Money cannot help a terrible candidate who won't even do his own fundraising.
Posted on 03/14/2018 9:42:12 AM PDT by smileyface
It could come down to a recount.
Democrat Conor Lamb has already declared victory over Republican Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania’s special House election, but Republicans say they aren’t giving up until every vote is counted.
The contest has still not been called, but Lamb leads Saccone by a few hundred votes. There’s no mandatory recount for a federal race in Pennsylvania, but Republicans have the option of petitioning for one.
"This race is too close to call and we’re ready to ensure that every legal vote is counted,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Matt Gorman said late Tuesday. “Once they are, we’re confident Rick Saccone will be the newest Republican member of Congress."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Can't argue with that. Bad candidate, bad campaign.
No the lesson is, if your message for your campaign is the same message R’s have used for the last 15+ years, that didn’t get the Trump I and D voters to show up and vote for you ever before, why the hell would you expect that message to make them turn out for you now????
This race was gross incompetence at the top!!! Across the entire GOP.. its PAC’s and the Saccone campaign directly.
They NEVER EVER put out a message that was targeted at these voters, not once.... Just red meat for the core R.... that was the entire campaign and it was BEYOND stupid.
It wasn’t the candidate, he wasn’t great, but he should have won....
MESSAGING was wrong the entire campaign.... The messaging by the GOP/PAC and SACCONE was never one targeted at the Trump I and D voter.... Not once.. it was basically a campaign of red meat for the R base....
And that never got those voters to show up and vote R in the past, and wasn’t going to this time.
The complete incompetence shown in this election is unbelievable.
The sad thing is, the rank and file folks busted their butts, they worked harder int his distict that I have EVER seen... they did everything they were asked do and more.. but unfortunately what they were asked to do was the wrong thing!!!
They literally took these people, put them on a sheet of ice and said run to the other end... and dammit there hard work almost pulled it off anyway...
This failure was a failure of messaging. They NEVER EVER put out a message that was going to motivate the TRUMP MAGA voter who was not a traditional R... not once!
When this should have been the absolute PARAMOUT goal from day one!!! But not one time did they ever try.
Pathetic, inexcusable and if this type of messaging is their plan for the fall, the D’s will easily take the house.
Yeah yeah, we hear this almost everyday from you negative nabob trolls. GOP ain’t losing the senate much less the house.
Sorry but bad messaging, poor media, lack of funding, failure to get out the vote, all are hallmarks of a bad campaign. And a bad campaign is the result of a bad candidate.
Money cannot help a terrible candidate who won't even do his own fundraising.
Nope, what happened is the GOP ran a pre Trump campaign in a post Trump world.
This thing should have never been closer than 8 points...
But Saccone, the RNCC, and all the other GOPe pacs decided that instead of following Trumps lead on how to win in the Rust Belt they just ran the same old tired campaigns that they have been for 15+ years.
Literally every ad could have been for any generic R candidate with the same message they had used for at least 15 years.
Not ONCE did they put forth a message to appeal to the I and D Trump voters who gave him this area... not one damned time...
Just same old tired red meat for the base...
The thing they had to do from day one to win was make sure those I and D voters who went Trump were voted and showed up... and they DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO TRY TO GET THEM OR TARGET THEIR MESSAGE TO THEM, NOT ONCE!!!!
The incompetence in this campaign up and down the GOPe/PACS etc is just along the level of Hillary not campaigning in Michigan and WI etc... It was that big of a level of incompetence!
And if the messaging for the fall is what they tried here, expect the GOP to handily lose the house..
The only messaging they offered was red meat to the already reliable R voter, nothing else.... it was STUPID & INCOMPETENT on every level.
Yes saccone wasn’t great, but he still should have easily won this district with the proper message... and they never EVER even tried to deliver it.
TOTAL SPENDING $17.9 MIL
GOP SPENDING $11.9 MIL
DEM SPENDING $6 MIL
LAMB FUNDRAISING $4.2MIL
SACCONE FUNDRAISING $1.2MIL
NON-LAMB DEM SPENDING $1.8MIL
NON-SACCONE GOP SPENDING $10.7MIL
Really. You are running for a congress, and only raised $1.2mil?
The candidate wasn’t the problem, could it have been better? Sure, but saccone wasn’t the problem... the MESSAGING WAS!
the entire campaign was red meat for the reliable R base.. not once did they ever offer a message that was targeted at, let alone would excite the Trump/MAGA I and D voters.. and those should have been the target the entire time.
Trump showed them how to win, and they just ignored it all and ran a campaign like Trump never happened... literally every ad could jsut as easily have been for any generic R for the last 15 years or more... it was incompetence on every level.
Sorry but the BAD MESSAGING was systemic... Most of the ads were not made by or part of the Saccone campaign they were done by the RNCC or other GOPe pacs!!! They were all WRONG MESSAGE... can’t blame Saccone for all that....
The GOPe just doesn’t get 2016.... Trump gave them a blue print and they all, at ever level, collectively ignored it, and ran a Rovesque campaign that could have been for any R in any race for the last 15 years... offering red meat to the base and trying to make the D too evil... That campaign rarely wins... regardless of side of the aisle.. Didn’t work for HIllary in 2016 either.
The messaging was a fail from top to bottom of the GOP... and if this is their plan for the fall they will lose the house
OMG, Rush just had a caller who insisted that Saccone lost this race because Trump was mean to Rex Tillerson when he fired him.
Do seminar callers from the Swamp REALLY think we’re that STOOOOPID?
They will lose seats.
Not predicting the lose majority status, yet.
Fact is, democrat neo-marxists are extremely motivated.
It was Santorum’s House seat from c. 1993-1995.
They’ve got to ditch the RNC head....she’s good for nothing.
There is far more than 1 single person to blame, that’s the point and the problem. You had countless pacs send in millions of dollars, yet ALL of them were delivering the same incorrect messaging!!!!
Every single one...
Hey, GOP, Here’s your generic script you should have been using:
In 2016 YOU schocked the establishment and the world when YOU elected Donald Trump president.
You were tired of politicians and political parties putting their own needs and desires above your own... and more importantly above what was in America’s best interests. You voted to put America first, as it should be.
Hello, I am [name] and I am running for congress. I, like you, stand with the America First Agenda of Donald J Trump, I promise you if you give me your vote, I will stand firm against illegal immigration that cost Americans jobs, bad trade policies that export our wealth , punitive regulation and taxation, and always, always put America first. I will proudly and unapologetically support this agenda and help Make America Great Again, and protect her for future generations. because it is what you and this great nation deserve.
The Democrats have vowed to stop this agenda at all cost, [cut to all the absurd soundbites of various dems], they have forgotten that they are supposed to serve you, the American people, not foreign interests [ cut to sound bites defending illegals] They believe they know better than you. They believe your money is not your own [cut to comments about the tax cuts] they believe that this is their country and not your own.. They believe you are deplorables and backward [cut to Clinton’s comments] .
Lets show them that’s just not true. I’m [name] and I am asking for your vote this November, and I whole heartedly approve this message.
Obviously this needs word smithing and tweaking... but THIS, THIS IS THE MESSAGE YOU NEED TO DELIVER.. .PARTICULARLY IN THE RUST BELT!! Not tired old hackneyed red meat.. You need to emotionally validate, and engage the Trump D and I voters who gave Trump the win in 2016, show you understand what it meant and confirm you are on board with it! If not, you will lose the house... period.
If they run with the messaging they had for PA-18 they absolutely will lose the house, it won’t even be in doubt. The messaging of this race was completely WRONG through the entire cycle.
It’s like I keep trying to tell some of my NeverTrump GOP relatives.
There simply AREN’T ENOUGH of you orthodox, doctrinaire Conservatives out there to win elections at this point. You can either embrace some of Trump’s style of populism, or you can continue to lose to an increasingly Leftist opposition.
Getting America to elect the kind of candidate Steve Forbes would favor is going to take a decades long public education effort.
There are now a whopping 47 Republican-held House seats that are rated as vulnerable by The Cook Political Report; Democrats need to win only around half of them (24) to take back the majority.
https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/665200?unlock=XR2GH022OZDVE1ET
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