Rep. Brad Miller -- His Campaign Strategy, Weaknesses and Ways to Counter...

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Rep. Brad Miller has been essentially silent during the run up to this campaign season. This will not be the case indefinitely.

Brad Miller's campaign strategy in past election cycles has been to attempt to label his opponent with unflattering imagery in the final 2-3 weeks of the campaign. It has been a successful strategy for him and his current campaign which can be best described as a stealth campaign conducted through a compliant media shows every indication that he will repeat this strategy.

Funding the media blitz required when implementing such a strategy in the final weeks of a campaign may prove more difficult for Miller this season than in past campaigns. Brad Miller, though, continues to have the advantage of a second constituency of lobbyists in DC who have both deeper pockets and a more focused interest than those Brad Miller truly represents in North Carolina.

Earlier this year in this post I wrote:

Brad Miller, like all representatives, has fund raisers, but I question Brad Miller's motives when he holds a fund raiser for himself in Washington DC. I doubt many North Carolinians are willing to drive to DC to have a breakfast in Brad Miller's support at $1000 to $5000 per head. Brad Miller has no constituents in Washington DC, yet apparently he finds it fertile enough ground for campaign contributions that he held a fund raiser in Washington DC on March 25,2010.

Of course, this is a fundraiser held amidst Brad Miller's second constituency of special interests in Washington DC. They are his constituency of dollars, not votes.

The image of the invitation has since been scrubbed from the site at the above link, but an image of it is below:



This remains Brad Miller's funding edge over Bill Randall. According to Open Secrets as of late June Brad Miller received less than half of his campaign funding from individual contributions and 10% of those flowed into Miller's campaign from outside NC. The greatest portion of Miller's campaign funds (over half) have come from Political Action Committees (PACS) more commonly known as special interests. These are the people who he raises funding from (sells his influence to?) through "breakfasts" such as the one imaged above.


Some more takeaways from opensecrets:

• Brad Miller's strategy is expensive and as the graph below indicates money does not seem to be flowing his direction as easily as it once did.

• One of the largest expenses listed under the expenditures tab was to a polling firm in Virginia, Cooper & Secrest Assoc. It is interesting that the Miller campaign has yet to see fit to release their data. The fact that the results have not been released by the Miller campaign not only suggests a lack of pride in the numbers, but more importantly, weakness in their polling data.

But how is Miller's strategy to be countered?

• The first is to expect the attacks.
  
• The second is to take note of the missing information in his attacks. This season every major bill Brad Miller voted for will likely be absent from his campaign. There is a reason for this; it weakens him. Attacks and belittlement will be his only "ammo". Attacks, though, debase a campaign. Countering with factual information referencing Miller's poor record of governance will enhance the respectability of the Randall campaign.
• Look for ways that these "attacks" from Miller can be used against him as Florida Rep. Alan Greyson's attacks have been used against him.
  
• Take note of the fact that Miller is an incumbent. This may seem obvious, but when a local election is nationalized, as this one has been, the mood of the nation, positive or negative, will be transferred t0 the local level. The national mood this season is decidedly negative.
• Take note of the fact that Brad Miller more than doubles his campaign "war chest" with PAC money to run his campaign.
• Note that Miller has been a beneficiary of the corrupting use of earmarks to "buy" his constituents votes with their own tax dollars, transferring nearly $27 million dollars as earmarks resulting in ranking himself in the upper 1/3 in congress most like to dabble in this corruption.
  
• Take note that Miller has spent his way to a $13 trillion national debt, dollars spent on the backs of the unborn even though he said this on his website:

  "Most American families have to balance their budgets and make ends meet, the same should be true for government," said Miller. "The Bush Administration has turned a projected 10-year $5.6 billion surplus into a nearly $3 trillion deficit and that must be reversed."

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