re: Eddie Rispone's grifting carpetbagger campaign manager is aw shucksing the loss

quote:

---

He and his out-of-state cronies were paid upwards of a million cash for that analysis too, while squandering another $10 million of Rispone's money.

---

Look I hear you, and any losing campaign has plenty of blame to spread around, but the buck's ultimately got to stop with the candidates in any election. The candidates make the final decisions on what their strategy is going to be. If the candidate doesn't know better than to reject bad advice, then that's the candidate's fault. Rispone may not have been through campaigns personally before, but he was experienced, very smart, and politically astute, because he'd seen politics from the backroom angle for decades. If a 70 year old man can't tell us what issues he wants to focus on as governor, he's hopeless.

So I'm assuming these ideas for nationalizing the campaign either originated with Rispone, or were approved by Rispone as his considered judgment that they were the best available.

And I think it was 100% Rispone, rather than his out of state consultants, who thought it was better for Rispone not to travel around the state and make more appearances. I think he really thought that his money was going to win this for him.

I don't think the "that hid him from gaffes" was the real reason. I paid attention to the campaign and yes, Rispone was awkward, Elmer Fudd-like, and he did make some gaffes. But he didn't make a lot of really bad ones. Especially when he wasn't put on the spot. If he had made it a priority to personally barnstorm north Louisiana after the primary, appearing before rallies and sympathetic audiences to give his stump speech, he might have made up the difference that he lost by. I think, at 70+ years of age, he was happy living more of the life he had at home and didn't want to deal with all of that.

There's no guarantee of course that he would've won if he had worked harder. But the fact remains, he put a lot less work into this campaign than he could have.