I was talking politics with my dad the other day, and the topic of donations came up. He, like a lot of other Democrats (perhaps including some of the readers here) tends to give smaller donations to candidates he likes in many states, including his own state of South Dakota, which is redder than a baboon’s ass. My advice to him, as it is to you, was to calculate his political giving budget for the year, divide it by three (the “big races” of Governor, Senator and Representative), and, if possible, send each of them a check right now.
I used the example of Sarah Gideon, Susan Collins’ 2020 challenger, who ended her campaign with almost $12 million in the bank. She’s still giving that money away. I don’t blame anyone who decided to give to Gideon — despite the result of the campaign, Collins was definitely vulnerable, and Gideon ran a good campaign. Individually, the decision to give to Gideon made some sense. Collectively, it was a terrible use of campaign resources.
In the 2020 South Dakota Senate race, Republican Senator Mike Rounds’ Democratic opponent raised a total of $273K. Dusty Johnson, South Dakota’s lone representative, ran unopposed. In North Dakota’s 2020 House race, the Democrat raised $28K. That is not a typo.
Of course, in all of these Dakota races, and in other red, rural states, there’s almost no chance that a Democrat could win. I still think that a donation to these almost-certain-losers is a good strategic investment, for a couple of reasons. First, if challengers have enough money to at least travel and hire a small staff, they’ll force the incumbent to spend some money on their campaign at home, rather than sending it to other Republicans. Second, campaigns are a time when local media will run whatever a Democrat says when they step up to the microphone, just as they run whatever press releases the Republicans office holders crank out during the rest of the year. Finally, putting a local, friendly face on the Democratic party makes Democrats harder to demonize.
There’s a difference between a robustly financed fifty state strategy and doing nothing in any “no win” state. A modest investment in “can’t win” Democrats in small red states is part of a long-term investment in chipping away at Republican hegemony in these states, especially if that investment is from a state resident, and if it happens fairly early in the cycle.
Dangerman
Do as Republicans do in California; spend on media what MIGHT cover a Family of 4 in Disneyland. I don’t remember any media of theirs from the primary (although to be fair, I am exceptionally good at toning stuff out; useful for just about everything but talkative girlfriends).
Redshift
Agreed. The original Howard Dean fifty-state strategy and similar efforts since are fifty-state party-building and organizing strategies, not fifty-state election strategies.
It can feel good to give to a candidate who is promising to stick it to someone horrible. And there’s no reason not to do that if it makes you feel good, as long as it’s not the main thing you’re doing and you don’t have any expectations that they’re going to win.
JaySinWA
On top of that, there is the odd lightning strike. Letting a candidate run unopposed means you can’t get the benefit of a major failure of the opposition.
JoyceH
Want to reemphasize this. A few months ago, I zoomed into the local county Democratic meeting, and we were joined by a woman who has founded a rural grassroots outreach organization. (Bless her heart, she’s working for Dems when her county tends to get a Democratic vote of ten percent.) And she said exactly that, that Democrats need to be out there year round, letters to editor, comments to Boards of Supervisors, etc, making the case for what Democrats actually support. Otherwise you have the common situation where a do-nothing Republican incumbent hasn’t done a smidge for his constituents for years, but people still vote for him because ‘heck, I can’t vote for the Democrat, they’re all [communists or pedophiles or elites or fill in the local slander du jour]’.
JML
It’s incredibly important to have respectably funded races in as many places as possible, including the deep red spots like SD. Because the campaign is how you start building up a base and spreading the message, getting together field operations that are repeatable and can grow, and reducing the margins between winning and losing. It also starts nailing some of those GOP resources back to their districts/states so they have less to spend on the more competitive ones, and making it more likely that “lightning” will strike when a long-time member stops spending enough time in the district, gets lazy about raising money, stops campaigning hard, and generally loses touch with the district.
I’ve worked many of these challenger races over the years, and every time I had insiders tell me that it was a waste of time and money, and yet in more than one of those districts, we’ve flipped them now and it wouldn’t have happened if we had waited until they got “competitive” to start trying.
Baud
Maybe the Dems should set up a separate funds for competitive and non-competitive races. Or ActBlue. Leaving it to individual donors creates the risk of donors chasing who is exciting or going against a particularly hated Republican, rather than making what’s realistic. (Of course, there’s no way to stop donors from wasting their money on long-shot chances, but it shouldn’t be encouraged.).
trollhattan
@Dangerman: They spent their wad on the Newsom recall. We saw how that worked out but the money spent on gathering signatures (recalls and propositions) seems to be how the Rs invest here, that and tight house races–with redistricting there will be several this fall.
They managed to overturn the legislation on making gig workers employees and are not toothless.
Baud
@JoyceH:
Hero.
Gretchen
State legislature is important. There are four progressives representing the Kansas City suburbs in the KS legislature. They are all running unopposed after doing a good job and making their case. Now it seems possible to flip some more districts, and hoping to hold onto the governorship.
Geminid
I am interested in what Mistermix has heard about South Dakota’s Governor race. When I looked up Kristi Noem’s electoral history I was surprised to see how close her 2018 election for Governor was. She beat Democrat Billy Sutton by only 11,500 votes out of over 330,000 votes cast. One of the Democrats’ legislative leaders ran unopposed in the recent primary and will face Noem this fall. Noem’s tenure as governor has been rocky, and her national ambition could cut both ways.
Motivated Seller
The point that institutional Democrats completely miss is that the most dangerous opponent is an unopposed Republican, who in effect, advances the most malicious tendencies of our two-party system. Unfortunately institutional Democrats are loathe to disrupt the institution, so the conventional wisdom follows precisely what you said (i.e. Sarah Gideon’s 2020 challenge).
The problem is when crazy malicious unopposed Republicans arrive in seats of power, they have zero incentive to follow institutional “norms” like “democracy” (We’re a Republic doncha know!) and we get an entire right-wing apparatus that is more willing to wage insurrection rather than face a loss at the ballot box.
This also explains why institutional Democrats are in such denial about the danger to Democracy posed their erstwhile “elected” Republican colleagues.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: I have long thought that Dems did that with the Walker recall in 2011.
Lacuna Synecdoche
mistermix @ Top:
Yep. And it’s also an investment in preparing for Republican vulnerabilities.
We never specifically know when or where a GOP candidate is going to crash and burn in scandal (e.g., Roy Moore), but we know that it will happen – given Republican proclivities for greed, crime, and perversion.
We can probably swing 1-5 offices in diehard Republican areas each federal election cycle, maybe more, if we make sure our candidates are prepared to take advantage of such scandals when they’re revealed. That’s one of the main goals of a 50-state strategy: preparation for unexpected electoral opportunities.
@Redshift:
And this too, of course.
BlueGuitarist
Strategic contributions to down-ballot candidates in overlapping competitive elections can help create synergy up and down the ballot and help flip some state legislatures!
For example, PA-01, one of the few US House districts Biden carried held by a Republican, overlaps a couple of competitive State Senate districts and several competitive state house districts. Each additional Democratic voter in those areas can cast 4 votes to replace Republicans with Democrats: for state house, for state senate, US House, and US Senate.
These overlapping swing districts seem worth additional effort.
Baud
@Baud:
I guess another possibility is to give every House and Senate candidate that wins his or her primary a fixed sum for staff and other expenses (perhaps adjusted for local costs and conditions). With the promise of more funding if polling justifies it.
Omnes Omnibus
‘@Motivated Seller: Practical question here, how do you talk young ambitious Dems into giving up a year of their life fundraising, etc., in a quixotic run at a seat that going to be 80+% GOP come Election Day?
Almost Retired
@Gretchen: This! My Mom moved to Wichita 20 years ago, and donates to local Democrats in salvageable parts of the State (KC suburbs and the college towns). It’s enormously helpful to have effective Democrats in local office in the State to compare and contrast with the absolute lunatics like Kris Kobach (I assume his middle initial is “K” for the sake of accuracy) that the Republican party is barfing up locally and statewide.
Unrelated — Happy Birthday to WaterGirl! I’m sure Rudy opened a bottle of breakfast whiskey this morning to toast your big day!!
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
Excellent point. Ideally, the Dems run a credible candidate in all elections. Practically speaking, though, campaigning is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. You’re constantly going to–in red states, very small–meetings, especially evenings and weekends, and you’re doing this for months. It’s a worthy effort, but it comes at a tremendous cost for the candidate, their job, and their family.
mistermix
@Geminid: Billy Sutton was probably the best candidate that Democrats could possibly have in this environment (young, former rodeo rider paralyzed after an accident, comes from a big name in South Dakota politics and rodeo). Kristi was a known commodity because she was the current House member. She is not universally popular but in Trumpy circles she is very popular.
For 2022, Jamie Smith, currently House minority leader, is running against her. Here’s his campaign site: Jamie Smith for Governor He’s making it about being a South Dakotan rather than kissing up to out-of-staters, but he’ll be lucky to do as well as Sutton. If he had some money to run a campaign, I think every dollar would be well-spent strategically for Democrats, especially if he could hammer away at the Noem scandals.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
huh?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I gave money to Jaime Harrison, Barbara Bollier and Mike Espy and a few others knowing full well they were long-shots, on the theory that their campaigns could have some party-building effect. I don’t regret it.
trollhattan
Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
ABS, always be scamming.
Ben Cisco
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Moore was an aberration in my state. We got Doug Jones out of that for exactly one term.
Also, an update: Katie Britt did pants “MAGA” Mo Brooks by nearly 20 points in the recent primary, but b/c she didn’t get 50% of the vote, the two of them will be headed to a runoff on 21 June. The winner gets to go against Dem nominee Will Boyd, pastor, former chair of the Lauderdale Democratic Party, and perennial candidate . Make of that what you will…
Motivated Seller
@Omnes Omnibus: Being a politician is a tough climb. I wish the people with the best skills and policies rose to the top. But unfortunately the chase for campaign contributions (which other advanced Democracies call “Bribes”) really distorts that process. I think if someone has the skills to match their ambition, they’ll be willing.
Mai Naem mobile
Paul Gosar who has been redistricted into a new but still red district has no Dem opponent. He’s got primary opponents but no Dem for the general. Granted its a red area but I would not be surprised if Gosar gets caught up in the Jan 6th hearings. At least Andy Biggs has an opponent in the general.
Omnes Omnibus
@Motivated Seller: You’re wrong. It is tough to get people to do that.
ETA: Inner city wards get unopposed Dems for similar reasons.
oatler
@Dangerman:
Girlfriend Over Shoulder?
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
And you are right. I have worked in the field and can personally testify to how difficult it is to get competent people to run for elective office, even in favorable environments. It’s a really sucky job and putative “ambition” doesn’t necessarily outweigh the suckitude, especially in highly unlikely to win contests.
Edited.
Nelle
@Gretchen: In January of 2017, I went to then Sen. Pat Roberts, to protest all manner of things. Another woman there for similar reasons followed me out to the parking lot to talk. We’ve been in touch ever since. Mari-Lynn Poskin is now in the KS Lege and man, does she have energy. Feel free to donate to her. She’s a pleasure to know. Poskin4KS
justawriter
From the other Dakota I can say that restoring a 50 state communications strategy between elections is absolutely necessary, and in places like Pierre and Bismarck, incredibly cheap as well. These states have become locked in red because we’ve allowed an echo chamber starting with Rush and culminating with the new “Fox News is Commie symps” channels with, as stated above, no opposition or exposition of opposing viewpoints. It’s forgotten that not so long ago the midwest and western rural states kept the Senate in Democratic hands for most of Reagan Revolution, blunting Newt and his Contract On Amerikkka. Two or three permanently funded staff positions dedicated to rapid response and party building in 10 states out here would reap big dividends (which is what I saw during Dean’s tenure, but fell apart after Obama was elected) over the course of a decade. But I don’t think funders have a long term vision to see such a project carried out over more than one presidential election cycle.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: I am not arguing against a 50 state strategy. I am just saying that running someone everywhere is not as easy as some think.
Motivated Seller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No knock on Sarah Gideon, but Sarah Gideon is an institutional Democrat’s preferred solution to Republican radicalism. The better solution is to allow less-than-radical opponents to rise through the ranks, who are by definition more in-tuned with the mean voter (as opposed to being more in-tuned with the craziest of Primary voter).
edited.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: What if ActBlue had a dedicated fund for these difficult bids, a way they can know they’ll be starting with at least some financial support?
As usual, it’s up to us…
Baud
Googling on this subject turned this up.
Kropacetic
So your solution to beat openly radical Republicans is to advance the cause of
moderatecovertly radical Republicans?I, for one, am shocked that institutional Democrats aren’t doing this already…
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Excellent. It’s a hard slog in the red states and I’m glad the DNC is investing in that work.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropacetic: The ones I know who have done it have usually known they were taking one for the team and would be rewarded by the party at a later date. But not everyone can reasonably be expected to do that.
The Moar You Know
@justawriter: the 50 state strategy worked incredibly well and put Barack Obama into office. Why he made the choice to dismantle that project is a question that is going to bother me for the rest of my life. It was by any standard OBVIOUSLY the wrong decision, both at the time and in retrospect.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kropacetic:
FFS, do you know how primaries work? And do you know that state and local parties can’t prevent people who want to run for office from running? State and local parties are required to remain neutral in contested primaries. If *non-institutional* Democrats want to run, they’re free to do so. They either get the majority of votes or they do not. The parties are not in a position to control individual candidate outcomes.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
I don’t believe neutrality is required everywhere, but otherwise I agree.
ETA: The DCCC and DSCC sometimes get into trouble by endorsing.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: It would also help if we could provide for our citizens well enough that taking time off for public service, whether elected or not, wouldn’t be so burdensome.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
It’s required in our state. State party rules are governed by DNC rules, so my supposition is that on paper at least, no state or local party may endorse candidates in contested primaries. Are you aware of any official exceptions to those rules?
Kropacetic
@O. Felix Culpa: Do you know how to tell when one commenter is blockquoting and responding to another commenter?
jl
” A modest investment in “can’t win” Democrats in small red states is part of a long-term investment in chipping away at Republican hegemony in these states, especially if that investment is from a state resident, and if it happens fairly early in the cycle. ”
I mostly agree. I think over the longer term, across election cycles the Democratic investment in red states has to be much much more than modest. I think longstanding resistance to a 50 state electoral strategy morphed into permanent abandonment of far too many states. The dangers of that approach, of the Democrats essentially disappearing, making no case, against wrong deluded and dishonest GOP propaganda were ignored. I think that should be clear by now.
But, for do-or-die elections, the Democrats have to do some triage on where to spend the money.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Ok, interesting. That makes sense since state and locals are in a different position. I was thinking of the central committees.
trollhattan
@O. Felix Culpa:
Since CA went to jungle primary I think they’re still figuring out the dynamics. It’s not unknown for two Dems to face off in the general when a Republican can’t even finish second in the all-parties primary. At that point the CA Democratic Party has limited clout, e.g., they endorsed DiFi’s Dem opponent last time out, but she was reelected regardless. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: The DCCC etc. are not political parties. My point relates to parties, not extra-party organizations that are specifically created for the purpose of getting candidates elected.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kropacetic:
Apologies. Either the block quotes weren’t there when I first saw your comment or I missed them. Thanks for the correction.
jl
@O. Felix Culpa: If what you say is true, it seems like the DNC seems to often come very close to violating the rules it makes for the state organizations, at least in terms of leaders announcing their own support for primary candidates. This is one area where I fault Pelosi, BTW. I don’t think her practice has been helpful.
I’m curious to get more info on how all this official Democratic endorsement thing works. IMHO, both national and state parties shouldn’t be putting out official documents with official endorsements. Whether local and national bigshots should do something or other, or nothing, for specific candidates in a primary is another issue, though.
Kropacetic
@O. Felix Culpa: No prob. I just wanted to toss a little sass that dude’s way.
Baud
@jl:
Officeholders aren’t the DNC. They endorse people all the time.
jl
@O. Felix Culpa: But DCCC, DNC, etc. have declared sanctions for state and local Democratic office holders, consultants, partisan GOTV and campaign operations organizations, or party organizations for various activities that they deem as support or endorsement, is that correct?
I admit that I don’t know much about the topic, and would like to learn more. Probably a BJ post on it someplace in the archives, if they are back yet.
David Anderson
@Baud: That is my concern with GA-14 (MDG). She will face a very well funded Democrat and win by 35+ points versus facing a token Democrat and winning by 37+ points.
There needs to be triage on districts that need a warm body and enough funding to be alive in the rare case that someone is caught choking their mistress on the same day that the FBI finds $90,000 in their freezer but with the knowledge that a Democratic win in these seats is as likely as a GOP win in AOC’s seat.
And then there needs to be funding for the seats where the majorities are decided.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@O. Felix Culpa: a lot of people have some very strange ideas about the relative power of “institutions”, i.e. the DNC (!), but think voters are incidental to politics and elections
ETA: @Kay: people are also weirdly wedded to the idea that Howard Dean (and others) is/was a genius political powerhouse, but the first black guy elected POTUS, the first Democrat to win a popular majority twice since FDR, who won Iowa, Florida and Ohio twice, was just lucky and kind of stumbled into office
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
I think it was wildly overrated. 2006 was a wave year – a great year for Democrats. That Howard Dean has somehow managed to take credit for that is a self promotion success I almost admire – it has become “truth”.
Obama built every bit of his infrastructure, with possible credit to John Kerry who did a great job with outreach and bringing in young voters. Obama built on THAT. Howard Dean hired organizers who we saw every three months when they blew in and gave us a list of jobs to complete.
Baud
@jl:
I believe the rule is that paid consultants can’t get Dem campaign contracts if the consultants work for candidates bringing a primary challenge to an incumbent Dem.
FWIW, I believe the Dems recently adopted the same rule for consultants who work for union busting corps.
jl
@Baud: Not sure I understand your comment. I didn’t say office holders were forbidden to endorse.
As for Pelosi (and other national party leaders) what I meant was that IMHO, they have endorsed specific candidates, while as far as I can tell, discouraged or tolerated policies that discouraged others from endorsing, or even working for certain candidates.
As I admitted, I don’t know much about the topic, and find the whole topic hard to understand. So glad to learn more.
Chris
@justawriter: Also I get the impression that “campaign staffing” is a thing as well so why not have National fund salaried positions all over the place? Not only to get experience for up and coming staff members generally but to have people who know the state help out again come Presidential election time?
O. Felix Culpa
@Kropacetic:
Okie doke. Having been an elected party official, it makes me wild when people talk about the Democratic Party as if it were some powerful, elite gatekeeper that can prevent people from running.
It’s true that the state central committees (SCC) vote for who will be first on the primary ballot, BUT, (1) state central committee members are elected at the local/county level, and are about as grass-roots as you can get. Of course, some of these people are long-time party volunteers, but I’ve seen many newcomers organize and get themselves elected. BJ examples: schrodingers_cat and myself (in different states), who had no prior history of being part of the “institution.” If memory serves, Miss Bianca might also have been an SCC member, in yet another state.
(2) Candidates can still get on the primary ballot even if not chosen by the state central committee. In our state, they need to collect a relatively low number of signatures to qualify.
(3) I have seen primary voters sometimes support the candidates chosen by the state central committee and sometimes not. IOW, the “institutional” party vote does not necessarily determine the elective outcome.
jl
@Baud:
” FWIW, I believe the Dems recently adopted the same rule for consultants who work for union busting corps. ”
Good point. The issue is complicated. There is also the issue of primary candidates who have a history that makes them look like GOP, or worse, MAGA, plants promoted for no other reason than to create havoc in Dem ranks.
Baud
@jl:
I was responding to this.
You then went on to talk about Pelosi. I’m not sure what you mean here, if you weren’t criticizing Pelosi’s endorsements.
Fair Economist
We’ve had enough money, but it’s been donated in enormous sums to longshot Senate campaigns like Bollier, Harrison, and McGrath. If half the money on those marquee races had gone to partybuilding or legislative campaigns we’d be in a much better situation. And frankly, I think those marquee names would have actually got more votes. There’s just a limit on what you can usefully spend on TV advertising, and most went way beyond it.
Gretchen
@Nelle: I’ll do that. It would be great to have more people opposing the crazies who are running things in Topeka.
Kay
Also everyone hates Rahm Emanuel (with a lot of justification) so that battle was just catnip. I prefer Howard Dean myself. It still doesn’t mean “the 50 state strategy”, as executed, was a miraculous gamechanger.
Motivated Seller
@Kropacetic: I understand what you are saying, but in the face of widespread anger resulting from Uvalde, which kind do you think would be a swing vote for better gun control:
jl
@Baud: I wasn’t criticizing Pelosi’s decisions on who to endorse. I think she can endorse whoever she pleases. I was criticizing what seems to me to be inconsistent policy and practice from national organizations. I think national level Democratic leadership, whether office holder, or running the organizations need to get a good and clear policy for everyone.
mistermix
@Fair Economist:
This is rarely discussed – a campaign will never say “enough”. A dollar donated to an already overfunded campaign in late October is almost like donating nothing, as far as I’m concerned.
Kay
The problem I’ve seen is you can’t get really good people to come to red areas and organize because if they’re really good they’re also competitive people and they want to win sometimes. So they don’t stay. They go somewhere they can win. Always.
Baud
@jl:
Are you referring to the DCCC and DSCC endorsing candidates in the primaries?
Kropacetic
They can’t keep people from running but they wield influence with their constituents. I do actually wish current officials would sometimes be a little more circumspect with their endorsements, especially with the more high profile offices, but in the end it’s their choice and I recognize people will generally act on behalf of people they have a good working relationship with.
However, disparaging these people for their success exacerbates divisions. The organizing work needs to be done and we can’t be organizing at cross-purposes.
Yes, our bench could stand to be shaken up a little. The solution, if it isn’t happening at what one might deem to be an acceptable pace, is not “moderate” Republicans (a laughable concept).
O. Felix Culpa
@jl:
Nancy Pelosi is a high-level political official, but she is not an officer in the party. Therefore she may endorse candidates.
The party rules are that party officers, e.g. state or county party chairs, vice chairs, etc., may not endorse candidates in contested primaries. I was a county party chair and remained strictly neutral during primary elections. (My neutral stance was at the public level; I still got to vote my preference at the ballot box.) However, elected government officials are free to endorse whom they please. I don’t know how much of a difference those endorsements make. Not all highly endorsed candidates win. It would be interesting to see if anyone has done a recent study on the impact of endorsements on elective outcomes.
Kropacetic
Well, our base is fine on this issue and they are on an all-base-all-the-time strategy. So i think the correct answer is that it’s better to elect whatever Democrat you can. A moderate Republican still fears losing a primary more than the general.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Not an organizing issue, but the last time I saw a really good candidate run a known “can’t win” campaign was when Cordray ran against Montgomery for Ohio AG back in the 90s.
Cordray threw himself on a grenade for the party. He had to run for (and win) county treasurer in Franklin County to restart his career.
jl
@Baud: @O. Felix Culpa:
OK, thanks. I think any elected official should be free to personally endorse whoever they want. Since I said I don’t understand the issue very well, all I say is that there have been criticism that the national Democratic leadership and organizations practice is confusing and looks hypocritical, and I think that needs to be straightened out. I think the appearance is as important as the technical details.
And IIRC, some of the criticism is coming from perpetually discontented lefties, and weird centrist white Congressional dudes who’s only detectable actions in office are making squeaks and squeals whenever they can get some free media out of it. But they have a Democratic audience, so is an issue that needs to be addressed, like it or not.
Steve in the ATL
@Fair Economist:
Also true of mailings. I have filled my recycle bin with paper from Lucy McBath and Jon Ossoff. All wasted effort, as I was going to vote for them regardless!
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
As you said, it’s really hard because if they’re at all decent that approach it like they are going to win so they work their asses off. Every weekend and most of them also have full time jobs. I believe they have to think they can win or they wouldn’t do it, so they persuade themselves.
Baud
@jl:
Part of the complexity is that people want Dems to recruit good candidates. That function necessarily means that Dems won’t be strictly neutral. If one demands strict neutrality, then you have to relieve the organization from recruitment responsibilities and put it somewhere else.
And some critics want to limit endorsements by prominent Dems, not just the organization.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
About a dozen years ago, when I was still commenting at Daily Kos, I proposed something similar, with a couple other pieces.
1) The party should hold a long-weekend boot camp for all the nominees for House/Senate/Gov who are new to running for office, to give them an overview of what it involves.
2) The party should give each such candidate’s campaign a certain amount of start-up funds. Maybe 20K, just to rent a storefront, place some local ads, send out a first fundraising letter.
3) The party should volunteer to run all the back-office stuff: monitor the bank account, do the campaign finance filings with the FEC, all that paperwork crap that every campaign has to do, but is undoubtedly a real burden to have to learn it for the first time while you’re also learning how to campaign for the first time.
We can’t be competitive everywhere, but the closer we can come to showing up everywhere, the better. IIRC, in 2006, there were <10 Congressional districts where the Dems didn’t field a candidate. That’s your 50-state strategy at work. After showing Howard Dean the door after the 2008 election, the party really lost its way there, and it showed.
Kay
And it’s like a cycle “why don’t we have any good candidates in red areas?” Because good candidates want to win. They would be bad candidates if they were satisifed with losing every two years.
Obama was an amazing political talent. You can question his ideological stance or what he accomplished but as a political talent? He’s once in a generation. There just aren’t a lot of people that good. It’s single digits.
Kropacetic
For me, personally, I wish they’d limit themselves voluntarily on some of the higher profile races, more for optics than anything else. Do the background organizing, advise, etc.: sure. But reasonable challengers and smaller candidates should be perceived to at least be given a fair chance. But those challengers should demonstrate the same circumspection about how they go after the opponent and broader party. In the end, we mostly want the same things.
ETA: For example, I’d love a good challenger to my once and future rep (thanks redistricting), Stephen Lynch. The only challenger I’m currently aware of is running his campaign from his Twitter account, last I checked, mainly against Pelosi. Guess this won’t be the year.
Baud
@Kropacetic:
What do you do when the challengers get endorsements though?
lowtechcyclist
@Gretchen:
Especially in this era of Congressional gridlock, the states are where changes can happen. So we have to develop and fund good state-level orgs to recruit good local candidates for state legislature. Even in red states, we can try to deny the Rethugs a supermajority where they never even have to give the Dems in the minority the time of day.
Not to mention, state legislature is your farm team for Congressional races.
I’ve always given a good contribution to the DLCC because there are thousands of state legislature races across the country each cycle, and the hell if I can pick and choose which ones I should send a few bucks to. I figure that’s the DLCC’s job.
Kropacetic
@Baud: I don’t even mind endorsements. It just comes across a little distasteful when it’s everyone in concert. An appearance of inevitability costs candidates in the long run. Ask Dewey or Clinton.
Kay
@Kropacetic:
I was mad at them for endorsing Cuellar. Anti-women’s rights, pro gun, and they have to keep dragging him over the finish line in a primary in his own district. OMG, let him LOSE.
Kropacetic
@Kay: Perfect example.
Kay
@Kropacetic:
He’s not even popular there. If he was no one would challenge him and they certainly woudn’t come that close. It’s a damn coin flip between the two. Pick the one who is actually a Democrat!
Kropacetic
@Kay: But he’s clearly a registered Democrat. Blah blah left malcontents….
Kay
@Kropacetic:
Didn’t he endorse Bush over Gore? I don’t know – FBI raid, anti woman’s rights , NRA favorite (this cycle- the two big issues for the D base) and he barely wins a primary in his own district. Maybe they could let him fail? Stop propping him up?
RevRick
When Dave Wasserman of Redistrict has already identified 20-35 vulnerable Democratic seats, many held by Representatives hardly known outside their district, I would suggest that we focus our efforts on shoring up them. The dumbest political contributions are those given to the opponents of the GOP we loathe, like Greene and Boebert. Those clowns don’t make a whits difference.
A Democrat, like my own, Susan Wild (PA-7) does.
O. Felix Culpa
WRT Cuellar versus Cisneros, the margin in this primary is 281 votes. Not likely to change with a recount. While I strongly prefer Cisneros’s policy positions over Cuellar’s, another factor is electability in the general election.
My metric is that if you can’t win your party primary, you’re highly unlikely to prevail in the general, in which case a ConservaDem seat becomes a RWNJ seat. Maybe local Dems know their district better than we do?
Kropacetic
@Kay: Sorry, that comment wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.
James E Powell
@O. Felix Culpa:
O. Felix Culpa Johnson is right that Omnes Omnibus Johnson is right!
Getting viable candidates to run in the tougher slots is one of the main jobs of state & county party officials. They struggle with it every cycle. And getting someone to put their name on the ballot is one thing, getting them to run a campaign worthy of the name is another.
Kropacetic
Lisa Murkowski has joined the chat…
I don’t fully buy this argument. The general and primary electorate are different populations. D primary voters seem especially prone to taking a conservative voting posture out of fear.
The “electable” set trots out these fears of untested ideas and a poll where they’re leading months before the voting happens as PROOF that they’re your only viable choice.
I think this sticks us with the worst of both worlds. We get branded with the lefty stigma no matter what we do but we have a set of elected officials unwilling to seriously shift any paradigms while people are really hurting.
Honestly, both camps of the party have a big part of the picture right, but we need to merge their goals. We need candidates with legitimately bold ambitions for what the government can accomplish and the appropriate background to implement it. These aren’t mutually exclusive notions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@RevRick: MTG’s district is a lost cause, but I believe Boebert has been redistricted into a competitive seat?
@O. Felix Culpa: I tend to agree. I wish Cisneros hadn’t run on the “Justice Democrat” playbook, I don’t think endorsements from Bernie and AOC are assets in that district.
Kropacetic
If I see an ActBlue or other initiative for this, I’m giving.
James E Powell
@Motivated Seller:
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by your first sentence. But when that campaign began, Gideon was touted as the ideal candidate to take out Collins. Nobody said otherwise until she lost. Even in the last weeks of the campaign, people were saying that her campaign was the best place to send money (rather than IA, KY, SC, or TX).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E Powell: my recollection is the polls showed tight races in the ME and MT Senate races, then the R incumbents won by solid margins
Geminid
@Kay: Jessica Cisneros might have won if Bernie Sanders hadn’t come in the days before the runoff to campaign with her. Now he’s endorsed Amy Villela in the NV-1st CD primary, and Dana Titus’s supporters are joking that this is the kiss of death for Villela.
Cisneros came close in the runoff, and has requested a recount of the 281 vote margin. She was victim of a Daily Mail hit piece about her personal life, just days after the March 1 primary, and that may have hurt her. But I think a lot of Cuellar’s votes came from people who thought Cisneros could not win the 28th CD because of her political profile. She had modified her proposals from 2020, but they are still out there.
Cuellar modified some of his stands after 2020 also. He used to have an A rating from the NRA, but now it’s a C. It may be lower soon, because the NRA is situational with it’s ratings, and Republicans have high hopes that Cassie Garcia will flip the 28th. Cuellar’s ratings from Planned Parenthood and NARAL have risen too.
Motivated Seller
@Kropacetic: I get the frustration, but “elect more Democrats” is not sufficiently enough when facing malignant “populists” that reject democracy.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kropacetic:
I’m aware of Murkowski, and her election as a write-in candidate is an outlier. She was the incumbent and had strong family name recognition through her father, who resigned and had her appointed to replace him. She is only the second Senator ever (first was Strom Thurmond) to win election through write-in vote.
So my position still stands. YMMV.
Kropacetic
@Motivated Seller: So we elect their populists for them as long as they agree to wear a smiley mask?
Baud
@Geminid:
Interesting take. She should know her district to know whether having Bernie there would help or hurt.
Kropacetic
@O. Felix Culpa: Yeah, write-in campaigns are difficult but until we create a machine to let us see universes where some different person won whatever nomination, that’s all we have.
Honestly, though, centrists in our party abuse bad logic* and fear tactics to burnish their position in the party. I don’t think it’s helping us as a group.
I.E. These polls months out tell you the immutable state of the electorate. So vote for me, only I can save us from the Republicans. This argument is also often delivered by proxy via the mainstream media that definitely has our best interests at heart…
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Not all candidates know their districts as well as they should. Plus, I believe it was late in the campaign, and perhaps she knew she was lagging in the polls so having Bernie and AOC might have been a hail Mary move.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Boebert’s CO-3rd district is a little more Republican than the one she won by 6 points in 2020 (Trump won it by the same margin). So the Democrat will have an uphill battle. She has a Republican State Senator challenging her in the primary and he’s got a chance if the Unaffiliated voters come out strongly for him. I think that is the largest single bloc of voters in that district.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kropacetic:
All campaigns cite reasons why they’re the voters’ only (or best) hope. That strategy is not unique to “centrists.” It’s ultimately up to voters to decide who will most effectively represent them. If a candidate can’t make the case to Democratic voters in the primary, I don’t see how they will be more convincing to a less favorably inclined audience in the general.
ETA: I agree that the MSM is not our friend. However, they play a minimal role in local elections. Retail politics tend to be much more important.
Geminid
@Baud: Well, I sometimes write with tongue in cheek. But the Justice Democrats who sponsored Cisneros are all alumni of the 2016 Sanders campaign so Cisneros wouldn’t have turned him down even if she suspected he might hurt her. I think, though, that Cisneros was thrilled to campaign with a man who is still a hero for many people.
Kropacetic
@O. Felix Culpa: Sorry, I’ve heard some variant of “I like their ideas but they can never win” to many times to take this seriously. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kropacetic:
Respectfully, that’s not what I’m saying. My point is that candidates have to make their case to the voters. I’m all for new and better candidates, but they still have to get the most votes. If they can’t, then they’re not likely to be viable in the general.
ETA: I have supported new candidates over recycled folk numerous times. Sometimes they won, sometimes they didn’t. The voters decided the outcomes, not some centrist conspiracy. To argue that these elections are “rigged” takes agency away from voters (who sometimes get it “wrong” in my not so humble opinion), and veers dangerously towards T****pian conspiracy thinking.
Motivated Seller
@Kropacetic: What you call a “smiley mask,” is to me, a politician that responds to a blood-soaked classroom like a normal human should.
Kropacetic
@Motivated Seller: Then votes with the gun nuts anyways.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: I’ve read that in addition to incumbency and name recognition, Murkowski had strong relationships with Alaska’s labor unions and its ten Native Corporations, and that made her 2010 win possible.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid:
Yes, her win was the result of very particular and unusual circumstances, and does not provide a road map for most other candidates.
Geminid
O. Felix Cupa: Alaska also has a very small voting population.
Fun fact: Murkowski won the Republican primary in 2016, and the tea party crank who beat her in 2010 ran in the general election on the Libertarian Party line.
J R in WV
@O. Felix Culpa:
Pretty sure here the names in primaries rotate so that each candidate is in the first position a roughly equal number of times.
This is pretty easy now with voting via computerized voting machines… who cares how the paper ballot is printed out, as long as the display rotates appropriately…?
I worked at the local small town newspaper as a kid when reporters at the court house phoned precinct totals to the newsroom, where we totaled them up with big old adding machines with a lever to make the addition happen. Long time ago, so exciting to feel like a part of that democratic process back in the 1950s and ’60s.
So now when I volunteer to do phone banking for a candidate, like Hillary, calling into Ohio for weeks before the election, it feels good. Now, in the 2016 election, a week or so before election day that feeling kinda went away…
I guess you could tell things were gong bad after Comey violated DoJ rules and common sense to lie about FBI investigations…
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
A good friend is a League of Women Voters leader in CO, and she doesn’t appear to believe this at all… is actually ready to move out of the district…
RevRick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I would reiterate that a clown/troll like Boebert means diddly squat. Our priority needs to be preserving our House majority.
If Boebert sits in a R-6 district, Democrats would need a national landslide to oust her and if that happens we’ll have a huge majority in the House and probably gain three or more seats in the Senate.
O. Felix Culpa
@J R in WV:
I believe that names rotate in general elections, but in NM primaries, the SCC top vote-getter retains first position on the ballot. That’s the chief value of being chosen by the SCC (also, you don’t have to go through the process of collecting nomination signatures, but that’s a fairly low hurdle) and is no guarantee that the candidate will win.
RevRick
@Kropacetic: You and me both. Perhaps a certain Balloon Juice front pager (hint, hint) could establish one for us.
O. Felix Culpa
@RevRick:
FYI, ActBlue doesn’t independently set up fundraisers for candidates. The individuals’ campaigns do that for them. ActBlue is just the foremost online fundraising platform available to all Democratic candidates.
ETA: I don’t know if unrelated parties or individuals are allowed to set up ActBlue fundraisers for candidates without the candidate’s or their campaign’s involvement. Could run afoul of campaign finance laws and reporting requirements among other things, but that’s outside my area of expertise.
Kay
@Geminid:
God that’s even worse. He sucks so much the only reason they barely got him over the finish line is they were afraid of the challenger? Why don’t voters in his district support him at better than 50%, I wonder?
He’s the incumbent. Why is he so weak? Maybe the FBI trucks idling in his driveway?
Guns and abortion are the two big issues animating our base and we get…the guns and anti-abortion guy who apparently does so little else for people in that district he can barely hold on in a primary.
Kay
@Geminid:
Understatement of the year and since you’re speculating that Sanders somehow hurt her, I’ll speculate too-Cuellar would have lost had the Democratic Party not swooped in to rescue him.
I’m just asking “why”? He doesn’t share bedrock D positions, he isn’t popular- barely survives primaries in his own district- and he has some issue with law enforcement.
RevRick
@O. Felix Culpa: DougJ has, in the past, set up group ActBlue links, where contributions are divided equally, or where you could pick and choose.
Geminid
@Kay: I was joking about Sanders hurting Cisneros. But I wasn’t joking about my belief that Cuellar’s voters thought Cisneros could not win in the general election. That may be why Speaker Pelosi recorded the robocall for him.
Pelosi also considers Cuellar to be loyal to the caucus. He backed its position on every vote but one, including expanded background checks and two other gun safety measures, and the BBB bill. The one “bedrock position” he did not support in this Congress was the codification of Roe.
Pelosi’s policy is to back all incumbents, but in this case she backed someone who was a more reliable caucus member than the six “Squad” members Cisneros would have aligned with, in the very unlikely event she won in November.
Poskin4KS
@Nelle: Thank you so much. It was a thrill to flip this seat from red to blue for the first time, ever! They are coming back hard for it with a “Mom’s for Liberty” candidate. I’ll need all the help I can get! In case you don’t know who they are: https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/11/12/new-hampshire-and-moms-for-liberty-put-bounty-on-teachers-heads/?sh=3df9f4caa4bf
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/poskin4ks2022