| I was wrong, you were wrong.
Jack and Jon both lost.
You're left with a pretty sad candidate, albiet one who should still win.
What happened to JP? Why'd he lose? He had 3 problems.
Money. Message. Management.
Jon Powers had a massive head start on the other two campaigns. Everyone knew Powers was running in March of 2007. Powers' Campaign Manager Jon Gerken had two directions he could take his campaign that year: he could concentrate on raising money, or he could concentrate on lawn parties, fairs, corn festivals, and other things of the sort, places Powers would meet general election voters. He chose the latter.
Wrong move.
If Powers had 1 Million Cash on Hand on December 31 2007 we'd never have heard of Alice Kryzan, she'd have folded her tent.
If Powers had 1 Million CoH on 12/31/07, Jack Davis would Never have been talked into risking 3 million dollars, because it would have been to obvious he could to lose a primary.
Kathy Hochul, Kathy Konst, none of them would have mattered. Powers would have been on the first Red-to-Blue list, cleared the field, and been campaigning for the general for months.
Don't be fooled. There is no excuse for Powers to have not raised that kind of cash. It was there for the taking.
Making matters worse, Powers never focused on raising money. Come the primary, he was severely handicapped by his lack of funds in that he could not afford to define himself positively. He ran 1 good positive TV ad for a few weeks instead of running a number of good positive tv ads for months, like he needed to do.
In the end, he only gave voters reasons not to vote for Jack Davis, not to vote FOR him.
Voters were left with reasons to vote against Davis and against Powers, which Kryan hammered home. Without reasons to vote against her, they didn't.
Jon Powers was always my favored candidate. He was clearly the only one who knew anything about local issues and was the most likely of a generally weak field to fill the Brian Higgins mold. From early this year though, I saw this defeat coming from a mile away.
The lesson for next time?
RAISE MONEY! |
