Firing away at a misidentified target

In a Comment to DavidNYC’s article, Blue Majority Page: Call for Nominations JeremiahTheMessiah raised a point:

**Our dollars can go further in races which, so far, have received less attention and institutional backing.**

So then why is Leslie Byrne on the list? … getting sufficient institutional support, already has Webb doing fundraisers, has a contested primary, etc.

So what’s the answer here?

Much more below the fold.

I grew up in Texas, live in NYC. Never heard nor seen Ms. Byrne nor Mr Connolly. I only know what I read online.

Matt Stoller wrote the intro when she got the nod, so maybe something got him excited. But here at SSP the endorsement got only one Comment, about the competitiveness of the district, not a word about the horse picked in the primary.

Go back to the Comments on Stoller on dKos — I’ve never seen so much negative feedback about a candidate put on the Netroots/Blue Majority list. (Condensed & emphasis added.)

I can only hope that she has learned from past campaigns. She ran very poorly in her statewide Lt Gov race, and does not have a great history as a campaigner.

Not impressed with her. I was her constituent when she was in Congress, heck I was her constituent when she was a delegate & state senator. So I know Ms. Byrne and still cringe over her proposed law to make sleeping in a room in your house other than your bedroom illegal.

Not to pour water on the bonfire … I live in VA-11 and I’m not sure she’s a good fit for this district … a very edgy reputation, comes across as a bit too ideological/partisan for many independents. The voters in VA-11 are VERY moderate and ripe for Dem takeover but not sure if they want someone like her.

She’d be a better rep than Connolly, but I have my doubts she can win. She lost the Lt. Gov. race, and that was not a race we should have lost.

Andy Hurst (the ’06 Dem candidate for the 11th) endorsed Connolly

Hate to be a wet blanket. But Byrne … tends to be abrasive and obnoxious. She lost a number of legislative elections, including a recent contest for the VA State Senate. Connolly is a shoo-in. Moreover, he’s a fine progressive Democrat.

Just before the VA primary, I got either an Email or a flyer with Byrne’s picture and statement in favor of HRC. Can’t find the original. Ms. Byrne now claims not to have endorsed (her husband works for HRC, as she did during the Clinton years).

Gosh, no … my congresswoman growing up, one of the worst attendance records in the VA State Senate … a competitiveness that many find abrasive, a history of alienating colleagues. I voted for her in 2005, but that doesn’t mean I believe she is the best candidate.  Not by a long shot.

I’ll say this: The hope is Leslie Byrne has learned something over the last 15 years. In 1992 my wife and I volunteered for her campaign – worked the phones, licked the envelopes, walked the neighborhoods. She won! In 1994 we called to offer our help: “We don’t need you” we were told …

Altogether only 50 Comments, very few for a frontpage article on dKos. And 5 or 10 were sort of off-topic. Above I tried to avoid quoting anyone more than once. So a huge share of the Comments were decidedly negative.

Oh, yeah. About her bad guy opponent. Gerry Connelly’s website, on the Issues:

“I bring a passion for progressive values, and an ethic of getting things done. I want to bring that same ethic — the expectation that government will work for its citizens — to Congress.”

End the War in Iraq

For 10 years, Gerry Connolly was a senior staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has the experience to work with the new administration to end the war in Iraq and restore American credibility around the world.

Enact Comprehensive Health Care Reform

The next President and Congress must act boldly to control rising health care costs and provide quality, affordable care for the 47 million uninsured Americans. Connolly will work with a broad coalition to design a plan that emphasizes preventive coverage and makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage for preexisting conditions.

Provide Strong Environmental Leadership

Connolly worked with the Sierra Club to champion the “Cool Counties” initiative to combat global warming. In Congress, he will lead the effort to promote energy conservation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

They say Connolly is pro-business and pro-developer. Well, I hope it takes more than being “pro-business” to get your opponent endorsed around here. And “pro-developer.” Dayum, I thought that was a job requirement for his current position. Somebody wanna work up a short list of all the anti-development county execs elected in the last few decades?

I was very disappointed to see this intervention in a hotly contested primary where for the life of me I cannot see national implications.

This endorsement runs the risk of diverting thousands of dollars from candidates and races that clearly meet the declared standards of the Blue Majority page. When you put Gary Trauner or Joe Garcia on the list, I get excited. Leslie Byrne, not so much.

VA-10 is one of the richest districts in the U.S., part of the extremely costly Washington-Baltimore media market. Now precious Blue Majority dollars will be poured into a big spending primary against a well-funded and popular Democrat, a self-described anti-War progressive. To me that’s a wanton waste of our resources.

(Our dollars can go further in races which, so far, have received less attention and institutional backing.)

Less attention than a costly open-seat race in a newly competitive battleground state?

How blue is the district or state?

Well, how blue is VA? How blue is this district? Is this the one where Blue Majority can make the most difference? Or would that have been Tom Perriello, VA-5, against Virgil Goode? Or even Judy Feder against in VA-10 against Frank Wolf?

In conclusion [insert roar of applause here] the standards for endorsing in a contested primary should be extremely high. If the high hurdles aren’t met, hold off until a nominee is chosen.

Meanwhile put the emphasis back on races like Steve Sarvi in MN, Sam Bennett in PA, Tom Perriello VA-5, Kay Barnes in MO-06, Vic Wulsin in OH-02, Jane Mitakides in OH-03, Anne Barth in WVa-02, Annette Taddeo in FL-18, Betsey Markey in CO-04, — either Ann Kirkpatrick, the front runner, or Mary Kim Titla, a Native American, AFTER the primary — in AZ-01, Jill Derby in NV-02, Debbie Cook in CA-46, or even Chris Rothfuss (WY-Sen).

DavidNYC, you guys need to keep a closer eye on Matt Stoller. Sometimes over there those guys go off and see Bush Dogs where there are none, ya now what I mean?