Powers Campaign Stumbles and Bumbles

At WNYMedia.net, we make a lot of hay out of FAIL and sadly, FAIL imagery and the the Jon Powers for Congress campaign are now bedfellows.

In yesterday’s Buffalo News, political reporter Bob McCarthy delivered a stomach punch to the Powers campaign by reporting on a story that Jack Davis has been shopping to media outlets for weeks.  Essentially, it calls into question whether or not the War Kids Relief organization that Powers put together was successful in any meaningful way.

But while Powers’ Web site highlights War Kids Relief as “quickly recognized for its path breaking work,” critics say it accomplished little beyond shipping a few soccer balls and backpacks to Iraq –and paying Powers about $77,000 worth of salary over 18 months.

Powers, 30, acknowledges that War Kids Relief never accomplished many of its goals, mainly because Congress declined to fund the program. He also said he is not required until Aug. 15 to file Form 990 to the Internal Revenue Service to account for receipts and expenditures. He acknowledged that the organization raised between $150,000 and $250,000 over the course of its existence, with a substantial percentage dedicated to his salary.

While the content of the story is damning in some ways and explainable in other ways, it speaks to a greater issue; the rank incompetence of the Powers for Congress campaign.

As I mentioned, Davis has been peddling this story for weeks and when he finally got someone to pick up on it, the Powers campaign took the entirety of one news cycle to formulate a response.

As a result of War Kids Relief becoming one of the leading experts in Washington on Youth and counterterrorism, Jon was invited on numerous occasions to brief Marine Commanders on the need for youth engagement. He also took part in numerous think tank discussions and tried to drive policy changes in our approach to national security.

The problem with the nuanced 1000 word response to the story?  It did nothing to address the substantive claim in McCarthy’s article; that Powers spent nearly half of the donated funds on personal salary.

Powers campaign officials were quoted in the article, which only further highlights the FAIL.  They had nearly 24 hours to formulate a quick response which addressed the claims made and they came back with a reiteration of the War Kids Program.

If they didn’t see this coming, I really don’t know what to say.  Perhaps they did and felt it best to wait for the story to break and publish a rebuttal, but their slow footed pace on that issue implies that they were blindsided.  That is surprising as the Powers Campaign Manager, John Gerken, was the campaign manager of the 2006 Jack Davis for Congress campaign.  He knows what Jack is capable of and how he plays the game.

On a grander scale, Jon Powers has been in this primary contest for over one year and has raised nearly $900,000.  He has the key Democratic endorsements, but what do we know about Powers?  Their campaign has done very little to define the candidate’s positions aside from high level “lead by example” platitudes and has spent the better part of the past six months with an unhealthy fixation on the comings and goings of Jack Davis.  The press releases, campaign material, and personal opinion that is sprinkled among the Democratic blogs of Rochester Turning, BuffaloPundit, Albany Project, etc. is almost uniformly anti-Davis material with very little on substantive policy from Powers.  That indicates a campaign that is not doing a good job at defining message.

As a candidate, one spends the early stages of the campaign defining oneself and then the campaign morphs into defining specific policy positions.  The candidate then moves onto defining the difference between the candidate and the opponent.  Powers attempted to define himself as a quasi pro-troops, anti-war candidate and watched as the Iraq issue evaporated as the economy, jobs, and energy became the defining issues of the campaign.  They have done little to adjust message and the economy/employment issues play into the hands of their opponent who already has a dramatic edge in name recognition and issue ideology.

Davis had the same problems with quick response and changing message on the fly during the 2006 campaign.  Incumbent Rep. Tom “Fail” Reynolds handed him the election on a silver platter with his involvement in the Mark Foley/Congressional Page/Sexy Time with Little Boys scandal.  Davis took weeks to adjust message and he allowed Reynolds to wiggle off the hook.  Perhaps the members of Powers campaign staff that were a part of that mess didn’t learn their lesson…

In the end, Powers has launched a loosely organized Internet based negative campaign against Davis with his release of the “Davis is a crazy anti-immigration guy video” on YouTube and digging up dirt about Davis’ investments and status as a wealthy guy.  If you are going to go negative, you don’t do it on a Friday afternoon with a YouTube clip, you wait for an opening, track the candidate, and launch a massive release.  You hit, and you hit hard.  You don’t dabble around the edges like a spectator to a street fight.

I don’t know, I’m rambling.  As a former campaign volunteer and organizer on dozens of campaigns, I am shocked when well funded campaigns have this much trouble getting their message straight and responding to attacks.  They have the endorsements, they have the money, they have the unionistas at their back, why all the trouble?

They need to make some media buys, define their message on the economy, energy, and education (with specifics), attack Davis where he is strong and start with some stunt publicity events with young professionals and local businesspeople to take back the message reins from Davis.

If not, this campaign is doomed to FAIL.