"August 6, 2014
Terri Lynn Land is officially her party's nominee for Michigan's open Senate seat, and Republicans are less than inspired.
Not that that should come as any surprise.
There's one simple reason Michigan Republicans worked feverishly to recruit someone other than Land to run:
The last few months of her campaign is proof, revealing the warts and weaknesses that her allies have always known could ruin the GOP's best opportunity in two decades to take a grab at this Senate seat.
Certainly, Land has some things going for her.
The former secretary of state is a woman in a male-dominated party.
She's known by GOP donors nationwide after serving on the Republican National Committee, and has raised impressive sums of money, self-funding roughly one-third of her campaign.
She also won two statewide elections with healthy majorities, giving her solid name identification.
But on the nuts and bolts of campaigning – operational tactics, articulating policy specifics, messaging through advertisements and media – there were serious doubts about whether Land could compete.
With partisan control of the Senate up for grabs, Michigan's race this year is a nationally significant one. Republicans who know Land were concerned about her lack of exposure to the national spotlight, and whether she could survive the scrutiny of such a campaign.
Those fears are now being realized."
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