A mountain too steep
Posted by BrianFrom AL.com:
Political science guru Jess Brown said he never says never when it comes to elections, but … he’s never known of an Alabama candidate to overcome the kind of deficit that Cheryl Baswell Guthrie is facing if she is to beat Wayne Parker for the 5th Congressional District Republican nomination.
“When you’ve led as strongly as Parker led (49 percent of the vote versus Guthrie’s 18 percent of the vote), it shows that your campaign has energy and confidence,” said Brown, who heads the political science department at Athens State University.
“Political history suggests her chances aren’t very good. Guthrie would need lightning to strike her campaign.”
The only way I could see Guthrie connecting on the Hail Mary would be for her to put some meat on her claims she made in the primary. She said Parker diverted money away from North Alabama and cost jobs. Prove it. I don’t think she can, but if she did then she might be able to take him down. Anything short of proving her wild claims results in a loss for her, plain and simple.
John Ehinger penned an editorial in the Huntsville Times echoing my thoughts that Guthrie should concede the election. It would be best for the party (we’ll see if she cares about that) and it might restore some dignity that she lost with her misleading attacks on Parker.
And if she were to win the runoff, what for? So that she can get destroyed by Dr. Griffith for a second time? I truly don’t understand what motivates her. Maybe she is a political masochist. She got throttled by Griffith in 2006. She enters this race knowing he is the likely opponent if she makes it to the general. Polling data had to show that she was getting destroyed in the primary and yet she continued to pour her own money into the race so that she could get a measly 18% of the vote. She has to know that the runoff is a kamikaze mission with virtually no chance for success, but she appears primed to go for it (and probably burn another small mountain of cash). And if her hard work pays off she gets to throw another half million (or more) of her own money in the race so that she can get beat - again - by Parker Griffith by 30 points. It is just crazy.
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June 5th, 2008 at 7:57 am
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.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:10 am
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…
June 5th, 2008 at 8:40 am
At least, with Hillary, her opponent was (apparently) imploding, and there was a hope.
June 5th, 2008 at 9:47 am
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.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:08 am
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.