Friday, October 31, 2008

Dan Seals Stumbling at the Finish Line: No Money, No Mail and No Message to Give Obama (UPDATED)

Wow, our favorite 9th District Seal Pup appears to be up to his usual standards by stumbling badly at the finish line of the most expensive campaign the 10th Congressional District has ever seen. It just goes to show that sometime no matter how much money a candidate has access to, in the end, the candidate still has to come through. Maybe better luck in 2010, Danno.

Today I was amused to get yet another desperate e-mail plea from Dan Seals, asking for money because a last-minute mailer was apparently lost at the post office. The netroots wasted no time in making thinly-veiled accusations that somehow dirty pool must be at work, since we all know how infallible the U.S. Postal service is. Maybe Team Seals simply forgot to stick the stamps on ;-). Now that I recall, I think Team Seals also insinuated that somehow the break-in at Seals Waukegan satellite office a few weeks ago was also perhaps the result of dirty politics.

Sadly, the appeal from Seals stated that they needed the money they expected to bring in to keep Dan on the air. Now they are out of luck since the mailer didn't go out, and they are desperate for cash.

Here's what I really want to know: How can someone who wants to be our Congressman and handle billions, if not trillions, of budget dollars, not even manage his own campaign well enough to budget money for the last weekend push? In typical Dem fashion, it looks like even though he knew he'd need money for this last big weekend, he counted on funds coming in, and now he doesn't have them. Is this how he'd manage our tax dollars?

The other funny thing is that the "lost" mail was only 8,200 pieces. Was that the whole mailer? Why so few pieces, in a district with hundreds of thousands of registered voters? Or was the mailer much bigger, but only a few thousand pieces were lost? If so, what's the big deal, and why the desperate e-mail? Something doesn't make much sense to me.

ALSO-- THE BARACKSTAR COMES IN FOR SEALS, BUT TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

The Seal Team is making a big deal out of the fact that Barack Obama finally figured it was close enough to the election that Seals wouldn't be able to commit any gaffs serious enough to hurt Obama, so the BarackStar finally recorded a voice-only ad for the Pup. Obama was still apparently concerned enough that he didn't want any video to exist of him with Seals, so Seals is promoting the audio with the one and only picture of Seals and Barack taken a few years ago.

What's the saddest part? After all this time, Seals couldn't even feed Obama anything intelligent to say about Dan's accomplishments. In fact, the main line from the ad is:

"To Dan, change isn't just a word, it's a way of life."

Seriously? That's it??? That's the best thing that Seals could get Obama to say about him? What does that really mean, and will the voters of the 10th District be insulted that Obama apparently thinks we're so dumb that a platitude like that will earn our vote?

How many voters do you think that will sway that weren't already going to vote Obama-Seals? And how many votes will such a banal statement lose for Seals?

Tuesday simply can't come soon enough.

UPDATED: 11/1/08 8:30 a.m. LIBERALS PLEA FOR MONEY: This is really getting funny. Check out the further pitiful pleas for money for Dan Seals going on over at DailyKos. It's becoming clearer that Seals can't be trusted with the federal budget if he can't even manage his own campaign well enough to reserve some money to publicize the little radio ad he expected to have cut by the BarackStar. Either that, or he was shocked that B.O. actually decided to do anything for him, and this came as such a complete surprise he now can't take advantage of it. Either way, why would we want this guy as our Congressman?

While we're on the subject, wouldn't you love to take Barack aside from his busy schedule of picking his new cabinet and ask him EXACTLY WHICH instances of "change" brought about by Dan Seals that makes B.O. qualified to tell US that he's lead a life of "change" (except, of course, for the inability to keep a steady job). Can you imagine the blank look on Barack's face with THAT question?

It's also too bad that Barack couldn't take time out to cut a new photo with Seals to go along with the radio spot since Team Seals and even DailyKos has to keep recycling the same years-old photo of the two of them together. It's safe to say that Obama and Seals are not frequent golfing buddies, and that Seals probably isn't someone that Obama "exchanges ideas" with on a "regular basis."

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama is only filming commercials for people he thinks and wants to win. He did it for the thug trying to beat chris shays, the goon trying to beat gordon smith, the tool that beat David From and Jim Oberweis but not Dan.

Anonymous said...

That Obama ad sounds like he recorded it on a cell phone in a speeding car.

Anonymous said...

TA-
Any update on the Lawsuit filed by ILGOP? Is Waller dragging his feet along with the County Clerk to prevent voter fraud in lake county? How many times will the GOP have to get beat in Lake County before they wake up?

Anonymous said...

I did months ago predict that Dan would use the smelly and unseemly bo endorsement at the last minute to try to break mark's back. The vermin dick durbin I also suspect will return to the district.

Sorry to see comrade catwoman is bashing TA now and that you have gotten into their pravada focused heads.

Anonymous said...

I'm not running any campaigns this cycle (I swore I would not do this again) but I was always careful in the past to let the post office know that a batch of letters were being mailed first class instead of bulk. In my situation, it would usually be blocks of 250-500 letters with first class stamps to professionals such as real estate agents looking for support/funds. Anything more than that would go out bulk simply due to cost issues.

The post office, seeing the campaign return address, probably thought the Seals mailer was bulk and the campaign probably dropped them off unsorted by zip code. When you drop mail like that unsorted to them, they take their sweet time in their own little way that has turned FedEx and other companies into worldwide successes. I discovered this to be true after one incident on my own in the past with a small mailing done out of our office, even though the post office is supposed to treat "political mail" as first class during the campaign season, even with a bulk stamp on it. I believe the "first class" treatment the Seals campaign alludes to refers to this type of situation and that the Seals campaign used a bulk mailing stamp.

"Tampering" is a pretty serious charge here. No evidence was presented to justify the use of that word. "Incompetence" by the post office makes more sense and perhaps someone not understanding how quirky the post office can be in these situations.

Still, since it was political mail, the post office should have processed it like "regular" mail in that situation.

After getting burned once on a small mailing, I learned to presort even the first class mailings before delivering it to the post office.

I can't say exactly what happened to the Seals mailer other than to take their press release facts that they dropped off a batch of mail and the post office acted indifferently and took their sweet time with something that should have gone out without much of a fuss.

That doesn't sound like tampering. That is just a plain old post office nightmare.

Louis G. Atsaves

Unknown said...

My guess is that Obama is too busy right now to film a spot with every Democratic congressional candidate in a close race. Think of all the campaigning time that he would lose if he flew back to Chicago and filmed a spot with Dan Seals.

Anonymous said...

Obama has filmed ads for other candidates, and if he was gung hoe about Dan he would have done so. Supporting Dan big is lose lose for him which is why they are putting this ad out at the last moment on a friday night when the only people who cover it are TA and Commie Catwoman. If Dan wins it will be because of Obama, but if Obama films an ad for him and Dan loses in Illinois Obama is tarnished and the national media will make a big deal out of it.

Anonymous said...

I think any outside observer would have to admit that the ILGOP's communication efforts are the best they've ever been. There are bright futures ahead for the comms team on Randolph.

Anonymous said...

Seals got 9 radio ads off Obama.

Nine.

Way too little, way too late.

Anonymous said...

You mean to tell me for all the hype, the pup only got radio ads from BO? There's a story on the Tribune's web site reporting the pup met with a small group of supporters in Lincolnshire while Kirk met with a large crowd at the Westin in Wheeling. I was at the rally and haven't seen a Kirk event that large in several years.

Anonymous said...

If I were Andy McKenna and his team downtown I would be preparing to clean out my desks. Another hideous effort, and TA does a better job getting out the message by himself as a volunteer blogger.
I'm guessing TA gets as much if not more web traffic than team ILGOP.

When your state party is the home of the national democratic party's candidacy and you get blown out, not to mention lose 2 and potentially 5 congressional seats in an election year you are permanently finished.

Time to bring back Peter Fitzgerald and his team that wasn't afraid to be republicans and actually tried to beat big time democrats.

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:12, will you please take your damn negativism and go over to that catwoman's blog where you belong. You will not be allowed to pour cold water on a day that was spectacular in every way. Too bad you weren't at the Westin for that wall to wall crowd of Kirk supporters fired up and anxious to get the job done. Is the party weak in IL. That's obvious. But don't talk about losing. Why don't you talk about winning and how it feels to know that our Congressman is head and shoulders over that 9th district pup. He and his thug mentors continue to bring nothing but disgrace to our area. Either get on board or get out of the way, but stop your griping and damn complaining. We don't buy what you are selling.

Anonymous said...

I will honor TA's request to stay positive as I head out to walk precincts this morning.

That said as you read these stories that suggest Dan's only way to win is the Obama coattails remember that it was Andy McKenna who gave Obama an opening by turning on our state's independent leader Peter Fitzgerald. Had he not run Fitzgerald out of town , no Obama, no Democratic resurgence and Mark would be coasting.

Under McKenna's rule we have lost 2 races for the U.S. Senate 2 and perhaps as many as 5 house seats, a governors race and it goes on. He needs to go and he can take his people with him. Unless you think it's ok that we lost the house seat of the Speaker.

And again I say this as a diehard GOP who's been around a long long time and wants to see us return to the promised land. That doesn't seem likely with a guy who can't win.