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To: Interested Parties

From: John Yob, Jordan Gehrke
Date: May 14th, 2014
Re: Nebraska and the Civil War Narrative

The Primary Election in North Carolina last week led to a war of memos and
discussion of who won, who lost, and what it meant. A similar conversation is
happening over the meaning of the results of the Nebraska Senate Primary, the
media narrative of a supposed GOP Civil War, and how that narrative could be
used to define Ben Sasse.


Media Narrative of Civil War
The media narrative of the supposed Civil War within the GOP is that the Tea
Party won the Special Election Primary in FL19 with Curt Clawson, lost the US
Senate Primary in North Carolina with Thom Tillis, and won the Nebraska Senate
Primary with Ben Sasse.

The reality is that the Sasse and Clawson races are more representative of a
framework for ending the war than they are manifestations of battlefield
victories. These victories should be used as a road map to evaluate what
happens when conservatives support good quality candidates with credible
resumes, the ability to articulate a vision, and serious policy solutions.
Conservative groups got behind good candidates early and supported leaders
who could appeal to GOP Primary voters, donors, activists, leaders, and
operatives across the establishment vs. anti-establishment spectrum.

In the last two cycles, we saw what happened when anti-establishment
candidates with questionable backgrounds or poor campaign skills were
nominated in several states. In 2012, other states showed what happened when
the establishment worked to manipulate the system to put forward equally flawed
candidates who also fared poorly in General Elections in 2012.

The Lesson of the Florida 19 Primary
The lesson of Florida 19 was the strength of a credible candidate who could
appeal to the more establishment-minded retired CEOs, executives, and more
traditional Republicans in Southwest Florida with his CEO background, while also
articulating Constitutional Conservatism to Tea Party voters and earning support
from groups such as Tea Party Express. It is accurate that it was a victory for
outsiders against the state Senate Majority Leader, but the more relevant story is
Clawson's success appealing to people across both the ideological spectrum and
the establishment spectrum because of his strength as a candidate.
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The Lesson of the Nebraska Senate Primary
It is easy for some people to say that Ben Sasse was expected to win this race
because recent polling showed him leading. It is important, however, to point out
where we came from. When Ben first announced, he was unknown in the state,
had no significant endorsements, and most opinion leaders considered Shane
Osborn the inevitable nominee. Ben was called a "long shot" and a dark
horse. The first internal poll showed Ben Sasse trailing 40% to 3%.

Ben Sasse ran a very strong campaign, with highly focused messaging on
ObamaCare and the Constitution, high-tech tools that had been put to the test in
Florida, and a solid grassroots operation that turned out the vote and built crowds
that were arguably unprecedented in Nebraska.

The lesson of this race is that it is not enough for constitutional conservatives to
simply nominate candidates who hold true to Constitutional principles. We must
also nominate candidates who have substantial credibility as candidates, can
articulate a vision of what they believe, can propose real solutions to problems,
and dont make significant mistakes on the campaign trail. We need conservative
candidates, but they must also be skilled candidates in order to win.

Ben Sasse is nothing short of a phenomenal candidate. He can articulate the
problems of America from a Constitutional perspective as well as anyone in the
country. He understands policy better than most professional policy wonks. He is
positioned on day one to be to ObamaCare in the Senate what Paul Ryan has
been to budget issues in the House. Ben has shown the discipline to avoid
controversial statements and silly mistakes. He has movie-casting looks, a
beautiful and devoted family, significant experience in the business world and as
a college president, and down-home connection to his state and community.

To fully understand Ben, it is instructive to look at some of the criticisms he
received in this campaign. Some folks on the establishment side of the divide
have attacked Ben Sasse for his support from conservative groups. Some Tea
Party folks criticized Ben for having worked in the Bush Administration. Both
sides should look at Ben Sasse for whom he will be as a leader rather than try to
wholly define him by the people who supported him or opposed him. They will
find that they like Ben for who he is: a leader and Constitutional Conservative
who will blaze his own trail with serious policy solutions.

Voters in Nebraska got to know Ben Sasse on the merits and decided they liked
him for who he is. After starting at 3% and running an excellent campaign, Ben
Sasse was able to earn significant in-state support from organizations like the
Nebraska Farm Bureau and leaders such as former Governor Kay Orr and
Congressman Jeff Fortenberry. These endorsements were certainly as relevant
as any national support, and we chose to close the campaign with an ad
highlighting them that was called Nebraska Proud."
$
The Establishment vs. Anti-Establishment Debate Was Relevant Yet
Overplayed

Primaries are good for party building and they have been going on for a long
time. The media should remember that when covering a supposed "Civil
War." Support from Senate Conservatives Fund, Club for Growth, Citizens
United, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Sarah Palin, Tea Party Express, and other
conservative groups was critical to winning; especially in terms of gaining
momentum in the late winter and early Spring when he appeared on the cover of
National Review. If anything, public discussion over the displeasure of Senator
McConnell at Ben Sasse receiving outside group support probably hardened
conservative support for Ben, and the activities of an establishment-linked Super
PAC backfired and made things unnecessarily worse.

Conservatives will be thrilled with Ben Sasse as a US Senator if they are looking
for a leader who will propose and fight for conservative solutions from a
constitutional perspective, but they shouldnt expect him to adopt an instinctual
reaction of no; nor should they expect that he will go out of his way to annoy
establishment GOP leaders. There are certainly times he will take them on as
Senator Coburn did a decade ago over earmarks, but he will also choose his
battles carefully.

Who Is Ben Sasse?
There has been much discussion as to who to compare Ben Sasse to politically.
The easy thing to say is that Ben Sasse is the next Ben Sasse. But the best
comparison is to Jack Kemp. Jack Kemp provided real ideas and real solutions to
real problems. Ben Sasse is one of the few leaders who has proposed a detailed
alternative to ObamaCare, and will likely propose additional detailed policy
proposals over the course of the General Election and as a United States
Senator.

In Bens speech on Election Night he quoted Jack Kemp as saying:

We may not get every vote. But we'll speak to every heart, and we will
seek to represent the entire American family.

We will aim not just to win, but to be worthy of winning.
For we believe that in every child we must see the image of God, [the]
seed of creativity planted in every one of us.

And the only way to oppose a bad idea[s] is to replace [them] with a good
idea[s].

In addition to proposing real policy solutions, Ben will also be in the Kemp mold
of working to inspire the Republican Party and constitutional conservatives to
better articulate our message of empowerment and opportunity for all Americans.
%
Key Strategic Decisions/Moments:

Listening tour proved voters focused on real solutions. Ben held a
Listening Tour last summer and that was where we figured out just how
serious Nebraskans were, and that it was possible to run a campaign
focused on constitutional governance and detailed policy proposals.

Establishing viability early. Ben had to establish that he was a viable
candidate early and show that he had strong local support. He did that by
breaking a Nebraska fundraising record in the first quarter, raising
$815,000. It was majority in-state money. A large part of that came from
Ben going to the civic leaders of his hometown of Fremont and telling
them that the only way he was running was if he had overwhelming
financial support from his hometown. They came through in a big way. We
never looked back.

Long-form video and early TV that most campaigns avoid. The early
strategic decision was made to spend resources on a long-form film from
Fred Davis that captivated audiences and brought attention to Bens
outsider message of changing the direction of Washington, DC by moving
the capital to Nebraska. It worked perfectly. The decision was also made
to go on TV in January at a time when no other campaigns were on the
air. The goal was to define Ben as the one candidate who had read
ObamaCare, knew how to deconstruct it, and had a plan for what comes
next. It was clear that there would be a tradeoff in that the campaign would
not be up on TV for another 10-12 weeks, but we believed this would
ignite the grassroots and allow us to run a field operation with our anti-
ObamaCare and Conservative Solutions town halls as the backbone.

Decision to run a high-tech data-driven campaign. It's easy to think of
Ben as a university president, but really, he is a crisis management expert
who is deeply interested in data. Ben mandated that the entire campaign
integrate data at every level and make the information transparent up and
down the campaign team. That drove us to invest early in technology that
integrated information coming from every entry point on the campaign and
aggressively expend resources to collect more data.

o Staff and volunteers who were inputting details about town hall
attendees and doing pre- and post-attendance surveys used
SignedApp for digital data entry at every event. There was no pen
and paper sign up to atrophy information collection.

o We secured a robust voter file from i360 and conducted reams of
survey calls that either broadly retrieved information about voter
intent or more narrowly aimed to measure the change in a
particular voters position after exposure to specific voter contact
&
messages. This data was used as an aggregate to regularly tweak
micro-messages and campaign tactics.

o We created an online activist portal in conjunction with our
campaign data management tool, VRMHQ, that allowed Nebraska
activists who wanted to help from home conduct ID work on their
social media connections and distribute tailored campaign
information to their personal contacts.

o We also aggressively sought to expand our footprint online through
advertising and organic social media outreach. Our online
advertising campaign was built around moving longer form content
in addition to just augmenting media buys. We promoted two major
5 minute plus online films, and we ran many highly segmented mini
campaigns to reach custom audiences on issues we knew were
important to them using a mix of behavioral targeting and self
managed online audience data that had been customized based on
our offline ID and field work. We found this model specifically
effective when using it to hone in on audiences our IVR survey
work revealed had holes. For example, during a period where the
campaign was not running ads on cable or broadcast, we used a
large influx of targeted online video to increase our vote share
among specific demographics who had been impacted by the
opposing campaigns media strategies.

o We did some things that have never before been done in Nebraska,
and our strategies were aimed at addressing some of the GOP tech
failures of 2012.

ObamaCare Townhalls. Rather than run a typical campaign based on
only going to diners or parades, or trying to curry favor with local party
leaders, we decided instead to build our own crowds and go straight to
voters. That's exactly what we did, and it was key for us. With our 9.5-foot
tall stack of ObamaCare regulations in the belly of our campaign RV, Ben
crisscrossed Nebraska holding town hall meetings standing next to the
stack of regulations. There he explained the bill with specifics, laid out his
plan for what comes next, and talked about the Constitution. We would
later find out that these town halls were the key to Ben getting the Farm
Bureau endorsement.

Farm Bureau. It is so hard to overstate the importance of the power of the
Farm Bureau in Nebraska. This was only the second time ever that they
have endorsed in a statewide primary. When we found out that Farm
Bureau was endorsing Ben, they told us that so many of their county
members had been to our town halls that when county organizations
considered endorsement, their members were already with Ben.
'

Conclusion
The media narrative will be that the Tea Party defeated the establishment and
constitutional conservatives won the Civil War in Nebraska, after a win in
Florida 19, and a loss in North Carolina. Conservative groups such as Senate
Conservatives Fund and Club for Growth deserve substantial credit for their role
in Nebraska, but the real story here is larger than that: The lesson here is about
the power of constitutional conservatives getting behind strong candidates who
can inspire Tea Party voters while still having a credible background and being
able to articulate their positions and vision for their community, state, and
country.

All of us across the establishment vs. anti-establishment divide should agree that
there is a path to common goals that lead to shared victory without compromising
our conservative principles. This Primary might be perceived as a major battle in
the Civil War, but as a metaphor it should be much closer to the end of the Cold
War than the battle of Gettysburg.