i really don't like my congressman jim gerlach. in the last two elections he managed to survive by the narrowest of margins. meanwhile, this is shaping up to be a strong democratic year and our district is steadily trending more and more democratic. this time i really thought that gerlach would be a goner.
but now it doesn't look that way. his challenger, bob roggio, is way behind in the polls. he's being outspent, out organized, out everything. most people in the district don't even know the name of the challenger (i couldn't remember it when i started writing this post and had to google it up. if the best that a political junky like me could come up with was "i think it begins with an 'r'", mr. roggio is in big trouble).
roggio's done a terrible job at just getting the word out that he's challenging gerlach. as i drive around here i see a bunch of gerlach signs, i don't think i've ever seen a single roggio one. a lot of people criticized lois murphy's campaign (she's the one who ran against gerlach and narrowly lost those last two times) for being disorganized and badly run. but compared to roggio, she ran a well-oiled machine. people at least knew the name "lois murphy" and she did come a hair away from beating him. roggio is such a mess he doesn't even have his own wiki page. if you search for him, you get redirected to this entry. meanwhile murphy, gerlach's former challenger from two years ago still has a whole page. aren't there enough roggio people out there to write his own wiki page?
back to the yard signs, as i mentioned no one seems to have any roggio signs around here. however, i have seen these yellow signs that say "fire gerlach." the "fire gerlach" campaign is "paid for and authorized by the bob roggio for congress committee" but the name roggio doesn't appear on the yellow signs. don't get me wrong, i'm all for firing gerlach. and when i vote for roggio, it will primarily be a vote against gerlach. it just seems like the "fire gerlach" campaign is a bad way to promote a candidate who is suffering from a pathetic lack of name recognition. also, as mrs. noz pointed out when we drove by one of the yellow signs last night, the word "gerlach" is the biggest word on the sign. if you're zooming by one of those things, you could easily mistake it for a pro-gerlach sign.
the "fire gerlach" signs just appeared (or, at least, i just noticed them). maybe the roggio campaign realized that they blew it on getting name recognition this year, that it's too late to do it at this point, and so they're trying the anti-gerlach approach as a last-minute ploy to take down the congressman. and maybe that is their only hope at winning at this point. i just wish they had gotten their act together sooner.
