Sometimes, I get a cold bucket of water in my email. I had to role-play Baghdad Bob as I was reading Kevin Kiley’s latest campaign email:
Dear Aaron,
To everyone who supported our campaign in so many ways — thank you! I am grateful beyond words to the hundreds of donors, dozens of volunteers, and countless others who did so much over the last several months. Thanks to your tremendous support, we made this a very close race, receiving over 70,000 votes despite a 4:1 spending gap.
I’m particularly grateful for the strong support from voters in the 6th Assembly District, which we won with over 70 percent of the vote. I’m humbled by the trust of my constituents, and I look forward to continue fighting for you at the Capitol.
Our work together is just getting started.
Yours sincerely,
Kevin
Losing by 6.8% is not close. It is as close as his “first place finish” was in March. In a special election runoff losing by 6.8% or 10,400 votes is as close as Kevin Kiley has ever been to touching cattle.
Also note that AD06 Voters were outperformed by AD01 voters by a large margin suggesting that Kiley did not inspire his own district to support him. He points out the 70% number in an attempt to dissuade potential challengers.
Kiley has a lot of questions to answer – in particular what he did to earn so many people spending big to stop him? When I went to Brian Dahle’s reception, several lobbyists and “Third House” people volunteered their outright disdain for Mr. Kiley. Does that disdain translate in to cutting off money to Kiley’s campaign from these people?
I’ve been made aware of at least one powerful Assemblymember that has made it clear to several institutional donors that they will retaliate against the would be donor if they support Kiley.
You have to be skilled to make people that angry, that is something I have only seen Tom McClintock accomplish when he was in Sacramento as well. Perhaps even the “Third House” people have a limit as it pertains to being berated, talked down to and double-dealt on?
Another item of particular interest, people also volunteered how offended they were by the Ose-Kiley Cattle Company fraud. It is clear to this blogger there will be retaliation against Kiley for that stunt. Why Doug Ose participated in that is beyond me.
For me, when I got this email, it was just another attempt to save face and cover for embarrassment. Kiley was asked before, during and after his aborted run for SD-01 why he was doing it. On the campaign trail, he did not play well with others. He alienated Rex Hime and Theodore Dizuba so bad, both showed up to Dahle’s after party and gave him material support during the campaign after having run against him in the primary.
I am only aware of serious ground efforts in Sacramento County on Kiley’s behalf that stemmed more from angry email exchanges between their Chair and Josh Cook, Dahle’s Chief of Staff. There were other isolated efforts, but not the stuff a winning campaign is made of.
The $1MM that was spent on Dahle would not have been spent if Kiley looked like he had a good chance of winning. The ferocity and the wide range of groups that gave to Dahle were motivated more so than usual by Kiley’s behavior – something the young man is tone deaf to as proven by his Baghdad Bob level email today.
Do I think Kevin Kiley will get a serious primary challenge? I hope so, if anything to hammer his ego down a few more notches. Our work together is just getting started indeed…
P.S. Kiley is in debt a reputed $300k. Ouch.
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