This explains EVERYTHING
This past week, Terri Lynn Land held her first conference since she announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat. Her entire campaign so far has relied on millions of dollars of ads being run by the Koch brothers-funded group Americans For Prosperity. Land herself has been doing private fundraisers and avoiding the press in an unprecedented way.
When Land got into the race, she was not endorsed by any major Republicans. In fact, it was quite clear that they were really not that into her from the start. Only after all of the major players declined to run, knowing full well that Gary Peters will be a formidable candidate in a blue state, did they get behind her campaign. Land didn’t care. With her millions in personal funds to contribute, she stayed the course until all other opponents dropped out, leaving her the last candidate standing.
After listening to this 12 minute press conference, it’s obvious WHY she was unsupported by her Republican colleagues: she’s a disaster in front of the press.
Land’s entire campaign at the moment is to run against Peters on the Affordable Care Act. In fact, the first part of press conference was a litany of people who claim they have been harmed by Obamacare in Michigan. She has nothing else. And this press conference was almost exclusively about that and it is a case study in how to avoid answering questions and how NOT to come across as thoughtful, intelligent, and informed on your key issue.
You can listen to the press conference using the player below. Audio was provided by MIRS News Service. This is only the portion of the press conference where Land took questions:
In the conference, she repeats the same written out, predetermined answers about the Affordable Care Act. She avoids making any definitive statements about expanding Medicaid in Michigan. She doesn’t take a stand on the contraception mandate that’s part of the ACA and which is the big topic of the week given the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case. She simply repeated the same prepared answers over and over again. When she got a question for which she had no answer, she told the reporter she’d get back to them on that. As LOLGOP pointed out yesterday, at one point a staffer jumped in, tried to take the call “off the record” and then proceeded to lie about the Affordable Care Act.
The press conference was a complete disaster for Land. She came away looking like a deer in headlights on her number one issue. When and if there is a debate between her and Gary Peters, she will need the sort of intensive memorization training that Sarah Palin needed before her debate with Vice President Joe Biden. She is uninformed and unable to think quickly on her feet to come up with a response to anything she hasn’t been completely prepped for.
If it wasn’t for the millions of dollars being spent by Land herself as well as the Koch brothers, in fact, this wouldn’t even be a race at all.
UPDATE: MIRS News Service is reporting that their most recent polling shows the race between Land and Gary Peters at a statistical dead heat:
Land-Peters essentially tied 44%-43% according to MIRS/Target Insyght poll. http://t.co/kkadMJ1QjL
— MIRSnews.com (@MIRSnews) March 25, 2014
This is not good news for Land who has spend nearly $2 million of her own money so far and has had several million dollars of sweet, sweet Koch brothers cash spent against Peters, as well.
