One month from now, many a political activist and amateur pundit will survey the landscape and speculate on why certain candidates lost. As in most cycles, too much credit will be lavished upon events in October -- and this year that means there will be too much of a focus on the saga involving former Florida Rep. Mark Foley (R).
Big news in the last month does matter, but October stories aren't singularly important. If they were, campaigns wouldn't spend a dollar in any month other than October.
October incidents can have an effect on turnout, but they usually do little to add or change the perception of a candidate. A candidate's image is built months earlier.
In the two weeks since the Foley scandal unfolded, I've noticed an interesting pattern in key races: Republicans seeing the biggest drops in support are those who didn't think they were in big trouble three months ago. Now they have little framework with which to define themselves or their opponents in this awful climate.
The most embattled Republicans, many of whom we identified 18 months ago, seem to be weathering "Hurricane Mark" better than expected. The reason: Incumbents in places like Connecticut, Missouri or Pennsylvania have been preparing for what they feared would be a rough 2006 for nearly 18 months.
What this proves is that campaigns are rarely won or lost in October; the decisive moment happens much earlier in the cycle.
For some races, the decisive moment was filing day (see Florida Senate). For other races, it could have been Election Day 2005 (see New Jersey Senate), and for still others, the campaign's mindset going into the cycle will determine the outcome (there are too many of those to single out).
This week, several races deserve to be highlighted, the outcomes of which can't be blamed on an "October surprise" but rather on a summer slumber.
Let's start in Connecticut with the single most-talked about campaign in the left-half of the blogosphere.
Barring a bad gaffe or an extraordinary turn of events, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) appears to be much closer to winning re-election than I ever thought possible. This makes little sense, particularly because Iraq has returned to the fore as the nation's No. 1 issue, and Lieberman appears to be on the wrong side of the issue as far as the public is concerned.
But something happened in August that turned this race from being Democrat Ned Lamont's to lose: Lamont didn't go for the kill.
In the two weeks immediately following Lamont's primary victory, Lieberman was reeling. He had no party, little support, little staff and not much money. And what did Lamont do during this critical period? He took his foot off of Lieberman's throat.
There was a period when Lieberman could have been branded a sore loser. In fact, it wouldn't have been the first time Lieberman would have felt that sting. (Think back to the national landscape in 2000.)
But Lamont (and the media) gave Lieberman enough time and oxygen to become an "independent," and that seemed to marginalize Lamont's victory. Too many Connecticut Democrats view Lieberman positively right now. Lamont could have gone on the air immediately in August -- even guilted his new Democratic friends to cut TV ads for him -- and created an atmosphere that might have made Lieberman think twice about continuing his bid.
But that didn't happen. Lamont could still win, but Lieberman seems to be framing the debate and appears to have the momentum. If he wins re-election, Lamont and his supporters will look at August as their "woulda, coulda, shoulda" moment.
Next on our list of races where early strategic decisions may lead to a loss is Tennessee.
In their heart of hearts, no one in Republican candidate Bob Corker's campaign believed back in August that they could lose to Democrat Harold Ford Jr. The campaign's mindset seemed to be "nervous but not worried" about Ford. Frankly, it's not just Corker who may have taken Ford too lightly. The entire GOP apparatus, both nationally and locally, seems to have made that fumble, and what that mindset leads to are strategic mistakes.
Ford has dictated the terms of the debate in this race since the GOP primary. Corker constantly seems to be the one on the responding end. And now that October has rolled around and Tennessee's voting public is getting used to viewing Ford as a viable senator, the GOP is going to have a hard time changing the candidate's perception at this late date.
Corker may still win because all the baggage Ford carries with him could be too much to overcome. But if Corker loses, the GOP and the candidate only have themselves to blame. More could have been done to define Ford in August, or even sooner. Maybe the GOP strategists were convinced the voters were as well informed about Ford as they were. Whatever the reason, there are a lot of Republicans kicking themselves on this race.
Then there's the New Jersey story. If Democrats come up a seat short of taking the Senate, and if that seat is the Garden State's, then they have themselves (and newly installed Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine) to blame.
Sen. Robert Menendez's (D) dirty laundry was aired well before Corzine appointed him to the seat. All the potential liabilities he brought to the race were exhaustively speculated on by the media and inside the Democratic Party. But if state Sen. Tom Kean Jr. (R) wins, the Monday-morning quarterbacking on whether Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone or Rob Andrews could have run a better race will be intense.
Menendez may still win, but a good $5 million of national Democratic resources will be drained to pull him over the finish line. That's money the party could have used in places like Arizona or Virginia.
Early mistakes have played a role in other races, including:
Minnesota Senate: Where were the early negative ads against Democrat Amy Klobuchar? : The Democratic primary was simply deadly to the party's chances.
Michigan Senate: If Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) gets dragged into a real race the last two weeks, it's because she didn't put Mike Bouchard (R) away earlier. Of course, had Bouchard gotten in the race earlier...
Ohio Senate: How did Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) define himself as a "populist" before Sen. Mike DeWine (R) and the GOP could define him as a "liberal"?
So while every move a campaign makes these next few weeks seems incredibly critical, don't underestimate the problems caused by a February, March or April decision. Remember, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., didn't vote for or against anything in October.
Chuck Todd is a NationalJournal.com contributing editor and editor in chief of The Hotline. His e-mail address is [email protected].
