Giuliani Notes: Blogger Conference Call July 5, 2007; Update: Mayor Positioned as Inevitable GOP Nominee

Michael Duhaime, Rudy Giuliani for President Camapign Manager in the “Spin Room” at the Reagan Presidential Library Debate, May 3, 2007

Heads Up:

The Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee announced that Michael DuHaime, Campaign Manager, and Anne Dunsmore, Deputy Campaign Manager for Finance, will hold a conference call today with the media to discuss the campaign’s second quarter fundraising.

The call will start at 11 AM Eastern and Flap will be there.

Maria Comella thanks everyone for attending the call

Mike Duhaime and Anne Dunsmore on the call

MD: Thanks Maria and thanks everybody for getting on the call this morning.

Just a couple of quick facts first: we have total now raised for the cycle in excess of 33 million dollars. We raised—as most people know–more than 17 million for this quarter—of that approximately 15 million for the primary election. Our total cash on hand combined is approximately 18 million dollars. Our total number of donors now is near 60,000 donors.

That’s a place where I feel we have tremendous room and ability to grow here. And we spent in the neighborhood of just over 11 million dollars—approximately 11.2 million dollars during this quarter. I just want to talk—really, I feel very good right now about the state of the race in terms of where we are. This is another very strong quarter for us. Obviously we’re optimistic about our momentum increasing right now and we’re seeing that all throughout the country.

The proof of that is really in the numbers. Not only in the finance numbers, but the polling numbers as well and now we’re seeing—especially in the finance numbers being first in finance catching up to the polling numbers where the Mayor has been first for a good portion of this year. We are the only campaign on the Republican side to not only maintain our pace from last quarter, but actually to increase our fundraising numbers from the first quarter to the second quarter. We’re in a very solid position right now as we move forward in terms of focusing on our fundraising efforts.

The Mayor is very much engaged with this—not only in fundraising, but also in going out into the states and campaigning very hard. Related to the 18 million dollars cash on hand, something I’m very proud of is that we have zero debt. I’m very proud of that. I think it’s very important that we respect the people who have given us money and have contributed their hard earned dollars to this campaign and that we are as frugal as possible with those dollars while using it wisely to make sure that we have the best campaign operation that we can have with the dollars that we have.

We’re running a very efficient and disciplined campaign, but at the same time we do continue to grow. Our campaign is now operating field operations in a dozen states. So I feel very good about that we’ve expanded our focus of operation beyond just the early primary states and into some of the other states that are going to be critical for this election. We feel very good about where we’re going right now, not only to win the primary obviously winning the money race, being ahead in many of the polls—we are the candidate, who obviously I think is best positioned to win the primary and I feel very good that we’re the only candidate that can win the general election.

I think we are—or at least the candidate best positioned to win the general election. There’s no doubt in my mind Rudy Giuliani can put in states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Oregon, Washington in the Republican column. He can certainly make states like New York, Illinois, California– very expensive states into very competitive states and ones that certainly the Mayor can win. I don’t believe that any other Republican can make that same claim. If you look at the national polls recently, we received nearly 30 percent or greater in the three major media polls released last week. Our average polling share—our ballot share in June public polling was 26 percent. We averaged a 7 point lead over our nearest opponent which was Senator Thompson, but we are ahead right now in key states, at least in polling, key states like California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Colorado, Oklahoma. And we’re first and second in states like Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, West Virginia.

So we feel very, very good in terms of where we are right now. We’re positioned very well to win the primary. About 7 weeks ago we brought on—or nearly two months ago, we brought on Anne Dunsmore as a Deputy Campaign Manager in charge of finance. She has done a terrific job in terms of maximizing our finance operation, and continues to do that. It’s one of the reasons I feel as optimistic as I do for our potential for growth is bringing Anne on and the way she has organized our team so with that I’d like to turn it over to Anne for a few comments.

AD: Thanks Mike. Yes, it’s been an extraordinary period of time. I’m very proud of the team we have in place, both our volunteers and our staff in what we’ve been able to accomplish. This quarter was wonderful in the number of donors that we signed on board and then obviously ultimately reflected in the number of dollars that we raised.

We did out-raise our first quarter totals and we more than successfully maintained our first quarter pace. We were able to do it again thanks to a lot of hard work and an extraordinary number of dedicated folks on the ground and—as well as a very—an overwhelming response for Mayor Giuliani.

Our constant challenge is figuring out new ways to harness our abilities to match up with the energy and enthusiasm for the people out there willing to support our campaign. Our organization and structure is in place and I feel confident that we can meet the challenge of working with and harnessing the enthusiasm and support that’s out there. So, we’re pretty happy

Questions:

1. Ian Schwartz from IanSchwartz.com:

SCWARTZ: Hi, I was wanted to know what the reaction is to the surprise, or actually lack of surprise of John McCain’s failing quarter two numbers. What’s your reaction to that?

DUHAIME: Really, I mean, the most important thing for us is to focus on our campaign and make sure that we’re as well positioned as we can be as we look forward—and we look forward to what we need to do in the earlier states and beyond. And really, every campaign I think at this point is about positioning itself to make sure that come the fall each campaign is ready to do what it needs to do. So, really right now, our focus is really on our campaign and –go ahead, I’m sorry.

SCHWARTZ: No, I’m sorry to interrupt. Are you expecting him to drop out or I mean what do you expect because of these numbers?

DUHAIME: You know, that’s a question for Senator McCain’s campaign and again, not one that I can control or really have the opportunity to focus on. We’ll obviously deal with whatever other candidates decide to do in their campaign—that’s their business. And right now what’s important for us is that we feel like right now we raise the necessary resources to compete in the early states and also now to expand our operations in to many of the early states so we are ready to campaign vigorously and if the campaign field happens to change as we go forward then we’ll adjust and we’re going to be in the right position to adjust.
2. From Captain Ed of Captain’s Quarters:

MORRISSEY: Hi, good morning. I was just hoping that you could remind us what your Q1 numbers were and talk about the rate of fundraising—if I recall correctly, you guys we’re only really fundraising in February and March in Q1. Do you think that the rate of your fundraising has remained constant or improved or has it been a little slacker that it was in Q1?

DUHAIME: I feel like it’s improved, especially when you like at it—especially when you look at it kind of relatively as being the only Republican campaign to actually increase from quarter to quarter. I think everybody had issues potentially like we did in terms of starting up through January being a slower time, but I feel very good in terms of our pace and increasing. And we raised, you know, Maria you may want to read—Maria, do you have the number in front of you what we raised in the first quarter?

COMELLA: We’re looking at an estimated 16 million, but you’re looking at around 14 for primary dollars.

DUHAIME: Thanks.

3. From Brian Faughnan of the Weekly Standard:

FAUGHNAN: Yes, first off let me thank you for holding the call. And second a general question, perhaps not all specific to the Mayor’s campaign specifically, but a lot of attention has been given to the disparity in the fundraising numbers overall of the Republican candidates versus the Democratic candidates. Do you see anything in that or draw any lessons from Obama’s and Hillary’s and the rest of those who raised more than the GOP side?

DUHAIME: Well I really look at this… there’s two separate and distinct campaigns going on right now. There’s the Republican campaign and the Democratic campaign and neither really has anything to do with each other until you get much later into the campaign when you get into states that have open primaries and independents can vote. There’s really no interaction between our campaigns and their campaigns and there’s really no importance to the relative strength of fundraising on either side of the aisle. What’s important to us is obviously how we compare to others on the Republican side and that we have the resources we need to win the Republican nomination. Once we get through the primaries, I’m confident we’re going to have more than enough resources to win the primary election and more than enough resources to win the general election. You know, I don’t have the same amount of time to focus on what the Democrats are doing. I obviously read the articles and see the money they’ve raised, but really there’s two completely separate campaigns going on right now, and it’s important for us to make sure that we keep our eye on the distinct campaign that we’re involved in.

4. From Soren Dayton of Eyeon08.com:

DAYTON: Hi, I have two questions. The first is you said that you had about 60k donors. That strikes me as lower than both McCain and Romney. Can you just talk about that and maybe average contribution size—things like that. The other thing is, can you give the 12 states that you have staff in?

DUHAIME: To answer the second one, I’m not going to give the 12 states we have staff in at this point. The donor numbers in terms of where they are, that’s one of the reasons I have the most confidence in terms of our ability to grow. Tactically, our campaign has chosen to do fundraising a specific way for the first few quarters to get our numbers where they need to be in terms of our dollars raised. I feel very good as we look forward at some of the plans we have for the third and fourth quarter to expand our donor base and achieve the kind of growth in our base that we see that’s reflected both in the Mayor’s polling numbers and the initial fundraising numbers. I feel very good. It’s one of the reasons I’m as confident as I am that we’re going to grow rapidly as we go forward, because our donor number is limited and I know it can and will be much larger as we go forward.

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Rudy’s fundraising is far and above the best in the GOP candidate pool. He is running an efficient and lean campaign operation – saving his resources for television and direct mail advertising in key battle ground states.

Hizzoner’s Q3 numbers should continue the upward trend as the major institutional donors realize that he will be the GOP nominee.

Republican presidential hopeful former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, right, and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., visit the site of one of the levee breeches that caused severe flooding during Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans, Saturday, June 30, 2007. Giuliani held a news conference at the 17th Street Canal. Work on the flood gates goes on in the background

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