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November 20, 2010 01:10 AM UTC

Because You CAN Win for Losing

  • 44 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

On Wednesday, our friends over at “The Fix” listed their opinion on the “Ten Best Canididates of 2010.” Not all of the Top Ten were winning candidates, such as Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello:

Perriello drew loads of national attention during his first two years in office as an unapologetic supporter of President Obama’s agenda despite the Republican-leaning nature of the district — Virginia’s 5th — that he represented. That approach led to an assumption that he would be crushed by state Sen. Robert Hurt (R) on Nov. 2. But, through a combination of massive fundraising and sheer will — not to mention a  last minute campaign visit from President Obama — Perriello went into election day with a real chance. He ultimately lost the race but his four-point margin was smaller than almost anyone expected and set him up as a potential statewide candidate in future elections. [Pols emphasis]

This got us thinking about something we briefly touched on in our “Winners and Losers” of the 2010 Elections: Which Colorado candidates who lost in 2010 performed well enough that they could still be called “Winners” overall? [More after the jump…]

Under our “Losers” category a few weeks ago, we wrote this about Republican Ryan Frazier, who was pummeled in his attempt to defeat incumbent Rep. Ed Perlmutter in CD-7:

Sometimes a candidate will lose a big race but do well enough that he or she is considered a rising star. Frazier? Not so much. He got bullied out of the Republican Senate primary to run in CD-7, where he proceeded to get the absolute crap kicked out of him by Rep. Ed Perlmutter. Frazier is a good fundraiser and is decent at delivering a prepared speech, but his campaign was amateurish at best and he otherwise proved to be immature, vacuous and just plain silly in unscripted moments. In one debate, he repeatedly demanded that Perlmutter tell him the page number of something in the health care bill; when your big attack is that your opponent can’t recall page numbers, you’re running a student council campaign.

It’s not losing the race that hurts Frazier, but the fact that he couldn’t even be competitive in a Republican year. Frazier lost by 11 points to Perlmutter and received about 13,000 fewer votes than 2008 GOP candidate John Lerew, a guy whose own yard signs said “John Who?”

We want to hear from all of you Polsters out there on the Internet tubes, and next week we’ll run a poll to see who was the “best of the worst,” so to speak. Who was the “anti-Frazier” of 2010? We’re looking for nominations of candidates who lost in 2010 but still set themselves up well for a potential future run.

For an example, here’s what we wrote about Democrat Will Shafroth after he came in third in a bruising three-way primary for CD-2 in 2008:

Shafroth was never really in contention in CD-2, but no loser came out of Tuesday’s primaries looking better than the erstwhile unknown Shafroth. You could argue (as we would) that going on television in February or March would have been a worthwhile gamble that might have put Shafroth in position for the upset, but that doesn’t diminish what he did accomplish. Shafroth ran a clean campaign and ended up with the endorsement of both the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post. He raised enough money to show that he could be a serious candidate, and the money also allowed him to say hello to a lot of regular voters. He may have come in third in a three-way race, but Shafroth will now be near the front of the Democratic bench when future races are considered.

Now, give us your suggestions. Remember, only candidates (or campaign staffers and consultants) who lost their election in 2010 can be considered.

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44 thoughts on “Because You CAN Win for Losing”

  1. has to be Betsy Markey.  Using the Frazier logic above and all that was said about him – especially that he ONLY lost by 11 points – Markey outraised and outspent Gardner and got the “absolute crap kicked out of” her by 12.3 pts.  Why anyone would throw that kind of good money after bad again in 2012 points to mental illness – yet who appears on CP’s Line for 2012?  Betsy Markey 10-1.

    1. We said that Markey could be in a good position to run again depending on what the district looks like after redistricting. If nothing is changed in 2012, then it probably makes little sense for Markey to try again.

      We would consider Markey a “Winner for Losing”  

      1. …if CD2 stretched eastward towards the Kansas border and then took all of CD4’s area east of Greeley and south of Denver.  They’d love ol’ Jared out in those areas, fit right in.  So, if CD4 was just Longmont, Loveland, Ft. Collins and Greeley Markey might have a chance – but a slim one.

    2. and then see the results of a Democrat who runs on an anti-Obama message.

      Maybe Markey couldn’t save her job but she could have at least run a campaign that emphasized her accomplishments.  She looked pathetic trying to be Republican Lite.

      No future in the Democratic Party for this political wimp.

      1. I think you are right GG, could never figure out her campaign message. Her race was lost in Larimer County not eastern plains or southeast. Yet the message seemed to be directed at farmers. Acomplishments? I think one of her better votes was against a second engine for the F35 JSF and one of her worst votes was to strip federal funding from ACORN – a cheap shot.

        1. I think she may have actually campaigned to the right of Gardner. The problem was that conservatives didn’t believe her given her record, and obviously moving to the right hurt her with leftists.

          1. Hey Beej, I think this is one of your better posts. Have you reformed? Went to the debate in Loveland (Channel 5). Moderator asked her if she voted the way the district wanted her to, she said yes … Gardner folks hooted with laughter. But from my perspective she did a really good job for the district – on farming issues, with the failed farm bank. On most social issues voting yes to end DADT liberal enough to be one of Emily’s List women but for sure no Diana Degette. She had a 70% rating with ADA in 2009 which reflects a moderate left of center Democrat but no Bernie Sanders (to borrow from a thread) … I do think you are wrong on one point, beej. Moving to the right didn’t hurt her with leftist (like me?) … sure there were comments that she was MM in a crappy pink suit, that she was the CO version of Ben Nelson, etc. but those people never put down their lattes long enough to actually walk a precinct. No, I think the thing that hurt her was that Cory didn’t seem scary after the primary. So now the test is who is the real Cory Gardner and will he be common sense moderately right of center or will he be an extreme right-winger??? Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks for your post!

            2. They’re rare enough around here. I’ve reformed my posting style, although not my views. I was actually just writing about Cory at redstate:

              http://www.redstate.com/erick/…

              I tend to think he will be a common sense conservative right now, but ultimately shift his views whichever way CD-4 goes. He’s no spring chicken.

                1.   What does it mean to be a Commonsense Conservative?

                  At its most basic level, conservatism is a respect for history and tradition, including traditional moral principles. I do not believe I am more normal, certainly no better, than anyone else, and conservatives who act “holier than thou” turn my stomach. So do some elite liberals. But I do believe in a few timeless and unchanging truths, and chief among those is that man is fallen. The world is not perfect, and politicians will never make it so. This, above all, is what informs my pragmatic approach to politics.

                    I am a conservative because I deal with the world as it is—complicated and beautiful, tragic and hopeful. I am a conservative because I believe in the rights and the responsibilities and the inherent dignity of the individual.

                    In his book A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell explains the underlying assumptions or “visions” that shape our opinions and the way we approach social and political issues. He identifies two separate visions: the unconstrained and the constrained.

                    People who adhere to the unconstrained vision (the label applied to them is “liberal” or “left-wing”) believe that human nature is changeable (therefore perfectible) and that society’s problems can all be solved if only the poor, ignorant, disorganized public is told what to do and rational plans are enacted. And who better to make those plans than an elite bureaucracy pulling the strings and organizing society according to their master blueprint? No one can doubt that our current leaders in Washington subscribe to this unconstrained vision.

                    Conservatives believe in the “constrained” political vision because we know that human nature is flawed and that there are limitations to what can be done in Washington to “fix” society’s problems.

                    Commonsense Conservatives deal with human nature as it is—with its unavoidable weaknesses and its potential for goodness. We see the world as it is—imperfect but filled with beauty. We hope for the best. We believe people can change for the better, but we do not ignore history’s lessons and waste time chasing utopian pipe dreams.

                    We don’t trust utopian promises from politicians. The role of government is not to perfect us but to protect us—to protect our inalienable rights. The role of government in a civil society is to protect the individual and to establish a social contract so that we can live together in peace.

                    We are currently in the midst of an economic crisis, and the recovery is slow in coming. But I do have fundamental faith in the American entrepreneurial spirit. We go through booms and busts, and America comes out stronger. Just as wildfires in Alaska burn away deadfall to make way for new growth, so too does the business cycle undergo a process of “creative destruction.” We let some dying businesses fail as new businesses emerge. The horse and buggy gradually disappeared after Henry Ford introduced an affordable automobile. In my lifetime, we’ve gone from companies in the business of making LPs to eight-tracks to cassette tapes to compact discs to MP3s. My kids finally got me to retire the portable CD player I lugged around with while jogging. I now carry an iPod, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

                    The marketplace changes. Often it’s not easy for politicians to explain to their constituents this process of “creative destruction” with its booms and busts, because more and more politicians prefer pandering instead. They complicate simple and sober truths, and make vague promises to get elected. It’s easy to promise free medical care and a chicken in every pot. It’s more difficult to explain how we’re going to pay for it all and to explain why social programs that were supposed to help the poor have ended up hurting them, becoming unsustainable financial liabilities for all of us. Ronald Reagan was the last president to really explain this to us.

                  Excerpted from Going Rogue: An American Life, by Sarah Palin.

        1. Hmmm. I’m reading Stand Up Straight (from 2007) by Robt. Creamer. Stats from 2010 support your view. Dems who campaigned as non-apologetic Dems did better even if they lost than Dems who campaigned as Reps-lite. So, post mortems aside what is the prospect that Cory will be a one-term congressperson?

  2. All the losers I can think of either ran poorly or ineffectively or were not great candidates in the first place.

    The closest is Buck.

    I suspect he has pretty good to very good statewide name recognition now, and though his campaign was not great (especially in the red zone) it didn’t hurt him with R’s nor most U’s.

  3. that Kathleen Curry was competitive as a write-in candidate impresses me.

    Of course, the fact that she had to run as write-in is because of her own massive screw up in the first place…

    Naturally though, CHARLIEMILLERUNAFFILIATEDLOLBLERG!!!! has to be the biggest winner of all.  🙂

        1. I think the rules come in second.

          I don’t know exactly what was driving her, but I can see myself doing the same thing.

          Sometimes political expediency has to take a back seat to whatever is eating you.  Even if it’s not good for you.

          2. that she was absolutely dumbfounded when she found out that she couldn’t run as an independent.  Her write in campaign was not a scripted plan.

            There is the honor of value based dissent and there are also bonehead political moves without an awareness of the consequences.

            Curry stands out as one of those people who knew a Republican wave was coming but didn’t have a clue how to get her surf board in the water in time to catch the wave.

            Not a winning loser.

  4. I”m going to be contrarian here, Pols, and say that that would be Ryan Frazier.

    Using your criteria, Frazier is eminently set up for a future run and won’t be handicapped by the loss to Perlmutter when he makes it.

    And using objective criteria, Frazier also scored well. He made a race out of a contest no one thought would be competitive. Perlmutter was stunned at the size of his win, and so was everyone else who was paying attention.

    Of course, Perlmutter had his own self to rely on. All those groceries and Broncos games and his bipartisan cheering squad, not to mention prodigious fundraising. Plus the district isn’t as close as people imagine, it’s got a hefty Dem registration advantage. All of which should have meant he was running against another John “Who?”, not someone who would cost the DCCC and turn a Perlmutter trounce into the surprise it was.

    1. I’m fairly sure that Pols is only looking for Democratic candidates who lost but are still “winners” since the standard line on here lately seems to be that ALL of the Republicans are horrid, incompetent candidates (even the ones who won) while all of the Democratic candidates are paragons of professionalism who can make no misstep and are the still the real winners.

  5. But seriously, any Dem who lost by less than 14 points.

    Kennedy only came as close as she did because she’s Cary, not the Dem or the incumbent.  A down ticket race no one cares about really should have been closer to the SoS result.  In retrospect I would’ve given up a few points (a loss is a loss) to not stoop, but there weren’t “unfair” blows, only beneath her blows.

    And, as always, Joe Rice gets a full on class award.  Tough district always.  He was gracious when Conti was crazy and when she won (and was crazy).  He never dithered on his positions or votes, but would (and will) always discuss with a reasonable mind.  A quality both rare and stunning in politics.

    I hope to see both of these people back in politics (even if they could do better) and think they have a future despite losing.

  6. Keep in mind, would Pols four years ago have picked Scott Tipton as the “anti-Scott Tipton of 2006”? Probably not.

    He doubtless had the wind at his back this year (and a tremendous headwind when he first ran, which Frazier certainly didn’t face, so it’s not a great analogy). But he did everything he needed to position himself to take advantage of a Republican wave, and when it came, he was ready. This isn’t to say Tipton was a great candidate. He wasn’t. But he didn’t have to be, he just had to be credible, not screw up, and keep the focus on Salazar’s votes.

    2. They never dig into WHY it was a tough year – because they ignored the will of the people and crammed policies down people’s throats that nobody wanted. Of course, your party will never admit that, which is why they will continue to lose in 2012. See Pelosi, Nancy (20% approval rating) being overwhelmingly chosen as minority leader.  

      1. Can you source the policies that no one wanted remark?  We keep hearing about this crap, but it never really pulls through.  Like a poll about Obamacare will not erase an actual vote.

        To be fair, it’s not unlike why so many Dems never liked Ritter.  He didn’t do anything bad, in fact, under the circumstances, he did very well.  People don’t like the way he governs, but can’t think of a reason.

  9. No question about it. Knocking off Norton was huge. He’s a great candidate and now has nationwide name recognition. And, despite a few gaffes, he avoided the derision attached to Angle and O’Donnell by only barely losing and having a comparatively more polished message. I’m sure he’ll be back in future elections.

      1. And lose it he did.  In a more even year, if he ran the campaign he did in this cycle and Bennet still ran the campaign he did, he’d have gotten beat a lot worse.  

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