I've always been of the opinion that you can tell how well a politician will govern based on the quality of the campaign they're running. That's not good for Michigan's Republican candidate for US Senate, Terri Lynn Land, whose campaign has just stepped in it again:
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land has sold her shares in a mutual fund that invests in an oil company she has lambasted Democratic opponent Gary Peters for owning direct stock in.
Land's divestment from Total SA came after a month of bashing Peters for owning stock in the French oil company that produces petroleum coke, an oil refining byproduct that the Democratic congressman opposed as a health risk when piles of it were previously stored near the Detroit River.
[...]
"It's a little curious that she would wait this long to divest because it takes away from her message," said David Dulio, chairman of the political science department at Oakland University. "It could get her off message, and that's never where a candidate wants to be."
Discussing personal finances is especially bad when there's already been a fair amount of chatter about how a former Michigan Secretary of State - the person who oversees campaign finance law - somehow
forgot about $3 million in self-funding she gave herself out of an account she forgot to include on her federal disclosure form Land submitted when she decided to run for office.
Land's campaign has multiple issues, but Stuart Rothenberg over at Roll Call sums it up nicely for us:
Land’s campaign seems to send me emails hourly and she has been hyped by many Republicans, but I’ve had my doubts. Those doubts were recently heightened when one person who has met her said Land “is so not ready for prime time that it’s amazing.”
Neither Land or her handlers seem to be handling her campaign well, so one can only imagine what she would be like as Senator. Remember "
the worst ad of the political process"? Even the GOP establishment is losing faith in Land,
if they ever had it in the first place:
"She wasn't anybody's first choice, for a variety of different reasons. And we're seeing why," said one longtime Michigan GOP heavyweight who asked not to be identified because of his friendship with Land.
Peters, on the other hand,
is taking the (charm) offensive at the moment and is basically ignoring Land. He can afford to, considering how her candidacy is slowly unraveling on its own.