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August 10, 2005
Fight to Win
The post-Hackett argument for funding challengers in every race is a well-intentioned, but not really convincing, bit of political strategy. Democrats have X dollars, to fund a challenger everywhere in the country will, unless we have some sort of federal finance reform, bankrupt the party and suck much-needed cash from close districts in order to fund longshot challenges in preordained races. Hackett was a hell of a test, but a candidate like him contesting an open seat during a special election simply creates a different dynamic than a local DA attacking a popular incumbent in an on-year. Most seats are not open. Most candidates are not Hackett. And most races don't get a news vacuum to fill.
Nevertheless, we should be fighting on more fronts. And that's where Kos and Bob and Jerome and Chris and all the other netroots generals can come into play. The dispersed intelligence of the blogs, which can gather information on hundreds of races, get reports from those districts, interview potential candidates, and prejudge matchups, allows for a lot of early reconnoitering. And, when they find a candidate in an unfriendly district whom they judge to have an unexpected chance, the netroots can be the canary in the coalmine, raising seed money and seeing what happens to it. If a cash infusion increases excitement, scares the other side, moves numbers, changes the media, or otherwise points to a winnable race that nobody saw on the radar, the netroots can join with the more traditional institutions to fund these candidates.
But we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. Ginny Schrader and Paul Hackett, though they came close, both lost unexpectedly well-funded races to fill open seats (though we shouldn't forget that Stephanie Herseth won one). So while our races have been exciting, they've not resulted in a particularly impressive seat gain, a truth I think this cartoon expressed well. And, not to be a Cassandra, but battles against incumbents are much harder than open-seat elections. We don't need to throw money away on principle, but we do need to spend more in places we wouldn't otherwise think of. That's where the netroots come in, and it shouldn't engender a tension with the DCCC. It can be our job and they can do theirs, and hopefully the twain shall often meet.
August 10, 2005 in Electoral Politics | Permalink
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» 50 States or Not? from Lean Left
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Comments
Well put -- and a point I've been struggling with in the Hacket aftermath. The netroots have taken the narrow loss as carte blanche to slam the Democratic establishment and demand well-funded races in all 435 seat. Meanwhile, the DCCC and other establishment groups have seemed, to me anyway, overly defensive about their traditional strategy of only spending money in races they feel that they have a good shot to win.
It seems to me that there is a middle ground in this argument that is the best course of action. The DCCC needs to expand its field of vision and look for chances in districts they might not normally think of. But the bloggers are off base to think that the DCCC can jump in feet first to help fund every candidate in every district without evidence that the candidate can make good use of the money.
Now, I agree that a Dem. challenger in every district would keep some GOP money out of more competitive districts. But the DCCC can't be funding all those races for the simple reason that the GOP has more money than us. We would lose that fight every time! But the netroots can help by doing exactly what they did in the Hacket race. They identified a strong candidate and helpped prime the funding pump for him and got momentum moving his way. Then the DCCC came in and helpped with funding and indepenant expenditures for the final push.
Now this is not to say that the DCCC and the Democratic establishment did everything perfect in the Hacket race. They came in too late with DCCC money to help much. A bit more cash a couple of weeks earlier could have made the difference. But more importantly, I've heard where some of that crowd, and read some DCCC-sympathetic bloggers(i.e. NCDem on MyDD), were talking down the chances of any Dem in OH-2 during the early part of the race and slamming any DCCC expenditure in that race right up to the end. Well that's just stupid, even if you think that's true. Let the netroots do their work without slamming them, and see what happens. For god's sake, stop slamming Dem candidates when they're out their busting their butt on our behalf!
So, I think that the netroots need to get out their and identify good candidates in all districts and help fund their efforts where possible. Meanwhile, the DCCC needs to be more open to oportunities for wins in places they wouldn't have thought of at first. When they see those chances, then the DCCC must not hesitate and hem and haw about what to do. They must be ready to jump in as early as possible and provide the funding and organizational support to push us over the top!
But most of all, the netroots and the Dem establishment need to start talking and FOR GOD'S SAKE STOP CALLING EACH OTHER NAMES!!! WE'RE ON THE SAME TEAM -- ACT LIKE ADULTS!!!
There's my two cents on this situation.
Savage Tan
Posted by: Savage Tan | Aug 10, 2005 5:26:23 PM
Why I was hoping that Dean's ascension as DNC chair would make money funnel through his organization so it could be better organized. Besides, it is harder for networks/stations to refuse ads from the DNC than 527s.
I do think the $ spent on Hackett was because he was the only horse we had in the race.
Posted by: Chris R | Aug 10, 2005 5:56:19 PM
Maybe the DCCC doesn't need to jump in with both feet in every race. But why can't it seed every non-incumbent candidate?
It's always seemed to me that the dynamic the DCCC uses is exactly backwards. As it stands now, the DCCC seems lukewarm about a candidate until the last minute, and then dumps in some money. People get the idea that the candidate is "not really a Democrat" or that "they're dead in the water." It discourages support and diminishes the Democratic message.
I think instead they should put together a standard candidate "starter kit" with some seed money and resources such as handbooks, donor lists, talking points, etc. As long as a candidate shows at least a small level of support or resources, this starter kit should be made available. That way, the candidate has the imprimatur of the DCCC, and the resources to raise funds with that imprimatur.
After that, the DCCC can have a series of goalposts. Meet goalpost X, you get Y dollars. And of course, the DCCC can reserve some funds for races it thinks will be particularly tight or important.
Posted by: Kenneth Fair | Aug 10, 2005 6:30:22 PM
"But why can't it seed every non-incumbent candidate?"
Kenneth -- I would argue that's a perfect role for the netroots fundraising community. Let that group attract local and regional givers (and volunteers, for that matter) to the campaigns to help them get moving. Then see which campaigns are going to fly. Then that will make the DCCC that much more powerful when they come in. They'll have that much more money to use.
As for your point about the DCCC being lukewarm until the last minute, I agree. That's where the DCCC needs to improve its game. They need to be monitoring the blogs earlier to see what campaigns are making moves and be ready to jump in to help much earlier than they currently do. There are also some other moves they could be making to show the backing of the establishment that cost little or nothing that would make these candidates seem like "real Democrats," as you put it. And part of that was my earlier point of not publicly dismissing campaigns, even if they do think there's not much hope in a district.
Posted by: Savage Tan | Aug 10, 2005 6:58:26 PM
The DCCC doesn't have the money to seed every candidate.
435 candidates. Seed money, say, 20,000 bucks? $8.700,000. The DCCC doesn't have enough to go around now, send out another $8 mil every cycle and we'll have no chance. Targeted speding evolved for a reason and, smart as bloggers think they are, we've seen nothing to refute it. Hackett lost. Schrader lost. And they were open seats. We need to remember that. There are lessons to be learned, sure, but we're not seeing the sort of success that screams MASSIVE FINANCIAL BOOST TO UNKOWN CANDIDATES!
Posted by: Ezra Klein | Aug 10, 2005 7:03:25 PM
Sorry, I don't agree with you. Yes, I know there is only a limited amount of money, but we need to shake-up the way we are doing things. Challenge every race. Each district should get some minimum amount of funding. Of course some races should be targetted. I agree that the netroots can help out with out with other races. We really need to do all we can to encourage and support every Democrat we can, even if the race seems unwinnable. Things can change very quickly, and we need to be ready to jump in.
Posted by: Unstable Isotope | Aug 10, 2005 7:08:07 PM
Totally disagree, Ezra. Spending just enough seed money to put up token resistence in every district is very, very cheap. There aren't 435 candidates that need to be funded. It's more like 230 (the republican-held ones). Also, that pays dividends because it keeps the incumbents tied down, fundraising for their own races instead of fundraising for others.
True, we can only target a limited number of races with the full strength of our time and attention, but coughing up a few thousand dollars to ensure that every republican seat doesn't get held in a cakewalk pays off. You never know which one of those Republicans is going to have to resign for "family reasons," get implicated in a major scandal or otherwise become electorally vulnerable when you least expect it... and it's good to have a semi-credible candidate ready and waiting on the ballot when such a thing happens.
From that perspective, keeping Republican candidates tied down in their home districts and being able to take advantage of an unexpected opening is $4,000,000 - $8,000,000 well spent.
Posted by: Constantine | Aug 10, 2005 7:21:26 PM
Ezra -- Bingo! Exactly my point!
Isotope -- We certainly do need to shake things up and have the goal of challenging every race. But that doesn't mean that the extremely finite resources of the DCCC should fund that effort. The netroots' goal should be to challenge in every district, and they should encourage the candidates and raise the funds to meet that goal. The DCCC's goal should be to identify which of those contests can be won, and bring in their big guns to push those canditates over the top. Now the DCCC needs to be more plugged in to what's going on out there so they can see where those chances are. The DCCC also needs to be more willing to take a risk on what might at first look like marginal races, such as Hacket. But to expect the DCCC to fund all 435 is foolish. It would waste a ton of resources, and leave less money there at the end when it's needed.
Posted by: Savage Tan | Aug 10, 2005 7:25:31 PM
Obviously nobody here has run for a state or federal legislative seat, or managed a campaign for one. There's plenty wrong with DCCC and other national organs, but the basics of how and where to spend money are based on very real-world experience and are pretty obvious when you're writing the checks.
It's great that the netroots offer a substantial new factor in the equation, and should have a positive effect in the near future.
But, if you really want to shake things up, the key is to start finding and funding good primary challengers to lazy, corp-tit worm, Dem incumbents. Almost all seats are safe seats, so no matter who wins the primary, said winner will prevail if that district is gerrymandered for his/her party.
Yes, fight in open seats, but don't waste time fighting Repub incumbents who, like Dem incumbents, mostly have 30+ percentage point wins every election.
To really shake things up, get into the telephone booth knife-fights, i.e., the primaries, where you'll also get a great sense of what turds many Democratic office holders really are...a few election seasons of that, and we'll look like Reagan rolling into D.C.
Posted by: NixonWatch | Aug 11, 2005 7:46:14 AM
Wait a minute. When this debate got started the DCCC was not at the center at all. Some blog posters were claiming that the netroots were wasting their money on Hackett. Whereas some people on the other side, including me, were suggesting that a little seed corn in every district in the country would be money well spent. But I don't recall a lot of insistence that the DCCC carry our water, I don't recall anybody particularly asking anybody to contribute to the DCCC at all.
The power of the netroots is the power to bypass the Party Committees entirely, to deny the DCCC its self-appointed role as gatekeeper. The DCCC is flattering itself to think this debate has much to do with them at all.
Candidates who have successfully sold themselves on dKos and MyDD and a couple other blogs have shown that they can get that seed corn right outside the formalized Party structure.
The DCCC can spend its money however it wants. But it was particularly aggravating to have a single self-appointed poster putting up literally hundreds of comments on multiple blogs arguing that we were just wasting money directing funds to Hackett. I don't believe that the fundamental demand of the left blogosphere of the DCCC or the DLC for that matter is to come around to our point of view, but instead, god damn it, to stop lecturing us and stop insisting that we line up like sheep.
Hey DCCC. It is not all about you.
Posted by: Bruce Webb | Aug 11, 2005 8:04:38 AM
From the [grassroots] horse's mouth: the DCCC asked for candidate suggestions from its operatives who went for a look-see but did not know the district. These jokers didn't consult with any of the hardworking, knowledgeable grassroots leaders on the ground. The list the D-Trip types came up with omitted the person the 'roots knew to be the best potential candidate.
Something in this equation has got to change. It's not just about the money.
Posted by: Ellen Dana Nagler | Aug 11, 2005 1:49:39 PM
Where do you get the idea that the DCCC, or any of the Democratic Party committees, has 'X' dollars? What is X?
The problem with the Democrats of the last twenty years or so is that they view the money as fixed, the activism as fixed and the well of political ideas as fixed. This has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The leadership has consistently treated the country and its own base as if nothing can ever be changed.
Posted by: James E. Powell | Aug 11, 2005 11:26:38 PM
