Paul Smith—the perpetual CD 5 candidate against Doris Matsui—effectively threw in the towel today. Had this been Smith’s first run as the Don Quixote candidate in the race, I might have more sympathy but the way this was handled today was more the act of a petulant child. Paul flamed on a lot of supporters and well wishers unnecessarily.
When last I had heard from Paul’s campaign last week he was trying to cobble together enough funds to order some yard signs. Today’s message of I quit unless you give me $20,000 ASAP was unprofessional. Paul knew what he was getting into long before now.
On the whole, I like Paul but every once in a while he really gets off on tangents. I remember last summer when he was demanding $300 from the Sacramento County Republican Party so he would have the funds to rent a hall to hold a townhall event on healthcare. The SCRP couldn’t give him any funds because they felt that this would be tantamount to a pre-primary endorsement. Instead of looking elsewhere for the money, he went on the Eric Hogue radio show and publicly took the SCRP to task. The fact that a Congressional candidate could not raise a mere $300 to hold a public event seemed laughable to me.
I agree with him that Doris is part of the problem but her district is so safe that it would take millions to move enough voters to throw her out. In addition to the almost 15,000 newly registered Republicans in his district, he would need about 70,000 more to have a likelihood of winning in November.
Paul’s actions today affirm the belief that the Republican voter registration efforts in Sacramento County have largely been a wasted effort since he has been the primary beneficiary of the effort and not Dan Lungren. The high registration bounties paid in Sacramento County were intended to boost Lungren out of the vulnerable category. Lungren has only recently been made aware of this fact. Unfortunately, the political consultant that is running the registration effort seems to get paid the same regardless of where the newly registered voter lives.
As a result of the press release today, Smith’s days as a candidate are likely over. It’s too bad, I like having Paul around.