With control of the Senate no longer on the line, the race becomes less important for both party committees — each of which took out loans in the final weeks before Tuesday’s election.
I get the rationale behind this, but it’s completely screwy. Landrieu got more votes than Bill Cassidy two days ago. She has a more-than-reasonable chance of pulling this off.
Every seat counts. The battle for control will be a lot easier in 2016 and 2018 if Mary Landrieu keeps her seat.
Put up, DSCC. It’s four weeks and one state.
Please share widely!
seamusromney says
Party committees suck. They’re about insiders taking care of friends, not about winning. Look at 2010, when the DSCC intervene in tdhe PA-Sen primary to protect Republican Arlen Specter against Democrat Joe Sestak, and then lied to prospective donors about it!
Just remember not to give your money to them or pay any attention to which races they consider important and which they don’t, and you’ll be fine.
Kevin L says
This blog – Down With Tyranny goes more into depth on this topic.
jconway says
I am sick and tired of hearing the trope that millenials, blacks, and Hispanics not showing up in non-presidential years loses the midterms for the Democrats. It has the benefit of being partially true, and also the benefit of fitting conventional Washington narratives that the key is to tack further to the right and somehow win over more disaffected white voters. I strongly agree with the head of the Republican Senate effort, that we hid our President and failed to mobilize our base. .
What midterm did we successfully compete everywhere able to take advantage of shifting environments with a built in ground game? 2006. And it was because we used Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy to make every Democratic state party agile, effective, and efficient at organizing and winning elections. We competed everywhere, and won in most places with that organization.
Had that organization been in place, we might have better mobilized Maine for instance, not only to dump LePage, but to give Bellows a shot. We might have organized Eastern KY with its union households to back Grimes, we might have organized Kansas to take advantage of the Orman bubble and the Roberts retreat, not to mention to dump Brownback.
We might have had a better ground game to help Wendy Davis, who also ran a center-right safe economics strategy and got pigeonholed early as the abortion candidate. Dean was even willing to run pro-life candidates by focusing on the economic issues, while this year we ran cookie cutter fiscally conservative/social liberal campaigns in electoral environments averse to abortion yet crying out for economic populism. Keeping every state competitive was what allowed the GOP to eek out surprises in Maryland, overcome a 20 point deficit in Massachusetts, and nearly topple Mark Warner. Grassroots canvassers going door to door and selling the party is the best way to counteract TV ads.
slapNtickle says
Its not complicated, just hard.
masslib says
Would have gone to the Democrats anyway.
David says
In the last couple of hours, I’ve gotten fundraising emails from several Senators asking me to send money to Landrieu’s runoff effort. So it doesn’t sound to me like they’re ditching her. Maybe the DSCC is, but really, they suck anyway.
jconway says
After all, the looming threat of Brian Herr has been soundly defeated.
sabutai says
We don’t have time for that.
Pretty soon we are going to need to discuss how David needs to buy stuff at grocery stores at Thanksgiving, so they should be allowed to be open. You’ve been here long enough to know the calendar.
JimC says
… but all pointed back to Politico, so I went with that.
I also just got an e-mail from Markey, and I don’t believe the other Senators are abandoning her. I do believe the DSCC is, and I know they suck, and that’s why I posted this.
Their suckiness is unacceptable and needs to be called out.
masslib says
Of her winning the run-off?
JimC says
Yet.
Why surrender now?
jconway says
And I give her props for not running away from Obamacare. But she is one of the many Democrats who will give the Keystone Pipeline bipartisan credentials if she gets sent back to Washington. It’s a major legislative priority of the new Majority Leader, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Big Oil pitched in a big way to keep her in the Senate. Far more useful to have Keystone a bipartisan idea-than the Washington press corps is bound to take it seriously and pressure the White House.
JimC says
But she’s better than Cassidy.
Christopher says
I see no reason why the DSCC shouldn’t go all in unless they are approaching a zero balance.
Also, Bob, there are plenty of DSC members and groupies on BMG, so I suspect many of us COULD identify Senator Tom McGee as the Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, though he doesn’t seem to be quite the presence John Walsh was.
Al says
she’s close to winning. Would the Dems rather be 1 seat closer to majority or 1 seat farther away? Every vote is important, even if your party is in the majority. So, if the committee is broke, then do what they’re doing and get money from individual senators surpluses, but continue to fight.
bluewatch says
The DSCC probably doesn’t have any money. In fact, the DSCC could be millions of dollars in debt. So, my guess is they are not capable of helping in Louisiana.