Steve Glaser, who lost the state House District 44 race to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Mike McDonald, has delivered a harsh critique of the lack of support for his efforts from the state Democratic party. Steve Hale has reproduced his email and a response from TNDP.
Excerpt from the email:
My opponents party used their considerable clout and gravity to move his candidacy forward and managed to besmirch my reputation in the press with little or no response from us. The TNGOP conducted polling and provided technical support to my opponent and helped raise PAC money from traditional republican strongholds. It appears their strategy was to raise money, present their candidate as a reasonable person, and promote his republicanism to exploit his affiliation with the Romney Campaign.
On the other hand the TNDP provided absolutely no support to our campaign. In fact, we had to pay for access to Votebuilder, and pay for a “poll” that was ostensibly for us but was done for multiple candidates. We had to cajole the party into including our website on the candidate page. We had to request our video be promoted like the other candidates, but it was too late. We received more financial help from the Sumner County Democratic Party than from the TNDP which was zero. It was like pulling teeth to get our calls answered and the answers we got were often times inconsistent or wrong.
Excerpt from the response of TNDP’s Brandon Puttbrese:
“The Tennessee Democratic Party did more for candidates this time around than it’s ever done, broadly speaking, more than we’ve ever done for candidates across the board [than] ever before. Now some candidates needed more assistance, some needed less assistance. But we tried to offer a base level of support for every candidate.”
When asked, Puttbrese declined to say whether he rejected Glaser’s critique or if the former candidate’s claims of an absentee party organization were incorrect.
“We did everything we could for all kinds of candidates,” Puttbrese said. “I won’t say that Steve is wrong. I won’t say that he’s right. I would like to have a conversation with him, versus reading it on a blog, and I think that some people have had a conversation with him, not me personally. So, I’m not here to mince hairs with Steve. I think he did the best he could do in a tough district.”