August 21, 2008 09:19 PM UTC

Primary Day Losers

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• by: Colorado Pols

Check out this link for our list of Primary Day Winners. Click below to read the “Losers.”

Mary Alice Mandarich

Joan Fitz-Gerald’s campaign manager was given a lot of credit, and justifiably so, for helping Democrats to take control of the state senate in 2004 and hold onto power in 2006. In the right setting, she’s great. But Fitz-Gerald’s surprise loss shows that Mary Alice isn’t the right choice to manage a higher-profile race like CD-2 or the failed gubernatorial bid of Gail Schoettler. You can win state senate races by sticking to the fundamentals, but winning a bigger seat requires more creativity and an ability to think outside the ‘ol box. Ultimately, the lack of creativity-whether it was in the television spots, direct mail or messaging-doomed Fitz-Gerald to second place.

Mandarich can always say that she did the best she could despite getting significantly outspent by Jared Polis, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that she ran a bland, boring, lifeless campaign that never gave average voters a strong reason to vote for Fitz-Gerald over Polis or Will Shafroth. If you were an average voter, it was hard to tell the difference between the three candidates. When all things are relatively equal, the one with the best name ID wins; in that case, the one with the best name ID is usually the one with the most money.

Joan Fitz-Gerald

She lost the race for CD-2, but the bigger picture means this one really stings. Fitz-Gerald had long been mapping out her political future with this seat in mind, which is one of the reasons she passed on running for statewide office in 2006. This is a race that was Joan’s to lose, and she lost it; you could say that she lost it more than Jared Polis won it, in fact.

Will Shafroth, as we discussed in our WINNERS section, ran a clean, if unspectacular race, and he is well-positioned to run for another office in the near future. But Shafroth and his supporters could never have really believed that he would ultimately prevail on August 12. Fitz-Gerald’s situation is the exact opposite; she probably should have won this race, and her future is much less rosy. Because of her age and because of the way she lost this race, Fitz-Gerald’s political sheen isn’t as sheeny. If she doesn’t get appointed to the Secretary of State seat in January, there’s not much left for her as an elected official.

EMILYs List

Two years ago EMILY’s List backed Peggy Lamm’s failed bid for congress against Ed Perlmutter. This year they picked a much stronger candidate in Joan Fitz-Gerald, and this race they were expected to win (unlike Lamm’s race). People in Colorado used to speak of EMILYs List as a powerful ally to have on your side. Now it looks like they really can’t make a difference one way or the other, whether that’s fair or not.

Jeff Crank

It’s easy to forget now that the Rocky Mountain News briefly declared Crank the winner of the six-way Republican Primary in CD-5 in 2006. Crank was clearly the more likable candidate at the time, and when he lost narrowly to Doug Lamborn, many observers (including us) figured him a shoo-in to defeat Lamborn in a rematch this year. It definitely hurt that Bentley Rayburn ran again, because he and Crank likely split the votes needed to beat Lamborn, but it did not go unnoticed that Crank was almost a different candidate in 2008 than he was in 2006. It was almost as if Crank was just going through the motions this year. He didn’t raise much money, and he didn’t really make any noise.

Two years ago Crank seemed destined to be the leader of El Paso County politics for decades. Now, after a lackluster campaign that marked two straight defeats, his star has faded considerably. Not only did Crank fail to beat Lamborn, but his name won’t be on the list of many Republicans looking for candidates in the near future.

Newspaper Editorial Boards

Note to all newspaper editorial boards in Colorado: If you want your endorsement to actually matter, make it before October.

With so many voters casting their ballots through the mail in Colorado, the traditional campaign timeline has changed drastically. Shafroth received the endorsement of both the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post in CD-2, but those endorsements came a few weeks too late. For endorsements to matter, candidates need time to be able to circulate news of the editorials to voters-and they need to be able to do it BEFORE the mail ballots begin to drop.

In the primary, mail ballots were arriving at voters’ doors in the second week of July. Any newspaper endorsement that came after that first wave of ballots was useless to the thousands of people who had already cast their vote and mailed their ballot. In CD-2, for example, the Boulder Daily Camera made the ridiculous decision to hold their endorsement of Fitz-Gerald until August 3. By that time, a good 50-60 percent of the voters had long since cast their ballots.

It will be interesting to watch how many newspaper editorial boards actually figure this out before the general election, and how many still breathlessly endorse candidates on Halloween.

Election Judges

Talk about your boring jobs. It was a boring job to be an election judge anyway, but it really sucked this year when only a handful of people staggered into the polls on Election Day. Mail ballots are where it’s at in 2008.

People Who Watch Network TV

People always complain about too many political ads this time of year, but there wasn’t a single memorable ad that ran in advance of the Primary. The ads in CD-2 were all dull; you could have inserted any of the candidates into any of the commercials, and it wouldn’t have really changed the message. Equally lame were the ads in CD-6, particularly Wil Armstrong’s tired approach of telling voters that “we don’t need more politicians in Washington.” Doesn’t anybody have an original idea?

Wil Armstrong

The only good that came out of Armstrong’s run for congress in CD-6 is that people now know his first name is spelled with just one ‘L.’ For a guy who is blessed with the connections and the money that come from being Bill’s son, he ran a really dull and lifeless campaign that never even had a chance of succeeding.

Wil could have been an interesting force in Colorado GOP politics, but instead he jumped into a race he probably couldn’t win, ran a lame campaign, and now he just looks like the rich politician’s son who thought it might be fun to try to run for congress (not to mention that Mike Coffman, who beat the pants off him in the Primary, won’t be interested in helping him out anytime soon). We probably won’t be seeing much of Wil Armstrong anytime soon.

Ted Harvey

The emperor certainly has no clothes. Harvey was never a huge force in GOP circles, but he had been moving up quickly and was well-positioned to make a good run in CD-6. Instead, he proved to be a horrible fundraiser and an inept candidate. He’s lucky that he lives in a strong Republican district, because if he ever faced a tough opponent for re-election he’d get drilled.

Doug Bruce/Democrats

Make no mistake-Bruce is a clown. And an angry clown at that. But despite his lack of social skills, he had managed to create the most significant piece of policy in decades in Colorado (TABOR), and got himself elected first El Paso County Commissioner and then an appointment to the state legislature. Bruce was a menace under the gold dome, but from a policy perspective he was harmless; it’s not like anyone was going to help Bruce pass any of his legislation.

Bruce did prove to be a disastrous distraction for Republicans from day one, which is why they put so much effort into making sure he lost his re-election in the primary. When he wasn’t kicking photographers, Bruce was sulking around the Capitol making an ass of himself and stealing the news spotlight from the rest of Republicans. For most of the session, Bruce was the Republican story, which frustrated GOP legislators to no end (but delighted Democrats). If re-elected, Bruce was the worst thing that could happen to Republicans, and about the best thing that could have happened to Democrats. In the end, Bruce probably lost his seat because of something relatively minor compared to his other indiscretions; when he refused to vote for a measure honoring Veterans, he gave opponents the silver bullet to finally kill him.

Bruce was already a big loser, but he was a loser with a legislative seat. He just pushed his circus act a little too far in 2008, and it finally cost him politically. Probably for good.

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