Five Signs Your Campaign Is Toast
As the midterm-election season winds down and voter attitudes harden, some races are too close to call. Others are painfully easy to call—the ones where campaign headquarters seem to be emitting chaos, disarray, and sometimes outright surrender. Here is NEWSWEEK's five-step self-diagnostic manual for candidates to tell whether they're toast.
Once upon a time, Dan Maes's campaign seemed promising--his views were a bit wacky perhaps, but he'd already upset frontrunner Scott McInnis in the GOP primary for Colorado governor, and it seemed he might be able to do the same against Democratic candidate John Hickenlooper. Nowadays, Maes is so unpopular it's almost humorous: the percentage of Coloradans who say they plan to vote for him has sunk into the single digits since former GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo entered the race as an independent, leaving GOP insiders concerned his run might permanently scar the state party and banish it to third-party status. With the real race now between Hickenlooper and Tancredo, Maes has proudly refused to bow out, limping toward the finish. What keeps him going? Well, according to the Denver Post, his few remaining supporters have told him "miracles can happen." It's something--even if you don't have a prayer.
Comments