{"id":6422,"date":"2012-08-15T12:19:22","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T16:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=6422"},"modified":"2012-08-15T12:33:33","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T16:33:33","slug":"will-dohenys-laid-back-campaign-style-get-it-done-in-ny-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2012\/08\/15\/will-dohenys-laid-back-campaign-style-get-it-done-in-ny-21\/","title":{"rendered":"The 100 Day Sprint: Will Doheny’s laid back campaign style get it done in NY-21?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Doheny, the Republican challenger to Democratic incumbent Bill Owens, released a fun, folksy video today where he reels off the names of every town in the newly formed 21st congressional district.\u00a0 193 names, ticked off on his fingers one by one.<\/p>\n

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It’s charming and for voters in the sprawling region who have never heard of Matt Doheny, it might be a warm, good-natured way to connect a face with a name.<\/p>\n

But I’m wondering if Doheny’s quiet, grassroots campaign this summer is drawing enough attention to build the kind of momentum that you generally need to unseat a sitting congressman.\u00a0 (One, I might add, who is not crippled by controversy, scandal or some other disqualifier.)<\/p>\n

It’s not a question of money.<\/p>\n

As of mid-July, Doheny had half a million dollars in the bank (Owens had nearly twice that much)<\/a>.\u00a0 The Republican has clearly made a decision not to go big — at least not yet — with a full court press advertising blitz.<\/p>\n

The result, especially when contrasted with the hot-blooded campaigns of 2009 and 2010 has been remarkably sleepy.\u00a0 My suspicion is that very few people indeed know there is even a race on.<\/p>\n

Which begs the question:\u00a0 If this is really a district that the national GOP — and their Super PAC allies — hope to reclaim, where are the wall-to-wall TV and radio spots?\u00a0 Where are the yard signs?<\/p>\n

One problem here is pure optics and perception:\u00a0 Even in the doldrums of summer, a challenger has to convince people that the challenge is real, that there is momentum, that desire for change exists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Doheny’s camp, and some national pundits, have described this race as a toss-up.\u00a0 Yet so far, the only publicly disclosed poll (albeit produced by a Democratic firm) showed Owens leading by 12%.<\/p>\n

To counter that narrative, I suspect that Doheny will eventually need to make some noise, and fairly soon.\u00a0 There are just 83 days left until people walk into the voting booth.<\/p>\n

It helped that House Speaker John Boehner visited the district recently to campaign with Doheny, a sign that national House leaders on the Republican side have the challenger’s back.<\/p>\n

It’s worth pointing out that Bill Owens, too, has been running a pretty sleepy campaign.<\/p>\n

Not a lot of theatrics.\u00a0 Not a lot of robocalls or wall-to-wall ads.<\/p>\n

But I suspect that Owens would be perfectly content with a contest that remains in slumber land through November 6th.<\/p>\n

So here’s my question to In Boxers:\u00a0 What are you seeing out there?\u00a0 Are you getting mailers?\u00a0 Are you seeing or hearing political ads?\u00a0 Getting robocalls at home?\u00a0 Are you and your neighbors talking about this contest?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Doheny, the Republican challenger to Democratic incumbent Bill Owens, released a fun, folksy video […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6548,6550,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6425,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6422\/revisions\/6425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}