CD Six is a threesome in the Primary

Lindy Scott of Wheaton College’s Center for Applied Christian Ethics has jumped into the race. Lindy, send me a note if you can, I’d love to add you to the on-line interviews for the 6th District.

The oddity of the primary is that while everyone has a conspiracy theory about who is pulling whos strings, the reality appears to be that the establishment has deep misgivings about Cegelis, but neither of the other candidates are an establishment candidate. And my guess is that there won’t be an establishment candidate of the type that is the annointed one by the Party. From what I can tell, a couple were sounded out, but nothing worked out. While everyone thinks parties are organized and power brokers can call shots, in an area like DuPage, there isn’t the infrastructure for that kind of control.

More specifically, the DCCC can’t get involved in contested primaries in open seats (incumbents being primaried like in IL-03 is different, but there’s a question of why they’d bother there given there is little threat of a Republican winning if Lipinski were defeated). DCCC will try and recruit candidates in cases where there is a winnable races, but isn’t the complaint that the DCCC doesn’t contest enough races? They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

The frustration in this race is that the the Cegelis supporters who complain that the Party tries to shove a moderate down liberals’ throats are arguing for the party to clear the field for the liberal. While I understand that people think their candidate is the best option, that’s the point of primaries.

Certainly it’s true that a brutal primary can hurt the eventual nominee–I think we’ll see that in IL-08 on the Republican side the way things are shaping up. However, it seems that the three currently in the 6th CD’s Democratic Primary aren’t going to be competing for the same voters as much as competing with pretty distinct factions within the party.

I have mentioned before that I have concerns about how well Christine will play in a general election. She is going to have to appeal to moderate swing voters with some positions that aren’t necessarily moderate. Clearly if she can control the debate to be about Social Security, Ethics/DeLay/Rove, and balancing the budget, she’d be fine, but the problem is that Roskam is going to run a brutal campaign designed to hit every hot button social issue he can. It’s a legitimate discussion to have over how to best win the 6th District.

One of the greater concerns I have with the many of the activists in the Democratic Party is the above consideration is ignored–there seems to be a rejection of median voter theorem which pretty clearly describes the process of getting to 50%+1 to win an election. Running to the left isn’t always a smart strategy.

On the surface, the 6th isn’t a natural place to try and win with a liberal voice–it’s a moderate swing district now and usually you would want someone who is politically towards the center. With Roskam, there’s probably some room to go to the left, but carefully.

Each of these candidates is going to have to demonstrate the ability to run a decent campaign.

Christine’s first challenge was raising money. While she certainly hit her first goal she still has to meet the next hurdle, attracting more traditional money and getting her campaign spending under control. She’s got a good start, but the money is flowing too quickly out. Having been around a grass roots campaign that was remarkably effective, the Cegelis campaign is going through cash more like an incumbent campaign. On the surface, someone can make an argument for each of the expenditures. A little travel, some staff, event expenses, the fundraiser.

Having talked to some folks about the fund expenditures, the money for the fundraiser is probably a good expense as long as the candidate is sitting and making her calls, and then when sick of making her calls, make some more, and then when ready to scream and give up–make some more calls. It’s expensive so a candidate has to exploit it for all it’s worth.

The legal, hard to tell, but it seems high (not that Dan isn’t worth it), but in a grassroots campaign and one that won’t break $1 million for a while at least, it seems excessive.

Rent–well, that probably should wait. Again, one can make a good call as to why you spent it, but saving the money should probably win.

Staff–probably about right. If they are doing events and scheduling you probably need what they have.

Travel seemed high as did the cell phone bills, but more to the point is how to sell the candidate. Coffees in different neighborhoods that expand the volunteer list are essentially free except very minor dollars by the person holding them and it lets someone get a broad base of supporters and donors to build on good on-line fundraising. It keeps costs down and then you can also run weekend canvassing to update and monitor your lists.

The challenge for insurgent campaigns is to do everything cheaper and less expensively than others–even if you don’t raise as much as others, you get to have good on hand numbers and use the money for the end on media and mail for the really hard to reach. Too many campaigns focus on big events instead of working volunteers to do the work for small events.

Now, Christine’s supporters will probably complain about this–and that’s fine, but let me get to the point—there’s a point where you have to cross from insurgent to the person everyone wants to pretend they’ve been supporting all along. To do that, you have to have the right story going in the gossip. That story needs to be huge fundraising or good fundraising and especially good money management. Insurgents just can’t quite pull off the first–and fighting against Roskam it won’t matter–he’s got deeper pockets. If you can demonstrate a smart campaign spending plan that’s a low burn rate and yet you can keep your name in the headlines (which she is doing) it’ll go along way to moving from the insurgent to being the candidate everyone rallies around. In many ways, Bean’s campaign worked because she used her first campaign to showcase she could be frugal and outperform expectations.

What about the other candidates? Well, they have to show they can raise the money first and then one can evaluate their spending. They started later so to date there isn’t much to discuss. Christine comes to the election with some baggage within the party. One can argue all they want whether it’s fair or not, but the basic point is that it doesn’t matter—you have to jump through the hoop to win. I think Christine’s focus on improving her operation and fundraising is great and I think it’s the way to get party support for a general election, but with raising money comes using it wisely.