Although Senator Dole, did a bad job as NRSC Chair, she is not the main culprit in the Republican loss, as some apparently are suggesting.
If these pollsters are correct and I suspect they are, it was the Foley scandal that actually proved to be decisive.
Elizabeth Dole is responsible only in part for the following reasons:
(1) She didn't raise enough money. This is the only cycle that I am aware of that the DSCC outraised the NRSC. Not only was she outraised but she was outraised by $30 million dollars. While one can chalk that up to a bad year for Republicans, RNC Chair, Ken Mehlman, easily outraised his counterpart, Howard Dean.
(2) Senator Schumer seemed to generate considerable more buzz for what he was doing than Dole did for the NRSC. Furthermore, he was more effective at getting their message out. He was also better at recruiting candidates but I blame that less on Dole and more on the fact that this was always considered to be a tough election cyclce for Republicans.
(3) It was wise to support Chafee in the primary as no independent pollster believed his primary opponent, Steve Laffey could win. However, her committee shouldn't have been wasting money running attack ads against Laffey. Perhaps Chafee would have lost the primary without this help but the NRSC was too heavily involved in this race. This not only offended many Republicans, who correctly saw Chafee as an apostate and not a maverick, but also wasted much needed campaign money. Furthermore, she should have gotten a pledge from Chafee both on Bolton and staying in the Republican party. After all that money was spent on him, he should not have been holding a press conference right after the election, where he indicated he would contemplate switching parties.
Still, it is not her fault. At most, money would have made a difference in Virginia or Montana and perhaps Missouri. Spending additional money in Rhode Island, Ohio, or Pennsylvania would have been a lost cause. Montana, Conrad Burns should be pointing the finger at himself and not anyone else. If he wasn't so scandal-ridden he would have rode to an easy victory in a red state over a second-rate opponent. It was relatively quite cheap to buy ads in Montana and Republicans would have spent more but the race only got close at the end. Missouri, it seemed that the Republican party became divided by stem-cell research and I am not sure additional ads would have a difference. Virginia, I believe it would have made a difference. As I have blogged previously, I thought Webb ran a really nasty campaign and Allen at points didn't respond. However, it did seem whenever Allen went negative (leaking the book passages), it seemed to backfire. But perhaps the NRSC airing negative ads would have worked.
Dole, did a second-rate job and it is likely Norm Coleman would have done better. However, to blame Dole is ridiculous. Mehlman, did a much better job than Dean and it didn’t seem to make a significant difference.
If these pollsters are correct and I suspect they are, it was the Foley scandal that actually proved to be decisive.
Elizabeth Dole is responsible only in part for the following reasons:
(1) She didn't raise enough money. This is the only cycle that I am aware of that the DSCC outraised the NRSC. Not only was she outraised but she was outraised by $30 million dollars. While one can chalk that up to a bad year for Republicans, RNC Chair, Ken Mehlman, easily outraised his counterpart, Howard Dean.
(2) Senator Schumer seemed to generate considerable more buzz for what he was doing than Dole did for the NRSC. Furthermore, he was more effective at getting their message out. He was also better at recruiting candidates but I blame that less on Dole and more on the fact that this was always considered to be a tough election cyclce for Republicans.
(3) It was wise to support Chafee in the primary as no independent pollster believed his primary opponent, Steve Laffey could win. However, her committee shouldn't have been wasting money running attack ads against Laffey. Perhaps Chafee would have lost the primary without this help but the NRSC was too heavily involved in this race. This not only offended many Republicans, who correctly saw Chafee as an apostate and not a maverick, but also wasted much needed campaign money. Furthermore, she should have gotten a pledge from Chafee both on Bolton and staying in the Republican party. After all that money was spent on him, he should not have been holding a press conference right after the election, where he indicated he would contemplate switching parties.
Still, it is not her fault. At most, money would have made a difference in Virginia or Montana and perhaps Missouri. Spending additional money in Rhode Island, Ohio, or Pennsylvania would have been a lost cause. Montana, Conrad Burns should be pointing the finger at himself and not anyone else. If he wasn't so scandal-ridden he would have rode to an easy victory in a red state over a second-rate opponent. It was relatively quite cheap to buy ads in Montana and Republicans would have spent more but the race only got close at the end. Missouri, it seemed that the Republican party became divided by stem-cell research and I am not sure additional ads would have a difference. Virginia, I believe it would have made a difference. As I have blogged previously, I thought Webb ran a really nasty campaign and Allen at points didn't respond. However, it did seem whenever Allen went negative (leaking the book passages), it seemed to backfire. But perhaps the NRSC airing negative ads would have worked.
Dole, did a second-rate job and it is likely Norm Coleman would have done better. However, to blame Dole is ridiculous. Mehlman, did a much better job than Dean and it didn’t seem to make a significant difference.
posted by The partisan moderate at 10:27 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home