Más allá de Boston

National Review nos cuenta que Team Romney está incorporando personal nuevo a su operación:

Among politicos, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign is frequently referenced as “Boston.” Romney’s headquarters is housed there, and for much of the campaign season, the phrase has been used to describe the former governor’s tight-knit group of senior advisers, such as Stuart Stevens and Matt Rhoades, who have long helmed the ship.

These days, that cadre of Romney loyalists and strategists continues to run the operation, but the campaign recently bulked up its management team for the general election. Ed Gillespie, a former GOP chairman, was tapped to serve as a senior adviser; Mike Biundo, Rick Santorum’s former campaign manager, was asked to be a coalitions director.

“At the top, Gillespie is the critical addition,” says one Republican operative who works with Romney’s team. “He brings a fresh voice to those inner-circle discussions, which, for any campaign, is needed after a rough primary.”

Sources say there is a sense that Gillespie will be asked to offer candid advice to Stevens, Rhoades, and the candidate — giving them an outsider’s perspective, and a trusted one. Biundo, for his part, will focus on enlisting Santorum’s conservative base — building an army of volunteers.

(...) Beyond Boston, the Romney campaign has reinforced its lower-level ranks, staffing up its research, communications, fundraising, and grassroots departments. To assist, Washington-based operatives, such as Sarah Pompei and Alex Wong, have signed on. Pompei, a former aide to House Whip Kevin McCarthy, will lead regional press, and Wong, an attorney at the State Department, will assist on policy.

Other hires, which were first reported by the New York Times, include speechwriter Lindsay Hayes, who worked on the McCain-Palin campaign, and Kristy Campbell, a former spokeswoman for the American Conservative Union.

This slew of new staffers, Romney aides say, signals a strong desire within the campaign to energize the full Republican spectrum, from the big-dollar donors and Beltway insiders to Evangelicals and tea-party activists.

(...) There has also been a push by Romney advisers to better connect the campaign with the Republican National Committee and its vast apparatus, now that the primary has ended. Romney liaisons are now working within the RNC, coordinating messaging and general-election themes with the full blessing of Reince Priebus, the national chairman.

“The two teams have pretty much synchronized,” says Sean Spicer, an RNC spokesman. “Everybody is focused on the same goal. There has been a full integration of the staff, via face-to-face meetings and conference calls. Our digital team is up in Boston this week, working on social-media strategy."

(...) In a background conversation, a Romney aide acknowledges the need to catch up, both on the staffing level and on fundraising, with President Obama’s political machine. New state directors, as well as national field organizers, should be announced within weeks, with countless aides from the primary campaign shifting to related general-election roles.

The goal, the aide says, is to hit the 400-staffer marker by the end of the spring, which would bring them closer to Obama’s 700-plus employees and thousands of unpaid volunteers. Still, the aide argues, staff numbers aren’t everything, and in the digital realm, Romney is quickly picking up speed.

The move of many voters to websites such as Facebook and Twitter for political information has led the Romney campaign to put a major internal emphasis on “touching” voters online, the aide says. Romney’s campaign constantly promotes policy graphics, snapshots from the trail, and a near-constant stream of videos on its various websites.

Television ads remain crucial aspects of the campaign, but with the recent Hilary Rosen flap, for example, the Twitter wars can mean as much or more than a TV buy, an outside adviser to the Romney campaign says.