2006

Cluster&%$

ArchPundit March 23, 2006 32 Comments

Let me make clear what I think happened in the 6th if the below post on the reduction in Democratic voters doesn’t make it clear.

Three candidates–all people I think are nice people ran in three different ways. One spent $700,000. One tried to bring in new Democrats. One essentially organized for 3 years.

The grand total of that effort? 4,000 fewer votes in the primary than 2 years ago. Not only did they not make the pie larger, the divided it up between themselves and subtracted 4,000 people.

That takes some talent on all their parts.

Everyone complaining about the other camps needs to drop it now and figure out how they screwed up themselves and there are plenty of things to point towards that were problematic. I can start going through them one after another for days on end, and trust me, no campaign would be happy by the time I’m done.

With SEIU and other unions backing her, Tammy couldn’t get out any more voters than in the past even with all the resources she could need. If you can’t use the money to get people to the polls, there isn’t going to be much of a contest in November.

Christine lost votes in the primary over last time–if the great selling point is the grass roots support she had, it would appear the grass roots is shrinking.

Lindy, well, being third I won’t be too hard here, but Lindy wanted to bring in many, many more new voters. That didn’t happen either. ”

This was a horribly low turnout election in a District that is becoming competitive for Democrats and yet no one in the Democratic Party from the organization to the grass roots appears to know where the hell the Democratic voters are in Illinois 6.

UPDATE: What is noticeable is if you take the DuPage results for CD 6, the total number of Democratic ballots taken in 2002 and 2006 are pretty close–with 2006 actually having 135 fewer Democratic ballots taken. Meaning the increase in DuPage between 2002 and 2006 in number of votes in the Congressional Election was due to fewer people skipping the race. We don’t have the final Cook numbers, but it looks very likely that a similar situation took place.

Sooooo…despite all of this effort, fewer Democrats in the 6th District portion of DuPage actually showed up to vote this time.

Good Advice

ArchPundit March 23, 2006 3 Comments

Lynn Sweet offers up some advice to the Duckworth camp and all of it would be a good start

Here’s what needs to happen, and it’s more than having all of the Democrats show up at Saturday’s DuPage Dems post-primary breakfast in Oakbrook Terrace.

*Cegelis, even if she turns it down, needs to be asked to be part of the Duckworth operation.

*Emanuel, whose presence in the race touched a raw nerve among Cegelis supporters, needs to reach out to them. Durbin and Obama also ought to be mending fences.

*And there is one person who really could help. That’s Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. It was his people-powered, grass-roots, Internet-based, anti-war 2004 presidential campaign that gave birth to the movement that yielded Cegelis 40.4 percent of the vote.

Lindy is left out, but I think he should be included as well.

More than all of this is the very real problem that voter intensity is in the toilet and needs to be improved. Despite three good candidates, turnout was down. Voter intensity was the reason 1994 happened–Republicans were very intense, Democrats were not. Right now, at least in the 6th, voter intensity isn’t there despite all the time and effort spent there by the three candidates.

It isn’t just mending fences that needs to happen, but a strong and fast analysis of why Democratic leaning voters are not engaged.

Change Progressive to FTN and Oberweis to Scheuer

ArchPundit March 22, 2006 11 Comments

Hot build a successful party

Christine Cegelis vs. Democratic Party Machine

By Bill Scheurer

To all my friends who supported Christine Cegelis in the Illinois 6th Congressional District primary race — my heart goes out to you and your candidate. You carried out a great grassroots campaign — both, locally and nationwide. You brought out our best. Unfortunately, our best was not enough.

In a mere three months, the D.C. Dems — with the full party apparatus — brought in nearly a million dollars, and all their big names, to beat back what Christine and her supporters had built up over three years: a true grassroots, progressive force. The D.C. Dems? worst nightmare. Or, more accurately, their second worst nightmare.

What do the D.C. Dems fear more than a grassroots progressive primary challenge? A grassroots progressive challenge in the general election. The only thing that can put at risk what they value most — winning, no matter what.

This is the only way progressives will have real power — when we are willing to go outside the party, no matter what, to carry our issues and choices to the people. Only when the Democratic Party elite can no longer count on us to fall in line behind their handpicked candidates as ?the only game in town? (?the lesser of two evils?), will we ever seize real power to move forward the progressive agenda.

Progressive Democrats of America was one of the groups that most valiantly supported the Cegelis campaign. PDA professes to have an ?inside/outside? strategy. Their support for Christine reflected the ?inside? part of this strategy. Now, I ask PDA — is there really an ?outside? part of this strategy — or, is this just a phrase?

Democracy for America also supported Cegelis, to their great credit. Now that the D.C. Dems have showed clearly what they really think of progressives — eat at the children?s table, kids — we must decide what to do about it. Will groups like PDA and DFA remain quasi-auxiliaries of the Democratic Party — running sideshow campaigns in the primary elections? Or, will they become a real force — holding real chips in the game?

It is time for supporters of social progress and peace to eat at the adults? table. The only way to do this, is to start running progressive candidates in the general elections.

Bill Scheurer edits The PeaceMajority Report, and is an independent progressive candidate for U.S. Congress in the Illinois 8th District.

Bill Scheuer’s Fans

ArchPundit March 22, 2006 No Comments

Bill is being promoted by the NRCC

You can disagree with Bean on many issues, but if you think David McSweeney would be an improvement, you are kidding yourself. Bean is in a 56% Bush District. You aren’t going to elect Jan Schakowsky there.