Time to go
Admittedly, I'm not the biggest Terry Holley fan in the world, but his comments in this story and elsewhere have somewhat baffled me. The short account of what happened is that a majority of Democratic county parties in the 10th Congressional District opted to endorse James Marlowe.
Holley, the candidate in 2006 against the late Rep. Charlie Norwood, was miffed and has since proceeded to completely reinvent reality. Now, my contention is pretty clear ... Holley is a weak candidate (was then, is now), and he's acting like a child regarding the endorsements of Marlowe (who, though facing a considerably uphill battle, is a stronger candidate). To make matters worse, Holley is attempting to run as the establishment candidate and anti-establishment candidate all rolled up in one. It's ridiculous sense he fails short in neither.
His two main claims is that he 'earned' 56,000 votes in the last election, thus meaning he has set base of support. This is misleading because Holley 'earned' those votes largely because he was the guy on the ballot not named Norwood. Loyal Democrats in the region - myself included - knew they didn't share Norwood's ideological vision and backed the Democrat in the race. Plus, this will be a special election so no matter how much focus is put on it, you're still going to see a lower turnout.
His other charge is that he claims this base of support will result in fundraising, but that's wrongheaded and suggests a complete revision of history. Holley, in 2006, raised something like two percent the final total of Norwood. It was one of the weakest fundraising showings for a Democrat in recent history in that district, regardless of how conservative it is. Coupled with the fact that most other county party leaders are now behind Marlowe (as well as several other Democrats are running), Holley's ability to raise funds are going be severely limited.
What's also interesting to note is that Holley has little connection to Athens-Clarke County, which any Democrat would need to maximize in order to be viable. Marlowe has already started to make inroads here, and there's no reason to believe Holley has learned his lesson from 2006 when he fielded little to no effort in our community and performed weaker than other Democrats on the ballot (Jim Martin, for example, finished with 270 more votes while Jane Kidd and Mac Rawson each outperformed him by 1,269 votes).
Listen, if Holley wants to run, then whatever. However, running for the office and whining about someone else picking up endorsements are two different things. No is suggesting Holley can't run, but I think it's pretty clear he shouldn't run if he wants to see a Democrat have a somewhat decent chance at getting into a runoff.
Holley, the candidate in 2006 against the late Rep. Charlie Norwood, was miffed and has since proceeded to completely reinvent reality. Now, my contention is pretty clear ... Holley is a weak candidate (was then, is now), and he's acting like a child regarding the endorsements of Marlowe (who, though facing a considerably uphill battle, is a stronger candidate). To make matters worse, Holley is attempting to run as the establishment candidate and anti-establishment candidate all rolled up in one. It's ridiculous sense he fails short in neither.
His two main claims is that he 'earned' 56,000 votes in the last election, thus meaning he has set base of support. This is misleading because Holley 'earned' those votes largely because he was the guy on the ballot not named Norwood. Loyal Democrats in the region - myself included - knew they didn't share Norwood's ideological vision and backed the Democrat in the race. Plus, this will be a special election so no matter how much focus is put on it, you're still going to see a lower turnout.
His other charge is that he claims this base of support will result in fundraising, but that's wrongheaded and suggests a complete revision of history. Holley, in 2006, raised something like two percent the final total of Norwood. It was one of the weakest fundraising showings for a Democrat in recent history in that district, regardless of how conservative it is. Coupled with the fact that most other county party leaders are now behind Marlowe (as well as several other Democrats are running), Holley's ability to raise funds are going be severely limited.
What's also interesting to note is that Holley has little connection to Athens-Clarke County, which any Democrat would need to maximize in order to be viable. Marlowe has already started to make inroads here, and there's no reason to believe Holley has learned his lesson from 2006 when he fielded little to no effort in our community and performed weaker than other Democrats on the ballot (Jim Martin, for example, finished with 270 more votes while Jane Kidd and Mac Rawson each outperformed him by 1,269 votes).
Listen, if Holley wants to run, then whatever. However, running for the office and whining about someone else picking up endorsements are two different things. No is suggesting Holley can't run, but I think it's pretty clear he shouldn't run if he wants to see a Democrat have a somewhat decent chance at getting into a runoff.
posted by Jmac at 7:34 AM
2 Comments:
I missed Marlow's maiden political voyage yesterday at City Hall, but did see a lot of folks sitting outside the building as I drove by on my way to soccer practice in Oconee County
JMac -
Are your thoughts forthcoming on the Obama fundraising announcement?
The total number of donors is the most impressive number.
Darren
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