This week, one of the nation’s preeminent political analysts, Stu Rothenberg of Roll Call and The Rothenberg Political Report, came out with his list of the best campaigns and candidates of 2012. Stu knows of what he speaks – having helped define the field of insider political newsletters when he started The Rothenberg Political Report decades ago.
This year he said he had a tough choice picking the best campaign – because two were so deserving. Rothenberg wrote, “For my money, the choice comes down to two Democrats: Georgia Rep. John Barrow and North Dakota Senate hopeful Heidi Heitkamp.”
We know how hard it is to pick between them – because we had the honor of working with both.
Senator-elect Heitkamp defied the odds to hold a seat most pundits and pollsters assumed was impossible for a Democrat to win. According to Rothenberg, Heitkamp’s “strong personal appeal and quality campaign overcame a Republican state wave and an established Republican statewide politician” – and earned her team, led by campaign manager Tessa Gould, advertising maven Mark Putnam, and direct mail expert Joe Hansen, his nod as the Best Campaign of 2012.
Finishing a close second was the campaign for Congressman Barrow, who Rothenberg noted “won by a surprising 7 points in a very difficult district” – in fact, so difficult that Mitt Romney won by 11 points. Rothenberg is the most recent luminary to praise the Barrow campaign, which The Hotline called “the best-run campaign of the year.” We’re proud to have been a part of such a highly touted team – including Barrow’s Chief of Staff Ashley Jones, Erica Walters who produced fantastic mail, field expert Chris Galloway and media star Steve Murphy who developed the ad campaign rightly hailed by Rothenberg as “some of the best TV ads of the cycle” and The Washington Post as “one of a kind”.