Fred Campaign Strategy

This is video of Fred in Des Moines a day or two ago. There are a couple of things here: 1. his nicely worded criticisms of Huck for his foreign policy ignorance; 2. he tells us a lot about his campaign strategy going into the primary season--Iowa it all important. He says at about the 1:15 point in the video that he will soon be camping out in Iowa through the caucus.



So what does Fred think he can achieve in Iowa? There was an interview with Fred's campaign manager, Bill Lacy, quoted on their website. The money quote on Iowa from that interview is:

So, the language I have used with others is that we have to build a strategic bridge through the early states to South Carolina. In other words, we have to do well enough to survive until South Carolina with the average Republican saying, “I like this guy and I think he can win.” That puts us in the best possible position for South Carolina. I think that requires a strong showing in Iowa and as I said before, I am not prepared to tell you precisely what that means. I think a strong showing, that exceeds expectations

OK, what are the expectations to exceed? Most of the media are saying that a good showing for Fred would be a close third. So exceeding expectations would be second. The campaign is not going to go out of its way to raise expectations, but I think they are shooting for with this announcement as well as the mailing that was announced a couple of days ago is a first place finish.