How does getting crushed 3-1 in a primary help his career again?
Name recognition!1!!
But it doesn't help that this is likely to be a very low turnout primary. Didn't Strickland also represent an Appalachian district? I don't really see then how Sittenfeld gets protest votes from them (because of soshulist obummer) if Strickland represented them.
It wouldn't be worthwhile for Sittenfeld to campaign in Appalachia in the primary anyways. Just to provide some reasons behind this, 1) Democrats there aren't the Democrats who Sittenfeld wants to identify with, 2) He's naturally a bad fit for SE Ohio, 3) He's running against Ted Strickland and 4) The region doesn't supply all that many votes due to weak registration/turnout numbers (for example, in Strickland's 2006 Democratic primary he got roughly only 16-18% of his total overall votes from Southeast Ohio). It might be best for him to avoid Central Ohio as well (that's very solid, unbreakable Strickland territory).
Sittenfeld's best strategy as long as he stays in is to continue campaigning on college campuses with the youth voting block, and to focus on the two regions where he has the strongest potential of doing well (Southwest and Northeast Ohio). Most of his donors and support are coming from SW Ohio (to be expected) and Strickland under-performs all the time up here in NE Ohio with Democratic base votes, so if I were Sittenfeld I would take full advantage of that.
That aside, he has a floor of about 30% and a ceiling of 40% when all's said and done.
He has a floor of 12% and a ceiling of 28%.
If TEACHOUT can get 34%, so can Sittenfeld.
Arbitrarily choosing a race for a different office from a different state with very different political dynamics isn't really comparable.
