Well, I don’t know who else to include in the tags, but this thread is about people who lost races–even if by landslides–who we think have real potential to do something awesome.
Scott Kleeb: obviously, the netroots darling of this cycle. With his coming so close in NE-03 last time, I think he should have run again there, rather than get in over his head running for the Senate seat against a non-crappy (and quite tough) candidate. It seems that the fact that Adrian Smith sucked hasn’t yet resonated into netroots consciousness the way Bill Sali’s antics have, and thus it was passed around that Kleeb’s overperformance in NE-03 meant that he could similarly overperform in all of Nebraska. But he seems like he’s got a future ahead of him, and I think we’d love to see him back.
Gary Trauner: I think I’ve mentioned several times that he’s my favorite candidate, and not only that, he’s almost singlehandedly built a semblance of a Democratic bench in Wyoming (of all places!). His name’s been tossed around as a gubernatorial candidate, since (to paraphrase someone) Wyomingites are more comfortable sending a Democrat to Cheyenne than to DC.
Nancy Boyda: a nearly heart-breaking loss, from the person who I’ve heard got DCCC money in 2004 and lost badly, then refused it in 2006 (mostly) and won a surprise victory, and then refused it again in 2008 and lost narrowly. I remember seeing one of her announcements in her capacity as a Representative, and she seemed like a quite hard-working person who really wanted to serve her constituents.
Jon Powers: three words: Jack ****ing Davis. Will we see more of him? He can’t really high-tail back to New York immediately either, so this one is really in the air.
Alice Kryzan: How good of a candidate was she? Will we see more of her? Would we like to? I have little to no information about her.
Chris Rothfuss: the Democratic Senate candidate against Mike Enzi of Wyoming, this college instructor with chemical engineering and diplomacy experiences was in WAYYYYYY over his head. But as my mother mentioned, this guy’s got presidential-level potential, and I hope he gets somewhere. I was very receptive to his appeal for more scientists in Congress, and while we just got one more recently (Bill Foster), there’s no question that we need more.
Don Cazayoux: Unfortunately, Michael Jackson Wanted to Be Where Don Cazayoux Is, and made everyone not Happy by running as an independent and not Beating It. This caused this One Day of Cazayoux’s Life, this past Tuesday, to be Bad, because the district’s African-American voters were torn by the question of Black or White, and caused a rare election-day Thriller for Republicans this year as Bill Cassidy succeeded in letting himself say “This Seat Is Mine”. So Farewell Our Summer Love, LA-06, but let’s not Cry over it, because Cazayoux might Wanna Be Startin’ Something since he’s still got quite a bit of potential. Will You Be There for him?
Nick Lampson: A comeback kid swept back out of office, by extremely unfriendly turf that nearly elected Snelly Dracula-Gibbr Shelly Sekula-Gibbs in write-in ballots. Will he be back for another round once we can tip Texas’s districting a bit closer back to sanity?
Larry LaRocco: does this guy have anything else he can do? Will he wait until Risch really screws it up? Or can he do something else? Or is Walt Minnick the way of the future, with apologies to poor LaRocco who worked his butt off on one of the best Senate campaigns this year? (Speaking of which, what’s Larry Grant doing?)
Larry Craig: Hmm, I think we’d love to have him around! (What about other Idahoans named Larry? Is there something that really curses them to political problems?)
Debbie Cook: Seems like a quite awesome candidate…can we get her to run again in 2010?
Dan Seals: Will he be running again? Or is third time seriously not going to be the charm? What else could he do?
Elwyn Tinklenberg: How about our favorite light rail champion? How about another run against the House Anti-American Activities Committee’s lone member?
Tom Allen: I’ve heard that he kept the campaign relatively placid in order to position himself to run for governor.
Rick Noriega: Rumor has it that Hutchison wants the governorship. Is Noriega our man for the job? He ran a decent (though, according to people around here it seems, not quite stellar) campaign even though it was a serious uphill battle.
Who else do we want to see again?
Scott Kleeb, depending on how much money he raised, very well could have lost by a bigger margin in 2008 because of the presidential coattails of a heavily conservative district. He was doomed to lose either way.
Rick Noriega for governor in 2010? Is that a joke? He lost to Cornyn and Hutchison is wildly more popular than him. If you are talking about running for the open US Senate seat, I am guessing we would have a better shot with someone who loans his campaign ten million dollars… Mikal Watts sounds right, or Nick Lampson could make a comeback here. Noriega didn’t have the fundraising to run statewide in Texas. Period.
Dan Seals needs to find something else to do, because he performed worse with Obama coattails. There’s no room for LaRocco in Idaho, it’s just too blood red.
Cazayoux – Either go for the rematch or go after Vitter.
Lampson – Deserves a nice appointment in the Obama administration in relation to NASA, his one great passion and what makes his loss so hard for the district. The House now lacks diehard NASA fanatics with seniority (goodbye Feeney, hello Freshmen Kosmos, Parker, and Sophomore Giffords).
Noriega – He’s got options now that Harris is electing Dems county wide. He can go for County Judge (assuming Ed Emmett can be beaten at this point) or he can go for Lt. Gov. in 2010. The state of Texas’ statewide offices are all a question as to what Hutch does (and no, Rick is not running for Governor, that’s gonna be Houston Mayor Bill White’s (D) job).
Kleeb, Trauner, and Boyda . . . dunno where they can go, but I want them somewhere.
That should be one of our strongest candidates in 2010. Battled Mike Rogers and outperformed Obama in his district despite no help from DCCC.
Did better than Dan Seals and a host of others where we dumped a lot of money.
I feel sorry for the guy. He ran a hell of a race in 2006, but this year he was simply up against a guy who was more well-known and better liked throughout the state than he was. I’m not even sure what his endgame was — clearly I think he knew his odds were daunting. He didn’t try to land any blows on Johanns (he never ran a single negative ad), so perhaps he was hoping to lose gracefully and set himself up for a future statewide run. But for what? And where? Another NE-03 run is out of the question — voters aren’t gonna dump an incumbent who has kept his nose clean in an R+25 district, and I don’t think Kleeb is suicidal enough to try.
Maybe he can put roots down in Omaha and wait a few cycles to run for that seat. Who knows. Like I said, I feel sorry for him — he’s obviously hungry to serve, but I just can’t see a path for him unless he wants to try for something further downticket. He even got fewer votes than Obama did statewide.
These candidates should try again:
1) Joshua Segall – He should absolutely, 100%, run again in 2010. He received no help from the DCCC in Alabama during a presidential year, yet came within 6 points. This should be one of the DCCCs top targets.
2) Linda Ketner – She came out of nowhere and almost knocked off a well-entrenched incumbent. Next time she’d be a top candidate.
3) Don Cazayoux, Nancy Boyda, and Nick Lampson – Our only losses in the last two cycles (other than D-bag Mahoney). Boyda gets one more shot in 2010, and if she loses again then she becomes like Mike Sodrel. Cazayoux got screwed by Jacko, but I like both options mentioned about a rematch or taking on Vitter. Lampson had the toughest fight of anyone this year, but I doubt he’d win a rematch. He’d be better statewide.
4) Joe Garcia – Many thought that Raul Martinez had a better chance of knocking off Lincoln, but Garcia gave Mario a much better run for his money. It’d be worth giving him another shot to see if he can pull it off.
5) Scott Kleeb and Andrew Rice – Both did very well given the laundry list of things working against them (deep red Nebraska/Oklahoma, presidential year, facing popular former governor/entrenched incumbent), but like already mentioned, I’m not sure what offices they should seek.
6) Dan Johnson and Rob Miller – Veterans make good candidates in red districts, and Miller overperformed this cycle. Both should try again in 2010.
7) Bill Durston, Scott Harper, and Steve Sarvi – These three should have lost in blowouts, but they all had respectable showings. Maybe a little DCCC help would give them a boost if they ran again.
8) Debbie Cook and Sam Bennett – Both were on the Red to Blue list but got no DCCC money. Rohrabacher only got 53% of the vote, so despite the district’s R-lean, it seems like many are willing to consider someone else. Also, Dent represents a D-leaning district, so some expenditures could help them out.
Amazing under the radar performance against Calvert – assuming he doesn’t actually win the seat when all the votes are counted, which he might.
Re-runs are fine for reasonable candidates who lost in districts that were just too red for them.
But let’s be honest – most of the time, that means the representative’s greatest quality would have been not being a Republican.
Whereas Boyda was actually pretty good, trying to join the Blue Dogs notwithstanding. I think she should slide into a decent Interior/Agriculture job in Washington, possibly riding to head one of those departments in a few years time, then if she wants she could be parachuted back in to Kansas statewide office.
I supported him, but he is a loser of a candidate. He couldn’t win in a Democratic Candidate in a Democratic Tidal Wave in freaking Illinois.
And he ran what 10 points behind.
What about Leibham (as soon as I learn to spell his name–I’ve only recently realized it’s “Kratovil,” not “Kravotovil.”), Russ Warner, William Durston, Bill Hedrick (assuming he doesn’t pull it off), Tom Periello (if he doesn’t hold on), Frank Kratovil (if he doesn’t hold on), Debbie Cook.
At the very least, these races should be targeted in 2010.
And what about Christine Cegelis giving it another run in IL-06?
Maybe Boyda should run for Governor in 2010 when the second term of Kathleen Sebelius is up. I would like to see Sebelius run for Brownback’s seat. If she doesn’t, maybe Boyda should run for that.
From the little I saw of him, I really liked him and thought he had a good future. Not sure what the post-mortem on his loss is however.
I actually thought in 2010 as Governor Freudenthal was going to leave office the Wyoming governorship would just fall back into GOP hands. If Trauner runs for governor, I think it would be a better fit and the Dems would have a better chance of hanging on, since he’s run statewide and a 2010 campaign in Wyoming would be more focused on the state, as opposed to a national campaign like this past Tuesday.
As for Freudenthal, he would be a good fit for Secretary of the Interior. Traditionally that post has gone to a Western state politician, usually a governor.
Josh Segall, Alabama 3
Bob Lord, Arizona 3
Jeff Morris California 2 (ran well for not having any money)
Bill Durston California 3 (third time the charm?)
Charlie Brown California 4 (open seat when McClintock runs for something else?)
Russ Warner California 26
Bill Hedrick California 44
Julie Bornstein Cali 45
Debbie Cook Cali 46
Nick Leibham Cali 50
John Dicks Florida 9 (DCCC recruit lost to Mitchell)
Anette Taddeo Florida 18
Joe Garcia Florida 25
Bill Gillespie Georgia 1 (increased recognition should do him good)
Tammy Duckworth Illinois 6
Scott Harper Illinois 13
Joe McMenamin Illinois 19 (had raised good money in primary but failed to overcome Davis who was better known)
Mike Montagano Indiana 3
Nels Ackerson Indiana 4
I’ll have more later this is as far as I’ve gotten
Looking at these numbers, Debbie Cook did fairly well.