Democratic Primaries

mopinko

(69,990 posts) Fri Dec 20, 2019, 02:16 PM Dec 2019

maybe the way to handle all this is to measure the strength of the campaigns.

confession- i have a long held axe that i bring out and grind from time to time against the dccc, esp, but the dnc in general. and the money poll.

the dnc has made a heroic effort to find a way to improve the process, but it still isnt working. strong candidate are dropping out, and there are still complete loser clowns on the main stage.
allow me to give you a view from the birth of the blue wave to point to a better way to do this.

read this part if you are bored.

oldtimers here might remember the 2006 il6 race- cegelis v duckworth.
it was a battle royale. it raged right here.
i was on the losing side of that fight, and duckworth was on the losing side in the ge, giving us peter ro-scum.

i got to know many folks on both sides of that battle, including jan schakowsky's political director, who was the ultimately successful hatchetman.
for all concerned, it came down to money. they had lifted cegelis up in her first run, she was in the dean dozen. she had forced henry hyde to retire.
then they dropped her like a hot potato. (the only dem who even bothered to speak to her about it was sen obama.)
the dist has since gone solid blue. that race, that candidate, had been a focal point around which the dupage dems, almost an oxymoron until that election, organized to flip the district and the county.
but it was a loss we did not have to take.

cegelis had known from the get go that it would take 2 runs. she had built a grassroots army from day one. hell, i came in from chi, an hour drive, to lend a hand.
the night before the election there was an electric rally. it remain perhaps the political high point of my life. i guess my sisters election night edges it out for significance, but for pure inspiration, it is the peak. honestly, it barely edges out the whole 2008 campaign.

the guest of honor was a skinny kid w a funny name who was running for the senate.
now, i could go on about that night at very great length, but i will leave it at this- my life's greatest mistake. tho i have a pic of obama w my candidate, i neglected to get one w me. all i can say is that some day, if i ever get a chance to chat on a ropeline again, i can tell him my story from that night, he will remember, and he will smile that smile.

we were sure we could win in 06. we had a ground game that eventually helped tipped the whole thing.
but it came down to dollars. so they propped up tammy, and that turned out spectacularly in the long run. i never doubted that would happen. the friendly fire doomed her run.

and that warfare cost us control until 18, and sean casten.
we need better metrics than dollars and polls.
#of staff, #volunteers, #quality of assets like walk pieces and websites.
#of signatures, #of events so far, #of emails and followers.

you get the picture.
we need this debate. we could have it quickly, and fix this in time.