What happened in the Fourth District Race?

Capitalizing on citizen discontent, a growing fear over financial collapse, a sense that government corruption has replaced public service all peppered with a bit of old Dixiecrat spice, a complete unknown Thomas Massie took some very good advice and captured the GOP nomination for Congress in what has become known as the strongest republican district in the Commonwealth.

In the process he added to the clout of first term senator Rand Paul and his influence in shaping the Republican Party according to his view of things.  Though Ron Paul fared much worse at the polls, Massie was able to capture the most votes with a combination of old fashioned political wisdom injected with a juiced up dose of voter frustration.

His campaign was poorly funded from the beginning but Massie built his name ID with a solid combination of signage and earned media.  He captured the winds of the Rand Paul momentum by hiring a Paul staffer to run his organization and made good use of media connections to build his relationships into a ton of earned media from the outset.

Massie then took the next step toward political success and created a story about his personal history which allowed him to define himself before his opponents could.  It stuck and despite some late coming questions about how accurate his facts were, by the time other candidates began picking at the details it sounded like sour grapes and never gained much traction.

Massie sensed that he was getting the momentum and began a practiced smile, which seemed a bit uncomfortable at times, but with his youthful appearance was easily dismissed as innocent rather than staged.  A little down home Huck Finn humility helped ease people into accepting his often repeated claims to have been educated at MIT as a story about a local boy done good.

But the biggest factor in Massie’s success was probably the last minute money which helped drive his voters to the polls.  While issue identification is always important, there was not much daylight between the republican candidates on any of the important stuff.  They were all pretty much in a straight line on things such as right to life, second amendment issues, smaller government, lower taxes and so on.  Massie didn’t really distinguish himself on any issues, but his “buzzwords” tickled the TEA party palate better than the others and so for this energized block of voters, he was a bit easier to swallow.

His margin of victory was surprising and how much of that was due to the half million dollars in SuperPAC money dropped into the district in the last two weeks is an issue to be debated another day.  However the ability this money gave him to awaken a sleepy electorate no doubt gave Massie an edge that the others could not swat away.

Rand Paul has to be feeling pretty empowered at the moment and Massie has to be feeling like he’s in pretty good shape for November.  But since the TEA party has declared war on the GOP in Kentucky, vowing not to support the establishment candidates after a primary should their candidates not win, look for there to be some effort to deliver them a dose of their own medicine with an effort by some party stalwarts to try to hurt Massie this summer playing the long game, hoping to pick him off in two years if not November.

With Obama polling badly in Kentucky Massie’s chances look good for the fall race, but don’t rule out a calculated plan by those who don’t like the more liberal views of his libertarian leanings to try to limit Massie to one term.  He can pretty well expect that some Republicans will try to make the life of this Ron Paul protégé miserable for the next two years.

If he hopes to stay in Congress long enough to get anything done it will take far more compromise by Massie to smooth the ruffled feathers of the establishment than most Paul supporters have thus far seemed willing to put forth.  Then again, since it seems that Massie didn’t need them to win in the first place, he might just ignore the party altogether preferring instead to help Ron Paul “take over” the GOP rather than join its ranks. 

Comments

[Mr. Scott Ryan]

Now is your moment Marcus.

Will you step up to the plate ...

Or will someone else do it in your place?

The road for the party will have less bumps if you suck it up and make inroads towards unifying the party.

If you don't step up to the plate, the party will be challenged in 2013 and 2014.

I wish you well on your journey.

And ... either way ... God Bless.

[Marc's reply: Thanks Scott, and this is exactly where I wanted to be but before I can help there has to be a negotiated truce. Will the TEA party folks who say they want to be part of the GOP abandon their threat that they will not support the party nominee if their choice doesn't win in May? I cannot imagine unity with those who openly vow to do harm to the union. Second, there are some ideological differences which give me pause. I will not compromise my principles regarding right to life or the definition of marriage by way of undue emphasis being placed on the 10th Amendment. I believe that certain human rights and values deserve national protection. I will also never accept that I must abandon my support for Israel by adopting a "non-Interventionist" view of foreign policy. You and I have had this discussion before. I do not accept that we can never act to prevent harm pre-emptively and I think Israel not only deserves our loyalty and support for moral and historic reasons, but for strategic ones as well.

I would love nothing more than to help make our party stronger, but I see a divide over some things as deep as that between the Arabs and the Jews. And you are right, for there to be any progress at all, it will indeed require the blessing of God.]

[Cory]

I do not beleive the people truly realize what they have elected. I have met Mr. Massie on several occasions and he does not perform well under pressur or without a script. He does not play well with others either.

I have been to several tea party meets around the state and have become well acquinted with the people. I am however, embrassed that the tea party was bought so easily. The 4th district was bought and paid for with superpac money. There were much stronger candidate, more trustworthy, harder working, and less privledged working men and women. The blow out I witnessed was nothing more than sheep being herded. I had high hopes for this election but the ignorant voter once again put America with a weak candidate. Massie even stated " I will be the freshman congressman. I won't have any pull." That is not what we need. A guy simply taking the back seat we need a fighter.

[AngelaTC]

You forgot to say, "Congratulations."