OPINION:
As I retrieved yard signs from polling places in the midst of a driving rain after the recently completed (and lost) primary election in Virginia, I wondered why this loss hurt a bit more than others.
If you ask accomplished campaign operatives — people who have had a material role in electing presidents — to talk about the campaigns in which they been involved, they invariably focus on the races they have lost.
That is because campaign operatives — the good ones, at least — take the defeats personally.
There are always lots of reasons for victories: great candidates, lots of cash, great messages, the tilt of the political universe, etc. No accomplished operative spends much time dissecting victories.
Defeats, on the other hand, are subject to seemingly endless analyses, mostly done in the quiet of the campaign operatives’ head.
Did we fail to raise enough cash?
Did we start too late?
Did we emphasize the right issues?
The questions are never really answered, at least to anyone’s satisfaction. One is left with the feeling that you have let down the candidate in some important way.
The surprise of the defeat tends to make the second-guessing worse. In some cases, where the polling is extensive and probative, you can see the defeat coming and have time to prepare.
In others, especially local and smaller races, a loss comes as an unwelcome surprise and feels a bit like getting pushed out of a boat; it is disorienting to hit cold water when you’re not prepared for it.
Finally, campaign defeats are especially painful when you like the candidate, or dislike his or her opponent, or have poured some amount of your own time and money into the effort.
In this particular primary election, the defeat was especially painful because I knew and liked the candidate, Tom McKenna, who was running for the Republican nomination for commonwealth’s attorney in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
It was also painful because Tom is precisely the sort of person who should be an elected official. He is old enough that he is not driven by an ambition to be important, or to climb the political ladder, or impress his friends and neighbors.
He simply thought that he would be a good prosecutor for Chesterfield County.
He has good reason to think that. He has been a prosecutor for 20 years and before that was a state trooper.
This was his first campaign for elected office. Unlike a lot of new candidates, he was a good candidate. He did a great job at knocking on doors; he won in those precincts where he had spent time going door to door.
But here’s where the second-guessing comes in: The effort got a late start and needed more cash. Even in a small, local race, cash is important; an additional $10,000 can be dispositive.
Primary losses are particularly bad, both because there are almost always more losing candidates than there are in a general election and because afterward you are supposed to endorse or publicly support a person for public office about whom you have pretty serious reservations.
At the same time, it is difficult not to admire most candidates. Most of them disrupt their lives and spend money and time that most of them do not have on a campaign that is likely to end in something less than complete success.
Yet most candidates on both sides of the political divide do it because they sincerely believe that they can do a better job in office than the incumbent.
Whether you agree or disagree with their politics, you should be grateful that there are such people who are willing to run for office. It is a thankless, difficult, invasive process.
Our current brand of politics does not make it any easier.
For my brother, who is naturally an introvert, campaigning did not come easy. But he was good at it. He is not thinking about running for office again.
That is a shame. Chesterfield County and the Commonwealth of Virginia need people like Tom McKenna to stay in the game, keep elected officials honest, and, eventually, continue their service to the county and the commonwealth as an elected official.
• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is president of MWR Strategies. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House. He can be reached at mike@mwrstrat.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.