The Shad Plank: Bob Marshall bites back against the inevitable Jim Gilmore...
Team Marshall takes a shot at Team Gilmore's supposed delegate lead... and takes shot at Dick Leggitt's past in Colorado:
Remember last week when former Gov. Jim Gilmore's campaign released internal canvassing numbers to suggest that Gilmore had wrapped up the Republican nomination to run for U.S. Senate.
At the time, the spokesman for Republican hopeful Bob Marshall called the claim "baloney," because delegates for the convention are still being elected.
On Thursday, Marshall's campaign got a little more personal, pointing on some of the history of Gilmore's political guru Dick Leggitt. Marhsall's team is pulling Leggitt's history and noting that he feed cooked polling data to reporters in Colorado in 2006. That campaign was the Marc Holtzman campaign, one marked as a particularly vicious campaign against the eventual nominee, Congressman Bob Beauprez. You can read the details here. As a result of a poorly run campaign, some of the strangest ads I've ever seen run, and the bruising primary, Beauprez lost his gubernatorial bid to Democrat Bill Ritter by a 10pt. margin.
The conservative Rocky Mountain News back in May 2006 was particularly harsh, but focused more on whether someone should be sued for presenting false poll numbers (which was the rallying cry immediately after Leggitt came clean on the numbers as "spin"):
If Holtzman wants to employ someone who lies to the press in such brazen fashion, that's his business. Journalists will adjust their reports depending on whether they feel they can trust anything he now says. For some, the answer will be no.
But as for there being an obligation to fire Leggitt, that's nonsense. The Colorado law is - or at least should be - unconstitutional. You can't outlaw false campaign rhetoric, intentional or not. Indeed, we can hardly think of anything more destructive to free speech than inviting courts to rule on political truthfulness and honesty. A little perspective is needed: No one is going to court in Virginia over delegate counts.
Yes. folks are going to dump on Dick Leggitt for awhile for previous missteps. That's stupid, because the best way to make sure you do have the horses is to bring them yourself. That's bring them, not count them on some spreadsheet in some vacated box store.
Personally, there's the nagging doubt that Leggitt might have the goods. How do I know? Because Leggitt isn't doing the delegate count for Gilmore -- Matt Wells is. Second, after getting caught in the Holtzman debacle, few good political hacks are willing to make the same mistake twice. Lastly... Dick Leggitt is a good guy who wants his guy to win. That's not a crime... loyalty to a fault, perhaps... but not a crime.
If Gilmore is off in the delegate count, it's because they are being misinformed by troops on the ground. Having worked with Matt before... well... he thought it was close, he'd be more worried. Then there's that small thing about delegates not wanting to be on the wrong side, so they tell both sides "of course I'm supporting ____________!!!!"
Psychology at it's best.
Marshall's team isn't wrong to bring up the past, but let's keep in mind one thing: Total number of delegates this adds to the actual tally? ZERO.
Get back to work!
(In the interests of full disclosure, I was in Colorado as campaign manager for the CO-04 race, starting in about a month after the Beauprez-Holtzman race had settled out... not only did I not have a dog in that race, I only had to deal with the aftermath in my corner of Northern and Eastern Colorado.)
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D.J. McGuire 
7 Comments:
The point was to show that Gilmore's people have credibility problems when it comes to numbers.
Nobody's calling for Leggitt to get fired, or sued, or other somesuch.
The Marshall folks are simply asking delegates (some of whom might be swayed by this rally-around-the-almost-well-not-certain-but-trust-us-he-won-nominee stuff) to take this stuff with a grain of salt. That's all.
You're missing the point, D.J. How many votes are we adding to the total by dredging up Dick's run in with the Colorado media?
Gotta keep our focus.
Everyone wants to win and to be on the winning side. Because they want to win, would Gilmore's team act like a winner and announce they are winning? Would they fudge the truth and cook the numbers?
Does Gilmore's team really know that they are in fact winning? Have they fudged the numbers in the past? Have we reason to believe that they would do so again? If the answers are yes, then Gilmore does have credibility issues. Even when the matter is a small one, that is most unfortunate.
Not knowing you, I have a real degree of hesitation to call into question anyone's reputation on a whim.
But all of this nonsense doesn't address the main point: namely that no matter what you might feel about the person in question, it doesn't change the actual vote totals one iota.
Focusing on this -- and taking our focus away from getting delegates to the convention -- is silly.
Consider those facts. Why is there a story about Leggitt cooking polling data? Why your post? If it will not change the outcome, why claim to have victory all wrapped up?
Were people entirely sensible and honest, we would agree, but the fact is that people are neither entirely sensible or honest. That is one reason perception is sometimes more important than reality.
In this case, rather than vote for the best candidate, many people will vote for the person they think will win. If Gilmore's team succeeds in convincing enough people that he is the inevitable nominee, that perception will change the vote total.
There is, of course, a certain irony about all this. If fundraising is any indication, Mark Warner is having far more success convincing folks of the inevitability his election than Gilmore has had convincing folks of the inevitability of his nomination.
(1) I don't know ya.
(2) Leggitt's reputation (not yours -- though I wouldn't call yours into question either) isn't a topic for debate and doesn't bring votes to the table.
I am supporting Marshall, BTW... he's a longtime ally, want to see him succeed, beat the snot out of Mark Warner, etc.
As such, we should be focusing on votes and nothing but votes at the convention. Diverting ourselves with someone else's foibles doesn't bring a single vote to the table IMO.
That's all. You going to the convention???
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