For the last six weeks, I’ve been reminding people about the quote that Kenny Golden gave at his open to the public press conference back in June. I’ve known Kenny for some time, and I’ve always known that he values his word more than just about anything else. When he said, if I’m not at 10% in September, I shouldn’t be running, I thought he meant it, because why else would he say it?
Since that time, there have been baseless accusations at Gary Byler, 2nd Congressional District Chair and outright fabrications from the Golden campaign. They claim that either a) the ‘10%’ quote was only mentioned in private to Byler, and is a display of Gary’s character that it made it’s way into the public, or b) the ‘10%’ quote was never said and never occurred; in fact this fabrication was posted by Kenny Golden himself last week:
Kenny Golden says:
October 2, 2010 at 1:39 am
Dj, lets get this straight, I made no such on the record comment, period. I certainly won’t get out of the race because of a push poll by the Rigell Campaign. I’m in this till the 2nd of November poll.
Thanks to JR’s podcast, we now know that both these accusations are 100% false. But unfortunately, this is just another in the growing number of mistakes by the Golden camp.
I attended the disastrous ‘Future of Golden Campaign’ press conference, begrudgingly, only to be rendered speechless by a ‘conservative’ organization president calling for government to fix our economy, telling the crowd that their organization encompasses all views, so ‘pick what you like’, then endorsing Kenny Golden. (the snapshot of the organization is their trophy candidate is running against Bob Goodlatte in the 6th; with no Democratic opponent the Modern Whig candidate is polling at 10%) The press conference opens to questions, to have Virginia Beach Taxpayer’s Alliance member (possibly officer but not sure anymore) Robert Dean bark about demanding Kenny publicly pledge to oppose all taxes. Of course, in doing so, Robert Dean essentially endorsed Scott Rigell’s pledge, who had already agreed to do so a month earlier. Whoops.
After walking away from the ‘press conference’ shaking my head at the absurdity (and noting such on facebook) we were graced with some choices quote from one of the Golden team, Max Shapiro, who helped ‘mastermind’ the press conference. To his credit, he agreed that the announcement and press conference was a sham, a ‘psy-op’ designed to throw the Rigell campaign off it’s game.
I’m going to pause here to let that sink in.
…
…
Yes, the idea of the press conference was to let hype build over a week, throwing Rigell’s campaign team of…what, thirty or forty staffers, throw ALL of them into such disorder and disorganization that they would be mentally crippled and rendered inept at the sheer question of ‘what will Kenny Golden do on Friday?!’
The point was that there would be hype in the Rigell camp to confuse you and then there would be no media coverage in case we f****d it up or it fell flat. The Whig thing isn’t a big deal at all, the fact that we pulled a successful psy-op is.
Everything worked out exactly as I had calculated. We got tons of attention, the Rigell campaign looks like complete idiots, and people are scratching their heads wondering WTF Kenny is doing. Any news is good news, the Whig thing won’t ever pop up on the average voters radar. What will pop up is RIgell’s people calling for Kenny to drop out.
(Of course, the only reason anyone attended was to see if Kenny was sticking to his word and dropping out; when Daily Press and Virginian-Pilot realized he wasn’t, their notes went into the trash and to the 99.999% of the district who wasn’t in that room, the event never happened)
These are the tactics that you’d expect from an outfit that has campaigned long past their self-admitted 10% expiration point. JR made a statement on the podcast that it’s fair continuing because Golden believes after his assessment that he has the money and the support to continue, despite their continued baseless accusations about their own quote. Okay, that is fair, it’s their right to move forward, same as anyone. The better question is should they? As of June 30th, Kenny had loaned his campaign over $56,000 with cardboard silhouettes and 4x8s and little else to show for it.
At the disastrous Modern Whig half press-conference half psy-op, Kenny Golden asked the crowd, ‘where are the polls? Where are they?’
Accordingly they came last week (and were ignored and ridiculed):
ccAdvertising: (independent poll)
Scott Rigell: 48.6% Glenn Nye: 34.5% Undecided 16.9%
POS Strategies: (Scott Rigell campaign poll)
Scott Rigell: 42% | Glenn Nye: 35% | Kenny Golden: 5%
Ayers, McHenry & Associates: (NRCC poll)
Scott Rigell: 45% | Glenn Nye 40% | Kenny Golden 7%
These polls were derided by Golden’s team as push polls, blatantly ignoring that specifically POS Strategies, one of the premiere polling firms in the country, has been used by Scott Brown, Bob McDonnell, John Thune, Joe Lieberman, Jeb Bush, Jim DeMint, Mitch Daniels, Rob Whittman, Richard Burr…to name a few.
And new today, another independent poll, conducted by the Hill:
Scott Rigell: 42% | Glenn Nye: 36% | Other (i.e. Kenny Golden): 3%
Self-funding $56,000 for an average of 5%, having such little impact that two firms didn’t even name the third party candidate.
But don’t take those four organizations word for it…
The ‘surprise’? Kenny’s people are claiming that Rasmussen has already polled the district, and if they pay Rasmussen $10,000, they’ll be able to release a poll showing Kenny leading Nye and Rigell by 5, or within 5 (it depends on who you talk to).
….yeah. Really.
Kenny’s a great guy and a good friend, but to get out now would save the indignity of making two phone calls at 7:01 PM to two men he feels he’s better equipped than. Or is it just that everyone else in the district (and beyond) knows the end result except the five people who work at the Golden HQ?
Kenny Golden has an extensive resume and has accomplished much in his service to this country. Unfortunately, he will not be adding United States Congressman to that resume and despite having all evidence to that effect, on we march to November 2nd.
