Swing State Project

Walter Ludwig, a former aide in Howard Dean's presidential campaign, has calculated that Democrats failed to mount serious challenges to about 120 House Republicans in each of the last three elections — and that those Republicans contributed $63 million to colleagues in closer races.

That is how it worked when the DCCC wrote off OH-02 last year. Incumbent Rob Portman's opponent only had $16K so Portman was free to travel the country and raise mad cash for his cohorts (NOTE: Portman raised so much money he now rolls with diplomatic license plates.)

Here's the other great thing about 2006: The Culture of Corruption. Take CA-50, it is a bright red district that would never end up on a targeted list. But it is now 100% in play because of the Culture of Corruption. Here's the DCCC line:

[Rahm Emanuel] said he had rejected the traditional milepost of only contesting seats where the GOP incumbent polled 55% of the vote or less. He said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would try to recruit and fund challengers in "every open seat, every seat where an individual Republican incumbent has an [ethics] issue," and in districts where Bush's performance fell short of expectations in 2004.

I've reached the same conclusion, only I think every single Republican incumbent has an ethics issue. And I want Democrats organized on the ground before the next major corruption scandal erupts. We can't follow the Culture of Corruption district-by-district, we need to drive it everywhere.

Before the Democratic Party can convince people we are agents of reform in congress, the DCCC needs to prove it can reform the way we run elections. We need every American to know about the Culture of Corruption, our message needs to reverberate through the entire country.

Back to the LA Times:

An array of liberal Internet activists is urging Democrats to vastly expand the 2006 congressional battlefield by recruiting and funding challengers in dozens of districts that have been virtually conceded to the GOP, like the one represented by Pitts.

Those calls are drawing new energy from Democrat Paul Hackett's narrow defeat this month in a special election in an Ohio district where Republicans usually romp. Hackett's showing "proved that you could build the party if you pay attention to every race," said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of the popular liberal website the Daily Kos. […]

Internet activists see Hackett's 52% to 48% loss to Republican Jean Schmidt in Ohio's 2nd District as proof that Democrats can compete in districts outside those guidelines. President Bush twice won more than 60% of the vote in the Ohio district.

In an article last week, Jerome Armstrong, co-founder of the popular liberal website MyDD.com, called on Democrats to run "Hackett-like operations" against every Republican House member.

Indeed.