Ricardo Sanchez announced that he was running for Senate this afternoon with a two paragraph boilerplate statement on Facebook (kinda played out by now, isn’t it?). Back when the trial balloon was originally floated, I expressed some skepticism that General Sanchez would prove to be a good candidate:

Sanchez will have to explain his candidacy. Why now? What’s his motive for running? He can’t run against the Bush administration — which has been the point of most of his media appearances since retiring from office. He can’t run on the Iraq war. He will have to talk about the Obama administration’s wars — which will probably put him either at odds with the president or with the liberal base. What does he know about economics, solving America’s debt crisis or creating jobs?

So what did he come up with in his announcement to explain why he is running? Boilerplate. Trite phrases used by liberal Democrats across the nation. Probably written by a consultant who apparently wasn’t even feeling creative that day. Here’s the McAllen Monitor with Sanchez’s announcement:

“Here in Texas, too many families are struggling to get ahead,” Sanchez wrote. “Jobs are hard to find, our schools simply aren’t good enough and increasing food and gas prices are breaking household budgets.”

All of those phrases return thousands of hits in google searches. They’re all just standard things that Democratic consultants write. These phrases have all appeared word-for-word in many a Democratic politician’s speech. “Families struggling to get ahead” is particularly popular in New England. New York Senator Chuck Schumer. Maryland Governor Tommy Carcetti Martin O’Malley’s State of the State. How ’bout faux populist John Edwards? The list goes on.

Am I being unfair? “Jobs are hard to find” has appeared in speeches from Democratic Senators like Oregon’s Jeff Merkley, Montana’s Max Baucus, Vermont’s Socialist Bernie Sanders, and South Dakota’s Tim Johnson, etc. Likewise, “schools simply aren’t good enough” is a recent line from Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Repeating standard Democratic talking points word-for-word in Texas is not a winning strategy. Sanchez completely missed an opportunity to explain his candidacy — he just defined himself as a standard-issue Democratic candidate running on the same things consultants write all over the nation.

And yikes, apparently his consultants — or perhaps General Sanchez himself, but I’m being charitable — decided that he should announce but reject all media interviews because he needs to prepare to face the media:

Sanchez was not available for media interviews Wednesday as he preps for a formal announcement at a later date. He released a two-paragraph statement on his Facebook page where he said the state needs “leadership that focuses on results rather than politics.”

Meanwhile, someone already started a Veterans Opposed to Ricardo Sanchez page on Facebook.

If I were a Democrat, I’d find the lackluster start quite disheartening.