Cox made an abortive run at the speakership Gingrich is vacating, but quickly learned that Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston had already jumped out to such a big lead that it was not worth the bloodshed. Still, the exercise was instructive, he says. Between last Friday night and Monday morning, he and his team placed more than 200 phone calls, reaching two members at parades, one fishing, one washing his car, one in Spain. Everyone's sharing a piece of reality. You're getting it from a lot of different angles.
Leadership races are all the same in some respects.
They are not about the public, but about a complex set of internal dynamics. There is almost a formula for running these campaigns. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. You get a claque of people who are really going to work hard for you. You work different sections of the party by region, by ideology.