War Room

When I arrived at the McCain headquarters in Alexandria, VA on Monday, the 14th, Bill Bloomfield, my Überbefehlsmeister, moved me initially into accounting. Although he had initially indicated I would go to the War Room, because they were getting short-handed due to a lot of the WR volunteers heading back to school, he instead moved me to help with some of the accounting drudgery that needed to be done. So, for a day and a half, I worked with Abe and Christy on building out numbers for 1099's. But I hate accounting and begged...well, yeah, begged Bill to put me on the War Room.

Bill was initially concerned that someone of my age (I'm 45) wouldn't be able to handle the fast-paced and detailed environment that is the War Room. There are two shifts, 5 AM - 3 PM, 3 PM - 11 PM. But most people do more like a shift and a half or two. Travis Consadine and Abraham both do those long hours several times a week. And the work at the War Room is a bit tedious and detailed. It has to be since your product is what the campaign staff reads to keep up to date on what the press and blogs are saying about our man. Remember also that most of the campaigns are putting their ads up as web-ads on their own website and hopping that the press will do the TV broadcasting as they report on the web-ad. This is manner os most of the lying junk that Romney's folks gin up, so the campaign definitely has to stay on top of this.

And boy, now that my first day is over, is the War Room ever a rush! I mean, you are concentrating on doing one thing well but quickly and then moving on to the next one, bang, bang, bang for most of the day until one of the two or three lulls in the news day come up.

I've posted pictures of the DC HQ and the War Room.