I don't live there, didn't see the ads or much of the media coverage so it's hard for me to figure out.  The 5th District is not the same 5th District that L.F. Payne used to carry.  It was redrawn by the GOP and presumably made more favorable for a Republican.  It's a tough place for us to compete.

There's no questions with the bump in Democratic turnout and the pockets of African American communities in the Southside parts of the District that people thought Tom had an outside shot.  I was telling people that I thought that he or Nye would win, but not both.  I thought the odds were too long to pick up both.

I think his victory was a function of 3 things.

1 - That situation with the staffer sending out stuff while Virgil demagogues gays.  His hypocrisy was striking.  I'm not sure people voted against him because of that necessarily, but that story really (a) got people's attention, (b) got them to focus on Virgil's character and why he acts like he does, and (c) got people to think carefully about their decision.  

Also, the DCCC didn't start to pump money into this one until the last 3-4 weeks I think.  This story probably created the opening they wanted to see coupled with the cheap media market to play in.  

2 - The Blue Tsunami.  Increased Democratic and mainly African American turnout - from both voter registration and turnout of existing voters.  The wave was just big enough to push Tom over.

3 - All of the Virginia polling shows that lots of middle income white men (Reagan Democrats) came back to the Democratic Party this year.  The 5th District is full of these.

Obviously, if Tom hadn't been the right kind of candidate pushing all of the things you cited above, they might not have come over too him, BUT to beat an incumbent, you first have to make the case as to why he has to go.  It's hard for people to part with an incumbent.  After you've made that case, then you have to make your own.

I think most pundits didn't see Step 1 happening in the 5th - and it probably didn't until the last two weeks of the race.  Virgil just hadn't screwed up enough until then - he'd been a consistent demagogue, but not a hypocrite.  

Interestingly, I think the exactly analysis probably applies to Thelma - that story about her making money off foreclosed properties while voting against foreclosure relief destroyed her (although the DCCC was pumping money (and much more or it) into the 2nd much earlier).  

Scott:

IMHO, that story had little to do with what happened here, although I understand why it is easy to focus on it as a cause. And I'm not saying it didn;t have an effect, but to cite Tom's win a "function" of it is not borne out by the facts.

Tom Perriello had been running hard for more than a year. There was a Democratic tide, and the election was moving his way before that story broke.

That said, you touch on all the things that Tom's victory actually was a function of, in no particular order of importance:

1. An appealing candidate
2. A message of solutions and pragmatism rather than ideology
3. Terrible economy
4. Bush unpopularity
5. African American excitement at Obama candidacy
6. Great advertising backed up by money to run the ads
7. Changes in the counties (Albemarle, Greene, Nelson, Fluvanna and Buckingham) surrounding Charlottesville, which are still rural, but are becoming more suburban and exurban in nature. Think of  amini-Louden County.

They will say, "oh, of course he wouldn't have won except for [fill in blank of freak event here]."  Thus, George Allen won because of "macaca," not because of Jim Webb himself, his 10,000-strong "ragtag army" of supporters, the changing demographics of Virginia, Allen's multiple mistakes and overall 96% voting record with Bush, etc., etc. It's another way of excusing the analyst's own mistake, essentially saying, "I WOULD have been right if not for [unforeseen event X"].

The increasing sophistication of progressive blogs with their ties to the grassroots is beginning to provide better political analysis sometimes for non-national (i.e., state or local-based) races than the big-picture pundits and political analysts, who have yet to grasp the significance and power of bottom-up organizing and of the blogosphere. Congratulations to you, Lowell, on your record, and to RaisingKaine.  Scott Surovell gets it, older Establishment members generally do not; another generation gap, perhaps?

I'm happy for the media and the consultants to explain elections away with "macacas" and Eden's Curves" and whatnot, because that means they are missing the dynamics that are really driving these races, beginning with better candidates addressing people's legitimate and serious concerns rather than spouting some ideology of a set of Newt Gingrich talking points.

Tom won by less than what's looking to be less than 1,000 votes.

There's no question his campaign did a lot to lay the groundwork for people to come over once they had the reason.

In every race, there are obviously a number of factors that converge at different weights to cause a result and attributing an overall result to any one cause is illogical.  In a sub-1% win the absence of any one cause could easily create a different result.  Some causes have more weight than others.

Earned media pieces are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars of paid mail - ask Chap and what happened when Jeannemarie put his home phone number and address on her mail pieces and the media reaction.  All of the media Virgil got from the fax hurt.  

The bottom line is that to beat an incumbent, you have to convince people the incumbent has done a bad job and needs to go before they'll even consider your candidate.  That's Political Campaigning 101.  Macaca provided the opening.  So did the media Virgil got.  

In the end we're probably both right to some degree.

...that the "Eden's Curve" story had a significant impact on this race. As someone who did significant fieldwork for the campaign in the runup to the election, I can say that absolutely no one mentioned the story. Now that doesn't mean it didn't influence someone - maybe even 746 voters out of the entire Fifth district - but to call that anywhere near the top tier of relevant factors is close to a disservice to Tom and his campaign, and also misses the difference between "scandals" that matter to the people, and ones that just sound important in the media (no offense, RK).

There were, however, two "scandals" that I think had an impact that was more consequential; even if neither of them made as good a news story as "Goode Hypocrisy," I am convinced both would have swung more voters than the Eden's Curve story.

--Without a doubt, one of the most commonly-mentioned explanations for voting against Goode was the "Bearded Tom" attack ad. People called it slimy. People called it divisive. People said they couldn't vote for someone who played that dirty. People could tell just from the cheesy voice and imagery that the content probably wasn't true (which of course it wasn't). You want a "tipping point," I argue it was that ad, and I think it accrued strongly to Tom's favor.

--Debategate: Eden's Curve got press drawing critical attention to Goode; Goode's ducking of the televised debate brought scathing editorials from traditionally conservative papers. Drew negative press for Goode (in a story that was much more clear-cut than Eden's Curve), and brought him flat-out criticism from expected allies - I would call this one definitely a considerable factor.

Most importantly, I think Goode's support was just softer throughout the district than people thought, and so the combination of a campaign with offices everywhere with an extremely appealing candidate bit into Goode's numbers in all parts of the district.  

and perhaps the reason it backfired, was that it actually played into the argument Tom was making.

Tom was basically arguing that we need to move past the politics of the past -- the name-calling, divisiveness, etc., that was not doing anyone any good, and start talking about how to fix problems, get jobs, etc.

And then this ad (as well as the NY lawyer attack) come along, and they actually make the case for him.

BTW, I spoke with several dozen voters on election day in Buckingham County, both Tom and Virgil voters. Several mentioned the "beard," several mentioned New York. Not a single one mentioned Eden's Curve.

That doesn't prove anything. It was just my experience.

I have been talking to Fifth District voters for the last 4 election cycles, and what I heard -- which was confirmed by the polling data -- was that most people in the Fifth were not in love with Virgil Goode as much as they were unaware of an alternative.  During the Meredith Richards campaign, and during Al Weed's two campaigns, I would talk with voters in rural areas of the Fifth and what I would get from them was the following:  

1.  No, I can't think of much that Virgil has done for us, but his staff returns my phone calls about a missing Social Security check.

2.  Nobody in Washington does much for us anyway, so what real difference does it make who my Congressman is, as long as he helps me track down missing Social Security checks?

3.  I haven't really heard much about the Democrat.

Tom had two challenges -- name recognition, and getting the Fifth District voters to believe that it might actually matter who your Congressman is and what he believes.  The second challenge actually has within it two separate pieces -- getting voters to be willing to think that they might be dissatisfied with their Congressman, and getting voters to think about Tom as a suitable alternative.

In all of this, Virgil actually helped with his cartoonish negative ad -- the one with the dark shadows and lines on Tom's face.  It helped for three reasons.  First, it helped Tom build name recognition by mentioning his name.  Second, when people saw Tom's smiling face on other ads, and then saw the cartoonish Tom on Virgil's ads, they realized how stupidly unfair Virgil's ads were.  Third, every ad that ran that was against Tom was an ad when Virgil could NOT say, "I brought you this road, or money for this fire truck."  

As Tom built momentum, and began to spend heavily on his own ads, Virgil never went positive about himself.

I always was frustrated by Larry Sabato's dismissive attitude about the Fifth.  I could understand how someone who only looked at polls would say the things that he has said over the years, but because what he was saying was based only on polls, it missed an important part of the picture.

National pundits may have been surprised, but not those of us who had been talking to voters.

"emerging races" list back in June.

...on June 19, 2008:

Tom Perriello is doing all the right things to be prepared to take him down.   And with Mark Warner on the ticket, that will help - Warner carried the district in 2001.

Tom is raising money, making connections, even advertising on Christian Radio to introduce himself to people who might not otherwise know much about him.   And he has been raising more money than Goode.

Teacherken also wrote this diary on June 18 -- "Tom Perriello VA-05: an Emerging Race."

I think it was a bigger surprise that Virgil Goode had such a strong victory in 2006 over Al Weed.  Virgil Goode is like a Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado who got crushed in a similarly conservative district in 2008.  As a fellow detestable incumbent with little merit and ethical issues, Virgil Goode was ripe for the picking.  The local press dogged Goode for three years on MZM and other issues.  The national press hounded him after his comments on Keith Ellison.  Goode claimed those comments reflected the views of his constituents.  I guess not, Virgil!  

This race was always leans Republican; not safe or likely Republican; but lean Republican.  Now, if Tom Perriello had run a poor campaign, I would agree with the pundits.  However, Perriello ran an excellent campaign, which was obvious early on.  Thus, he made up for the Republican lean, which gave Virgil a few points.  His victory wasn't a surprise.  

In part, this is a pointless argument, but still.

Dan, I really appreciate the work you did putting together a monthly record of the status of House races. According to those, you first identified Goode as a "slightly vulnerable Republican in August," although you downgraded it to a "Race to Watch" in September.

In October, you called it "Leaning to Likely Republican," nothing, "This race should be interesting, although Goode still has the advantage.  If Obama wins this district, he may take Perriello with him." That is, actually, not quite what happened (Obama lost the District), although I would argue that Obama's coattails did help Tom.

I would note that at least all through the Spring, you had VA10 rated a more likely Dem takeover than VA05.

Look, you were writing about dozens and dozens of races. You did an amazing job. And this isn't a knock on you analytical abilities.

But your statements above are simply inconsistent with your own record.

I never said that I personally declared the race leans Republican over the past year.  I realized that after the fact.  I am guilty as well for not giving Perriello more credit.  Looking back in hindsight, I should have realized this long before.  That being said, I am not surprised that people in the 5th District chose to unseat Virgil Goode.  

In 2006 when I went down to Bedford to canvass for Al Weed, I had a sense that the race was closer than it turned out to be.  The fact that Virgil Goode won so easily was surprising to me.  
This caused me to be over-cautious during 2008 in my assessment.  

So, I was wrong, and I am happy I was wrong because Virgil is no more!

 

I think what we have is a group of reporters and analysts who are afraid to attack conventional wisdom.  All the evidence was there for a possible Perriello victory.  Here at RK we have been saying for weeks that a Perriello victory was rather easy to imagine.  We speculated that he would have to win Albemarle-Charlottesville by a large margin and make sure he didn't get blown out downstate (not allowing Goode to rack up over 70 percent of the vote in Pittsylvania, Campbell, and Bedford for example).  

When the polls were coming out showing Obama up by 20 points in Northern Virginia, analysts should have been able to extrapolate that to Charlottesville-Albemarle which behaves very similar to that area of the state.  I believe I posted about this a week or so before the election.  A twenty point victory in Fairfax (the bellwether of NOVA) would translate to about a 20 point victory in Albemarle (the bellwether of the Charlottesville-Albemarle area).  That should have indicated that the congressional race would be a blowout up here as well considering many people couldn't imagine what a Obama-Goode voter would look like (possible, yes, but I think we all knew they would be relatively few in number).  Add to this the fact that a disproportionate amount of the population of the 5th District is in Charlottesville-Albemalre and the relatively large black population in Southside, it was rather plausible to see why so many thought a victory was very possible.

That all seemed like very simple stuff.  Why couldn't people who get paid for their expert analysis figure this out?  The answer is that I believe they could, but didn't want to.  Conventional wisdom held that Goode was unbeatable and the pundits and media refused to acknowledge any evidence to the contrary (perhaps out of fear that they would be labeled biased or incompetent in their analysis).  I know that I too was tempered by a slight degree of skepticism when it came to this race, but neither I nor many people on this site thought it would be surprising if Perriello won.