Attack him where he is unprepared. Appear where you are not expected.
-- Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
I recently made a political move that I am quite proud of. I out-smarted and out-fought my opponent in the election before the fight even began. Because of this, I believe I will be the winner of the Republican Primary on June 8th and I believe I will be the top candidate to take down Socialist Karen Bass in the General Election in November 2010.
I took a trip to the Registrar Recorders Office in Norwalk and asked to see all the candidate statements for the candidates in my election -- the 33rd Congressional District. Surprisingly, Socialist Karen Bass hadn't filed to have a statement! I found that stunning. With her financial advantage, why not spend an extra grand or two to get an official page in the voter information handbook that gets mailed to all voting households? It didn't make any sense... except that maybe Bass feels she is so far ahead of everyone in the Democratic Primary that she doesn't have to do anything to win. It would be a tremendous mistake to underestimate her opponents, but that would be Karen Bass for you. Dumb. More on her later....
I asked to see the Candidate Statements of my Republican opponents, David Crowley and James Andion... both of whom have run for Congress before. David Crowley didn't pay for a statement, which wasn't a surprise because at a recent event he said he was unemployed. The expense was probably too prohibitive for him.
James Andion, an attorney who is originally from Michigan, paid for a very bland statement that reads more like a resumé listing his different achievements. I asked for a printed copy and paid the required fee.
Upon further analysis, I saw that Andion was ending his campaign statement by asking people to go to his website...
Andion2010.com.
Hmm...I thought...that's different from the terribly weak site he has now...
...which looks like he spent about 5 minutes making it.
I wondered.. "is he going to spring a surprise attack with an all-new website and campaign?" I thought I better do some investigating and sure enough .. Andion2010.com didn't even exist yet.
In fact, it hadn't even been registered yet!!
How could he be so careless as to not register his own campaign website?
I realized that he probably hadn't thought anyone would see his statement until it came out in the mail a few months down the road. He probably wasn't even thinking about it.
I could not believe this stroke of luck. I quickly went online and snapped it up for myself.
There goes his sneak attack. Now, I will do him one better, I thought.
I contacted my webmaster and had him build a quick site for it. Check it out.
The voter information booklets for the June Primary are scheduled to begin being mailed out on Monday, May 10th. Voters in over 280,000 households will be able to open the booklet and read about ballot proposals and also get their first look at candidate information.
I wrote a very strong statement promoting myself (I'll print it after it comes out ).
James Andion writes a bland resumé-style piece that ends by sending voters to a website...
.... that endorses me!!
Three things are going to happen on Monday, May 10th.
1) James Andion is going to feel very foolish, and probably a bit embarrassed by his gaffe.
2) Voters who visit the website are going to think that Andion is either totally incompetent, or that he dropped out of the race and is endorsing me.
3) The CRA will look bad, and will probably never endorse James Andion again in any election.
In fact, this is the type of thing that kills careers.
James Andion will probably never be able to run for anything again.
If the media catches wind of this...and they probably will... it will be more humiliation for him.
Imagine, you are running for a spot in the United States Congress...and you ask voters to go to a website that promotes your opponent? Oops!
Do I have any sympathy for James Andion? No... none.
It was his job to be better prepared for battle.
He is my opponent in this campaign, and I did what was necessary to defeat him.
I think this election is over, and a single vote hasn't even been cast yet.
And for Socialist Karen Bass in November? Oh yeah... I have a plan for her, too.
I'll give you a hint. She's not going to like it.
But for now, I eagerly await the delivery of those voter information booklets on Monday.
This is going to be good.
