The AP’s Glen Johnson writes that
Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey is poised to begin airing television ads, launching a publicity campaign that will not end until the November general election and kicking off an expensive and potentially nasty phase of the 2006 gubernatorial campaign.
Perhaps the looming early declaration of a general election air-war may be surprising since the primary is still two months away, but the basic (though expensive) strategy is sound. Johnson continues:
The television blitz, meanwhile, will be so lengthy it will not only exhaust Healey’s $900,000 campaign kitty in short order, but begin drawing down the personal financial reserve that Healey and her husband established for the campaign when they sold an estimated $13 million worth of stock options last year.
The Healey aides expect it will also inspire her three Democratic rivals — Deval Patrick, Tom Reilly and Chris Gabrieli — as well as her independent challenger — convenience store magnate Christy Mihos — to reciprocate with their own ad campaigns.
The GOP wants the Dems to spend their campaign funds early, tearing each other apart and drowning each other out. Patrick and Reilly won’t be able to keep pace if this television arms race develops the way the Healey camp apparently wants it to play out since Patrick apparently hasn’t been willing to spend his own fortune and his war chest is minute compared to Healey’s, while Reilly only has his $4 million fund. Gabrieli and Mihos potentially could by tapping into their own wealth. The irony of this potential situation is that Healey would be more of a catalyst for record spending than Gabrieli, who was the original lightning rod.
This, of course, begs the question: What happens to the Democratic nominee if his campaign is broke on September 20th,is left bruised from a nasty ad brawl, and has nothing left to counter the Healey media juggernaut?
(And I haven’t even mentioned direct mail…)
and put Healey and her sleazy campaign tactics down.
For several cycles now, it’s been apparent that right after the primary there is a moment of serious vulnerability for Democratic gubernatorial nominees in Mass. The Republican candidate can strike to set the agenda for the general election at a time when the Dem needs a breather and is out of funds.
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Cam Kerry and Katherine Clark, who are chairing this year’s Democratic Coordinated Campaign, are trying to prevent that from happening. They are trying to raise funds for the party that can be used to go immediately up on the air in the days after the primary, filling the gap until the nominee’s operation bounces back. It’s a good idea, and I hope they are successful.
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If the Republicans are going to put themselves in the nasty advertising limelight long before the general election, it will give the Democratic candidates a different target during the primary campaign. The three Dems can run against the administrative incompetence, indifference to community, and non-Massachusetts political ambitions of the Republican record (not to mention Healey’s individual record of electoral defeat and flip-flopping) instead of attacking each other.
Didn’t we already make a deal? None of the candidates will engage in comparative advertising unless non-elected people say it’s okay, and Healey’s probably gonna do that! Plus we all know that it’s bad bad bad to spend lots of money on a campaign, and she’s gonna do that too! We all sat down and built up this new politics of hope and said how beautiful it was, and now Healey is going to ruin it all with her big smelly attitude of wanting to win the election.
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Hopefully this will start to be a wake-up call that politics is not a game of Candyland, and the more we cripple our nominees into pretending like it is, the more we’ll be setting up for our fifth Republican governor in a row.
Healey announced months ago in the Worcester telegram that she is committed to $15 million for this election. The Republicans will fund her on top of whatever personal wealth (including her husband’s) she puts in.
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As much as I respect Governor Dukakis, the guy ran attack ads against Ed King. There is no way to monitor or control the Primary and it is clear that Healey will run negative against the Democratic winner. Gabrieli has the personal wealth to answer her back on day one. Patrick appears to have the personal resources as well (maybe he can take a break from building the mansion in Western Mass to help win the campaign). Reilly will be out of cash on September 19th and have to restart fundraising.
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The reality of post-primary politics is that without the money to compete (and the party’s $1 million isn’t enough), we lose no matter how “nice” we play in the primary.