No Tidal Wave in CA…Popaditch one example of missed opportunity

by Steve Baldwin

The most striking thing that occurred during yesterday’s tidal wave is how California was seemingly ignored by the voter revolt; yes, we had millions of angry voters but the unions here in California are clearly in control and remain so. No new seats were picked up in either state legislative house and, as of this writing, our congressional victories were meager.

The Tea Party movement in California did very little to change that landscape. Moreover, the leading San Diego County Tea Party candidate, Nick Popaditch, made so many critical errors in his campaign that his loss last night could have been projected a month ago. A Bob Filner defeat was possible but without an effective absentee voter effort, the Popaditch campaign essentially ignored half the vote. And refusing to return questionnaires sent to him by the NRA and Right to Life — even though he was both pro life and pro-gun — led national pro life groups and the NRA to ignore that race.

The NRA had desired to go in and organize their 5,000 members in that distinct but when Popaditch turned his questionnaire in three weeks beyond the deadline, it was too late for the NRA to send a single piece of mail into his district as they normally do with endorsed candidates.

There were independent expenditure groups willing to dump money in this race but couldn’t get polling results early enough and when the Popaditch campaign did do a poll, it was too late and not shared with people having the ability to get resources to his race. Too bad, the poll showed the race as competitive at one point. Popaditch’s failure to hire anyone on his campaign team that knew anything about running a campaign doomed his effort from the beginning.

There are many lessons here for the Tea Party movement which I intend to address in another posting.

Tags: Bob Filner, California, National Rifle Association, Nick Popaditch, Pro-life, Republicans