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?