This coming Tuesday, July 15th Cheryl Baswell Guthrie will be defeated soundly by Wayne Parker in the primary runoff to be the GOP’s candidate to compete with Parker Griffith for the open 5th district congressional seat.  The only question is how large the margin will be.  Getting within 25 points would be the equivalent of a moral victory.

I have quite honestly spent quite a bit of time during this campaign trying to contemplate why she got in the race to begin with.  During the campaign I marvelled at how dishonest she was while campaigning on the issue of integrity.  After getting blown out by Parker in the primary I questioned why she would keep going.  Then when I saw her monkey ad I just shook my head.

After Bud Cramer surprised North Alabama with his plans for retirement there were quite a few names bantered about for the Republican ticket.  On the Democrat side there were fewer mentioned and ultimately it came down to one strong candidate, Dr. Parker Griffith, and one person who should have stuck with physics.  Dr. Griffith presents a formidable challenge to any prospective Republican challenger, but one in particular has proven that she cannot beat Dr. Griffith.  Cheryl Baswell Guthrie got creamed by 32 points when she ran against Griffith for state senate in 2006.  It wasn’t that she ran against him in a strongly Democrat district.  She only gave up 2 points on the basis of party affiliation.  If there is one thing politicians are good at it is counting votes.  Guthrie had to have known that there was no way whatsoever she could defeat Griffith in the general election (in the unlikely event she made it through the GOP primary).  Why run knowing that defeat is inevitable?

So, the kamakize campaign is one thing, but she didn’t just give up her time in the futile bid.  No, she also gave her own money.  A LOT of her own money.  So far (as of 7/8/08) she has personally given a total $648,211.26 to her campaign.  About three quarters or so of that is in the form of personal contibutions, not loans.  And she did a great deal of that spending while she was languishing in the polls and only managed to eke out 18% of the vote while her main opponent won 49%.  And remember: she has no chance even if she makes it to the general.  She spent about a half a million dollars trying to win a primary so that she could get killed in the general.  Why?  After the resounding primary defeat - a defeat in which she left all cards on the table and pulled no punches - why burn another $120k trying to beat the candidate who took your best shot and shrugged it off?  It just doesn’t make any sense.

And Guthrie really isn’t a very strong candidate.  I’ve found her to basically be a walking gaffe machine.  We all might find it imposing to speak when a camera or microphone is thrust into your face, but she is running for Congress.  You have to be able to communicate effectively, but she has struggled to do so.  Here is a small sampling of her more curious quotes:

• In the WHNT candidate forum she said that teachers have been “over-exhumed.”  Does she think we dig up dead teachers to deal with shortages or something?
• In an interview with Dale Jackson of WVNN she referred to her two part campaign commercials (more on those later) as “sequel one and sequel two.”  Last I checked a sequel implied that it was, you know, after the first and consequently the first in a series can’t be a sequel.
• In the same interview with Dale Jackson she bragged about having conferred with “senators and house of representatives.”  We’ll get to what she was bragging about in a minute, but first let’s talk about the specific job she is running for.  She is running to be a representative, not a “house of representative.”  She should know this.

Those are just three things that popped in my head, but it is certainly not a comprehensive list.  What kind of goofy things would Guthrie say as an elected “house of representative?”

But Guthrie is more than just a verbaly challenged candidate with money to burn.  She has also proven to be a less than honest and credible candidate as well.  The first obvious deviation from honesty and integrity was when she issued misleading press releases about her “fund raising” only to pull them from her website after her first FEC report showed that she intentionally misled voters.  She followed up this incident by flat out lying about her opponent, Wayne Parker.  Using references that couldn’t possibly prove her claims (if they were true) she went deep into the mud attacking Parker.

Another element of her campaign that probably isn’t as much a lie as it is pure fantasy is her claim that she will immediately get on the Armed Services Committee and the Appropriations Committee shortly thereafter.  That would probably happen right after Congress passed a law authorizing pigs to fly.

I also find it curious that someone who purported to be a fiscal conservative would show more love for earmarks than Senator Shelby.  While earmarks account for a rounding error on the federal budget they are force multipliers, causing spending to accelerate as free spending senators and “house of representatives” mollify the objectors to bloated bills with judiciously placed pork.  A true fiscal conservative would recognize this and wouldn’t brag about seeking out such largesse.

At this point any rational person would be at wits end trying to figure out just what in the world this woman must be thinking to engage in this protracted, futile, expensive, and very public display of wanton vanity.  And then came the two commercials that appear to be produced by Michael Jackson.

The first commercial, shown below, started off with a monkey (ok, actually a chimpanzee), a juggler, and some kind of dancing performer in a glittery jacket.  A stranger political ad I had never seen (yet).

If that wasn’t enough, she followed it up with “sequal two” in which Bubbles played a more prominent role.

Seriously.  That is the best ad she could buy for all the money she has thrown away?  If I were legitimately running for an elected office and my consultants told me to shoot an ad that closes with me standing in front of a monkey, a juggler, and a dancing fool I would have to smack each consultant in the back of the head and promptly call the bank to issue a stop payment on any checks written to those morons.

Given the considerable ill will that Guthrie has fostered with local Republicans during this campaign I find it hard to beleive she would ever try to run for another office as a Republican.  Of course, she may not be able to afford to after blowing through so much cash (about a million dollars) over her last two races.  But she had no business being in this race, so maybe she’ll entertain us with another campaign she has no business being in.

Related content:

• A mountain too steep
• I bet he doesn’t give him money this time
• The money situation in AL-05
• The numbers don’t lie
• Bud Cramer to become a lobbyist

This entry was posted by Brian on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 10:19 pm and is filed under AL-05 Congressional Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.