Presidential hopeful Herman Cain has lost his New Hampshire staff amid allegations that the pizza magnate’s campaign wasn’t taking the Live-Free-or-Die state seriously.
Cain’s New Hampshire campaign director Matt Murphy and field director Jim Zeiler both stepped down leaving Cain without fulltime help in the run-up to the first-in-the-nation primaries, the
Manchester Union-Leader reports.
Murphy said there was “no ill will” toward Cain. “There was a strategic difference and I left the campaign because of those differences. The differences involved the New Hampshire strategy and how much investment the campaign should put into New Hampshire.”
Murphy, a former National Rifle Association organizer, said he had pushed Cain to spend more time in New Hampshire where he has been well-received despite drawing only around 4 percent in the polls. He also asked for more money to hire extra staff but had been rebuffed.
Ellen Carmichael, spokeswoman for Cain, said Murphy has been replaced but did not say who replaced him.
The new addition to Cain’s team will serve in the capacity of state director and is a candidate that the campaign is “very excited about," Carmichael said.
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