Weigel

Ed Rendell’s False Advice for Bob Casey

Borys Krawczeniuk’s long take on the tighter Pennsylvania polls is being noticed for the one line by a partian criticizing his own party. Come on down, Ed Rendell, critic of Sen. Bob Casey’s campaign.

Casey? He hasn’t run a campaign. He’s run one ad, a stupid Tea Party ad. The Tea Party ad isn’t bad, but that’s all they’ve run. They’ve run a non-campaign up until now and Smith has put a lot of money into the campaign. You start spending money, that’ll change.

Gorgeous quote, but not quite true, and that’s bad for Casey. His opponent, Tom Smith, is a multi-millionaire who made his money in the energy industry and got political in the Tea Party boom. Smith went on the air early with a smart campaign playing on the idea that Casey hasn’t done anything with the seat. Casey’s been responding for months, though. His first ad went up in August.

This was followed by his first negative ad:

And by a pretty decent goofball ad.

This was in August in September. Since then, aided by better Republican enthusiasm, the first-time candidate Smith has made the race closer. Casey’s prevent defense didn’t shut him down, the way that Debbie Stabenow’s did in Michigan, or Joe Manchin’s did in West Virginia. It’s not a given that Casey can just run more ads and shut him down.