Republicans aim to counter Dems' message but don't blast Michelle Obama
By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published August 26, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Photo by Ken Papaleo / The Rocky
Staffers work in the Republican National Committee's "war room" along Speer Boulevard on Monday.
An accounting office a mile from the Pepsi Center has been transformed into the hub of the Republican spin machine.
Posters bearing the theme of the GOP operation, "Not Ready 08, A Mile High, An Inch Deep" are plastered everywhere in the two-story brick building - even on the bathroom stalls.
About two dozen staffers from the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign moved into this modern, two-story office on Speer Boulevard near 28th Avenue over the weekend.
The nearly 7,000-square-foot space, equipped with a news conference room connected to a satellite connection outside, was up and running Saturday and will serve as message-central for the GOP throughout the DNC.
"It is a 2 4/7 operation," RNC spokesman Bill Riggs said. "We're going to be able to respond no matter what."
Upstairs, volunteers are being organized and dispatched to maintain visibility at DNC events. On a large, laminated map of downtown that is used to decide where to send volunteers, a plastic donkey head figurine is placed on DNC event locations.
The center of the action is inside the "war room" on the ground floor. Between six and eight researchers and public relations staffers sit around an angled table, hunched over laptops. A mass of yellow cables and technology equipment covers the middle of the table.
Eight television sets airing network and cable shows sit on top of plastic shelves covered with blue cloth. A bag with a dozen bagels sits unopened on a table.
The war room is not chaotic. There is no sound of phones. The only sound is from the televisions and discussions around the table. Once in a while, another staffer comes in to give directions. They're scheduling interviews and news conferences and drafting news releases.
Michael Goldfarb, a communications staffer, has recently posted a blog on their Web site, notready08.com, about a comment Hillary Clinton made earlier in the day about how many votes she got. That's an hour after other staffers had put clips of Clinton's comment on the Web site and sent it to reporters. It's another jab at the GOP message of lack of Democratic unity.
Monday evening is relatively quiet. The DNC headliner is Michelle Obama.
"We're not going to respond to Michelle Obama," Goldfarb said. "We don't go after our opponent's wife. It's kind of tasteless."
kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2361
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August 26, 2008
8:44 a.m.
Suggest removal
OneHouseOneWife writes:
"We don't go after our opponent's wife. It's kind of tasteless."
Who do they think they are fooling?
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/02/...
I very much liked Michelle Obama's story at the Democratic convention about how she met her future husband. I hope we will get the chance at the RNC to hear the same from John McCain's wives: Carol, who he dated while she was married to an Annapolis classmate, and Cindy, who he dated while married to Carol.