Glenn Nye might run again
By Brian Kirwin | Monday, November 22nd, 2010 | PoliticsGlenn Nye thinks he can build on his 42% of the vote in the sound thrashing that he took at the hands of Congressman-elect Scott Rigell.
Glenn Nye is thinking about running again.
Of course, he doesn’t say if Democrats actually want him to.
“I’m still considering running again…. I think there’s some things that took place in this election which indicated a strong possibility of my being able to win in 2012.” Glenn Nye
What are those things, exactly?
He lost Norfolk. He lost Hampton. He lost the Eastern Shore. He garnered an embarrassing 41% in Virginia Beach.
And Republicans are about to redistrict Congressional seats anyway.
And Glenn Nye thinks he may run again?
Go ahead…make our day!
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About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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28 Responses to "Glenn Nye might run again"
Brian,
You might very well be the first Bearing Drift contributor to have a former elected official take a swing at. You know how much Congressman Nye ~loves~ the Ed Grimley photo.
If Nye and the DCCC/DPVA had not sent out all that mail, robo calls, and TV ads on Kenny Golden, I think Nye would have won or came very close to winning.
Despite what the Nye camp was thinking, those pieces dropped Kenny’s numbers like a rock and dropped Nye’s as well. The entire Rigell narrative on Kenny was that he was going to split the vote and that he was working with the DEM’s. Nye simply confirmed all of that and so whatever GOP and independent support Kenny had went to Rigell.
I distinctly remember the RPV Tracker/Op Research guy posting on Kenny’s facebook prior to those mailers saying, “You guys are going to get 10% of those vote, what a joke” and then that turned into 4% afterwords. We had our own polling data to look at that showed the same thing; a substantial drop after the mail pieces came out. Substantial as in outside the margin of error.
Whether it is Rigell’s fault or not, JFCOM closing will be on his hands, same with the carriers; Florida outnumbers us greatly on appropriations so the issue will come back up. If unemployment continues to rise, which is clearly will when JFCOM closes, that will be Rigell’s and the GOP’s fault. When unemployment is high and the GOP is in control, that kills the 2 things Rigell got elected on; Nancy Pelosi and creating jobs.
That being said, I sincerely wish Rigell the best, hes my Congressman now and I want him to succeed. Its sad that he will get blamed for things outside his control, but he got elected blaming someone else for the same things, so what goes around will very like come back right at him.
He’s dreaming. The 2nd District is the one district that Republicans can make much more GOP friendly in redistricting, by shifting African-American voters to the 3rd, which needs to pick up population.
@Chris Meerpool:
Anyone that thinks that Nye’s mailers hurt Golden is clearly someone that knows nothing about campaigns.
Golden was never going to get 10% at any time. He had no money and no ability to communicate a message.
When you don’t have the ability to communicate a message, you won’t get more than 4% of the vote.
The only direct mail done on his behalf was hyping him as the “real conservative”.
No independent candidate for House of Representatives has ever gotten more than 4% of the vote in Virginia since 1988. Kenny Golden was never going to do better than that ceiling.
Never.
Unfortunately for Golden, perhaps if he had actually done his research he would have found this out and realized what a foolish quest it was to run as an independent.
In reality, Golden probably cost Rigell 2 or 3 points, but it didn’t matter any way. Rigell received more votes in the 2nd District (88,000+) than Bob McDonnell did in the 2nd.
Impressive showing.
Glenn’s chances will hold on how satisfied moderate voters are with (borrowing from Sarah Palin) Scott Rigell on the “hopey changy” thing. They were dissatisfied with the current government and they wanted change. How satisfied will they be with Scott and the change they get?
Ever heard of buyer’s remorse?
Glenn Nye has an actual moderate voting record to point back towards, and what will Scott’s voting record point to two years from now?
Scott is going to have a difficult time keeping both the Tea Party element and moderates happy. Two years is a short period of time but during those two years, Scott is going to have to put himself on the record and cast some votes.
Actually Bryan, you are dead wrong, but that is nothing new.
We logged over 100 phone calls and dozens upon dozens of emails from people from people saying they were no longer voting for Kenny because of the mailers. Add that to people who came into the office and we are talking an amount that would definitely be reflected in the final percentage.
You are wrong about the direct mail. There were several pieces attacking Kenny for his stance on immigration and cutting the budget by 2%.
We were polling well above 4, polls aren’t an indication, but combined with the other empirical evidence we had, I can safely say we would have done significantly better were it not for the mail, TV, and robo-calls in the last two weeks.
You fail to acknowledge my point that Rigell played this to his advantage all along by having his staff/supporters saying we were working with Nye, with the democrats, or were trying to re-elect Nancy Pelosi. That was their narrative, their staff said it, their most vocal supporters said it, Kirwin himself said it.
To many closet Golden supporters, of which there were many (we had sizeable chunk of the city committee), this argument didn’t fly. However, as soon as that mail came out, everyone panicked, the saw that Rigell really could lose because Nye was helping Kenny and the decided to vote for him. In addition, independents saw the move as extremely desperate and broke for Rigell instead of Nye or Kenny.
I’m not saying Golden would have won, but both him and Nye would have gotten significantly more votes had Kenny’s name never appeared on a Nye mailer, TV Commercial, or robo-call. It could have easily made the difference between a Rigell win and a Nye win.
As for your mythical 4% number, go back and check your facts for this election. Kenny got 4.3%, which was less than independent candidates Jeff Vanke who got 12.95% and Floyd Bayne who got 6.49%.
Kenny was one of two independent candidates to recieve significant democratic support along with Jeff Clark. Clark got 2.2% of the vote while Kenny got almost double that.
“We were polling well above 4″
I’m curious about that, since Kenny publicly said that no one had done a legitimate poll yet in the Second District, did the poll you’re talking about count as legitimate or not?
Kenny said a poll had to have at least 1500 responses. Did this one?
I’m looking at Kenny Golden’s FEC reports, and I don’t see any expenditures for polling. In fact, any decent poll would cost thousands of dollars, and Kenny’s expenses in that range are very few (website, food, event costs, rent, signs).
Amazing that you have a poll that no one seemed to have paid for and that the candidate didn’t think existed.
I’m not Kenny and I believe he said no one has released a legitimate poll. Polls get taken all the time, whether they are released to the public is different and you know that.
If Rigell was polling us at 4% the entire time while he was well above Nye, the GOP, Rigell, Karen Hurd, wouldn’t have been trying so hard to push Kenny out. The poll Rigell released showed Kenny taking 59% of his votes from Obama supporters. At those numbers its better to just leave Kenny alone completely in as he would be slightly increasing Rigell’s chances of winning.
If Nye didn’t have us polling higher than 4%, do you think they would have undertaken the strategy they did? It would have made no sense, if they saw we were a non-factor they would have been better off spending the money elsewhere.
@Chris:
Delusional even in the midst of a humiliating loss.
* The DCCC mailings “attacking” Golden for cutting government by 2% and cutting taxes only went to REPUBLICANS. Those weren’t attack pieces, those were pieces sent to conservative/Republican households to try and split the vote.
* Don’t compare the independent / 3rd party candidate runs in the 6th District (Bob Goodlatte). The Democrats didn’t even nominate a candidate. If Golden had bothered to do his research, he would see that there has never been an independent candidate for House in Virginia that has gotten more than 4% of the vote when there are two major party nominees.
* Who is “we”? Golden never paid for a poll. There was never a poll that ever had it close; if it did, I’m sure Rigell would have nuked Golden either through the mailbox or tv or radio. He largely ignored him because he always new he was a non-factor.
* The statement about Rigell’s “staff/supporters” alone demonstrates your utter, complete and total ignorance of campaigns and messaging. Who cares if 10 Rigell staffers are saying things about Golden. UNTIL YOU PUT MONEY BEHIND A MESSAGE (i.e., through the mailbox, through radio, through tv) IT DOES NOT GET THROUGH. Close to 200,000 people voted on November 2nd, so unless you cough up the money to spread the message, it has ZERO impact on the race.
* “Closet” Golden supporters? a) Golden LOVED the mailers, I heard him on WNIS crowing about how much, as the poor, independent candidate, he loved the mail attacking Rigell and praising Golden. That didn’t sound like a candidate trying to stop this. Nope, he sounded like a kid getting a present on Christmas. Golden never ONCE condemned the Democratic Party mailings done on his behalf, he loved them.
* “City Committee Supporters”:….. SO WHAT. As noted, close to 200,000 people voted in this election. There are MAYBE 100 people that are actual members of the Virginia Beach GOP. (I’ve been to a breakfast, I counted 65 people in the room). Let’s assume that Golden got EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the GOP City Committee; that is .05% of the voting population who showed up on November 2nd. Even if Golden “lost” all of those supporters, he would have received 4.35% rather than 4.3%
Scott Rigell annihilated Glenn Nye; beating an incumbent was a butt kicking. To even try and insinuate that Golden or his supporters could have had an impact on this race is delusional.
Chris, first you say “We were polling well above 4″and a few minutes later you talk about everyone else’s polls, which your candidate called illegitimate.
Which is it? Can you use poll numbers when you want to and then disregard them in the same breath?
Fact is, you have no idea what you were polling, which shows even more what a joke of a campaign Golden ran.
“* The DCCC mailings “attacking” Golden for cutting government by 2% and cutting taxes only went to REPUBLICANS. Those weren’t attack pieces, those were pieces sent to conservative/Republican households to try and split the vote.”
You said previously, “The only direct mail done on his behalf was hyping him as the “real conservative” This mail didn’t say that.
The other candidate I cited ran against Cantor and a Democratic nominee, so in this case, you are incorrect again.
As for what Kenny said, he is Kenny, I’m not. Continue to place his opinion on me if you want, its a free country. I’m giving my own analysis.
As for you thinking Rigell would “nuked Golden either through the mailbox or tv or radio,” that shows how ignorant you are of how campaigns work. That would have played right into Golden’s hand instead of hurting him. Instead Rigell went for the Tea Party Pledge, stopped refusing to debate him one one on, which he did twice, and then got Karen Hurd to call for him to withdraw.
As for the message that Kenny was working for the dems and splitting the vote, there are other ways to get messages out other than mail and tv. Rigell had an incredibly effective machine, it along with Fox News made sure that the split the vote sentiment was widely communicated.
Nye played right into that sentiment by doing those mailings and ads. Are you so blindly partisan that you cannot see that those ads were a major, campaign crushing blunder? The voting public is not that stupid. What Nye did was so cynical and so dirty in a creative way that it really turned people off, especially his base and independents. Just consider along the impact that couple hundred grand could have had on GOTV operations, last minute ads, etc..
You say yourself that they made Kenny look foolish, how then do you think they made Nye look.
Grow up kid. The campaign is over, you don’t see me flaming Rigell. One day you will realize that not everyone gets involved in politics to gain power or make a career move. Public service does not necessitate winning elections and affecting the final numbers of an election isn’t everything. Rigell and Nye both borrowed heavily from everything Kenny said when it came to military and foreign policy issues. Policy is more important than politics and getting good policy implemented is more important than winning.
Brian,
Must I repeat myself? Polls get taken all the time, whether they are released to the public is different and you know that. Polls are taken by all sorts of groups, PAC’s, news outlets, etc.. If they are favorable, they are released, if they aren’t, they aren’t. I’m not saying anything more than that.
Again, Kenny said there haven’t been any legitimate polls RELEASED. I say again, he said RELEASED. Maybe he said generically once or twice no legitimate polls, but he made it clear on numerous occasions that none had been released.
Kenny wasn’t going to win, that’s clear, I’m not trying to knock Rigell or anything like that. All I’m saying is that Nye made a huge mistake trying to boost Kenny’s numbers and it backfired on both him and Kenny and dropped his numbers substantially.
Can you tell me I’m wrong about that one Brian?
I don’t understand how you are so sure about how you were polling if you never saw any polls?
@Chris:
So, I guess all those “push” polls from Rigell were fake, huh? All of those “push” polls that had Golden at single digits?
Your statement about “fox news” was, well, just plain stupid. When did Fox News ever did a story about Golden “stealing” votes from Rigell.
What is annoying is that the Golden Kool-Aid Drinkers were wrong on just about everything
* Wrong on Golden getting the “independent” vote and pulling off a win
* Wrong about Rigell’s “push” polls all showing Golden in the single digits, when the Golden Kool-Aid Drinkers claimed Golden was polling neck and neck with Rigell and Nye
* Wrong about how “poorly” Rigell would sell his message to voters. Bottom line is this was an election about jobs, Rigell ran on as a proven job creator, and he CRUSHED the INCUMBENT by ELEVEN POINTS. RIGELL WON AGAINST THE DEMOCRATIC INCUMBENT IN A CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT THAT OBAMA WON IN 2008.
In short, all of the Golden Kool-Aid Drinkers were wrong about pretty much everything in this campaign. Yet, despite demonstrating to anyone who reads this blog that the Golden Kool-Aid Drinkers have ZERO credibility on this past campaign, they PONTIFICATE like they actually know their butt from a hole in the ground.
Which demonstrating from their laughable 4% performance, is clear that they do not.
Bryan, you’re so immature that I’m not even going to bother responding except to say this;
We were wrong about the FINAL numbers, but we were so right on all the policy that Rigell took Kenny’s talking points all the time. Besides, before Max even signed on for Kenny he wrote Rigell policy pieces on the FED that were then incorporated into Rigell’s platform and talking points.
Policy is more important than politics, Kenny ruled on policy and on election night every media person there as well as the dean of Regent University School of Government said that we controlled the topic of discussion for every debate and for basically the entire election. To Max, Tom, Kenny, Tim, Ryan, and myself, that means a hell of a lot more than a few extra percentage points.
I’ll take getting good policy implemented over winning an election any day. You wouldn’t. That’s the difference. You care only about partisan politics and winning, I care about my country’s future and getting the policies enacted that will save it. You would be happy to see the GOP drive the country into a ditch just because they aren’t the Democrats. Your immaturity makes me so depressed. Thinking about people like you having to take over the country as the current generation retires is a scary thought.
Brian, I’m not the public. Let me just say this; most PAC’s don’t endorse unless they take a poll. Wasn’t my call, wasn’t Kenny’s call, wasn’t the campaign’s call. We didn’t commission any polls. Get it now?
Yes, Chris. Everyone had all these polls, and they all showed Kenny Golden doing just fabulously, and it was a secret conspiracy to hide all these polls and release only the ones that actually had Kenny’s vote percentage around 5%, and that was an overestimation at that.
Kooks.
Actually Brian, you know just as well as I do that what you stated is the case. If anyone had a poll showing Kenny above that, releasing it would help him. I never said everyone had them or that it was Rigell or even Nye. Even if we were able to release a poll showing us higher than 5, it would be stupid to do unless we were above 20, which we never were as far as I know.
Do you honestly think Nye’s campaign would have taken such a dumb strategy if they didn’t have numbers showing Kenny could have changed the outcome? Go look at their FEC reports, they spent more on polling than we did on our entire campaign.
I recall asking a Nye person once if they were going to bring something up about Rigell and they said no, we make all of our decisions based on poll numbers…
You think Kenny would be getting almost daily calls asking him to drop out if he was at 4 and Rigell was so high in the polls that Kenny was a non-factor? I don’t think so.
I never said Kenny was doing fabulously, my point all along has been Kenny was polling in the teens, but below 20, and when Nye made the decision to drop a hundred grand plus helping Kenny, both of our numbers dropped. Its pretty obvious that was the case. It was a hugely stupid move on Nye’s part and pissed a lot of people off. I’ve yet to see you dispute that.
“Typical attacks on Rigell from the Democrats were abandoned. Typical defenses of Nye were similarly back-burnered. Democrat strategy, tipped weeks earlier in polling calls to Republicans to test attacks on Rigell, was to peel conservatives from him and direct them to gadfly independent candidate Kenny Golden.
Mailboxes and televisions were full of Democratic-funded ads touting the conservatism of Golden over Rigell, and the most it gave voters was a slight pause. Their political consultants miscalculated immensely.”
Thanks for agreeing with me on my main point of these posts… Nye had data showing it would work, he “miscalculated immensely” and in the end lost very badly.
Scott Rigell, Jason Miyares, and the entire Rigell staff ran an excellent campaign that paid off in beating an incumbent by double digits. I feel sorry for anyone who plans to go up against them in 2012. They rolled with the punches that came, stayed on message, and simply out-worked everyone else in the race. That is a winning strategy that I expect them to use even more effectively in 2012. Kudos to Team Rigell!
Golden was never polling in the teens, and you can’t cite a single poll that showed him doing so.
Go ahead! Tell me which poll showed Golden in the teens.
We don’t talk about how we make sausage Brian, once again, you know that.
I can say that in addition to 3rd parties, the Rigell campaign was quite a “leaky ship.” Certainly more-so than they thought.
Either way, you agree with me on my major point and I agree with you and LC. Rigell ran a great campaign and definitely outworked everyone. However, in 2012 he can’t run on a message of jobs and anti-Pelosi. Unemployment will be much higher in the 2nd and Pelosi won’t be responsible. Good luck in 2012.
Hey, Chris…do you think Kenny should have taken responsibility once he learned someone from his campaign leaked the emails to Blue Virginia?
Kind of funny that someone who claimed to be captain of the ship acted more like the guy who missed ship’s movement.
If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about Kenny Golden, I don’t know what will. Amazing that his “surrogates” are still trying to diminish Rigell with phantom polls instead of focusing on a frightening future where we will all have to row together.
Real classy.
OMG I’m begging you people to stop engaging this crackpot – Meeropol. He’s clearly an idiot. You’re arguing over a worm of a man – Golden – who will not even be a footnote in the history of the Republican Party in Hampton Roads. Golden is a tick and Meeropol is a tickturd. Enough said.
JR, no one from the campaign leaked the emails, they did some dumb things, but leaking an email that clearly implicated Kenny would be beyond stupid. Did it come from someone who supported Kenny? Quite possibly, but I asked Max about it and he said when he worked for Byler that they got emails all the time that were racist and had dozens upon dozens of people CCed. Something about a Captain Larry Van Hoose being the most common sender…? Karen sent her email out to lord knows how many people. David sent it to 6 or 7 who then forwarded it on to how many people. One of them, according to Max, was likely Doc Welch, who likely forwarded it on. Speaking of which, when Max and I were in 7th grade my mom took us to a fundraiser for Welch. They had me filling beer tubs and Max tending bar. True story.
Besides, I think you and I both know that while Max is half crazy (or whole), his tech skills and tech instincts are damn good. Why would he delete Kenny’s name from the email knowing darn well that David would call it out because he’s the one who sent the email in the first place? You and Kirwin have such a linear, 2d thought process that its scary to think you guys even survive in the political world. I guess your ignorance serves as a sort of defense mechanism.
Why don’t you ask David Bartholomew if he thinks Kenny’s campaign did it. I was drinking a beer at a Friday Happy Hour when Max stepped into Kenny’s office to talk to David on the phone. He came out saying that David knew it wasn’t him and that it was someone pissed at him for dissing Toni Hedrick and John Moss. I know you know this, so to insinuate that Kenny’s campaign did it shows how classless you truly are.
Show me where I did anything but comment Rigell on a job well done, except to say that he will have a hard time in 2012 because he can’t run on jobs and Pelosi.
My point all along, that Kirwin agreed with by the way, was that Nye’s trying to help Kenny was a disastrous mistake. You have not, will not, and cannot refute that. The point of this article was not about the future, it was about Nye running again. My point was that Nye’s double digit defeat (not defeat in general) had a lot to do with his last minute tactics of trying to split the vote. Brian even agrees with me, so I don’t get where go off saying I’m bashing Rigell.
As for the frightening future, Max was on this blog calling out whats happening now years ago and was banned by you for it. Real Classy.
You know you couldn’t hang with Max on policy, most people in the GOP who know him know it too. I remember when he came back from Richmond saying he met you at a bar and said he contributed more to BD than half the contributors.
If you want to fix the problems of the future, you had better open your eyes and listen to people who care more about policy than politics. You and Brian aren’t those people. Rigell and Miyares thought enough about Max’s ideas that they asked him to write policy pieces before he signed on with Kenny. Byler thought enough of him to have his back every time he came home saying how he just pissed off half the party. Yourself and Kirwin included.
Sorry, just got off the phone with Max. He said you banned him for saying you had no journalistic integrity or ethics after accusing Jeff Frederick of committing a felony and then recanting it minutes later saying you hadn’t check your sources.
So wow, banning someone from a blog for saying you have no integrity after you wrongfully accused someone of committing a felony. You have no room to talk about class JR. You’re nothing more than a hack, one day you will realize it and get off your high horse.
And yes, I did call him to make sure I got my facts straight and yes, he thinks this whole thing is hilarious and advises me to stop posting on here before I say something that can be used against me in court.
I think I’ll take his advice. Cheers to you to you “The Answer!” I’ll think of you every time I see someone too scared to post under a real name!
@Chris:
You say a lot of insane nonsensical things, but this is in my top 10:
“most PAC’s don’t endorse unless they take a poll”
No. They. Do. Not.
A PAC is going to spend thousands of dollars on a scientific poll…… to determine where they send a $1000 PAC check?
The fact that you would make that statement with such authority, well, speaks volumes.
I love reading Chris and Max’s comments on their stellar campaign genius. I remember this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxNCTjpLNwo
PACs run $10,000 polls before they give a thousand bucks. Bryan, I let that slide, because I really have no reason to bash anyone in the Golden camp. It’s enough just to point out their inherent hypocrisy. (Touting polls and then claiming the polls are illegitimate)
Actually believing things people tell them, as if no one was egging them on with false information.
Chris, I’ll take my linear thinking over your circular logic.
Unless I missed something… the final poll (aka vote) had Representative -elect Scott Rigell win the election. That said, I don’t believe Congressman Nye, as a real politician, could just walk away from the “game”. Good luck.
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