“A lot of donors are looking for the ‘Moneyball’ opportunity, where a dollar has the greatest possible impact,” said Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman…
[….]“Every discussion I have with donors focuses on what the party, and only the party, can do — building volunteer infrastructure, protecting the vote and doing year-round coalition building,” said Juan Peñalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party.
Money to state parties is an investment not just in the current election but in the future. Here’s the three state parties we are supporting this year — North Carolina, where a flip is possible, Kansas, where negating the Republican supermajority and giving Democrats a role in redistricting is possible, and fan favorite Wisconsin.
North Carolina:
Kansas:
Wisconsin:
Omnes Omnibus
Wikler has really reinvigorated the WI Dem Party. Money sent to them will not be wasted. I am already directly donating.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: I remember him when he was a producer for the Al Franken Show.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
In the spirit of the post, here’s some local flavor:
Omnes Omnibus
And here is the Czech band Pulnocs doing the song. The band (at least an earlier iteration of it) was part of the art scene in 1968 that supported Dubcek’s reforms and they were also friends of Havel. Oh, and they were inspired by VU.
Mike in NC
Stick a fork in Thom Tillis. He reeks of flopsweat. Six years ago I knocked on doors for Kay Hagan, a DINO, to no avail.
Yutsano
@Mike in NC: My understanding is Gardner is a dead man walking. McSally is flailing. Bullock has been consistently ahead. Ernst hasn’t been a profile in courage lately. If Kansas picks Kobach we could have Dr. Barbara Bollinger. We have a real possibility of getting at least one in Georgia. If it’s a true wave we could take out Yertle & Lindsay. And possibly even Cornyn. Is 10 seats too ambitious?
CaseyL
@Yutsano: The bigger our hopes, the more I worry they’ll be dashed. I’m afraid to think about a clean sweep, as if thinking about it will make it not happen.
PTSD, not a doubt about it, from watching the wrong people win on too many election nights – starting with Reagan in 1980. And Trump, JFC, I doubt I got a full night’s sleep for months afterward. (I had weaned myself off the anti-depressants, and had to start taking them again.)
dmsilev
@Yutsano: 538 did a ‘what if Democrats run the table’ scenario recently, and they came up with 60 as the maximum even vaguely plausible scenario. Not likely scenario, even in a wave election, since it would require victories in Texas, South Carolina, Kentucky, etc., but at least possible.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: You don’t ask, you don’t get.
piratedan
@dmsilev: l like the thought process of workingike its possible. 45 isn’t doing himself or the GOP any favors nor does the party of Mitch apparently have much in the toolbox… i.e. if its not a tax cut or voter suppression then they are flat outta ideas.
Raoul
More Wicklers & fewer Steny’s, and the Democratic movement will be greatly improved.
Also, great to see the jackal enthusiasm for Kansas. I have several family members in Johnson County, and they’re all horrified by what the past several years were like (esp Brownback, who thank FSM and some decent organizing was booted).
L85NJGT
The Trump campaign is pulling TV ads for… “fine tuning”.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Building up state parties was one of the best things Howard Dean did as party chairman. And then after he left, it all just kind of dwindled away. I got the feeling that it just wasn’t seen as being worth worrying about when Obama was president.
I never understood that. Obama was a great presider. An administrator. He was born to that, it seems. I felt like he never really liked legislating much, the backslapping and gladhanding. What he liked was to just get down to the business of getting shit done.
And, Lord knows, after eight years of Bush the Younger, we needed that. But I also got the feeling that he really didn’t like campaigning much–not so much the campaigning everybody knows you need to do to get elected; but the campaigning you need to do once you’re in office so you can get the backing of the country to get what you want done, and then the campaigning once you’re done to keep people on your side.
It always seemed like he resented that side a little. He seemed to think that what he and the Democratic Congress were doing was so self-evidently worth doing that he shouldn’t have had to campaign for it at all.
I remember there was a runoff in Georgia in 2008, a month or so after the general election, and everybody was jazzed, because the Democrat had held Saxbe Chambliss to under 50%, and we all thought we had a shot at taking the seat in the runoff.
And everybody clamoring for Obama to campaign for the Democrat to get him over the hump, but he just sat it out and said he didn’t want to risk sticking his neck out and then seeing the Democrat lose. I always thought that was a mistake.
And then the 50 state thing that Dean had begun just withered away.
We need to keep it going this time.
Mai naem mobile
@Yutsano: AZ,NC, CO, NH, MT, AK, IA, GA, SC, TX, KS and KY is a big stretch and you probably lose Doug Jones . It’s a huge pity neither of Fl seats are up because I think the Dems would pick it up. I think a net gain of 7 is not unrealistic. I know the GOP is crazy but I think a wave election might scare enough GOPr senators to wonder if they can win their next elections with their current crazy positions. I am talking about Rubio, Rick Scott, Grassley and Cruz.
Paul W.
I was just about to come here and link this, it’s very promising and what needs to be happen to taken advantage of a possible wave election.
Mike in NC
@Mai naem mobile: Grassley is 86. Why is he still there?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mike in NC:
The Senate is the World’s Greatest Deliberative Retirement Home
Mousebumples
Second what Omnes said about donating to wisconsin. I’ve been giving monthly.
So glad we have a solid state chair to reinvigorate the party, a science believing Dem governor… And hopefully we can knock GOP morons out of the statehouse in November , along with Trump !
Mai naem mobile
@Mike in NC: I have no idea because honestly there are times where he doesn’t appear all that sharp. I am not talking Donny Dumb level but definitely on the aging should not have an important job level sharpness.
Mai naem mobile
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2020/01/16/arizona-one-of-seven-state-legislatures-democrats-target-for-takeover/
I am going to plug my state’s Dems. The AZ State House is 31-29 GOP tilt and the State Senate is 17-13 GOP.
Also Congressman David Schweikert(Rump) just paid a $50K fine for ethical violations.
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2020/07/30/schweikert-admits-house-ethics-violations-agrees-to-reprimand-50000-fine/amp/
It’s a House seat and he’s got some good Dem candidates running against him(we have our primary next week.) I believe it’s mostly upscale Phoenix suburbs(vs Trumper rural country) so its gettable.
Alison Rose
Found this gem of a comment on a FB post from Vogue Magazine about Obama’s eulogy for Lewis:
I mean, yeah. HOW DARE. How dare we introduce POLITICS and CIVIL RIGHTS into the funeral for a…*checks notes*…politician and civil rights icon. IT SHOULD ONLY HAVE BEEN ABOUT HIS DANCING AND HOW MUCH HE LIKES CATS.
The commenter’s name is Kathy which is close enough to Karen.
BCHS Class of 1980
I have a bit to give so I like to allocate some to the little-to-no-hopers. For instance does Paulette Jordan stand a shot in hell against Jim Risch? Probably not, but in a wave weird stuff happens; Minnick did represent the ID panhandle for two years.
Brief plug for my local FL House candidate Jessica Harrington. Her opponent James Grant was the House sponsor of both the loathed poll tax and the “let’s jack the amendment percentage up to 2/3” bill. If anyone wants to screw him, a small donation couldn’t hurt.
BCHS Class of 1980
@Alison Rose: Yeah, I was waiting for someone to kvetch about politicizing the funeral of a man whose entire adult life was spent in getting people access to politics in its most basic form: the vote. Buncha morans.
Shana
I know I’m way late to this thread but let me say, again, that the best thing Dean did when he was DNC Chairman was the 50 State Strategy. Here in VA where we were teetering on the brink of being a swing state that money and dedicated staffing made a huge difference in our abilities. I’m convinced it sped up our conversion by about 3-5 years.