An interesting post-mortem from Adam Kovacevich, the communications director for South Carolina’s Democratic Senate candidate, Inez Tenenbaum. I don’t buy all of it — I think DeMint’s victory was about more than Bush-hugging — but it’s an example of an honest Democrat trying to make sense of what happened:
Well, we got beat, fair and square. A tough night for Democratic candidates
all around. Just wanted to share a few thoughts on the final outcome here
in SC as this one heads for the history books.
* Bush won SC by 17 points; DeMint won by 10 points. Which means that
although Inez outperformed Kerry and DeMint underperformed Bush in SC,
Bush’s coattails here were too much to overcome. The same thing happened in
the other competitive Senate races (NC, FL, OK, SD). In the final weeks of
the campaign, DeMint’s only message was to hug Bush. It worked.
* Until a week ago, the race was essentially tied. So what happened? Inez
was subjected to a week of unrelenting attacks on TV/radio/mail/newspapers.
The NRA, Right to Work Committee, Club for Growth, and James Dobson’s group
all came in to the state with anti-Inez messages. In the end, the negative
attacks and the presidential election succeeded in making Bush’s coattails
and Republican party label the key factors in the race in the last week.
* If his past is any guide, I suspect DeMint will claim his victory
vindicated his “postive, big ideas” approach. The facts suggest otherwise
– DeMint rode national trends (Bush’s popularity) into office, and was
aided tremendously by a flood of negative advertising from conservative
groups in the final weeks — none of which was “positive.”
* Finally – I recommend extreme caution in divining much about this race
based on the National Election Pool exit polling in SC. As in other states,
they missed the mark in SC; their final prediction was DeMint 50-49.
Until the final week, this race was much closer and more competitive than
anyone expected. Inez was the best candidate Dems could have had in SC this
year, and we ran the strongest campaign possible. And in the end, DeMint’s
victory has more to do with George Bush than any other factor.