Two things have stuck in Tory MPs’ minds from their away. The first, that painting of George Osborne. The second, Jim Messina’s presentation and his confidence that the Tories would win.
Messina managed Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election effort and last year, the Tories announced that they had signed him up to advise them. At the time, most people—including several senior Cabinet ministers—regarded it as a press release hire, a good way of tweaking Labour but not much more. But Messina has, perhaps prompted by his great rival from the Obama campaign David Axelrod joining up with Ed Miliband, got more involved in recent months. He was over for Tory conference and flew in to the UK specially to address this away day, as I report in the Mail on Sunday.
Messina’s message to Tory MPs was simple, if you campaign right you will win. He told them that three things determine elections—raising money, persuading and identifying voters and getting them out to vote. He claimed that the Tories were currently ahead in all these areas.
He told the MPs that the average voter thinks about politics for only 4 minutes a week and in that time, the Tories needed them to think three things: that Cameron is fixing Britain, that he is creating jobs for you and your family and that will only continue with the Tories.
Messina added to this some Miliband bashing, telling them that the Labour leader was a worst candidate than Mitt Romney, and sent Tory MPs off to lunch in good heart. But, before they went home, David Cameron reminded them of the biggest problem they face. He told them that the economy was their road to victory. But warned that before they could drive down it, they had to get the immigration boulder out of the way. The problem is, Number 10 hasn’t yet worked out how to do that.
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