The Rick Perry super PAC took further steps Monday to buttress the former Texas governor’s struggling presidential campaign.
Opportunity and Freedom PAC announced the hiring of two top field hands to run caucus organizing and voter turnout operations in support of Perry in Iowa, host of the first nominating contest of the 2016 GOP primary. Marshall Critchfield was tapped as the political action committee’s Iowa state director; Beth Hamilton as Iowa deputy state director. Additionally, Opportunity and Freedom PAC plans to be on television in Iowa’s three largest media markets by early next week with ads touting Perry’s candidacy.
“We are in this race for the long haul, and thanks to the support of our donors we have the resources to run a state of the art grassroots effort in Iowa, and that is what Marshall and Beth have been hired to do,” Jordan Russell, a spokesman for the super PAC, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the Perry campaign revealed that it was short on cash and unable to pay staff. The campaign has since begun cutting paychecks again, but staff has been pared, at least in Iowa, and the field operations being undertaken by Opportunity and Freedom PAC is essential to Perry having any chance of making a comeback in the 2016 race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Perry has lost both his Iowa co-chairs and is down one paid staffer in the state, so the formal campaign is a bare-bones operation.
The super PAC’s deeper involvement on behalf of Perry also is something of a test case: third party groups usually stick to advertising, with the GOTV work left to the official campaigns.
Critchfield comes to the super PAC from the Jasper County Republican Party. He stepped down from his position as chairman of the county GOP to assume the field director role. Hamilton, Critchfield’s deputy, is based in Jackson, Miss., where the super PAC’s top operatives are headquartered. She recently managed a winning GOP primary campaign for Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney.
Opportunity and Freedom PAC says its Iowa field team will be fully operational on Tuesday. Meanwhile, it plans “targeted” statewide advertising in addition to the spots its purchasing in the three big Iowa media markets. The super Pac expressed confidence that Perry is primed for a comeback. Perry was languishing with 1.3 percent among GOP primary voters nationally according to the RealClearPolitics.com average.
“When the door opens for Gov. Perry this Fall/winter we will have put in place a foundation that will allow us to take full advantage of that opportunity,” said Austin Barbour, a top strategist for Opportunity and Freedom PAC.
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
