Rothenberg: Sowers an Outrageous, Absurd Candidate

Stuart Rothenberg writes in Roll Call:

I wrote about Sowers’ campaign in this space during the summer (“Missouri 8: For Sowers, Raising Money Is the Easy Part,” June 15, 2010), after I was shocked to see the amount of attention the campaign received in the national media. Still, even I am stunned at the absurdity of the campaign.

Sowers lost to Republican Rep. Jo Ann Emerson by more than 36 points in a race that any dispassionate observer would have said was a nonstarter. Remember, Barack Obama and John Kerry each drew just 36 percent in this district, while Al Gore drew 39 percent in 2000.

In other words, this is an impossible district for a Democrat even in a good Democratic year, let alone a year like 2010. Yet, Sowers raised almost as much money as Emerson did ($1.69 million to $1.86 million) and continued right up to Election Day to raise money and brag about his prospects.

Sowers’ Sept. 19 e-mail fundraising letter borders on the delusional:

....

Still, isn’t there something at least a little wrong with prying cash out of people by leading them to believe that you can win when you can’t?

Sowers' campaign was, at a minimum, lying his donors about his chances to win (as we argued earlier). Rothenberg speculates that Sowers' campaign may have just been naive or ignorant about its chances to win, but we don't buy it - they conducted polling and released some of their numbers, while noticably failing to disclose the state of the ballot.

The media outlets that hyped up Sowers' failing campaign should take note, because they're largely responsible for this.

Comments

[Jimmy]

Let the idiots waste money on races they can't win. That just takes money away from the marginal races that the Dems might have a shot at winning.