several campaigns used the same company for direct mail and campaign direction. Obviously when campaigns win everyone takes credit, when a campaign loses then it’s always easier to look at one or two things that coulda, woulda, shoulda happened that didn’t. Rarely have I seen a winner volunteer or offer a post op suggestion for why their opponent failed. Last week in the weakly tabloid owned and ran by the parent company of the Knoxville News Sentinel we see where Jennifer Owen does just that.
Owen is a former teacher who has deep subject matter knowledge of education issues. She designed her own direct mail and spent around $7,000, which she believes was far too much. She also believes Standefer’s money wasn’t spent wisely:
“I have a post office box, and I kept getting Grant’s mailers at my house and at the box. It was ‘Oh, there’s another one!’ From the first day, I got two. I was wondering ‘Can nobody sort out this database?’ They should have taken out my name and the names of people they knew were supporting me. And they should have been taking out the early voters, but they didn’t take out anybody. It was very wasteful.
“I kept thinking, ‘How is this marketing company doing all this?’ All I can assume is the more they spend, the more they get. They wasted money on me, because I wasn’t going to change my vote.”
I editorialized my support for Standefer (Owen’s opponent) for several reasons. However, Owen has publicly published that I reported every question and answer asked at a League of Women Voters forum. Buddy Pelot, a candidate for Fifth District Knox Co School Board on March 1 was able to live on to fight another day, August 4 in a runoff with a former department store buyer. He has a chance to take a 20/20 look at what was successfu, what was cost effective and what changes could be made to gather up Lori Boudreaux supporters and to be more successful on August 4.
