AZ” blog said on December 13: “The puny turnout for this performance was laughably overestimated at nearing 1,000 by McCain’s sycophantic Arizona Republic reporter Dan Nowicki. Local media outlets accurately reported the crowd was only about 300.”
Three other Republicans have announced their campaigns in the Arizona primary for McCain’s seat, which could help McCain by splitting the opposition vote. However, the Virginia strategists told The Wanderer that the opposition could move to unify against the incumbent.
As for Cantor’s Virginia race, Delany told the Phoenix audience that he had served in Cantor’s office as a college intern but was disgusted at what he saw there. When constituents called in with a problem, they just would be put through to a voicemail then sent an acknowledgment letter, Delany said.
This helped demonstrate “general arrogance” by Cantor “that I just thought was reprehensible” and showed “a general disregard for the constituents,” Delany said.
The disenchanted Delany said he vowed to oppose Cantor if he got the chance.
“I like to say I was angry enough to challenge Eric Cantor, and Zach (Werrell) was dumb enough to challenge Eric Cantor,” Delany said.
Werrell told the audience that candidate Brat’s road to victory began in 2011, when he saw the Virginia Republican machine destroy a GOP hopeful’s reputation because they didn’t approve of his candidacy, followed by his suicide.
Seeing his friend destroyed, Brat said, “I’ve had enough. I’m going to take on this machine,” according to Werrell.
However, voter disgust alone isn’t enough to topple powerful incumbents, the speakers told the Arizona Project audience. Other elements that are needed include the right strategy, a candidate who projects a good image, a well-organized and motivated base of voters, and well-planned voter contacts.
A thorough door-knocking campaign through neighborhoods is valuable to probe voters’ views and to develop a response, they said, noting repeated voter complaints about everyone in Washington lying and being corrupt.
“Dave Brat was the canary in the coal mine for what you’re seeing” across the nation by frustrated voters reacting against the system, Werrell said.
“There’s no secret, magic formula” to victory, Werrell said. “You just have to work harder. . . . It’s not about having a lot of money. It’s about having enough money.”
Cantor had a total of $10 million, including outside money that poured in, versus Brat’s $380,000, Werrell told The Wanderer.
The Cantor campaign was worried about Brat, but it sent out conflicting messages that Brat was a liberal professor and also a Tea Party radical, which called the attacks into question in voters’ minds.
Meanwhile, this meant the little-known Brat was getting “a lot of free name ID,” Werrell told the audience.
The Cantor campaign “knew they were in trouble,” Werrell said. “. . . We hit (Cantor) right at his weak point, which was his integrity.”
Delany added, “The mistake that Cantor made was that he called Dave a liberal. . . . There is nothing more damaging than your congressman lying.”
The two campaign strategists showed the Phoenix audience a video of Cantor speaking at the Seventh Congressional District convention, a month before the primary election. When Cantor began to criticize alleged misinformation by Brat, some audience members jeered Cantor, who also was booed when he started to characterize Brat as an ivory-tower professor.
Just a week before the primary election, national conservative radio talk host Laura Ingraham came to town to support Brat, Werrell recalled in a vivid illustration of the booming campaign’s improvisation.
Space at the Dominion Country Club was secured on short notice, which was near Cantor’s own home, he said, and people ended up parking their cars with Brat bumper stickers by Cantor’s residence before they walked three-quarters of a mile to the packed rally.
Cantor, whose own polling was said to have shown him ahead by 34 points, lost by 12 points to Brat.
Brat wasn’t a good fund-raiser, often forgetting to appeal for money, Werrell said — but the campaign managed to get by. Within two hours after the little-known Brat appeared on an 8:30 p.m. segment of Mark Levin’s national radio program, Werrell said, $26,000 came in, to add to the paltry $20,000 already in the campaign coffer. Another appearance with Levin raised $40,000, Werrell said.
When The Wanderer mentioned Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Mexico to Werrell, where the Pope is expected to make his customary open-borders plea, Werrell noted that the U.S. government gives millions of dollars to the Church to provide aid to immigrants — an example of being caught up in government’s web.
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