Sunday, May 11, 2014

Overconfidence

Dear fellow tax hikers, we are still recovering from the unexpected victory of Jonathan Dever over our very own Tax Hikin' Rick Bryan.  For once we can't criticize ourselves for being complacent in defeat.  This year we worked very hard for Rick and made him our #1 targeted race.  We learned our lessons about being overconfident from some of our prior defeats.

But many of our supporters haven't.  Many of the Bryan supporters here assured us we had this race in the bag.  They said Dever had no chance, and may have even quit the race early.  We were also told Dever didn't raise enough money, couldn't solidify conservative support, and had an inadequate campaign team who surely could not win under such difficult circumstances. 

For your benefit, we have found some of the better premature declarations of victory from the Bryan supporters:

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Blue Ash Bomber said...
Just did the work the Enquirer refused to do and checked out the campaign finance report on Secretary of State Jon Husted's website. Folks, this race isn't even going to be close. Rick Bryan has a commanding lead in fund-raising and in cash on hand. Rick also has a commanding lead in endorsements and a significant lead in supporters among the rank and file across the district. That's the kind of network of support you can develop over years of fostering positive working relationships with businesses, elected officials, and community leaders, when you happen to be a businessman, elected official and community leader like Rick Bryan is.

Dever is just gumming up the works and pandering to the Tea Party base that has lost all credibility in the 28th House District. Go back to West Chester, Jonathan.


Wreck of the Jonathan Dever said...
Just like the Democrats' nominee for Governor, Shipwreck Edward FitzGerald, Jonathan Dever had to include his January 2014 contributions on his latest campaign finance report to make his numbers look less horrible than they truly are. Just like Ed, Dever's January contributions were surprisingly large and surprisingly close to the end of the month, a sure sign of desperation by Team Dever. I guess that move into the 28th House District and those "professional" consultants took a lot out of Jonathan during crucial fund-raising periods.


COAST is TOAST said...
Even some tea-partiers like Maggi Cook are supporting Rick Bryan. You know you're a real kook when ever the Tea-bangers can't support you. Down With Dever!


Keep It Coming said...
We love the outpouring of support for Rick Bryan on this blog. It's awesome. Rick has raised more money from more people than his opponent. Rick has far more endorsements than his opponent. His opponent should just drop out now, save everyone's time and money, and get our party united behind Rick Bryan.


Columbus Confidential said...
You Dever people are the absolute laughingstocks of the Republican Party right now. Please do us all a favor and get out of the race before you embarrass yourself and your political party any more so than you already have done.


Lifelong Loyal Hamilton County Republican said...
I don't think WLW is taking the candidacy of Rick's primary opponent very seriously, and when WLW can't take a "Republican" very seriously, then he or she has no chance of winning whatsoever.


Madeira Voter said...
I heard Rick Bryan was running unopposed.


Dever Believer said...
I had high hopes for Jonathan but it's clear he doesn't have the juice to make this race even close. His campaign looks less like a Jamie Schwartz job and more like a Julie Matheny job.


Desperate and Defeated Dever said...
I had big hopes for Jonathan Dever, but those hopes are long gone now. What a waste of a candidacy. I guess the 28th House District really loves paying more in taxes because the candidate of lower taxes has found virtually no traction.


Eric Dorman said...
If it wasn't for this website I wouldn't have known anyone was running against Rick Bryan.


Mimes for Dever said...
Jonathan must be running one of those "quiet" campaigns where you go around and somehow reach all the voters without any signs, handouts, mailers, radio or television commercials.


Relax My Friend said...
All conservatives have NOT, repeat NOT, coalesced around Jonathan Dever. In fact, quite a few of us began to think he had suspended his campaign, given the lack of activity. What a disappointing race.


Dever Fever said...
It takes a special kind of paranoia for this blog to believe that Jonathan Dever has run a viable campaign which has even a snowball's chance of winning against Rick Bryan.


Psychiatrist said...
This blog has an unhealthy obsession with the idea that the Dever campaign is something to fear. I get that you could be concerned about losing... if your opponent were running a strong campaign. However, the Dever team clearly is not.


Relax My Friend said...
These campaign finance reports overlook that Jonathan still has to pay his "consultant" Jamie Schwartz for some more "consulting" work like creating that juvenile and offensive attack ad. Ya!

13 comments:

Springdale Detective said...

Team Bryan followed the "Campaign Expert Matheny" playbook that worked so well for all of her other clients, including herself:

1. Surround yourself with "yes" people.

2. Spend more time bashing the opponent than in promoting your candidate.

3. Use the Internet to make anonymous/fictitious comments about the other candidate.

4. Avoid engaging undecided, persuadable voters.

5. Belief that your candidate's self-evident greatness will shine through.

6. Pursue absentee voters at a level which approaches stalking while neglecting the 80% of voters who will vote on Election Day.

7. Complain to neutral authority figures you think should step in and condemn your opponent for being negative... even though you've been just as negative if not more so.

8. Insinuate that you'll share whatever dirt you have on the winning candidate with the Democratic Party in the process of throwing yet another sore-loser temper tantrum.

9. Spread rumors about your opponent's behavior after the election. Be sure to mention how they're drunk all the time and call former supporters up and berate them for not doing more to have helped you.

10. Somehow, amazingly, find work on a campaign in the next cycle so you can continue to pollute our political system with your bad campaign management, terrible strategy and toxic personality.

Craig Hochscheid said...

At this point, I'm too fat to be sad, I just roll around and waste taxpayer money on the cleanup of the excrement that is my obnoxious opinion.

Bouncing Bob McEwen said...

Rick Bryan deserved to win that race! Especially after I endorsed him. I believe he lost because of "The Catholic Agenda".

Defeat from the jaws of victory said...

What was ex-conservative Maggi Cook's role with the campaign?

Besides always being the first to like all of Ricky's facebook posts.

Let's Face It said...

About 115,000 people live in the 28th House District.

By any measure of the voting history of the communities in the district, it should send a Republican to the Ohio House, just as it has sent a Republican to the Ohio Senate and just as it voted Republican across the board in 2012. Both Republican Congressmen carried this district in 2012. Anyone capable of downloading and reading an Excel spreadsheet can see this.

You can also see that the Republicans re-drew this district in 2012.

However, it keeps electing a Democrat to the Ohio House. Why? Because Republican primary voters keep nominating extremist candidates who are utterly unappealing to the rest of the voters. Most voters, including many who vote Republican, do not support the Glenn Beck/ Rush Limbaugh/ Sean Hannity agenda of cutting government services to the poor, taking Constitutional rights away from its gay citizens, denying women their basic rights, making it near impossible for non-whites to cast a ballot, blaming President Obama for every failure in their own miserable lives and screaming at the top of their lungs to shout down those they disagree with.

Way to go, right-wing extremists in the Republican primary. About 3500 of you, once again, voted to support a candidate that about 85,000 of us will find morally repugnant.

Scourging along said...

The real winner on Election Day - Republicans for Higher Taxes. This is the 2nd time that a campaign has used your material to help sink a bad candidate. Virgil Lovitt and Rick Bryan can hang out together talking about how much they hate this blog, all the while ignoring all of the bad decisions they made in office that caused their defeats.

Enquirer Reporters said...

Don't worry, if the Republican Party starts running ads and sending out mail against Micah Kamrass, we already have a line-up of perennially indignant liberal activists ready to call it racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, and so on. Whether the Republican campaign gets negative or not doesn't really matter. We'll do our part to elect a Democrat, just as we always do.

Arrogance said...

Ricky Bryan is an arrogant Councilman who thinks he's superior to the people he's supposed to serve.

No surprise that Rick ran an arrogant campaign and thought he was superior to his competition. Turns out the competition was a lot smarter and more capable than Rick imagined.

Sick of It All said...

I see that the Rick Bryan supporters who didn't have anything better to do during the primary than to write anonymous slams on this blog haven't found anything meaningful to do with their lives since their man got clcobbered by an extremist carpet-bagger who clearly should have lost, in their mind. What say you now, Chef, Mac, and Cook?

Columbus politico expert said...

Nobody should kid themselves - the Democrats were salivating at the thought of running against Tax Hikin' Rick Bryan. The guy already has a proven history of underperforming the Republican vote in his own Council races, and you don't have to step outside this blog to see the binders full of dirt that exists on him. The Democrats would have slammed Bryan from one end to the next and then some.

Rim Jaussen said...

I knew Rick's camapaign was absolutely doomed the moment I saw that Campaign Expert Matheny, PhD had endorsed him. A Julie Matheny endorsement of a candidate is the equivalent of tossing smallpox infected blankets over the campaign's wall. Thanks again Julie! Keep up the good work!

Republican Leaders in ORP and RNC said...

Rick Bryan was our perfect candidate to attract more women, more minorities, more gays and undocumented workers to the Republican Party but the stupid voters had to go elect a Tea Party extremist who can't win this district. We will prove he can't win this district when we send out attack mailers that the local media goes nuts over. It won't hurt us any, we'll just point to the result as proof that conservatives can't win in the general election. Heads we win, tails you lose.

Princess Margaret said...

OMG! I can't believe Rick Bryan lost! I am still in shock. He is the kind of Republican I really enjoy being around. He likes to live the good life. He likes to travel overseas. He understands how important it is to keep the undesirables away. He has the best locations and the best food at his fund-raisers. Best of all, he doesn't have any fat, smelly, disgusting, inbred west siders hanging around him. I'm going to miss Rick. If that Tea Party guy from West Chester (ugh!) has any fund-raising events this summer, I may have to play the "mommy" card and skip out.