{"id":8365,"date":"2006-09-02T10:42:45","date_gmt":"2006-09-02T14:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8365.html"},"modified":"2006-09-02T10:42:45","modified_gmt":"2006-09-02T14:42:45","slug":"a-clever-strategy-gone-awry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-clever-strategy-gone-awry\/","title":{"rendered":"A clever strategy gone awry"},"content":{"rendered":"

This may be of limited interest outside Washington state, but I thought it was a good example of how not<\/i> to execute an otherwise-clever campaign strategy.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, Republican Senate hopeful Mike McGavick (R), trailing but running a competitive campaign against Sen. Maria Cantwell (D), decided to open up his past and let everyone know about the skeletons in his closet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick, in an unsolicited confession of “the very worst and most embarrassing things” of his personal and professional life, revealed Thursday he was charged with drunken driving 13 years ago.<\/p>\n

In “An open letter from Mike” on his campaign blog, the Republican candidate also discussed his divorce from his first wife, the layoffs he ordered while chief executive of Seattle-based Safeco Corp. in 2001 and 2002, and an inaccurate campaign attack ad he allowed when he managed Slade Gorton’s successful Senate election campaign in 1988.<\/p>\n

“It’s obvious that campaigns these days focus on this kind of stuff. I think it was just better for me to put it out there myself,” McGavick said of the disclosures in an interview.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As campaign strategies go, this seemed like a pretty good idea. He got all of the bad news out at once, it made headlines in August when fewer voters are paying attention, and by taking a proactive approach, McGavick’s campaign maintained some control over the story. Voters might even give him some credit for his candor.<\/p>\n

Of course, for this strategy to be effective, the candidate actually has to be honest<\/i> about the skeletons in the closet. McGavick wasn’t.
\n
\nAbout the DUI incident, McGavick wrote that he was stopped when he “cut a yellow light too close in 1993.” He told reporters that he was issued a citation but wasn’t arrested. Police say otherwise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the police report and a police spokesman Friday said McGavick was placed under arrest, handcuffed, driven to a district police station and handcuffed to a desk while he was questioned and signed various forms.<\/p>\n

McGavick, on his web site and in an interview, gave a vague account of the incident that omitted details showing how intoxicated he was.<\/p>\n

The arresting officer said that when he stopped McGavick’s 1991 Mazda Miata sports car and the driver rolled down the window, he “could detect a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage from the interior” of the car. When the officer asked McGavick how much he had had to drink, he replied, “Oh, I don’t know – two, maybe three beers.”<\/p>\n

“During processing (at the police station), McGavick fell asleep,” the officer wrote. McGavick acknowledged in an interview last week that he blew 0.17 on a blood alcohol test, which was well above Maryland’s then-standard of intoxication of 0.1 (it is now .08). The police report said his intoxication level was that high even though he wasn’t given the test until 83 minutes after he was arrested.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The point isn’t that McGavick was arrested 20 years ago, which doesn’t seem particularly relevant to the campaign now, but rather that he had a good idea — air out his dirty laundry — but blew it by fudging the details.<\/p>\n

For that matter, the revelations offered Washington Democrats a chance to reinforce a point they’ve been making for months. “From privatizing Social Security to drunk driving, it becomes clearer every day that Mike McGavick and George Bush are cut from the same cloth,” said state party spokesperson Kelly Steele.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This may be of limited interest outside Washington state, but I thought it was a good example of how not to execute an otherwise-clever campaign strategy. A couple of weeks ago, Republican Senate hopeful Mike McGavick (R), trailing but running a competitive campaign against Sen. Maria Cantwell (D), decided to open up his past and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}