Posted on 11/07/2013 9:04:59 AM PST by Zhang Fei
“Bobby Jindal and his political team totally blew it,” harrumphed one advisor for Ken Cuccinelli the morning after a closer-than-expected loss.
Cuccinelli, who narrowly lost last night’s gubernatorial election to Terry McAuliffe, was badly outspent in the days and weeks leading up to the election. The New York Times‘ Jonathan Martin described Cuccinelli’s plight as having been “close to abandoned at the end.” He was. As Politico’s James Hohmann reported, ”The Republican National Committee spent about $3 million on Virginia this year, compared to $9 million in the 2009.” And as the Roanoke Times noted, in 2009, the Chamber of Commerce spent $973,000 on Bob McDonnell, but “[t]his year, the chamber gave Cuccinelli nothing.”
But it was the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) and chairman Bobby Jindal who drew the most ire from a Cuccinelli advisor I spoke to on Wednesday morning — this, despite the fact that the RGA spent millions on the race.
“Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign is over,” said the Cuccinelli advisor. “He screwed this up so bad. And I don’t know why. The campaign knew it was moving numbers over ObamaCare. And the RGA was not very far from that information, they could have obtained it themselves,” the advisor continued. “They should have given the money to the campaign to spend as opposed to running these stupid China ads. They just blew it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
This has nothing to do with his political positions and everything to do with how he deployed his resources. Political races don't just involve posturing over the issues of the day - it's running a massive project with a fixed deadline in November. Fundraising. What issues to emphasize. What media outlets to focus on. Reagan won not because he was conservative. He won because he knew how to work the levers. How to manipulate the media into giving him free coverage over issues that made him look good. Who to talk to. What to talk about. What not to talk about. When to talk about it. How to talk about it. The media used to hammer him for being evasive whenever he gave a stock or evasive answer to questions he perceived as paved with land mines. But that's the difference between a political genius like Reagan and someone like Cuccinelli - Reagan is like a chess grandmaster who can see ten moves ahead, whereas Cuccinelli is playing checkers.
A third party is coming. It’s symbol will be a flush handle.
I just went to RNC website and gave them a piece of my mind. Someone else on FR recommended doing so.
I don’t see how can any Tea Party conservative, who has said that he or she would NEVER vote for a “moderate” Republican, can then complain that a lack of “support” from “moderate” Republicans caused a Tea Party conservative candidate to lose an election.
Sorry... Loyalty is a two-way street. Conservatives and moderates CAN defeat Obama’s socialists — but ONLY if we work TOGETHER.
Did anyone on Cuccinelli’s staff try to persuade the Libertarian candidate to withdraw? No? THAT would have given Cuccinelli the win.
Did Cuccinelli “push back” hard on the “Tea Party war on women” charge? No?
Attempted blame-shifting is soooo Obama...
do you really think that the Libertarian candidate, funded by an OBAMA bundler, would be subject to persuasion by Cuccinelli? on what planet?
freaking RON PAUL was in the state campaigning for Cuccinelli, if anyone was going to persuade Sarvis to drop out, it would have been him. i have to believe that was done by either ron or rand paul, BOTH of whom were stomping for cuccinelli.
Funny the establishment liberals of the GOP have no problem violating the 11th commandment but that is normal with liberals, as they tell you that you must play by these asinine rules that we have established and of course they are exempt from those very same rules. And when one team plays by the rules and the other has a free hand to do as they please we know what the results will be.
What if anything does Cuccinelli owe the liberals of the GOP? They burned the bridges, not him.
A lot of the material fed to the media about Reagan & Co being crazies came from the moderates. John Anderson, a Republican, ran as an independent just to stick it to Reagan. The Bush campaign came up with the phrase "voodoo economics". Yet Reagan held his tongue. There are a lot of things that are cathartic to do, but ultimately amount to digging a deeper hole.
"Fresh" enemies? Apparently the RNC already considers itself an enemy of Cuccinelli and conservatives everywhere.
by blasting away at Republicans whose help he might need for a comeback?"
LOL, they ditched him when he needed them most; why would anyone think they'd help him at some future date?
Oh brother. The conservative base has been delivering for the party for decades.
Save the 'loyalty' lecture for the "moderates". They're the ones sabotaging conservative candidates.
It had more to do with all the Government employees that felt like they had been screwed by the shut down, when in fact they got an extended free paid vacation.
How do you reach that voter? You could I suppose offer more free stuff. Unmarried female voters went big for Big Mac, so did Hispanics all of which vote on the basis of more free stuff.
The Libertarian may not have pulled more votes from Ken, but he did run some negative adds which didn't hurt Mac.
The fact is facts don't matter one whit, if you think they do just find me a few quotes from Obama supporters that think they were lied to, they always find a way to blame someone else.
One thing is very clear to me, we lost the last election because our population has became very socialistic, or there was massive vote fraud, neither of those problems can be overcome with good campaigns.
Thomas Sowell had a column a while back where he posited the likelihood of us staving off the march to socialism. He came to the conclusion there was only one way to stop it and that was revolution which he said was not likely. I agree with him.
In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Cuccinelli advisor blames Bobby Jindal, RGA for defeat: ‘They just blew it’, Salgak wrote:
Sure. Blame us. Blame the people who never saw ONE mailout or heard or saw ONE ad. I heard last minute ads for E.W. Jackson and Mark Obenshain, but NEVER heard a Cuccinelli ad during the entire campaign. . . .
When most people keep hearing that Ken was EVIL INCARNATE (Literally McAuliffe and allied mailing claimed he’d outlaw all birth control, and jail women who miscarry. . . ), and zero pushback from the Cuccinelli campaign. .
While it doesn’t puzzle me because of the policies of the GOPES gop elite snobs setting policy and ruinning campaigns. check this posting out http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3088649/posts
Are you a regular church goer and was the pro-life subject mentioned or ever brought up during services that election ?
There have been numerous articles about how the GOP-e sabotaged the Cuccinelli campaign intentional as a way to undermine the Tea Pary.
Just use Keyword GOPE on Freerepublic.
You will see what I mean.
Rush Limbaugh highlighted the betrayal by the GOP-establishment (GOP-e) the morning after the election.
There have been numerous articles about how the GOP-e sabotaged the Cuccinelli campaign intentional as a way to undermine the Tea Pary.
Just use Keyword GOPE on Freerepublic.
You will see what I mean.
Rush Limbaugh highlighted the betrayal by the GOP-establishment (GOP-e) the morning after the election.
as bad as the RGA was, the RNC was worse; spending three times less in Virginia in 2013 as they did in 2009; RGA did bad by what they did, the RNC did worse by all it did not do; you can give the RGA a C- for bad strategy, but give the RNC an F for a non-strategy and what appears to be their HOPING Cuncinelli would lose.
Articles with GOP-Establishment Keyword "GOP-e".
Self-sabotage: The Republican Party establishment sunk Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign, conservatives say
Jindal is not a national player. Lets not waste time on someone who is at best marginally conservative
Cuccinelli and staff are correct...the RGA blew it. With ObamaCare failing, this should have been an easy win. They got little support..and did an admirable job
it is time to purge all non-conservatives from the GOP...or the base walks.
Methinks you’re wrong, he was a strong State Senator for years before he was Attorney General. I know, because he was MY State Senator.
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