Even before voting comes to a close on Tuesday in the special election to succeed late GOP Rep. Bill Young in
Florida's 13th Congressional District, national Republicans are already dumping on their candidate, lobbyist David Jolly. Their assumption seems to be that Jolly will lose to Democrat Alex Sink, and their basic message is the oldest one in the playbook: "Not my fault."
And they aren't pulling punches:
Over the past week, a half-dozen Washington Republicans have described Jolly’s campaign against Democrat Alex Sink as a Keystone Cops operation, marked by inept fundraising, top advisers stationed hundreds of miles away from the district in the state capital and the poor optics of a just-divorced, 41-year-old candidate accompanied on the campaign trail by a girlfriend 14 years his junior. The sources would speak only on condition of anonymity.
Of course, it should be noted that even though these guys seem convinced that Jolly is an incompetent cradle robber, they nonetheless
spent more than $2 million boosting his candidacy, not including another half-million from Karl Rove's political operation. Priorities, right?