Case in point: Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, who has tried to rev up his campaign by offering up tough-talking one-liners about how he’s the only real conservative in the race. The former Republican National Committee chairman generated a little buzz a few weeks ago by deriding the top three GOP frontrunners as “Rudy McRomney” because he claims they don’t share the “core conservative principles” of his party. During the first debate, Gilmore used his brief moment in the spotlight–he’s averaged about five minutes of talking time at the debates, about half what the frontrunners get–to mention the address of his campaign Web site, in hopes of generating some buzz. “Gilmore for President dot com,” the governor said during the South Carolina debate three weeks ago.
Is it working? Probably not, considering his aides sent out not one, but two middle of the night e-mails to reporters here in New Hampshire offering up the former governor for interviews. The first message, sent through an e-mail CNN set up for the campaigns to send out debate responses to the credentialed reporters here, hit the Gaggle’s inbox at 12:15 a.m.–three hours after the debate ended. The e-mail’s subject line: “Gilmore interview?” It included contact info for the former governor’s press guy. Clearly that message didn’t generate an electrifying response because the campaign sent out another message at 5:46 a.m. “Jim Gilmore interview?” the subject line read. It included two e-mails and a cell phone for Gilmore’s main press guy, as well as a second backup media contact. “Thank you for your consideration,” the aide wrote. At least they were nice about it.
