Randy Sparacino, Republican candidate for Oregon state senate, spent $1.1 million dollars.
He lost anyway.
The Democratic brand was weak in Oregon, especially downstate. Republican Christine Drazan beat Democrat Tina Kotek by 14 points in Jackson County.
Democrat Jeff Golden won anyway.
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| Closed: Randy Sparacino Campaign Website |
Here is what happened, as I see it.
1. Bad start. Randy Sparacino had just gotten elected the nonpartisan mayor of Medford. He immediately ran for higher office. Oh. So he had a second agenda. It comes across as insincere and deceptive.
2. Strong opponent. Republicans may be blind to it, but Golden is popular. Over the past forty years he has made friends and impressed people favorably. His years as a talk show host on public radio were characterized by achingly earnest efforts to connect with other points of view. His public TV show, Immense Possibilities, showcased optimistic and people of good will doing good things for the world. Sweet. Golden's public presence is not characterized by bombast or conflict. For four decades he has been Mr. Good Guy, a soft-voiced let's-work-together idealist. He is hard to make into a villain.
3. Sparacino negativity. Sparacino tried making him a villain anyway. Sparacino used the cookie-cutter negative-ad approach of scary music, overblown attacks, and ugly black and white photos of the opponent. The ads told viewers to REJECT JEFF GOLDEN. Possibly deep in GOP activist circles that message seemed reasonable. Tell people Golden is evil, dangerous, hostile, scary. The charges fell flat and backfired. Sparacino's GOP friends called Golden a racist because he quoted racists in a book he wrote. That backfired, too. Sparacino's whole presentation looked forced and overwrought, and therefore, again, insincere and deceptive. Sparacino was creating a brand.
4. Good ol' boy Sparacino. Possibly within the back rooms and Zoom calls of GOP funders, it seems like a good and popular idea for corporate leaders, business PACs, lobbyists, and GOP senators to cooperate privately. Let's all get together, spend some serious money, and let's get our boy elected. Maybe, to them, this spells credibility. Look at all that power, working together. There is another way to look at it: Special interest cronyism.
Sparacino went all in on gifts from banking, timber, car dealers, insurance, and other business PACs, all added to hundreds of thousands of dollars from out-of-area Republicans. It is all legal and it isn't entirely secret, but it sends a message of private, back-room power and influence. It isn't transparent. It isn't neighbor-to-neighbor. Voters are treated like customers, given the hard sell by a cabal of advertisers. Of course, people are suspicious. It comes across as insincere and deceptive yet again.
5. Sparacino as puppet; Golden as independent. Sparacino's money set up an easy frame of comparison for people open to persuasion. Sparacino looked like a passenger in the bus of the people pulling his strings. Golden looked independent.
6. Sparacino as Republican, Republican, Republican. All the ads Sparacino ran were in the formula of Drazen's gubernatorial campaign. Bash the opponent. They confirmed one big message: Sparacino is a "typical Republican politician." Nearly 40% of Americans are OK with a message of Republicans pounding on Democrats and demonizing them. The others are not. The district has a small Democratic edge. Sparacino's campaign motivated more people to oppose him than support him.
7. Sparacino and Trump, Trump, Trump. Sparacino was offered a gift, and he didn't take it. The local GOP issued an unnecessary and provocative resolution saying the 2020 election was stolen and Biden was illegitimate. Sparacino had every opportunity publicly to exercise courage and leadership and say publicly that he had no reason to call the 2020 election fraudulent. Local GOP leader Alan DeBoer showed it could be done. The GOP gubernatorial candidate Drazan said it, too. Sparacino did not. He kept mum. He failed a moral test. He failed to tell an unwelcome truth to people he wants to lead. He also failed a test of political smarts. Surely by October, Sparacino should have realized that election denial and claims of fraud and close association with the crazy things Trump was saying were making himself look extreme and cultish. Sparacino kept hiding out. He lost credibility and respect.
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| Sparacino couldn't let go of Trump |
Maybe in cocooned GOP circles it remains acceptable for a candidate to be ambiguous about overthrowing elections. Until Tuesday's election returns showed the "red tsunami" was an illusion, many Republican candidates--Sparacino included--did not want to say anything that might anger Trump or his election-denying supporters. Sparacino remained tied to an unpopular leader. Tuesday was too late to realize that Trump was toxic. Sparacino paid the price.
Summary: Democratic readers may feel I failed to make an adequate case for Jeff Golden's political skill and popularity. He is a strong candidate with a brand of earnest political idealism. He understands issues. He can explain his positions. People like him. He got the support of motivated volunteers in a neighbor-to-neighbor campaign. He won.
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| Sparacino mailer |
Sparacino had the advantage going into the race. However, like prior Republican candidates in this district, Sparacino self-destructed. He looked like a pawn of the GOP and business lobbyist money machine. That became the Sparacino brand. That machine likes nasty campaigns, so once again, cycle after cycle, they run campaigns trying to drive up the Democrat's negatives. Instead, they drive up their own candidate's negatives. Sparacino squandered the nonpartisan respect a Medford mayor gets in order to look insincere and deceptive as a Republican pugilist carrying water for the big boys upstate. What a letdown. What a shame. For him. For Medford.
I warn Republicans not to self-destruct in every election going back 16 years. They do it to themselves anyway. The temptation of all that lobbyist and PAC money is too great to resist.
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9 comments:
Randy Sparacino is an empty suit. He had a "woman" speak for him in every one of his commercials. Sparacino never told you what he believes in.
Sparacino was a nondescript cop who happened to luck-out on being named police chief when Tim George retired, then Sparacino retired after 2 years as chief, as soon as he was legally able to at 50 years old. Sparacino couldn't wait to leave the Medford P.D. He retired the first minute he was able to. Sparacino then double-dipped on the taxpayers, and he went back to work for Medford in a make-work administrator job while also collecting a police pension. Sparacino isn't a fiscal-conservative. He's a PERS scammer, just like his buddy Scott Clausen.
Sparacino had a zero record of achievement as a police chief and as mayor. Name something he accomplished. Crime is high in Medford. What did Sparacino do to alleviate it? Sparacino is a puppet of the good old boy Chamber of Commerce. He's their errand boy. Sparacino is a 5'5" little man, and is easy to control by the Mafia.
Speaking of the Chamber Mafia, they spent millions on their puppet candidates Rick Dyer, Kim Wallan, and Randy Sparacino. NONE of them represent you. Go look at their ORESTAR accounts. They are Chamber puppets, and they are all incompetent and corrupt. You get what you vote for.
We’re fortunate the long-threatened red tide wasn’t as toxic as anticipated. At least in Oregon, the majority of voters weren’t so enchanted by all the fear, anger and sheer craziness being spewed by the GOP. Nonetheless, it looks like Republicans are being rewarded for their anti-democratic lies and conspiracy theories with control of the U.S. House. They must be thrilled. Now they can set up a permanent House select committee to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Our sincere thanks to the GOP for their political tourism dollars hopefully spent here in our county, although I suspect all those campaign mailers were printed in China, hopefully on paper from our trees. I'm currently burning them to keep warm.
Despite your astute observations Randy got 49% of the vote. Drazen got 54% in Jackson Co. That's scary. It shows that all that money had an effect and a stronger opponent might have won. These results show an erosion of Democratic support. Perhaps it's an anomaly; red drift due to Trumpism and will wither, but it's also possible that anti-democratic forces will double down. Either way Progressives need to aggressively confront the dominant issues in the state; homelessness and addiction, education, forest management, healthcare, climate. It's a daunting list.
The local Regressive mindset is antithetical to the way our valley is evolving. We are on a path to become another Napa, with it's wine economy and tourism, and also have all the resources to attract green manufacturing and tech companies. If we can't mitigate the red drift we will repel them as well as the well off retirees and Oregon could become another Florida, an uninhabitable dystopian wasteland.
I don’t think you got the point, Rick. Randy would be expected to do as well as Drazen, so he spent $1M to blow a 5% advantage. “That machine likes nasty campaigns, so once again, cycle after cycle, they run campaigns trying to drive up the Democrat's negatives. Instead, they drive up their own candidate's negatives.”
Shh, don’t tell them (ya can’t fix stupid).
Agree 100% about Sparacino and his inexcusably miserable disgraceful idiotic campaign.
Disagree 100 about Golden. There were reasons he was pushed out of JPR. Your love is blind here.
Regarding Jeff Golden and NPR:
When Golden considered running for the Senate, he and Ron Kramer agreed that it would no longer be feasible for Jeff to host “The Jefferson Exchange.” In a statement released by JPR, Golden said, “I think JPR owes it to its listeners and members to avoid giving advantages of any kind to possible political candidates, and four hours of air time every day is plainly an advantage.”
This is a matter of public record. Nothing nefarious went on, implications to the contrary notwithstanding.
Thank you, Mike, for clarifying the record, not that it will change many minds.
I didn’t intend to suggest it was nefarious.
I did intend to suggest he was little liked inside JPR.
Yes, your posted intended to sound nefarious.
I ALWAYS vote against whomever the Chambers support. Chambers represent corporate greed, which is ruining this country.
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