Aside from the obvious winners yesterday - Jim Webb and Andy Hurst in particular - there were a few other big winners yesterday.*The 8th CD - Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church and eastern Fairfax County. According to Scott Surovell of the Mount Vernon District in Fairfax, the 8th CD "produced about 20% of the raw votes for this last statewide primary even though we make up 9% of population (1 of 11 congressional districts). The 8th CD really cranked it out last night." The 8th CD also produced a nearly 9,000-vote margin for Jim Webb yesterday, accounting for nearly all of Webb's 11,000-vote margin statewide. Wow.
*The "Netroots" - I'm not talking about blogs per se, I'm talking about citizen activists who made the Jim Webb candidacy happen. I'm talking about over 2,500 Webb volunteers who made phone calls, handed out lit, canvassed precincts, talked to their friends and neighbors, assembled and distributed signs, helped convince their elected officials to back Jim Webb, raised money, and even - GASP! - wrote about it all on the blogs, Yahoo groups, etc. This was an amazing victory for the "netroots," one of the best ones in memory.
*Andy Hurst - Andy worked his butt off for his 55%-45% victory over Ken Longmyer, and he richly deserves to be counted as a "winner" today. I am very happy to call Andy Hurst a friend, and I will do everything I can to help him defeat Tom Davis this November. Another winner? James Walkinshaw, a rapidly rising star among Democratic campaign managers.
*Not Larry Sabato: Ben calls it for Webb before any other media outlet, and he gets it right. I'd say his accuracy rating goes up to 99.6% from 99.5% for this one! :)
There were also a few "losers" yesterday, aside from the obvious ones:
*Money - Despite being outspent considerably, Jim Webb won yesterday. This strongly demonstrates that money isn't everything, although ceteris parabis, it certainly helps.
*"Litmus Test Democrats" - There's nothing that upsets me more than my fellow Democrats who refuse to support candidates that don't meet their strict litmus tests on 1 or 2 issues, even if they are in sync on all the others. I met a few of those people yesterday, and many others over the past several months. This is the "liberal interest group" politics that Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong rail against in their book, "Crashing the Gate." In my opinion - and Markos' and Jerome's as well - we must build the broader progressive movement, and we must make the Democratic Party a national majority party again. We won't do it by applying litmus tests to our candidates.
*The "But he's a Republican!" crowd - This entire line of reasoning bothered me greatly when it was used against Wesley Clark, now one of the strongest voices out there for Progressive values and the Democratic Party. It bothered me even more with Jim Webb. Instead of pushing people away, why don't we Democrats WELCOME these converts back into our party, instead of pushing them away as "heretics?" I would point out that Republicans welcomed a former liberal Democratic union leader into their party. His name was Ronald Reagan, and he went on to become, arguably, the Republicans' greatest president of the 20th Century.
*George Allen - His greatest nightmare came to life yesterday with Jim Webb as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. Sure, Allen's team - Dick Wadhams, our old friend Scott "Hitler Ads" Howell, etc. - will try to "Swift Boat" Webb, and they'll try to swamp him with tens of millions of dollars. But guess what, guys. You're in serious jeopardy with Jim Webb as our nominee, and something tells me you know it very well, despite Dick Wadhams' desperate attempt to claim that Allen faces a "very fractured, divided Democratic Party." Nothing could be further from the truth. We are all united in defeating George Allen this November. Period.
*The Virginia Republican Party: Sure, voter turnout was low everywhere yesterday. But you guys set a new low in the 8th CD, with a turnout of just 0.54% to nominate Tom O'Donoghue as your man to take on Jim Moran. Good luck! Ha. :)
Any other "winners" or "losers" you can think of coming out of yesterday's primary?
[UPDATE: Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post has his "winners and losers" up. Winners include John Kerry, the DSCC, "electability," Steve Jarding (yay, Steve!), the Netroots, and Northern VA. No disagreements from me there. Losers include Don and Megan Beyer, George Allen, Traditional Campaign Tactics, and Virginia's Tidewater. That seems about right too. What do you all think?]
(1) Clearly new voters psyched for Webb.
(2) People who had problems with both, Miller as a lobbyist, and Webb as a former Republican (the "But he's a Republican" crowd). Thankfully, vast majority of them went for Webb, and I think was the difference in the election.
(3) "Litmus Test Democrats" mostly went for Miller. The problem here was lack of message. I heard it all. Anti-semitic comments, Webb had nothing positive to say, political opportunist, etc. I could refute everyone of those charges, but it would have involved some Miller bashing, and since they had already voted, I bit my tongue in hopes of burying the hatchet. I'm convinced this came down to a lack of money, for which we will need Miller, hence the tongue-biting again. On that note, the Beyers cancelling the Schumer fundraiser is not good. Hopefully fences can be mended.
Andy is an incredibly talented campaign manager, and deserves so much credit for making this a competitive race. I seriously hope, if it's something Andy would want, that the Webb campaign bring him on board in a very senior position.
That's my only concern after this win.
I am disappointed with the tactics the Miller campaign used but I can see that it was either that or throw in the towel completely (not that I don't think that this is a big blot on Andy's resume but I don't expect he really cares what I think).
I will vouch for Andy on this point, He knows how to beat a blowhard, right wing, republican in what before was seen as a conservative stronghold (Loudoun County with both Dave Poisson over Dick Black and Mark Herring over Mick Staton). In both races the republicans thought they could just point and yell 'LIBERAL' and that would be that.
Andy has shown if he has a candidate with strong values (check) against a wing nut (check) he can out perform the common wisdom.
If the Webb campaign can absorb him it could be huge, Resnick working the 10th CD and NW VA, Mudcat and Jarding working the NASCAR Virginians, Webb's military background and fighting Dems in Tidewater, and increased enthusiam on the heels of the huge Webb turnout in Northern VA - 'Bored George' and the GOP lie-meisters would be completely outflanked.
I'm sure Andy's got himself well-positioned to keep performing miracles, wherever he goes.
I really think Judy Feder needs to be adopted as the next netroots candidate, after Webb. She really could make a huge dent in the 10th, and with her good fundraising, a win is not even out of the question.
At any rate, Andy deserves credit, and lots of it.
Andy and as many from the Miller campaign as we can bring over...
* Bring our men and women home from Iraq.
* Close the pay-to-play Corrupt Political Money Machine. Tom DeLay accumulated wealth and power by shaking down industry to contribute to his PAC, then he used the money to blackmail and bully weaker candidates to do his bidding so his PAC would contribute to their PAC. Tom Davis gets an "A" in DeLay's school of corruption: , he's number 8 of 433 Congressmen ranked by PAC contributions -- even though he's had no serious House race in 12 years. Include the Senators and Davis loses almost no ground in the Money Machine: he's #15 of 533. And why shouldn't they pay to play? It's a dirt cheap way access to Billion$ of dollar$ for energy companies, drug companies and defense contractors to write their own laws and regulations.