How to blow an easy GOP win

MARIANNA, Fla. — It should’ve been an easy year for Rep. Steve Southerland, but instead of waltzing to reelection, the two-term congressman has served up a case study in how to blow a relatively safe Republican seat.

He started campaigning late, got crosswise with women by holding a men-only fundraiser, warred behind the scenes with his party over strategy and fretted over anonymous quotes criticizing his reelection effort.

In the meantime, a threat emerged in the hard-charging Gwen Graham, who put 36,000 miles on her Chevy Equinox traversing this district and drumming up support among rural Republicans and Democrats alike, appearing with her popular father, a former governor and senator.

Even though this district is rural, conservative and a pocket of deep resentment toward D.C. Democrats, Southerland finds himself in a multimillion dollar brawl with Election Day rapidly approaching. The contest has shocked Washington Republicans, who resent that they have to spend millions of dollars to prop up a member of the House Republican leadership in a district where President Barack Obama’s approval ratings hardly crack 30 percent.

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Washington Republicans began to fear the seat might slip away early this summer, when operatives at the National Republican Congressional Committee urged Southerland to fire back at Graham’s television ads. But Southerland turned down the advice, saying he knew how to run his race. He called Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — his close friend — and NRCC Chairman Greg Walden to complain about anonymous comments surfacing in news stories criticizing his campaigning.

The rare power struggle is resolved, Southerland and other Republican sources say, and he’s “thrilled” they are back on the same page. He and committee members now strategize on a weekly call.

But some Republicans in Florida and Washington are still skeptical he can pull it out.

Southerland dismisses criticism, brushing off the tight race as nothing more than the result of the jump-start from Graham.

“It’s easy to score touchdowns when the defense isn’t on the field — I would hope,” Southerland said in an interview, leaning against his pickup truck here in this rural town of 6,100. “And daddy in tow,” he added, a reference to Bob Graham’s constant presence on the trail.

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Southerland maintains that he has a lead, and the district is snapping back to its natural tendencies. Voters here supported Mitt Romney, John McCain and Southerland in the past two elections. Internal polling shows the race is very tight.

As far as tensions with the NRCC, Andrea Bozek, a spokesman for the group, said “this kind of gossip is eye-roll inducing.” And she noted the NRCC has been working with Southerland.

But Southerland, who sits on the executive committee and has a daughter who works at the party committee, seems bruised by the experience.

“Let me tell you something about my understanding of leadership and team building,” Southerland said, when asked about the NRCC. “It’s very different than what D.C. thinks a team is. D.C. has this idea that a team is a group of people that all tell each other what they want to hear. And everybody says what the leader wants to hear. That’s not a team. You look at what I’ve always valued, is honesty. I’ve always valued people of differing views.”

(POLITICO's polling center)

He added that “leadership means not being intimidated by different opinions.”

He thinks that as Election Day nears, people will focus more intently on the two candidates and recognize that the Democratic Party has left them and Graham is nothing but a liberal masquerading as a moderate.

He says on repeat that his family has been here for 200 years, and it’s “a district we know the rhythm of.” It’s a backhanded way of saying that Graham doesn’t belong.

Graham, meanwhile, says she’s found loads of disaffected Republicans who think Southerland is the embodiment of dysfunction. Defeating Southerland, she says, is a way to begin breaking the gridlock. Most Democratic polling shows Graham in a strong position to win.

She says she even spoke to one Republican member of Congress who urged her to defeat Southerland. She declined to say who.

The race is close enough that groups have poured roughly $8 million in television advertising into the Dothan, Alabama, and Tallahassee media markets — almost $6 million of which is coming in the last two months of the race. The spots are so pervasive that after a recent debate in Panama City, Southerland and Graham stood next to each other in a television studio watching campaign advertisements air ad nauseam.

In the final two months of the campaign, Republicans will air $2.9 million worth of ads, and Democrats will air $2.7 million. It’s a sum neither campaign can get their head around, and both sides say they wish the advertisements would come down. They fear their message is being muddled.

“We have been telling our district for months now, you’re going to see a congressional race that you’ve never seen before,” Southerland said. “That kind of money is not common here. In our media markets, Tallahassee and Panama City, that goes a long way. Especially with a governors race going on.”

Despite all the money, the contest between Southerland and Graham matters precious little when it comes to control of the House. The race — and gush of cash — helps reinforce the new phenomenon in the era of the shrinking congressional map: each seat is a prizefight.

But, more importantly, if Southerland loses to Graham, it would strip Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and McCarthy (R-Calif.) of a critical link to the conservative right.

In the waning weeks, as Southerland and Graham traverse a district that stretches across two time zones on I-10, the race is publicly cordial, but serious tension is simmering below the surface. The two hugged at a debate in Tallahassee last week and agreed on a host of policy issues....