Comments on: A mountain too steep

By: katy

katy — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:08:44 +0000

I cannot understand what motivates her either. If it’s not extreme narcissism, then it almost seems she wants a Parker Griffith victory for some reason.

By: Reactionary

Reactionary — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:47:26 +0000

Dr. Jess Brown taught Political Science at UAH a while back (now at Athens State). I got to take a class from him - and I was hooked. I ended up taking as many classes as I could from him, notably: State and Local Politics, Southern Politics, and Campaign Management.

As a testament to the durability of his teaching, I trotted out the metric of 2/3 of the primary vote turning out for the run-off (which would be 13% turnout). So I was pleased to see this Dr. Brown quote (from the Al.com link cited above) suggesting 10% turnout:

“Keep in mind that turnout in the runoff will be even less than it was in the primary,” Brown said. “There won’t be any Democratic turnout, even though Democrats can vote in the runoff if they want.

“It’s going to be low, low, low. I can see it being as low as 10 percent.”

I brought this story up to vouch for Dr. Brown’s political analysis skill. If he says Cheryl Baswell-Guthrie needs lightning to strike for her to win, maybe she should consider dropping out for the good of the community.

She has won the right to the run-off, but if she continues with the negative ads (as seems likely), she will further anger the “die-hard Republicans” who will vote in the run-off.

I thought that she might be boosting her name recognition for a later run, knowing that her chances at winning this race were slim. And her positive campaign was working - many people liked her and liked her ads. Then she went negative, which may have damaged her own future political career more than her opponent.

By: wayne

wayne — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:40:51 +0000

At least, with Hillary, her opponent was (apparently) imploding, and there was a hope.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:10:39 +0000

That is the third time I’ve heard someone compare CBG to HRC. I’ve done so myself in an email to a friend a week or so ago. Both appear to be pathologically loose with the truth. Both are only in politics because of family connections. Both seem unable to realize when they have lost a campaign. Both place their own vanity ahead of the bigger interests of their respective parties. At least HRC can claim one win in her career, though, something I don’t ever see CBG doing unless she wants to blow another half a mill running for the local school board - and even then…

By: Political Junkie

Political Junkie — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:57:59 +0000

You know Brian, I couldn’t help but watch her and think: Hillary Clinton. Both continued long after the race was substantially over, refused to concede for the good of the party, and inflicted as much damage on their party’s general election candidate as possible. Both of them had tremendous trouble raising funds (while their opponents raised cash like crazy) and both had to put in substantial amounts of their own money.
Plus, both of them seem to have the same disposition: whiny and victimized.
I guess the one major difference is that at one point HRC had a shot at winning, something CBG could never claim.