In the 74th Assembly District Primary race between Garrick (Coronado Communications), Waldron (GilliardBlanningWysocki), and Packard (self) a ‘strategy’ memorandum from Waldron’s campaign consultants, obviously unintentionally made public, has been circulating over the past week. The contents clearly demonstrate exactly why every political consultant cringes at the thought of their honest strategic and tactical thoughts being made public.

The memorandum details the results of what must have been rather disheartening Waldron polling. “We have our work cut out for us” the memo states in the first paragraph. Generally, this is not the kind of encouragement a candidate who is considering sinking 100k of their own money into a race likes to hear.

It then goes on to describe in agonizing detail that Waldron’s Escondido base, where she has been a councilwoman for a fair number of years, is not a base after all. In fact Waldron’s positives in Escondido, the only place she currently has significant name identification, are 16.2%. Not bad until you read further and see Waldron’s negatives are 21.6%. In her hometown. The author wryly notes that this should be “cause for significant concern.”

There are other gems, all of which I had to read with a hand over my eyes, like when you are driving past a car wreck but just have to peek and see. “Clearly, if the election were held today we would come in 3rd place” or “I realize this is not necessarily where we were hoping to be, but we have to deal with the reality of the situation.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.