Just finished watching the PBS documentary, A Perfect Candidate, from 1996. That was the year Lt. Col Oliver North ran for US Senate in the Commonwealth of Virginia against incumbent Democrat, Chuck Robb. Many of you recall it was the year, Republicans took back the US Senate and House from Democrats after 40 plus years of Democratic control. North ended up losing by three percentage points 42.9% – 45.6% with an Independent spoiler taking 11.4% of the vote.

Here’s a video clip from the film featuring Mark Goodin, Senior Strategist for the campaign in which he explains the art of campaigning.

As someone who intensely worked on a US Senate campaign, what really struck me was Goodin’s realization that North should have remained “negative” on Robb all the way through election day. The campaign chose to instead be positive. Goodin ends up blaming himself for losing and not beating the hell out of Robb.

Will we see the same type of campaigning  take place here in Arizona over the next 19 months? My guess is yes. Case in point: John McCain spent $24 Million in negative advertising against JD Hayworth in the 2010 Primary Election. McCain’s people are closely allied with Jeff Flake’s people so expect any challengers to Flake’s campaign to be experience the same type of scorched-earth campaigning that you saw in 2010.