One final word on the Davis-Brimer race

By Matt Pulle | Monday, November 17th, 2008

Everyone, ourselves included, has been writing that Wendy Davis pulled off a mighty upset of Tarrant County state Sen. Kenneth “Kim” Brimer. But looking back, all the signs were there that the longtime Republican was choking away his re-election. Whether he was dropping out of debates for no reason or failing to learn about this crazy thing called the Internet, Brimer played a starring role in what might have been the worst campaign in Texas this year.

There’s a great story from Bernie Scheffler, the indefatigable media spokesman for Wendy Davis, that hits on just how languid his opponent’s efforts were. Two Saturdays before election day, volunteers and staffers for Davis were cycling in and out of her campaign headquarters as they went door-to-door in the district asking for votes. They’d been toiling hard for weeks and were feeling exhausted. So, at 5 p.m. that Saturday, a few people at the Davis campaign decided to have everybody drive by Kim Brimer’s headquarters. And wouldn’t you know it: All the lights were out and there were no cars in the parking lot.

After that, the Davis folks were buoyed and ready to put in another 10 tough days of door-to-door. They knew the other side took them for granted. And that made them campaign even harder.

I don’t think I’ve covered a campaign between two closely matched candidates in which one of them so obviously outworked the other as the Davis-Brimer race. It was almost as if the cigar-chomping Brimer felt like the fundamental process of democracy — asking people for their vote — was beneath him. I probably called Brimer’s headquarters 10 times during the campaign. Only a two or three times did an actual person pick up the phone; every other call went directly into voicemail.

In contrast, every single time I dialed up Davis’ campaign headquarters, someone picked up the phone. Every single time.

The laziness — or was it arrogance? –of the Brimer campaign should be serve as a handy cautionary tale for any incumbent. You have to do a minimum amount of work to retain your seat. You don’t necessarily have to outwork your challenger or even break a sweat, but you do have to get out of bed. To take our favorite example, Brimer didn’t even have a functional Web site up a month before election day. And when his staff finally got something up, it was incomplete. For example, if you click on the tab “Brimer versus opponent,” you get the following message:

“Being Updated. Please check back.”

And, in a way, that wound up being a rather prescient note. The district has been updated. Wendy Davis is its new state senator, while Kim Brimer is out of politics, probably for good. This is the kind of loss that you don’t live down and that defines your persona. And, of course, it didn’t help that Davis also battered Brimer by bringing up his history of bad debts.

I wonder how much of the incumbent’s loss also reflects on Bryan Eppstein, Brimer’s trusted (and very, very expensive) political consultant. What exactly was he doing this fall? I understand that even a guru like Eppstein can’t work miracles when he stuck with a lethargic candidate, but he should be able rally up a few decent volunteers and put up a skeletal website two months before the election. Right?

One last note: there’s a really interesting story by Dan McGraw of Fort Worth Weekly about how Brimer may have sealed his own fate when he interfered with how the city of Fort Worth manages its employee pension fund. Check it out.

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