"We Come To Bury Sodrel, Not To Praise Him"

That's the title of an interesting article on Mike Sodrel's political career (esp. what he said going into the May primary) from Stuart Rothenberg, a big political pundit with CQPolitics...

Mike Sodrel has been in my life forever. Or maybe it just seems that way....But with his bizarre primary defeat earlier this month, Sodrel, a 64-year-old trucking company owner, probably ends a political run that featured more downs than ups...

He came in for an interview in late March, his eyes focused squarely on Hill and the general election, not on the primary. He was armed with a Wilson Research Strategies poll of 400 likely general election voters (with an oversample that included 300 likely GOP primary voters), conducted Feb. 28 to March 4.

During the interview, Sodrel and his consultants dismissed his primary opponents, preferring to talk about how and why the former Congressman was going to defeat Hill. In fact, the WRS polling memo included four “Key Observations” — the first three about how well-positioned Sodrel was to defeat Hill.

Only the fourth point — “With the Primary Election in 41 days, it is very unlikely that Young or Hankins can catch-up” — dealt with the primary outlook....

Part of Sodrel’s optimism about the primary is that, as he told us, he is “98 percent known” by the Republican base. Because he said that it takes years to build up name ID in a district that includes multiple media markets, he didn’t plan to spend much money or run paid media during the primary campaign....Of course, as Sodrel found out, there is a difference between being known and being liked.