We’re going to do a series of articles regarding the U.S. Senate race. This first one will examine potential candidates for each of the political party teams, R&D (or, should it be D&R?). The follow-up articles will examine the domino-effect of who may replace those people deciding to run for Senate.

Before we launch into that fun exercise, we wanted to take a moment to make an observation. Senator Zell Miller stuck to his word from 2000 and we believe he deserves a huge pat on the back. And, even if you don’t want to congratulate him on sticking by his word to only finish out Senator Paul Coverdell’s term, you should consider thanking him for having the decency not to play games with his candidacy. He came right out and said he wasn’t going to run again within the first working week of the New Year.

Senator Miller is an honorable man, and politicos on all sides of the aisle would do well to emulate his attitude and character.

Preface

Okay, the fun stuff. Or, at least, our version of “fun.” We have to accept the fact that 15-40% of you will not like our methods of analysis at all. It’ll be too technical and numbers-oriented and we know that a lot of people went into politics to get completely away from having to do math. Well, all we can do is apologize for our technical background having a lot of influence in the world of political analysis.

One little point that we need to make: Our consideration of all of the candidates we have evaluated, and subsequent “scoring” of them, was based as much as possible on a truly “objective” analysis. This means no favoritism was used to “push” certain candidates, nor was any maliciousness used for most of the candidates (except for Marilyn Gilhuly, and she deserved every bit of it and more. Maria Strollo should be thankful we didn’t even begin to consider her candidacy.).

You will disagree with our analysis. You will disagree with our scoring assessment. Candidates with whom we’ve previously aligned ourselves with do not necessarily receive the highest marks. Candidates we’ve previously aligned ourselves against do not always get the lowest marks. We tried to do realistic assessments and analysis (which is available in PDF format).

Methodology

In the past, the Political Vine has sometimes operated on pure emotion in picking candidates to support (or malign). Rather than continue that path, which sometimes comes down to “That guy’s an idiot” as our defense in not picking someone else’s candidate (yes, we can admit that…can you?), we decided to develop some qualitative factors to compare candidates. True, there is some subjective influence even in the determination of our Value Scores for each candidate, but whether you agree with our conclusions or not, we think you will agree there are many factors that go into the chances of someone winning the Senate seat.

We came up with eight measures of the potential candidacy of someone. One problem with these measures is that they really only apply to people currently in the political arena. On the one hand, that’s good because we can all have opinions on the scores. On the other hand, it could all be a completely irrelevant and inconsequential exercise. The “win-ability” of Congressman Max Burns for instance, if we applied these factors to his candidacy in the primary, would have suffered a low score in our schematic. And, he was a political nobody at the beginning of his race.

Rating Guide:

A = Candidate's Fundraising Ability (Measurement of Ability to Raise Money) Value Range = 0 to +100

B = Primary Election Name ID (Name ID with all Primary Voters.) Value Range = 0 to +100

C = General Election Name ID (Name ID with all General Election Voters.) Value Range = 0 to +100

D = General Election Elect-ability (Measures degree of potential crossover vote-getting.) Value Range = 0 to +100

E = Legislative Experience Factor (Measures degree of legislative maturity.) Value Range = 0 to +100

F = Primary Baggage Factor (Measures degree of potential negatives in a Primary Election.) Value Range = -100 to 0

G = General Baggage Factor (Measures degree of potential negatives in a General Election.) Value Range = -100 to 0

H = Unique Quality Factor (Measures degree of a unique quality) Value Range = 0 to +100

Most of these are self-explanatory except perhaps “General Election Election-Ability” (yeah, the expression sucks but it was 2:00 AM) and “Unique Quality Factor.”

The Unique Quality Factor is a measure of some quality that the candidate brings that truly sets them apart from everyone else. When we get to the analysis, you will see Ralph Reed and Bob Barr received a score of “25” each and people like Bob Irvin and Jack Kingston received no points on uniqueness. Barr and Reed are unique because, like it or not, they possess a charismatic uniqueness that will draw people to vote on their name only, without anyone caring what their true political views are. Cathy Cox will receive a grade of “50” due to her gender. Bob Irvin and Jack Kingston are just nice white guys with no special vote-getting ability (nothing personal, Bob and Jack, just our conclusion when compared to the rest of the field).

Now, partisans of either party tend to never really consider things like “General Election Elect-Ability” in choosing a candidate. For most of the 1990s, that cost us Republican seats for Georgia. It cost us the U.S. Senate in 1996. It cost us a lot of state-level races in 1998.

In analyzing the potential of any candidate, you need to consider the amount of crossover potential in the General Election. Because, despite what after-the-election-fact claims by people like Dan Becker of the Georgia Right To Life cling to (i.e., that the abortion issue was a huge factor in this year’s elections…it wasn’t) OR even what State GOP Chairman Ralph Reed considers was a big wave of Republican voters at the end, our wins this year did not center around abortion or “Republican principles.”

You look at the races the Republicans won in this state. We won regional races (i.e., congressional districts) and we won U.S. Senate and Governor. We didn’t win Attorney General. We didn’t win Secretary of State. We didn’t win Labor Commissioner. We didn’t win Lt. Governor. We didn’t win the majority of State Senate seats (though, yes, we gained converters). We won Insurance Commissioner due to incumbency. We won State School Superintendent due to similarities of our Republican candidate’s name ID being pretty close to the name ID of the incumbent Secretary of State.

The fact that we did not win Lt. Governor, SOS, AG, and Labor tells us that this is NOT a Republican-majority state. If it were, people would’ve voted straight-Republican ticket without any regard to the candidates.

As it is, we believe the straight-ticket Republican vote amounts to 44.5% of the General Election vote. We use this number because this is what our AG candidate, Shannon Goessling, received. She had no General Election advertising for her name ID. And, she had no political baggage. In comparison, Charlie Bailey had name ID due to previous runs and a whole lot of negative General Election Baggage, causing 8.5% of the Republicans to vote for Cathy Cox.

No, in this state, we will assert that the winning margin is determined by who the warriors are in the particular General Election arena of political battle. Sonny Perdue won in part due to his own charisma, and in part to Roy Barnes’s arrogance. One Democrat voter we interviewed said she voted for Perdue because he looked like a nice man in his television ads and Roy reminded her of an arrogant tyrant.

Again, the crossover potential is due to the person’s own charisma in attracting the middle-of-the-road voter, not their political ideologies. And, this will be a huge factor in who wins the General Election for this U.S. Senate seat.

The Analysis

For the Republican field, we considered 12 candidates. They are:

Barr, Bob
Collins, Mac
Gilhuly, Marilyn (just for PV kicks)
Irvin, Bob
Isakson, Johnny
Kingston, Jack
Norwood, Charlie
Oxendine, John
Paul, Rusty
Reed, Ralph
Schrenko, Linda
Stancil, Steve

For the Democrat field, we considered 9 candidates:

Baker, Thurbert
Cleland, Max
Cox, Cathy
Hecht, Greg
Lewis, John
Massey, Lewis
McKinney, Cynthia
Taylor, Mark
Worley, David

One thing to keep in mind is that our analysis is first based on how each candidate would do within their own ranks and then we will compare head-to-head match-ups for the General.

Scores were assigned and then the average was taken for each candidate and compared to all the others within their own political party’s analysis. We could have weighted some of these factors, but that would take on a whole ‘nother dimension of complexity that even our slide-rule geeks didn’t want to venture into. You are free to do as you wish.

Oh, by the way, one of the candidates in each of the political party analyses was the identical “base candidate.” The base candidate was needed to set a comparison threshold of scores within each of the party comparisons. Those average scores that fall above the base candidate are truly potential candidates. Those that fell below the base candidate shouldn’t be considered.

And, who was the base candidate? Donald Duck, actually. Now, after you finish laughing, consider this scoring of Mr. Duck:

0 = Fundraising Ability
100 = Primary Name ID
100 = General Election Name ID
100 = General Election Elect-Ability (100% chance crossover vote would occur just on the novelty of it)
0 = Legislative Experience
-50 = Primary Baggage Factor (He’s a duck, and a cartoon one at that)
-50 = General Baggage Factor (He’s a duck, and a cartoon one at that)
100 = Unique Quality Factor (He’s a cartoon duck. Pretty unique and unusual to get on the ballot.)

We compute Donald Duck’s score by calculating the average to be 38. If any candidate falls below Donald, they shouldn’t even be considered as viable. (Note: Again, this analysis only applies to candidates who are currently in the political arena and can be measured in these terms. Candidates with no political experience have to be evaluated in different ways)

Now, consider how these same scores might be for…say, our “Friend of The Vine,” Cobb GOP Chair Marilyn Gilhuly:

0 = Fundraising Ability
1 = Primary Name ID
0 = General Election Name ID
0 = General Election Elect-Ability (0% chance crossover vote would occur)
0 = Legislative Experience
-100 = Primary Baggage Factor (Anyone with a brain would vote for Donald before they would vote for Gilhuly)
-100 = General Baggage Factor (Anyone with a brain would vote for Donald before they would vote for Gilhuly)
50 = Unique Quality Factor (If we have to classify her in gender terms, she is a female. But, she is definitely no lady.)

Her score computes to be –19. No-go for Gilhuly.

We have analyzed groups of candidates for each of the political parties and that is available in a PDF format. Download them and study them for yourself because we are going to skip right to the folks who did score above the base.

Okay, if you’ve downloaded and read the stuff, we have these results:

Base Candidate Score = 38

GOP Candidates:

Johnny Isakson = 54
Charlie Norwood = 47
John Oxendine = 45
Rusty Paul = 39

Donkey Candidates:

Thurbert Baker = 46
Max Cleland = 52
Cathy Cox = 52
John Lewis = 55
Lewis Massey = 49
Mark Taylor = 48


GENERAL ELECTION MATCHUP: Strength of GOP Candidate vs. Donkey

These Numbers signify the probability of our GOP candidate defeating the Donkey candidate in the General.

Note: These ratings are highly subjective because they are based on difficult-to-define factors like:
a) Candidate’s ability to project strength in relation to the opponent.

b) Candidate’s articulation of message in relation to opponent.

c) Candidate’s total package attraction to the voter compared to the opponent (anyone remember Steve Forbes?)

d) Candidate’s ability to effectively define opponent before he/she defines him.

e) Candidate’s ability to relate to the typical voter.

f) Candidate’s ability to project that he is more trustworthy than his opponent.

Probabilities of Johnny Isakson Defeating The Donkey Potential:

60% against Thurbert Baker
65% against Max Cleland
60% against Cathy Cox
55% against John Lewis
60% against Lewis Massey
85% against Mark Taylor

Probabilities of Charlie Norwood Defeating The Donkey Potential:

50% against Thurbert Baker
65% against Max Cleland
40% against Cathy Cox
50% against John Lewis
65% against Lewis Massey
85% against Mark Taylor

Probabilities of John Oxendine Defeating The Donkey Potential:

30% against Thurbert Baker
35% against Max Cleland
35% against Cathy Cox
40% against John Lewis
20% against Lewis Massey
60% against Mark Taylor

Probabilities of Rusty Paul Defeating The Donkey Potential:

60% against Thurbert Baker
65% against Max Cleland
50% against Cathy Cox
50% against John Lewis
65% against Lewis Massey
90% against Mark Taylor

Political Vine’s Conclusions:

We’re not going to conclude anything because there are entirely too many what-ifs. We could brush-off the old Linear Programming Textbook and proceed to dazzle you with iterations of all of the what-ifs, but, what good would that do? All this analysis could change inside of a week.

However, we have a poll on the four GOP candidates that we've analyzed as having the best potential to come out of the primary. You can make your choice known there.

Upcoming issues will discuss other potential candidates who are not on anyone’s horizon, but who perhaps should be. Also, we will be looking at Part 2 of the Political Dominoes when we discuss who would possibly move-up to replace Isakson, Norwood, and Oxendine (Rusty Paul currently holds no elected position, so there is no domino effect for him) should they run for the U.S. Senate.

Oh, but if you are interested in really discussing these issues, checkout our Discussion Board. It should get rather lively.