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How to pick a good general election candidate in a primary

by: Pan

Wed Jan 20, 2010 at 8:17 AM EST


While we're talking about lessons to learn from the debacle in Massachusetts, two tough questions that need to be asked, discussed, and reflected on a great deal are:

1. How to get better at picking good candidates in primaries, and
2. What are the danger signs to look out for in a primary that might warn us a candidate that looks good in a primary will bomb in the general election?

More after the fold.
Pan :: How to pick a good general election candidate in a primary
Some of you knew Coakley would be a lousy general election candidate. Did any of you suspect she would be too lazy to campaign effectively and would say a bunch of idiotic things? How did you figure out that she was gonna suck?

And what about VA-Gov? Did the Democratic voters pick the wrong candidate in Deeds? I think we all agree that his campaign strategy was awful, a guaranteed loser, and got even worse when he tried to sound like a Republican and turned off the base. But would Moran, for example, have had a chance of winning?

I don't have answers, but if we are to benefit from this stinging loss, we will have to figure out how to get smarter in picking candidates who are more likely to win in state-wide contests, as we did in the Presidential primaries in 2008.

I look forward to any insights you can give on these campaigns, and more importantly, for the future.
Poll
Which candidate was the worse pick, considering the field?
Martha Coakley
Creigh Deeds

Results

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How to pick a good general election candidate in a primary | 40 comments
VA
I genuinely don't think Dems in VA picked the wrong candidate considering the scandals surrounding Terry McAuliffe and the potential scandals surrounding Brian Moran and his brother's dealings with defense contractors and how they were asked to give to Brian Moran's campaign.

NoVa Dems and liberal independents did deserve to be catered too more than they were by the Deeds camp.  The people of NoVa should have realized that Deeds would have been a better Governor than McDonnell even if he wasn't with them on cap trade and some gun issues.  I'm not comfortable with cap and trade proposals until India & China agree to do something too and I live in IA-2 for pete sakes.  

Please donate to amcharities.org to help build more after school centers in the Miami area.  

23, Democrat, IA-2

I didn't remember the whiff of scandal around the Morans
I guess there really was no option to pick someone really good in that contest.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Most people went with Deeds
I saw the downsides with Deeds in North Carolina, we had a rural candidate similar to Deeds in Bev Purdue.
[ Parent ]
I always assumed that Empty Chair (D) could win
a Senate election in Massachusetts. I never knew that Coakley would be nearly as bad as she turned out to be.

New Rule: candidates are never ever allowed to go on vacation after they win a primary. Ever.

Totally agreed, but that's a rule for a candidate
What we really need to know, as voters, is if there are any ways to see warning signs and take them into account in our primary votes. There may be no answer for this, but I hope there are some signs someone can point to.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Here are two.
1. Make sure there are actually good candidates.  I can't help but to wonder if we were screwed in Virginia no matter what.

2. Resumes are very important but the job interview gets you the job.  Don't rely solely on the resume to win, especially considering the Republicans' love of attacking the resume.  Make sure the candidate is willing to defend their resume and is running on something in addition to their resume.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

I particularly like #2
I can think of some examples. Gary Hart ran on his resume and the empty slogan of "new ideas." Of course, no-one could have defeated Reagan in 1984, anyway. Let's think of other examples that were defeated in the primaries, and ones that weren't, and what the warning signs were in the primaries.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
There is a much better example than Gary hart
Barack Obama.
[ Parent ]
John Kerry


Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
Obama is a COUNTER-example!
Kerry and Dukakis are valid examples. But I thought that in both cases (very oddly in Kerry's case, since he's a decorated veteran), the problem was that they didn't defend themselves forcefully. But I agree that it was actually good that Obama wasn't running on his resume, but on his vision. We probably should never again vote for anyone whose main election plank is that s/he was a military hero. That's good but not a sufficient reason for people to vote for them.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Plus
apparently when a vet is running as a Democrat it's okay to accuse them of being traitors/cowards/deserters/unpatriotic, etc but when we try to do that against a Republican, it's considered an slap in the face of every veteran in the country.

19, Male, Independent, CA-12
[ Parent ]
Quite true
but life isn't fair and I think it's true that a Democrat whose main point is "Vote for me because I'm a military hero" should never win any more primaries.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
They get that double standard
We get the one where our Democratic officials can make stupid comments pertaining to race and such.  Franken had made some anti-woman and anti-gay jokes, Reid says Obama doesnt have a "negro dialect".

We forgive them because we know how they vote on issues of discrimination and the GOP gets away with calling our war heroes pussies because of how they vote or in Kerry's case, how he voted and then how he took it back.

Franken got hammered hard for a rape joke he has said, and then the first thing he does to get in the papers was an amendment to protect rape victims in firms with government defense contracts.  When he gets hit with that again in 2014, he'll be like, nuh uh!  Good move by Franken in many ways.

[ Parent ]
I think Reid is somewhat damaged by his comments on "Negroes"
And I also think that Franken was damaged, but nevertheless won his election, barely. But there's a big difference between the two: Franken is a professional comedian and was in fact joking in a professional capacity. Reid was not joking. What he said was largely true but put in a regrettable manner, to say the least.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
What would've made McAuliffe a better candidate, IMHO, is...
...he surely would've better shored-up liberals and Dems. Sure, I can't imagine he would've outperformed outperformed Deeds' 35% among Independents, but I do think McAuliffe could've turned 18% liberal turnout into 20% liberal turnout; 33% Dem turnout into 35% Dem turnout. The base was unenthused under Deeds and McAuliffe probably could've changed that.

For daily political commentary, visit me at http://polibeast.blogspot.com/ and http://twitter.com/polibeast
McAuliffe
had pretty high negatives, I'm sure the "rich guy moves here from New York and tries to buy the election" narrative would have been very effective against him.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Also
A lot of liberals and Democrats (particularly former Obama supporters) think he's an ass and would not be exited to vote for him.

Myself included.

[ Parent ]
This diary does beg an important question
What were the warning signs that Coakley was as bad as she was going to be before the primary? All I knew about her was she was basically a scandal free AG who had won the highest number of votes of any candidate in her last election. I do remember that her very early entry into the Senate race raised a red flag for me, but I thought that was more ambition than anything. (I admit that I didn't scan any diaries or comments on the race because I thought it was in the bag)

It seems like Dem primary voters in Massachusetts could not have picked a worse candidate. Pan says above some people knew she was a disaster waiting to happen. What were they?  

Fells Acres
was a possible warning sign. As was the fact that just in general she lacked personality...though it's not to say that Capuano, Khazei, or Pagliuca are future Obamas.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
I didn't see any to be honest
I say her as a lower quality version of Hillary Clinton, and I was shocked to see her do so poorly in the blue collar areas.  

But I'm willing to bet that six months ago or even two months ago, Coakley would have won this race even with her non-existent campaign.

[ Parent ]
She had a Palinesque moment in a debate
Asked about her foreign policy experience Coakley said she had visited her sister overseas.  In retrospect it should have raised red flags.  

21, male, CA-15 (home and voting there), LA-2 (college)


[ Parent ]
That's a very good point
In retrospect, GOP Voter was the person here who made the biggest deal about it, and some other members reacted indignantly to his remarks.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Looking back
Coakley was probably the worst candidate we could of put forth to face Hurricane Scott Brown. But we didn't expect Scott Brown to catch on fire and on paper Coakley seemed like a formidable candidate. I can still remember Politico articles talking about how Coakley was the clear front runner. Back in August...

Massachusetts political operatives consider state Attorney General Martha Coakley an early front-runner because of her high statewide name recognition and strong favorable ratings. With a law enforcement background - she served as the district attorney of Middlesex County before winning election as attorney general - Coakley would have the opportunity to forge a coalition of law-and-order Democrats and female voters.

http://www.politico.com/news/s...

19, Male, Independent, CA-12

[ Parent ]
The Mooninites
Remember the Mooninites bomb scare during her first few weeks on the job as AG? That should've been a red flag, when she went out of her way to defend the retarded Boston cops and then strenuously denied they overreacted.

"It had a very sinister appearance, it had a battery behind it, and wires."

It's a fucking cartoon Lite-Brite flipping you the bird, moron. And it shows how totally clueless she is.

Plus, she didn't even investigate Menino's email controversy, or bother to investigate the totally obvious (and illegal) support local DAs gave to defeat the Mass. Sensible Marijuana Policy Initiative--mostly because both could have damaged her politically.

I'm actually seeing a bright side to her losing. She's clueless about everything from popular culture to foreign policy, much more conservative than Kennedy, is a gaffe machine, has the charisma of a garden slug, and can easily be called a 'machine' politician (see above: Menino).   So maybe it's almost a good thing that she's not going to be a Senator.  

Kansan by birth, Californian by choice, and Gay by the grace of God.

[ Parent ]
I remember the flashing robot
I don't know about the other stuff.

Do you think there's any way more of this kind of stuff can be disseminated, such that a bad candidate has a better chance of being defeated in a primary? Of course, the risk is that the candidate wins the primary and is hobbled. But if the candidate is bad enough, it's a proper risk to take.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  

[ Parent ]
Um, Wikipedia?
All that stuff is referenced on Wikipedia. My thought is that the problem is the news media is simply unable to do its proper Fourth Estate job. Some blogs will cover this stuff, but they're not influential enough to make a big difference. Newspapers are declining rapidly and some are being politicized, radio is dominated by yahoos & NPR tries to be too neutral, TV/cable news just plain sucks.

PS- I did want to clarify that all Boston cops are not retarded, simply that in this one particular circumstance, they behaved in an incredibly stupid manner.  

Kansan by birth, Californian by choice, and Gay by the grace of God.

[ Parent ]
Are you suggesting there's no way to effectively publicize stuff like this
in such a way as to decrease the chances of someone winning a Democratic primary and then bombing the general election?

Surely, there has to be a way to do it.

I think that part of the problem is that liberal blogs get lots of push-back when people post these kinds of things, which smack of "opposition research" of "our own" candidates. Is there a way we can get past that, for our own benefit?

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  

[ Parent ]
::sigh::
This thread only gets me terrified Im going to support the wrong person in the MN-Gov race.  And senate district conventions (where we pick delegates) is only a month away!

I'll probably just join the undecided caucuses at the convention and if Im a delegate, meet every single last one of them face-to-face and see what happens.

You can rest assured of one thing
I think.  No candidate will take the general election for granted in Minnesota.  

I think we might not have ran into this problem if the GOP had actually put up a known candidate, like Weld or Cellucci, for example.  The Democrat would have actually had to run a race from the beginning.

[ Parent ]
That wouldn't have stopped Coakley from making idiotic remarks, though
n/t

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
don't be

Just be prepared for a bad Election Day evening if the main questions in the electorate are "is the Democratic establishment {in this state, on Capitol Hill} too corrupt and conservative to do what is necessary?  Is the candidate part of the problem, or part of the solution?"

To put it mildly, a lot of the posts on this thread are a little blind to this.  Not seeing the forest for all the trees blocking their view, etc.

[ Parent ]
Don't be what?
And I put it to you in another thread: Are you claiming that no matter who the Democratic candidate in this race was and how they campaigned, it was inevitable they would lose? On the face of it, that doesn't seem credible to me, but if you have actual evidence to support such a claim, you should post it.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Be wary of someone who says "I'm from X demographic, so they'll vote for me."
Remember when we were told ad nauseum that we needed a Southerner on the ticket to win?  While it was true that the last several winning Democratic tickets (prior to 2008) had Southerners, many of the last several LOSING tickets did as well (1980, 1988, 2000, 2004).

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
Why I always disliked Coakley:
2007 Boston "bomb scare".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...

Let's be fair, a couple of idiots putting LED placards on overpasses all over the city without informing the authorities is pretty stupid. But charging them with "placing a hoax device to incite panic" was bullshit designed to cover for the fact that Menino and his incompetent police force MASSIVELY overreacted. Same with getting Turner to pay $2 million to the BPD because the BPD screwed up. It's little more than naked cronyism to protect probably the only city officials in America who are so stupid and sheltered that they can mistake obvious LED signs for an attempt to bomb the city.

Then I found out that apparently she's also mega-corrupt and has various ethics complaints swirling around as well. By that time I was hardly surprised.

Even I didn't think she's screw it up this badly, but I'm not surprised that she did. But then, I'm also not surprised that Kerry screwed up 2004 or that O'Brien screwed up 2002. When will the establishment stop buying the nomination of aloof, clueless Boston Brahmins who nobody likes at any level, then wonder why they lose?

And for the record, one of the reasons I've seen for voting for Coakley in the primary, at least on DKos, was some politically correct crap about how "I'm supporting her because she's a woman". Look, I know it's a good thing to have more women in Congress and all, but the same people probably rejected the "I should vote for McCain/Palin because Palin has a vagina" argument, which is just a hypocritical double standard, and frankly kind of sexist (and the sexist part I get from my fiancee, not from my male self, who really wouldn't know.) If it's a bullshit argument to vote for Sarah Palin, it should be a bullshit argument period, not just when it's convenient to be.

I think part of the problem is that Democratic voters in general, and especially in New England, are often too obsessed with these sorts of politically correct emotional arguments to be able to understand which candidate can actually win. (See: "My heart says Dean, but Kerry can win because he's a Senator and has more money.", which is paraphrasing what someone who talked to Newsweek after voting in Iowa in early 2004 actually said. Wonder how that turned out?) New England/BosWash voters in general - especially Baby Boomers - also are insanely neurotic (no pun intended). They have this obnoxious aura of superiority, especially towards younger generations and people different from them, that requires them to pretend that they're the most serious people in the room at all times. This extends to their voting patterns, which is why Howard Dean only won one New England state in 2004 (his own), and wouldn't have won Vermont if he weren't a native son. Everyone else had to prove that they were Very Serious People by voting for Kerry because he was the Most Serious Candidate despite his obvious lack of charisma, personality, or readiness for prime time in the rest of America (aka Afterthoughtland). Same deal with Coakley. It'll only get worse because educated young people (the ones like me who would've voted for Capuano) are fleeing New England in droves, leaving the 18-24 demographic disproportionately college students (who probably won't turn out) and lower-income young people who only finished high school, most of them white and Catholic, who will probably be no more liberal than their blue-collar Catholic anti-abortion, pro-Red Sox parents.  

I dunno
I got the impression that a lot of young people are moving to the Boston, specifically Cleveland Circle, Comm Ave, and other areas around the Green Line. Allston/Brighton feels so hip.

21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
[ Parent ]
Avoid
candidates who come out of no where when 2 or more front runners bloody each other up. Examples include Creigh Deeds, John Kerry, and Alice Kryzan (NY-26) come to mind. Candidates who come out of nowhere tend to not have base support and are somewhat reluctant to go onto the attack and define their opponents. These candidates (though not always the case) should be avoided like the plague    

17, Gay Male, Democrat, NJ-8  
Kryzan does seem to have been a mistake
but who do you think should have been picked other than Deeds and Kerry? I also don't see how Kerry came out of nowhere. I'm guessing you were thinking Howard Dean? I thought he was a good candidate and didn't relate to the ridicule he got for being enthusiastic. It was really absurd.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Kryzan
Jon Powers should have definitely have been the nominee in NY-26. But unfortunately he and Jack Davis completely ruined each other causing her to get the nomination.  

Kerry won Iowa and became the nominee largely when Dean and Dick Gephardt ran extremely negative campaigns against each other causing what some saw as a complete Kerry surprise in Iowa. John Kerry having not gone negative in the primaries might have been one of the reasons why he refused to counter attack the Swift boaters.

While I was too young to have followed the 2004 election and primaries like I did with the 2008 election(though I do remember alot of coverage of the election including watching CNN declare Obama the winner of the Illinois Senate race)if I had to think about it I would have supported either Kerry or Dean.

In the Virginia Gov race I think the whole Dem side was full of candidates who had barely a chance at winning the Gov mansion. But I did support McAulliffe since I thought he could have used his money to fund the race and primarily ran as a jobs creator      

17, Gay Male, Democrat, NJ-8  

[ Parent ]
I would have preferred to vote for Dean
in 2004, but I didn't expect Kerry to be such a lousy campaigner. You make a very good point in seeing a reluctance to do some negative campaigning as a warning sign. We need to pay attention to all such warning signs in the future. Politics ain't beanbag, and any Democrat who doesn't demonstrate a readiness to play rough will lose to a Republican, because s/he will.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  
[ Parent ]
Bit of a myth that he didn't go negative
I always remember the late debates as Kerry, Gephardt and Lieberman ganging up on Dean and Edwards asking why they just couldn't all get along.
[ Parent ]
How to pick a good general election candidate in a primary | 40 comments

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