I was at the Primary Night watch party for Jon Powers on Tuesday. Every TV crew from Buffalo and Rochester showed up. One of the crews was setting up a microphone and we had to get out of the way. Only a few minutes later, the same crew came back to get their mic.
Within minutes, the TV crews were gone.
In the two days since Alice Kryzan topped the polls for a primary win over Powers and Jack Davis, I’ve been looking for some sort of metaphor that would best describe this situation.
How about the tortoise and two hares?
I live in NY-26 and supported Jon Powers ever since I met him and interviewed him on July 8, 2007. Powers had the momentum going. He was picking up endorsement after endorsement. The first four county Democratic committees to endorse Powers were all four of the rural counties in the district: Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming. Then Niagara endorsed and Monroe followed. Erie became the last to endorse Powers, giving Powers every county Democratic committee in the district.
So how did he lose? How could he have the support from virtually everyone – local Democrats, DCCC, “grassrooters” in the district, the netroots and others – and lose?
The answer below the fold.
On June 1, The Buffalo News came out with an article (it is archived now, so no link is available) that featured a talking point that would be used against Powers from that moment on. Rick Snowden, the owner of a prominent local strip club called Rick’s Tally Ho, had given money to Powers’ campaign. Snowden gave Powers $2,300 spread across four contributions. The Davis campaign was the one who initiated this smear and used the Davis campaign’s “Women for Davis” chairperson to say that Snowden’s “sweat money” had no place in Democratic politics.
However, Snowden has given to other Democrats, namely Rep. Brian Higgins from NY-27 and a certain junior senator from New York named Hillary Clinton. Clinton also received money from Snowden during her presidential run this year.
That smear of Powers was weak though. People in Western New York know Rick Snowden. He might be a strip club owner, but he has given to many charitable causes and helped many organizations out with a donation and support.
Then came the smear that was started by Davis, being held in the back pockets of the Republicans and utilized by Kryzan in a campaign ad. That smear was that Powers stole money from the organization he started, War Kids Relief. The truth was that he made only $15,000 from WKR, not $77,000 as the Davis campaign alleged and he did not steal the money as both the Davis and Kryzan campaigns stated in their television ads. Overall, he raised $135,000 for WKR, meaning that $120,000 went for the kids, not Powers.
The WKR smear was the worst. What Davis did and Kryzan jumped on the bandwagon (along with some conservative bloggers and all seven county Republican chairs) amounted to a character assassination of Powers. The Snowden thing was meant to appeal to one segment of the voting population: Women. Whether that worked or not is up in the air. But there is no question that the WKR attacks, which were repeated throughout the last month of the campaign, hurt Powers immensely. The initial article in The Buffalo News that hit Powers with this smear calling Powers and WKR “more hype than help” did some considerable damage to Powers. A lesson learned from this is that something like this, whether true or false, can have a damaging impact on a campaign. Especially when that smear happened just over a month before Primary Day.
Davis and his campaign made it their job over the last three months to keep cutting Powers off at the knees. Kryzan didn’t go nearly as far as Davis did, but she still engaged in the same WKR smear.
Powers hit Davis on the issue of bribery, which involved payments to the wives of the Erie and Monroe County Independence Party chairs. Davis eventually apologized for the payments. Powers did dedicate a TV ad to the bribery claim. Whether or not that had an impact on Davis’ failures remains to be seen. Davis wasn’t too well received in this primary to begin with and the final numbers prove that.
Now, Kryzan’s strategy worked for her. An article in the Buffalo News by Jerry Zremski tells us that Kryzan focused mostly on Erie, Monroe and Niagara counties (all three of which she won) and now must focus her attention on winning over voters in the four rural counties – all of which went for Powers.
There is another article today about Kryzan’s now famous “take it somewhere else” ad. I’m not going to drool all over this like some bloggers and reporters have. I don’t think the ad was what did it for Kryzan. She focused on the main counties (all three of the counties she won account for a majority of the Democrats in the district) and won. She also benefited from the tremendous attacks levied against Powers. A lot of people, including those in the media and other on-lookers, have said that Powers and Davis engaged in back-and-forths and negative campaigning. Davis all but admitted on Tuesday night that he ran a strictly negative campaign. Powers, on the other hand, did not engage in such tactics all the time as some would make you believe. Powers went after Davis for his Big Oil and energy investments – something that was factual in nature. In hindsight, perhaps they should have ignored Davis. But I think a millionaire in the race would have made any candidate worry. And that’s what happened in this case.
In no way do I want to diminish Kryzan’s win. But this was a case of a tortoise and two hares. Powers and Davis were moving at great speeds to go after one another. Meanwhile, Kryzan was quiet. Too quiet. She sat back on the sidelines and people really didn’t acknowledge her. I contend that it still didn’t help her (she has a lot to do in the predominantly Republican counties and still plenty to do in the other parts of the district) but it at least kept her out of the mudslinging. The dirty work was already done for her. In her only TV ad that hit both candidates, she used the WKR thing against Powers and the bribery issue against Davis. By that time those issues were already out in the open.
Kryzan made for a great primary election candidate. However, it will be interesting to see what kind of general election candidate she turns into. Powers certainly had progressive bona fides, but he also could appeal to moderates and Republicans. In Kryzan’s case, she will need to do the same.
What does this mean for this race? I think the race rating most have given NY-26 (leans Republican) should stand. The downside to Kryzan staying out of the limelight for as long as she did was that most voters (58 percent of Democrats who voted for Davis or Powers) along with moderates and Republicans don’t know about her. On the surface, she has a lot of upside. She is a progressive Democrat on the issues we do know. She still needs to show that she is a versatile candidate who attract the moderates and conservatives. If she doesn’t, she loses. This is how this district works.
Here are a few final points:
On Powers: I don’t see Powers actively campaigning on the Working Families Party line. I think he will let this go and then run again down the road. The future is bright for him. Sometimes we have to take our lumps and learn. Powers will do that and move forward and be better for it. He will be back. That I can assure you.
On Davis: This was the end of his political “career”, if you can call it that. He spent $1.5 million and in the last three months of the campaign smeared Powers only to come in a distant third. He might say “stay tuned” but the only thing we are staying tuned in for is the end of his political running. In three runs, he failed all three times. This time he failed badly. He is done. If he runs again, he will be laughed at endlessly.
On Kryzan: The primary was a good start. But she has a long road to go. Chris Lee has carried out a Jon Powers-style campaign thus far. Lee will be very formidable for Kryzan. She needs to appeal to rural voters, moderate and conservative voters and the other Democrats who voted for Powers and Davis. This isn’t optional for her. It’s mandatory.
From what I understand this was the exact same way Russ Feingold became senator. Contentious three way primary, where the other two candidates were going nuclear on each other, and Feingold came in from behind to not only win the primary, but defeat Bob Kasten too.