November 20, 2010 01:10 AM UTC

Because You CAN Win for Losing

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

On Wednesday, our friends over at “The Fix” listed their opinion on the “Ten Best Canididates of 2010.” Not all of the Top Ten were winning candidates, such as Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello:

Perriello drew loads of national attention during his first two years in office as an unapologetic supporter of President Obama’s agenda despite the Republican-leaning nature of the district — Virginia’s 5th — that he represented. That approach led to an assumption that he would be crushed by state Sen. Robert Hurt (R) on Nov. 2. But, through a combination of massive fundraising and sheer will — not to mention a  last minute campaign visit from President Obama — Perriello went into election day with a real chance. He ultimately lost the race but his four-point margin was smaller than almost anyone expected and set him up as a potential statewide candidate in future elections. [Pols emphasis]

This got us thinking about something we briefly touched on in our “Winners and Losers” of the 2010 Elections: Which Colorado candidates who lost in 2010 performed well enough that they could still be called “Winners” overall? [More after the jump…]

Under our “Losers” category a few weeks ago, we wrote this about Republican Ryan Frazier, who was pummeled in his attempt to defeat incumbent Rep. Ed Perlmutter in CD-7:

Sometimes a candidate will lose a big race but do well enough that he or she is considered a rising star. Frazier? Not so much. He got bullied out of the Republican Senate primary to run in CD-7, where he proceeded to get the absolute crap kicked out of him by Rep. Ed Perlmutter. Frazier is a good fundraiser and is decent at delivering a prepared speech, but his campaign was amateurish at best and he otherwise proved to be immature, vacuous and just plain silly in unscripted moments. In one debate, he repeatedly demanded that Perlmutter tell him the page number of something in the health care bill; when your big attack is that your opponent can’t recall page numbers, you’re running a student council campaign.

It’s not losing the race that hurts Frazier, but the fact that he couldn’t even be competitive in a Republican year. Frazier lost by 11 points to Perlmutter and received about 13,000 fewer votes than 2008 GOP candidate John Lerew, a guy whose own yard signs said “John Who?”

We want to hear from all of you Polsters out there on the Internet tubes, and next week we’ll run a poll to see who was the “best of the worst,” so to speak. Who was the “anti-Frazier” of 2010? We’re looking for nominations of candidates who lost in 2010 but still set themselves up well for a potential future run.

For an example, here’s what we wrote about Democrat Will Shafroth after he came in third in a bruising three-way primary for CD-2 in 2008:

Shafroth was never really in contention in CD-2, but no loser came out of Tuesday’s primaries looking better than the erstwhile unknown Shafroth. You could argue (as we would) that going on television in February or March would have been a worthwhile gamble that might have put Shafroth in position for the upset, but that doesn’t diminish what he did accomplish. Shafroth ran a clean campaign and ended up with the endorsement of both the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post. He raised enough money to show that he could be a serious candidate, and the money also allowed him to say hello to a lot of regular voters. He may have come in third in a three-way race, but Shafroth will now be near the front of the Democratic bench when future races are considered.

Now, give us your suggestions. Remember, only candidates (or campaign staffers and consultants) who lost their election in 2010 can be considered.