It's the Candidates, Stupid: Part II

The election is over. Barack Obama won. Peter Corroon won. Greg Curtis lost. Half the candidates who ran lost (actually, a few more than half did). Here in Davis County, every single Democratic candidate lost. And lost big time, including the candidate I had been supporting.

In large part to motivate each other as we went out, one of my precinct captains and I would assure each other that we had a chance, that our candidate had a chance. We even let ourselves believe that he actually would win, that we would be surprised if he didn't. It was fun, thinking that somehow we could persuade a majority of voters to vote for our man when the last candidate for this seat in a general election only received 30% of the vote in our town. After all, that candidate did very little work. She put up a few signs in public places, ran on a shoestring budget, and, at 27 years old, had zero political experience.

For all our work this time around, for every evening we went out knocking on doors, handing out literature, putting up signs, for all the parades we marched in and homecoming events we showed up at, etc., we scratched out 32%.

Across the county, that was slightly better than most of our other Democratic candidates. Our best performer was J Dell Holbrook, who came in at a very, very disappointing 36.7%. Marcie West, our self-proclaimed political expert, came in second at 35.9. From there, the numbers trickle down, from Carole Peterson at 35 and Mark Openshaw and Ryan Mellor at 32 each, down to Ben Wofford and Kyle Roberts at 27, George Mortimor at 25, Jean Welch Hill at 21, Pat Herrera and Cory Seegmiller at 20, and finally down to the bottom of the barrel, sacrificial lamb and gubernatorial candidate, Bob Springmeyer, who received 14.7%. Barack Obama probably represents the average with 27% (which was 3% more than white Mormon seminary teacher Morgan Bowen, who ran for Congress).

So, looking back over Part 1, is the lesson here that some candidates worked harder than others, but that nobody worked nearly hard enough? Hardly. Certainly some candidates did work harder than others. Based on my visits to the Davis County Democratic Party Headquarters, I have to conclude that Barack Obama earned the support of 500 Davis County residents for every one that Morgan Bowen did. Perhaps Morgan can correct me on this, but I don't believe that he walked through the doors to the Headquarters on Gentile and Main more than two times--once when he came in to drop off his signs and once when he walked out to go back home to Logan. That number holds true, I would guess for the number of times he actually passed through Davis County--once when he drove down to Salt Lake for the state party convention and once when he high-tailed it back home.

Locally, I know that J Dell and Marcie and Carole and Ryan and Mark campaigned their hearts out. Jean didn't. Pat sure didn't. I've never even met Cory. Bob didn't bother to come out to our county convention (even Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker came down to speak to us). You can lose big time if you don't work at all for it.

Clearly, though, work isn't the answer. It will get you 10% at most. Here in South Weber, it gets you 3 (although, to be fair, Mandi had the advantage of being a hometown girl; in mid-terms two years ago, Jason Wood, who really did nothing at all, picked up 27 in the same race). As in missionary work, I must admit my disdain for the single-minded drive some have to simply get out and go. Work is a necessary condition for winning (at least as a Democratic challenger in Utah), but if your work isn't smart enough, you'll still lose and lose miserably.

Of course, you can point to Marcie as the embodiment of smart and argue that she picked up an extra point with it. J Dell, who knows about as much about Davis County politics as anyone, bested Marcie by no more than a point. Perhaps J Dell's experience (a resume longer and more impressive than Congressman Rob Bishop's) chipped in a little.

Is there anything, then, that a Democratic candidate can do to win in Davis County?

As I walked from machine to machine last night at the South Weber polling station, looking over numbers on the printed tapes, I couldn't help but conclude that, No, Virginia, there is no way a Democratic can win out here.

The more I think about it, though, the less sure I am of that initial, emotion-laden conclusion. After all, Jan Graham won her race to be Attorney General. Bill Orton went to Congress. Scott Matheson won more than triple the votes that Bob Springmeyer did. I don't think Utah has become more conservative since those days. And I know that Jean Welch Hill didn't campaign as a more liberal candidate than Jan Graham did.

So what gives? What did Jan do that Jean didn't? What was Bill Orton's secret? I don't know, but I have to conclude, still, that it's the candidates that make the difference. Of course, the candidates are products of the party, so it's the party, too. What does the party need to do? What should Jean do to replicate Jan's success? I guess we'll cover that in Part III.