Monica Wehby's pre-post-2014-elections mortem.

The general election is just over a month away, but let's face it: Monica Wehby's campaign is all but dead.  So what went wrong?

Political cowardice

Today she canceled a debate that would have put her front and center in all of the most populous counties in Oregon.  That left her with just one debate in southern Oregon -- a conservative stronghold.  That's really dumb of course, because all she's doing is playing to her own kind when she needed to broaden her support.

Normally when you're behind in the polls, you'd want to get as much face time with your opponent, to score political points in direct attacks.  Instead, Wehby now looks like she's running away from having to face off with Jeff Merkley.  Political cowardice is rarely rewarded, but this follows a trend in her short political campaign.

Back in May, the police reports of domestic disturbances involving Wehby and an ex-boyfriend and her ex-husband came out a week before the primary.  They revealed Wehby as having anger issues.  Rather than confront them, she was whisked away from reporters as soon as questions over the police reports were asked.  She then spent the next several weeks including primary election day, cloistered, with limited and controlled contact with the public.

If she were ahead in the polls, she might be able to get by, but she was already down by nearly double digits.  The two months she spent hiding made things worse as one poll suggested that she was down nearly 20 points.

Finally, when she resurfaced, her campaign was asked about the police reports, but incredulously, she pointed to the reports as proof that she was willing to fight for Oregonians.  Face palm.  Rather than confront and apologize about using violence, she created a facade that everyone saw through.  Imagine if Ray Rice were to offer his off field violence as proof that he's willing to fight for his football team.

The one-trick pony lost her sole trick

Back in May I wrote that Wehby was a one-trick pony, using her experience as an ER doctor and surgeon as cred on the ACA.  But as we found out last week, she had abdicated any authority on the issue when she delegated campaign staff to write up her position on healthcare on her website.  As a result, a staff member cribbed it (as well as all other issues) off of a Karl Rove questionnaire.

It didn't matter the excuse because it showed that either her knowledge of the issue was superficial and limited, or that she just didn't care.  Either way, she came out looking like a candidate completely detached from her campaign.

By skipping out on a debate in front of a majority of Oregonians, Wehby once again lost an opportunity to show her bona fides on healthcare -- that deserves a double face palm.

A confused strategy, if there actually was one

You would think that, a rookie candidate going up against an incumbent, would want to get in front and define herself.  Instead, Wehby's team waited a full month after Merkley's team began airing ads reintroducing himself to voters, before Team Wehby aired a single political ad.

Of late, she began airing ads touting support from a married gay couple.  But that seemed like an odd choice, because by doing so, she had effectively turned off far-right voters who'd previously prevailed in changing the Oregon State Constitution to block gay marriage.  But rather than go all in and push her support of gay marriage in a debate in front of a majority of Oregonians, she's chosen to go to her base in southern Oregon -- the very folks who were against gay marriage -- and shore it up.  She's half in / half out of everything.

And, with the Koch brothers having pulled all funding for October advertisements, Wehby's now completely on her own, in her rudderless, sinking ship.

Maybe her current strategy is actually an early concession that she has lost the race and has resigned herself towards saving cash in order to pay outstanding campaign debt -- who knows?

It was never going to happen, anyway

As much as Republicans (such as former state GOP chair Allen Alley) insisted that they could win a statewide office in what they presumed to be a bad year for Oregon Democrats, nothing could be further from the truth.

As I stated post-primary, more people voted for Merkley in the Democratic primary than had participated in the GOP primary -- that alone should have informed pundits that Wehby was facing a massive uphill fight.  Off-season elections are supposed to favor Republicans, but the primaries showed otherwise.

And not to take anything away from Wehby's candidacy, but if John Kitzhaber could maintain a double-digit lead over any challenger in a year in which the Oregon Health Plan / Cover Oregon failed, there just wasn't much of a chance that any Republican could win a statewide office running on a platform against the ACA.  So for Wehby to use the ACA and Cover Oregon as her key issue, should have been seen as a recipe for disaster.

It seems that Republicans are easily lulled into believing fantasy, stuck in their echo chamber.  The only polls ever showing single-digit leads were Republican-based ones.  It actually led the media to buy into the GOP narrative that the gap had closed between Merkley and Wehby -- in fact, it did not.

On November 4, Merkley will win by double digits and the Oregon GOP will officially be in disarray.