In southwestern Virginia’s 38th Senate District, incumbent Sen. Phil Puckett is in trouble. I haven’t seen any polling data on this race, nor have I spoken with anyone in the district recently, but make no mistake: Phil Puckett is in trouble. The writing’s on the wall, it’s in the stars, the entrails (pick your favorite divination technique)…or more simply, it’s in the newspaper.
In a recent interview with the Roanoke Times, Sen. Puckett lamented:
“They’re going to try to paint me much like they did the congressman [former U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher] and also Dan Bowling in his race as a guy who’s against coal, which is the furthest thing from the truth”….
(Just as a refresher, former Del. Dan Bowling was a Democrat who represented several of the localities located within Sen. Puckett’s senate district and who was defeated in 2009 after his Republican challenger made an issue of Cap-and-Trade and it’s impact on the region’s coal economy.)
It’s a predictable pattern, really: when Democratic candidates are defeated or are in electoral trouble, they often accuse their opponents of lying about their records or cheating. Republicans, on the other hand, employ this tactic much less often. Consider a few examples:
John S. McCain: lost the 2008 Presidential Election because he was a weak candidate swimming against an historic, anti-Bush tide.
John F. Kerry: lost the 2004 Presidential Election because of a nefarious plot between Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and the CEO of Diebold (who made Ohio’s voting machines).
Norm Coleman: lost the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota because he was outhustled in the recount (darn that Minnesota nice)
Max Clelland: lost the 2002 U.S. Senate race in Georgia because Republicans misrepresented his record in the War on Terror.
Virgil Goode: lost the 5th Congressional District seat in 2008 because he didn’t take the race against another no-name challenger seriously enough until it was too late.
Rick Boucher: lost the 9th Congressional District seat in 2010 because his opponent lied about his record on coal using money from outside the district.
While these examples may not be entirely representative, they do serve to illustrate a point: generally speaking, when Republicans lose elections, we look inwardly and blame ourselves (I still erroneously believe Sen. McCain could’ve carried Virginia if only I had personally knocked on a few more doors or spent an extra hour in the phone banks!); Democrats, meanwhile, often see nefarious plots, lies, distortions and shadowy campaign contributions as the culprit for their losses. Rarely do you ever hear Democrats admit that their candidate was simply out of touch with their constituents or not the right candidate for the times or for the mood of the electorate. I suppose when you’re the party of the people, there has to be some extraneous reason why the people reject you at the ballot box.
Sen. Puckett seems to be preparing his campaign’s postmortem two months early…just in case.
