With President Obama set to officially kick off his re-election campaign this weekend, I was curious how Republicans planned to counter the attention. So I caught up over the phone with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, who noted the ironic timing of Obama’s decision to “roll out his ‘hype and blame campaign’ on the heels of a bad jobs report today.”
Priebus dismisses Obama as “a ‘campaigner-in-chief’ who does nothing well but campaign,” but he concedes this weekend will feature some “incredible backdrops and hand-picked audiences.”
Still Priebus is determined to use his perch at the RNC to end what he calls “this European nightmare.”
“I think we’re going to raise more money than we’ve ever raised in the history of our party,” he says, noting this will also mean a huge investment in the grassroots. “My commitment is to win door-to-door,” he avers. “There are two things we need to do, we need to raise money and we need to knock on doors.”
While he likes to talk about going door-to-door, the RNC has already been quite effective at pushing back on narratives, and this has been vital as Romney has almost seamlessly transitioned from primary candidate to presumptive nominee. “We’re doing daily planning calls with Mitt Romney’s team,” he said.
The most recent example of rapid response regards the Obama campaign’s “Life of Julia,” which ABC News describes as, “an infographic-style account of a cartoon heroine’s journey from preschool to retirement,” Priebus promptly noted that her “share of the national debt went up $16,345 under Obama.”
A day later, he was still talking Julia. “[W]e’re either going to take the Julia, cradle to grave path, or we’re going to take the James Madison path,” he said.
“I don’t want my daughter Grace to grow up like Julia,” he added.