Over at "Not Larry Sabato," Ben Tribbett is busy laying into what he sees as Democratic Party neglect (or worse) for its candidates. Specifically, with regard to the January 3rd special election to fill Bill Bolling's 4th District Virginia State Senate seat, Ben writes:
...it's a tough race. What are Sick Daslaw and Steve Pazmino (Senate Caucus Director) doing about it?1) No money for the Democratic Candidate
2) No help for the Democratic Candidate
3) Refusing to even return his calls about getting a voter file of voters in his district.What are the Democrats thinking? Mr. Cavendish told me he only heard from Steve Pazmino once, and he was told to drop out since the district is about a 62/38 area.
All I can say is, I hope this isn't true. Unfortunately, inadequate Democratic Party support for its candidates does not appear to be an isolated event. Recently, Brian Patton pointed out the case of Eric Ferguson:
Ferguson, the Ninth District challenger, should have beat[en] Allen Dudley by a few percentage points. Instead, he lost and a key area they were lacking in was campaign financing.
Brian added the following warning:
The Caucus, hopefully, will come through with solid funding for Bowling down here in the Third District and we can keep this seat in the Democratic column. With the Ferguson loss still stinging, we (Democrats, Virginians, and especially Southwest Virginia Democrats) cannot afford to let another race go under-funded and lose by just a few hundred votes.
In addition to Brian and Ben, I must say that I have heard the same types of stories from numerous (i.e, a dozen or so) Democratic candidates and political operatives over the past few years. One common theme is that the Democratic Party will not support you unless you agree to take the campaign personnel the Party sends your way. I have personally listened to Democratic candidates tell me of the less-than-stellar people (aka, "losers") sent to them by the Democratic Party. In most of these cases, the candidate ultimately opted to risk the wrath of the Party and select their own campaign staff, rather than take the dregs they were offered.
Another all-too-common theme I hear is that the Democratic Party simply refuses to fund candidates in districts it has determined, in its infinite wisdom, are "non-competitive." OK, sure, I realize that funds are finite and that you've got to prioritize, but still, there's "targeting" and then there's "over-targeting." Just like there's "analyzing" and "over-analyzing," "thinking" and "over-thinking."
Finally, I have heard stories firsthand about the Democratic Party actually DISCOURAGING candidates from taking on Republicans in districts it has deemed "non-competitive" or "safe Republican" or whatever. Again, I realize there's "analysis" behind this, but that doesn't mean it's quality analysis!
The bottom line for me is that the Democratic Party needs to do a far, FAR better job: a) of encouraging and recruiting good candidates IN EVERY SINGLE DISTRICT; b) of funding any Democratic candidate who is willing to work hard against a Republican incumbent; and c) of supplying said candidates with quality people - not "campaign monkeys" - or at least allowing them to pick their own campaign staff without financial or other repercussions. If not, we might as well get used to losing elections, because we'll be doing a great deal of it in months and years to come. I don't know about you, but to me, that's simply unacceptable.