How about something a little bit different this week: In the comments, tell us about your favorite electoral race(s) of all time.
I have a lot of personal favorites myself, but at or near the top of the list was 2008’s gong show in NY-13, a sordid story of which you are all familiar. Every week in that contest was more entertaining than the last!
Those latest polls are horrible, I was almost sure that would be our easiest win…
I know that this is a more than solid red seat, but its a seven man primary in the GOP and its an interesting race to look into. Thanks.
Also, so, about that NYC SSP meetup that I mentioned in the other thread before it got shut down…
…does anyone live in NYC, other than me and the head honchos of this site? If so, we could meet up sometime.
The Republican’s recruiting mess was a sight to behold. General wasn’t nearly as fun.
But the race that I cut my political teeth on as a volunteer was in 1998 “working” for the Gail Schoettler for Colorado Governor campaign as a phone-banker in high school. I’ve seen much closer races since (both those we’ve won and those we’ve lost), but that 7,783 vote defeat to Fmr. Governor Owens still seems to sting the hardest. I’d helped fill in my parents ballots before then (encouraged a vote for Gov. Brown in 1992 in the Dem primaries–my first suggested vote…long before my first real vote (Bradley, then Gore). We’ve never had much of a Congressional race in Denver…Schroeder was considered a deity, and, I just wikipedia’d, but I don’t remember DeGette’s primary win in 1996 (over Tim Sandos) as being as close as it said. Anyone care to jog my memory?
Dennis Moore defeats Republican incumbent Vince Snowbarger. It was the subject of a documentary as part of my degree.
Close second: Russian parliamentary election, December 1995. Those were the days–you didn’t know who was going to win the Russian election ahead of time!
Bonus Russian joke, circa May/June 1996, when Yeltsin was campaigning on promises like ending the war in Chechnya and paying people the wages and pensions they were owed:
At a big rally, Boris Yeltsin tells the crowd, “Elect me and you’ll get a brand-new president!”
A voice from the crowd asks, “And what if we don’t elect you, Boris Nikolaevich?”
Yeltsin replies, “Then you’ll get the same old president.”
I commented just above on my first race, but my best race to watch and be a part of was a State Rep. race in 2002 while at Colorado College. Admittedly, HD 18 was designed to be as much of a fair-fight district as one could get in Colorado Springs, but the odds seemed monumental. The CC Greens and Dems, in a coordinated effort, registered 206 incoming Freshmen (we had roughly a 204-2 Democratic registration advantage with those ballots, we think). Merrifield won by 112 votes. Now, while we can’t assume all our new freshmen voted, the CC Green-Dems gang and I are all convinced we won that seat for him.
IL-Sen 2004: Not just because it launched the career of our 44th President, but also for the complete trainwreck on the Republican side. Jack (or Jim, Joe, Jerry, whatever) Ryan’s sexual peccadilloes coming to light causing him to drop out, followed by the Republicans picking the worst possible candidate to replace him — even worse than Jim Oberweis, and that’s saying something.
VA-05 2008: Tom Perriello ran a populist, insurgent campaign against noted racist Virgil Goode, and it looked like it was completely pointless because of an incredibly horrible SUSA poll in August, but on election night it came down to the wire, with Goode appearing to win, then with the last few precincts in Perriello pulled ahead, and the recanvassing switched the leads again before finally giving Perriello the win.
Well this makes me think of my favorite campaign ads. And the ones that leap to mind are Russ Feingold’s “Home Movies” from 1992 and Mitch McConnell’s blood hounds chasing Dee Huddleston from 1984.
As to favorite outcome, it doesn’t get much better than the 1994 Senate race in Virginia.
Mike Kopetski defeats Denny Smith. Mostly just because it’s the one that I worked the hardest on.
Also, this may be kind of a lame answer, but the 2008 presidential race. Not just because it went through so many amazing twists and turns, but because it ended with the greatest sense of vindication.
Just watching the Republicans completely implode in New Mexico was funny as hell.
Someone has changed his Wikipedia entry as revenge for his vote on the health care bill. It used to read:
But somebody got rid of the mention about him being a Democrat and added some other language instead about healthcare.
It was a very exciting race from start to finish. After all of the high-profile Dems turned down the race, no one gave Kay Hagan much of a chance and Dole was still breaking 50% in the polls as late as July. Then we had the hilarious rocking chairs ads from the DSCC in August which really changed the game. Kay Hagan was a great candidate who really excited the Democratic base and ran a well-organized campaign. The polls started to even out and Hagan was leading by October when Dole ran the infamous “Godless” ads, which were criticized nationwide. On election night, Hagan won by over 8 points, the largest margin of victory for a Senate candidate in NC since 1974. All in all, it was a very exciting race that defied most people’s early expectations of an easy Dole victory.
Democrats took EVERYTHING in Watauga County
Billy Ralph Winkler won re-election to the County Commission
John Cooper won an open seat suceeding a Republican County Commissioner
Mary Moretz defeated an incumbent to win a seat on the County Commission
L.D. Hagaman defeated the incumbent Sheriff
Steve Goss “the miracle Senator” defeated County Commissioner David Blust in this R+10 district
Cullie Tarleton defeated incumbent Gene Wilson to take an R+3 seat in the State House
Virginia Foxx, while winning the election, lost her home county of Watauga
It was a hell of a night.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/…
I’ve brought this one up in another threads, but it’s still a juicy one…
The candidates:
Attorney General Robert Abrams
Fmr. Congresswoman and 1984 VP nominee Geraldine Ferraro
Fmr. Congresswoman, Brooklyn DA and NYC Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman
Rev. Al Sharpton
Up until the final two months of the race, Abrams and Ferraro were consistently in a dead heat (at about 30% a piece) with Holtzman in third (at around 15%) and then Sharpton not even breaking into double-digits.
At one point, however, Ferraro started to pull ahead; if I’m not mistaken, some polls even had her with a double-digit lead over Abrams. Her surge stopped, however, after the Village Voice published an article accusing Ferraro’s husband of taking $300,000 in rent from a pornographer with ties to organized crime. The Holtzman camp jumped on the article, and started running a barrage of negative ads, one of which tied Ferraro herself to organized crime. While Holtzman ran up her own negatives, she also ran up Ferraro’s, and by election night, Abrams had a slight lead in the polls.
On election night, Abrams edged out Ferraro by all of 1%. In a great irony, exit polls showed that women favored Abrams, while men sided with Ferraro. Holtzman’s negatives were so high that Sharpton managed to edge her out for 3rd place.
In the weeks following election night, Ferraro and Holtzman opted not to endorse Abrams; Ferraro didn’t even concede the race until two weeks prior to the general. Much of Ferraro’s support in the Primary was from moderate and conservative Upstate Dems, and a lot of them wound up moving to Al D’Amato for the general. D’Amato obviously did defeat Abrams in the general, albeit by a small 2% margin.
The following year, Ferraro decided to get her revenge on Holtzman by encouraging Alan Hevesi to challenge Holtzman in the Comptroller Primary. Hevesi and Holtzman virtually tied in the first vote, but in the run-off, Hevesi beat Holtzman by a 2-to-1 margin. Ferraro got her wish, and Holtzman’s political career effectively died.
I volunteered on this one because I saw him speak at a small gathering and I was blown away by his passion, his positions, his warmth, and his sense of humor. Also because I had very little money and worked across the street from the campaign office.
We were gigantic underdogs the whole way through. Bill Hillsman’s ads were absolutely brilliant and the weirdness of Boschwitz’s “jewish letter” in the closing weeks put a nice topper on the thing. Well, actually, cheering “SENATOR WELLSTONE, SENATOR WELLSTONE” – hardly believing my mouth, at my first DFL victory party was a nice topper.
VA-Sen 2006. George Allen went from the favorite for the GOP nomination for President to a former senator in a matter of six months.
PA-17, 2002, Tim Holden (D) v. George Gekas (R). I wrote a very lengthy paper on it a couple of years ago – given the then-new 17th district’s composition (largely anchored in an area Gekas had represented for two decades), Holden’s victory was by far the biggest upset of the year, and by many estimates one of most surprising in recent memory. Moreover, it was the one failed outcome of the GOP-controlled legislature’s redistricting plan, which consolidated territory in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia such that, respectively, Reps. Bill Coyne (D) and Bob Borski (D) were forced into retirement, and Rep. Frank Mascara (D) was forced into an unwinnable primary against Jack Murtha in the southwest. The 17th district race was supposed to have a similarly preordained outcome, but Gekas’s rustiness on the campaign trail, combined with Holden’s Blue Dog, working class profile, conspired to throw a fatal kink into the grand GOP scheme.
Due to California’s districts being highly gerrymandered, very few people expected “Dirty Dick” Pombo to be unseated in the Republican-leaning district. I was one of the very few that knew Pombo was vulnerable early on, not just because of environmental issues, but also because of the Democratic trend of the district and Abramoff issues. And McNerney’s win was sweet, because he pulled it off without much help from the DCCC, just environmental PACs.
He won’t run. But would Nader get an apartment in Connecticut to go along with his Washington DC apartment? Although, with Dodd running, Nader wouldn’t be the left-of-center guy causing the Democrats the most damage in that race.
For these races we have not still valid references between democrats and republicans. I think they can be favourable races for democrats.
I wish know new polls for these races.
Screw that! I am off to eat babka.
MN-Sen, 2008, getting to finally see Al Franken become a U.S. Senator. He’s one of the few truly good guys we have in Congress now.
But if you want interesting… well, May 2009 had a trio of interesting races for those of us in Southern California.
In a pleasant race, May 2009’s election for Los Angeles City Council, a runoff between Paul Koretz and David Vahedi. Two very likable guys, who were longtime friends themselves. Bruin Democrats attended a few of their debates, where it seemed like they kept trying to out-progressive the other one. As he helped found our club at UCLA in the 1970s, Bruin Dems did endorse Koretz. It was portrayed as an insider-outsider race, as Koretz had served in the California State Assembly, founded the city of West Hollywood, and done numerous other things, while Vahedi was the relative newcomer. Koretz edged Vahedi in the runoff by less than 800 votes, and it was one of those rare races where you really didn’t want either person to lose. And yet for such positive candidates, mailers sent on their behalf were pretty vicious towards the other person.
Interestingly, four years earlier, Bruin Dems endorsed Vahedi for the same city council seat, mainly because he was running against incumbent Jack Weiss, who was not exactly well-liked (people tried to recall him in 2007). And yet Bruin Dems this past May also endorsed Weiss, partly because he was running for City Attorney against Carmen Trutanich (known sarcastically to us as USC football’s personal lawyer). The runoff showed just how disliked Weiss was in L.A., as he lost handily to Trutanich, who is now going after medicinal marijuana stores, so the potsmokers who sat the race out have only themselves to blame, heh.
The other election we focused on in May was the special election primary in CA-32 to replace Hilda Solis. In a move that caused some drama, Bruin Dems decided to endorse Gil Cedillo for the seat, mainly because of his work on the DREAM Act, and for being a UCLA grad. Except… Judy Chu was ALSO a UCLA grad, and some alumni felt the club should’ve remained neutral. It got even more awkward when the California Democratic Party officially endorsed Chu, while the Los Angeles County Young Democrats endorsed Cedillo.
And then Cedillo went negative. I mean, really negative. So negative, in fact, that Calitics decided to endorse anyone but Cedillo to teach his campaign a lesson. Turns out his campaign manager was the same guy who ran Laura Richardson’s race-baiting campaign in CA-37 2 years earlier. (Though he also ran Darcy Burner’s campaign in WA-08.) His negative race-baiting crap turned some in Bruin Dems who had been enthusiastically backing him, against him. Fortunately, he was not rewarded with a victory, and Judy Chu is now the awesome Congresswoman from CA-32. Oh, and in the general election, Judy faced off against Betty Chu, a cousin by marriage, and the two women did not exactly like each other. So all in all, a pretty drama-filled special election race!
John Perzel corruption story.
For those not following the story, Perzel was the Republican Speaker of the PA House, and he was about as obsessed with election data and map drawing as we are. My favorite highlight from grand jury testimony:
The designer state House district he constructed for himself after winning by 200 votes in 2000 (PDF).
Democrat (later turned Republican) Rodney Alexander pulled out a thrilling win against Republican Lee Fletcher, even though Republicans had won a combined 70% of the vote in the jungle primary. Basically, Fletcher’s two Republican opponents and the sitting Congressman torpedoed his campaign heading into the runoff in revenge for a nasty primary campaign. I was up late watching election returns with my friend and was shocked to find that the Dem was actually winning!
That was one of two absolutely shocking Congressional runoff elections in this decade. The other one was Ciro Rodriguez’s victory over Henry Bonilla in TX-23 in 2006, which ended the career of the brightest Hispanic-American star in the Republican Party.
The first race that I really followed the ins and outs of (and one that bears a squinting resemblence to the NJ 2009 gubernatorial election).
Maryland is obviously a very Democratic state, but there’s a geographic divide between the Dems in Baltimore and its suburbs and those in the DC suburbs (primarily Prince George’s and Montgomery). Parris Glendening was the P.G. county executive and not well liked statewide, and he got along terribly with Willy Don Schaefer, the Democratic governor he was seeking to succeed and an absolute titan of Baltimore politics. (Schaefer is a conservadem along the lines of Ed Koch, and endorsed Bush in 1992.) Glendening was running against statehouse minority leader Ellen Sauerbrey, who represented white-flight Baltimore County.
Glendening wasn’t much of a politician, but he tapped Annapolis resident and former assistant state’s attourney Katheleen Kennedy Townsend as his running mate. With Kennedy money available, he absolutely hammered Sauerbrey — who was running in the Gingrich revolution year as a firebreathing conservative tax-cutter — on choice, splitting off enough suburban women to win a squeaker (less than six thousand votes). Sauerbrey immediately filed a lawsuit claiming vote fraud, which she lost, and the “Ellen Sour Grapes” tag clung to her in her rematch with the unpopular Glendening in 1998. (She dropped out of politics after that, resurfacing as the refugee administrator at the State Department under GWB, despite having no expertise in the subject.)
Glendening’s running mate, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, would go on to mount the worst campaign I’ve ever personally witnessed, losing to Bob Ehrlich in a state that gave 56% of its vote to Gore and 3% to Nader.
Kirstin Gillibrand (D) vs. incumbent John Sweeney (R).
The pics of Sweeney showing up drinking at the college frat party were pretty iconic to me. I was pretty happy when Gillibrand won that one (and probably the only one here who had her as their first choice to be the next Senator from New York, go me!).
After several months off I decided to come back. It was nothing against SSP, I just needed a break. A few thoughts from my time off the blogs:
1. Get health care reform passed ASAP. I hate to invoke 1994 since the political landscape today is so different, but failing to pass this bill will almost certainly depress democratic turnout in 2010 to near record lows. Oddly enough the very people (Blue Dogs and other moderate Dems) who stand in the way of reform have the most to lose should it fail. They will account for most of the Dem losses in 2010, not progressives.
2. My Congresswoman is a nitwit. Yes, I strongly supported Rep. Kosmas in 2010, but she badly disappointed me with her health care vote. I challenge anyone to explain how voting down healh care reform will improve their re-election chances in 2010. All it does is depress base turnout. My guess is she will vote for final passage on the bill, as will a good number of other Dems who opposed the current house bill. The final bill is likely to be more moderate which should attract more moderate Dem support.
3. I’m shocked that my state seems to be the next stop on the teabagger express. I always thought Rubio had potential to be a formidable primary challenge for Crist, but I’ve now come to the conclusion that Rubio is now the favorite. Too bad our recruiting sucked so bad for the Senate race. It’s very doubtful that Meek can beat even Rubio in a general election.
4. Teabaggers and the rabid right are a good thing. They have the potential to “Scozzofava” countless republicans in 2010 either as primary opponents or third party candidates. This has the potential to offset dissatisfaction with democrats running for re-election.
Not that it wasn’t mostly funny, but I would say the part where the guy died was not more entertaining than the previous week.
Last night, I had a dream that CSPAN had become like the Home Shopping Network. Members of Congress were on TV selling different items. The only one I remember was Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who was selling vacuum seal storage bags for clothes as well as several skin care products. It was really bizarre, especially considering the fact that there was no TV/radio on in the background, which might have explained it otherwise. I had had a dream with Rep. Alan Mollohan in it the night before, so I’m waiting to see which random member of Congress will be in my dreams tonight.
Has anyone else ever had a dream that featured a political figure in it, especially someone not most people outside of SSP would know?
Of course, didn’t spend a lot of time watching TV – but it seemed like Harry Reid commercials were ubiquitous – bio spots
as if he were introducing himself to NV voters all over again.
Not my favorite race.
Tom Suozzi is now trailing by 500 votes.
The two defeats are similar.
Twinkle, Twinkle, Kenneth Starr
Published Thursday, November 5, 1998 in the New York Times:
And what a hilarious ad it was!
Started as one of the first batches of interns, and then decided I thought Franken was a shit candidate and that Minnesota DFLers could offer up better. I wrote a blog post slamming Franken and saying I was a former intern, which was then found and posted on the front page of Minnesota Democrats Exposed. It was really cool seeing my opinions affect a race and become so well known, this one girl I met and I bonded over her reading that post and thinking what I was thinking, dont we have someone with a lot less baggage who we know can win?
Yada yada yada, I bitch and moan about Franken all the time on this blog for the next year or so, I went to my first caucus experience caucusing for Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, who was one of my college profs and that was really cool to be a part of.
Then Franken steamrolled with the delegates and got the nomination on the first ballot and alas, I was bound to him as my nominee and had to stop bad mouthing him.
I did plenty of Obama campaigning, threw in to vote Franken obviously as well. Got to meet him a number of times, almost got to walk Franken around campus on E-Day but RT Rybak showed up instead, which was fine by me too! (That guy is a serious campaigner, he has no qualms with walking right up to someone and be up in their face, in a good political way.)
And then came the election night. I think I was at the DFL party til like 2am or so and I was definitely nowhere near the realm of sober so I really dont remember what was all going on with Franken save for, hey all, see ya tomorrow because this thing is 700 votes.
I went to South Africa in January for studying abroad and had to get all my news from political blogs, being ecstatic when the recount got Franken the win. But then I realized there were 4 more months of ballot disputes to go over. I finally got my 2nd Senator in July and certainly had myself some wine that night. I had been personally and emotionally involved in that race for over two years and it was finally over! When Norm conceded, what a celebratory day.
Now my biggest surprise is that while I thought he was a terrible candidate (still do and I stand by everything I said previously and I take great comfort in having met several liberal Democratic voting college students who felt the same way), he is definitely in my top 5 fave Senators, probably is number 1 on the list as he’s my Senator. He’s already got a high-profile amendment prohibiting the US from contracting with companies who have the “rape clause” and also has his first bill passed, which was attached to the Defense Bill as well and would establish a program for vets to have service dogs for some company and to have a pal while recovering. His Sotomayor speech was spectacular, accusing Alito, Thomas, Roberts, and Scalia of being activist judges. He puts in the leg work and is mouthy in all the right ways.
Quite the journey!
Either Regina Thomas has already announced another run or she’s damn near in. Regardless, may Barrow’s duplicity and conservatism end his political career.
because I’m damn proud of Harvey Gannt, Max Cleland and Harold Ford who had to endure the racist and anti-patriotic Republicans.
these races are why i’m a Democrat and damn proud of it
Im getting quite pessimistic about the healthcare vote and even Im tempted to declare, you dont get it passed Im not showing up to vote, and voting is definitely one of the best highs one can get, you feel so good afterwards! This is just an empty threat, very important MN races in 2010. But Congress needs to be sent a message, you dont get the agenda AMERICANS voted to get enacted then a lot of us will be staying home.
And if Reid cant get it passed, Id love to see some netroots action with getting him replaced. If you cant manage to get your caucus to vote for one of the key items of your president’s agenda, then what good are ya? Why are you our Senate leader? Someone please tell me Dkos has something in the works because this is ridiculous.
but the 2008 MN-Sen razor-close finish was epic. Sometimes I still can’t believe Al Franken knocked off an incumbent Republican Senator. The recount process was tremendously interesting by itself as well. Lizard people, ’nuff said.
Marion Berry to that list too.
PPP has ugly numbers for Vic Snyder.
http://publicpolicypolling.blo…
My own district last year. Tom Feeney drew his own new district (FL-24) since he was speaker of the state House prior to 2002. He actually drew himself a semi-competitive (right-leaning) district rather than a solidly conservative one in order to allow republicans in Florida to maximize their gerrymander. In the first election (2002) for the newly drawn seat he won a blowout with over 60% of the vote. In 2004 he didn’t even draw a challenger. In 2006 Dems squandered a golden opportunity running a token Dem with a questionable mental state (the guy at one point claimed he busted up spy rings) running and amazingly taking abour 43% of the vote.
When 2008 rolled around my term-limited state Rep. Kosmas decided to take a shot at Feeney. She was widely viewed as a top-tier candidate but still a heavy underdog. For most of 2008 it appeared Feeney would still pull the race out. Then Feeney did the unthinkable. He aired a TV ad admitting he was a crook thanks to his Abramoff connections. I can only imagine his campaign thought an apology ad for being crooked was a smart move. It was not and Feeney’s numbers plummeted. By election day everyone knew Kosmas was going to win but even I was taken aback by Kosmas’s 57-43 landslide. Feeney even lost the vote in the heavily conservative suburban portion of Orange County he lives in.