The trove of internal memos uncover Nunn's biggest weaknesses. The Nunn memos: 10 key passages

Every modern campaign puts together a detailed plan for victory, but few this candid wind up in the public domain.

National Review published a trove of internal memos Monday prepared for Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn late last year. They list her biggest weaknesses, codify a fundraising plan and outline staff responsibilities.


The 144 pages were prepared for the firsttime candidate and her family, including former Sen. Sam Nunn, last December ahead of an all-day strategy session. National Review said the documents were briefly posted online later that month.

( POLITICO's Senate race ratings)

Their disclosure comes one week after David Perdue won the GOP runoff, with polls showing a tight race in the general.

Nothing in the memos will be particularly shocking for operatives who play the game, but the documents highlight the extent to which a campaign’s messaging is scripted — and they threaten to ding Nunn’s brand as an authentic outsider.

The campaign does not dispute the authenticity of the memos.

“This was a draft of a document that was written eight months ago,” Nunn campaign manager Jeff DiSantis said in a statement. “Like all good plans, they change. But what hasn’t changed and is all the more clear today is that Michelle’s opponents are going to mischaracterize her work and her positions, and part of what we’ve always done is to prepare for the false things that are going to be said.”

( Also on POLITICO: Dems see flip in Georgia)

Here are the 10 juiciest nuggets from the documents:

1. “Identification of vulnerabilities”

The firm NewPartners conducted research on their client to find the most damaging information about her and develop potential lines of pushback. “Within that document, they have pointed out several areas of potential concern in her record,” one memo said, including lobbying and legislative activity of Points of Light, the nonprofit she ran in Atlanta. NewPartners planned to conduct additional research on “corporate ‘whitewashing’” at her foundation, two complaints filed against her group with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and grants made to overseas entities. Another area flagged is “conservation easements,” Nunn claimed.

The firm made a list of pushback documents to prepare. Among them: Points of Light giving “grants to problematic entities” and “service awards to inmates [and] terrorists.”

2. “Prioritize fundraising above all else”

Nunn’s campaign set a goal of raising $18 million to $20 million. “Hitting our targets will require us to prioritize fundraising above all else and to focus the candidate’s time on it with relentless intensity,” says one memo from the senior staff and strategy team.

The memos describe Nunn as “a fundraiser’s dream” because of her “phenomenal” network. “She also has the benefit of being a woman at a time when female senators and candidates are doing extraordinarily well in terms of voter perception and donations,” a memo says.

The goal was for Nunn to spend 80 percent of her time fundraising through the first quarter of this year, 75 percent in the second quarter and 70 percent in the third quarter. Come October, the plan was for her to still spend half her time looking for cash. This is a reflection of how much the job of a candidate is built around buck raking.

Nunn, one of the year’s most impressive fundraisers, has raised $3.5 million in the second quarter alone and had $2.3 million at the start of the month.

3. “Michelle’s position on Israel will largely determine the level of support” she gets from Jewish donors

A fundraising plan outlined a series of “affinity groups” that should be targeted. The projected goal from the “Jewish Community” was $250,000.

“Michelle’s position on Israel will largely determine the level of support here,” the memo said. “There is tremendous financial opportunity, but the level of support will be contingent on her position. This applies not only to PACs, but individual donors as well.”

It goes on: “Message: TBD.”

4. The campaign set a goal of raising $300,000 from gays:

The campaign identifies an “opportunity” in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community — noting that they have deep pockets. “Michelle’s positions on gay marriage and the [Human Rights Campaign] endorsement provide a huge opportunity for mobilizing this community and their substantial resources,” says the memo on affinity groups.

For context, the finance staff also set a goal of getting $500,000 from “trial lawyers and law firms.”

5. Despite offering her Peach Pledge, Nunn’s counting on lots of outside help

The campaign outlined a scenario in which $83 million total would be spent on the race — $46 million by Republicans and $37 million by Democrats.

Their spending plan is built on the assumption that Senate Majority PAC and other Democratic independent expenditure campaigns will spend $8 million and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure arm would spend another $8 million. EMILY’s List made an early commitment to raise at least $1 million for Nunn, one document discloses.

On the other side, they projected that American Crossroads would spend $10 million, and other right-leaning groups would put in $6 million to help the Republican candidate. At that point, they had no idea who would emerge but suspected the Republican candidate himself would spend $17 million, with $8 million from the National Republican Senatorial Committee and $5 million more from the state GOP.

Earlier this month, Nunn made a big public show of calling on each of her potential Republican rivals to pledge to refuse third-party TV ads or outside group spending. They declined.

Late last year, the campaign was weighing whether such a publicity stunt made sense. “There are two major strategies to consider here that cross over between finance, political strategy and communications: running a clean campaign (implications of proposing and signing a ‘no IEs agreement’) and being prepared to use the attacks against Michelle to raise even more money,” said one memo.

6. The communications shop sees its job to “kill or muddy” negative stories pre-publication

“Getting research hits killed” is described as one of the key jobs of any campaign-communications team. Political reporters know that press secretaries sees their job as working the referee, but it’s something else to see this written on paper: “Part of the communications department’s job (in conjunction with research) is to leverage relationships and find the material to push back against negative research hits. Often we will have fair warning and can work to kill or muddy the story. Sometimes we will get little to no heads up and will be forced to publicly respond to the attack or story.”

7. Nunn aims to win 30 percent of the white vote

Besides a heavy focus on driving up African-American and Latino turnout, the campaign set an internal goal of winning 30 percent of the white vote. The state Democratic Party is working with BlueLabs, an analytics firm run by former Barack Obama staffers, to assign every Georgia voter a score between 0-100 of their likelihood to vote Democratic.

“Support Scores and Persuasion modeling will help us find the white voters on the file who are more likely to support Michelle Nunn,” wrote pollster Diane Feldman. “For example, we may know that a young, urban white woman who is part of an international frequent-flyer program is more likely to support Nunn than an older white man in North Georgia who does not travel.”

For context, Feldman estimated that Democrat Roy Barnes won only 23 percent support from whites in his losing 2010 race for governor.

8. Nunn will tout a group of gun-owning supporters “in September or October”

Gun owners are a key constituency for Nunn, but the primary target is positive press. “It will allow the campaign to create messaging about Michelle Nunn’s moderate bona fides at a time when the Republicans are likely to be making her appear like a liberal,” one memo says. “Members of this group must have gun/hunting licenses. Depending on the size of the group and their names, this may become a newspaper advertising program or a tour just before hunting season begins.”

9. “An Inexpensive Early Rural Strategy”

The campaign’s direct-mail vendor — San Francisco-based Ambrosino, Muir, Hansen & Crounse — outlined a plan to introduce Nunn to voters outside her home base of Atlanta.

“We would create 4-5 small postcard-style mail pieces that incorporate Michelle and her family in rural settings with rural-oriented imagery,” the plan said.

They would mail them out before and after appearances in rural areas to “combat the notion that she is an Atlanta-based candidate uninterested in, or unfamiliar with, the rural parts of the state.”

The document includes three examples of such postcards that the firm made for now-Sen. Claire McCaskill during her successful 2006 run in Missouri.

10. “Currently, there are no plans to vet donors to the campaign”

Nunn announced this month she would return money donated to her by Virtual Murrell, who was convicted of bribery in 1995 and reportedly had ties to the Blank Panther Party. Her campaign said she was unaware of his background when he co-hosted a Capitol Hill fundraiser for her.

In December, a document explaining the research department’s role said it would “vet individuals with whom the campaign associates — most frequently for events and site visits.”

“This vet includes a check for criminal records, ‘bad news’ stories, and inflammatory statements that could reflect poorly on the campaign,” one of the memos said. “Currently, there are no plans to vet donors to the campaign.”

Read the full memos: http://www.scribd.com/doc/235287519/2014-Michelle-Nunn-Campaign-Memo