But Cain’s campaign is attempting to rewrite the rules for how to wage a winning campaign by relying on a team of committed volunteers, rather than paid professionals, to do most of the grunt work, while the candidate himself leaves a light footprint in the early voting states.
“I’ve been in a lot of campaigns and I can tell you I’ve not been in a campaign that is so volunteer-driven as this one,” said Steve Grubbs, a former Iowa GOP chairman and longtime presidential campaign veteran, who signed on to lead Cain’s Iowa effort earlier this month. “The only job for the paid staffers is to use their time to leverage volunteers. So if one staffer mobilizes 50 volunteers a day, you get hundreds of volunteer hours per staffer. That’s the model, and it only works if you have this group of deeply passionate people for the candidate and the campaign.”
The collective presidential campaign experience held by Cain’s four paid Iowa staffers — all of whom came aboard in June — is minimal at best…
There is no apparent plan in the works to expand the Iowa payroll, although Lockwood said she overheard a conversation about “something referred to as a rapid response team” potentially descending on the state once Caucus Day gets nearer.
