Brad Miller won a 13 (or 12; sources vary) point victory in a Democrat leaning (but not solid) new congressional district, on a night when Democrats struggled. What happened? 1. Brad ran on his issues. He didn't "me-too" anything. He had an advantage over his opponent in that he's been in the state legislature for many years. Despite what the media echo chamber likes to tell you, it's not all tactics and fundraising. Issues still matter. Alot. 2. Brad knows the issues...I know Brad personally, and he's a serious, very smart guy. I'm sure he showed well in all of the "interest group" forums, debates, etc. Despite what the media echo chamber likes to tell you, candidates still matter. Alot. 3. Grassroots work...there was a great group of paid staff, interns, and volunteers working for Brad. We had a fantastic GOTV effort. One thing I worked on was targeting precincts for our GOTV and persuasion efforts. (There are three kinds of precincts...1. performance, where you know they'll vote your way, you just want to make sure they vote. 2. persuasion, where there are many swing voters. You want to drop lit that convinces the voters here to go your way. 3. target, where you're not going to run strong. It's still worthwhile working there, tho, either with phone banks, or lit drops with a walk list. (A walk list is a list of all Dems, or unaffiliateds, on a street, in order. With one of these, you can drop the lit only on your targeted households.)) Anyway, we did a few things that maybe were against the conventional wisdom, but it obviously worked. The GOTV director decided what kind of voters she was most concerned about, we figured out where they were, and worked on them. I, personally, was working at 11pm Monday night with other staff and volunteers dropping performance lit. We dropped lit Saturday morning. We dropped lit Sunday morning. And last weekend, and the weekend before that. Despite what the media echo chamber tells you, there's more to politics than money. I don't want to mislead anyone. Brad outspent his opponent, and the district is good for Dems. It was losable for the Dems, but the Reep campaign would have to have been better than ours. An equally competent campaign for each side would have led to a happy, but nervous night. But we outperformed them, substantially, and had a very happy night, without the nerves. I have a few purposes for this thread. First, those of us who have worked on campaigns can share what we know about the inner workings with the rest of you. Second, I would suggest that the lesson that I, personally, take from this election is that Dems need to stop whining about various factors they can't control, and focus instead on what they can. Stake out strong, smart, and sincere positions on issues. Get good candidates. Don't try to take shortcuts. Stop being too clever by half. Stop outsmarting yourselves.
Thanks, but I don't want anyone to think that *I* deserve congratulations. I wasn't that far up the food chain. But I did work with people who deserve it. I'll pass it on.
Let's see...outside chance, doesn't know yet, LSU is one of his favorite teams...this isn't hard to figure out.
i actually don't work for Landrieu. my boss wasn't up. just lost chairmanship of committee and some of the staff money that goes along with it. should be really hard to figure out now
Congrats, Dave. Tough day for us stark raving liberals yesterday. It's nice to get a tid-bit of good news. Oh well, with politics being so damned depressing for me, it's good to know that I have two other can't-miss crutches to fall back on: soccer and beer.
"Smart" but not "clever" or "oversmart?" Basically, are you saying: copy the Republicans. Have no opinions that cannot fit into 10 second sounbites. Unfortunately, this is probably what is needed.
No...I mean, don't say, hmmm, let's get the Iraq issue off the table so that we can make the campaign about the economy. There was so much talk about the Dems rushing on the war resolution in order to get into campaign mode, that I'm pretty confident the average swing voter was aware. Stuff like that. Spend a little more time legislating and a little less time politicking.