SSP Contributing Editor Crisitunity posted an excellent trio of linked diaries this past week. The first looked at the House seats where we’ve made the most “progress” in the 110th Congress – that is, where the new Member of Congress was more progressive than the person he or she replaced. With the Democratic tide of 2006, it’s not surprising that we’ve made some big improvements in a number of seats.
The companion piece, meanwhile, sought to answer a forward-looking version of this same question – i.e., where might we make the most progress in 2008? Crisitunity relied on a third post which employed some clever data-crunching and a bit of speculation to give us at least a ballpark guess as to which challengers this year might wind up being the most reliable progressives in Congress should they win.
I love this kind of analysis, because it’s hugely important to what the netroots is all about this cycle. As you’ve heard often enough – if not repeated yourself – now that we have federal majorities in hand, we can focus more on helping good progressives win office, not just on any politician with the proverbial (D) after his name. This sort of thinking informed the new set of questions we’re posting to candidates for the Orange to Blue List, which Trapper John elucidated so well today and which I encourage everyone to read. In my role as a Daily Kos Contributing Editor, I helped formulate those questions, but really, it’s Trapper’s bold statement of principles which stand out most.
But those of us in the netroots – especially here at SSP – have always been clear-eyed about where we stand. And we know that the party committees focused on congressional races – the DCCC & the DSCC – are largely unconcerned with things like progressive principles when it comes to recruitment and resource allocation. This isn’t a criticism – to the contrary, I’ve supported Rahm & Chuck’s “just win, baby” approach. They’ve long made it clear to all that they want to back winners, so long as they caucus with us.
Which is why I was surprised by this post at FiveThirtyEight.com, which suggests that the committees (or at least the DSCC) might spend money based on how often a challenger or vulnerable incumbent would vote with the party:
If you’re the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and you’ve got a few extra dollars to throw around, where do you put them? Into the Louisiana race, where John N. Kennedy is challenging your incumbent Mary Landrieu? Or somewhere like Kentucky, where Bruce Lunsford is trying to knock off Mitch McConnell?
The obvious answer would seem to be: “whichever race is closer”. But I’m not sure if it’s that simple. The reason is that there is a much bigger difference ideologically between McConnell and Lunsford (who is actually fairly progressive and would become a reliable Democratic vote on issues like health care) than there is between Kennedy and Landrieu (who is not a reliable vote on much of anything). So in terms of the actual, long-run mechanics of getting the legislation you want passed, the stakes could easily be twice as high in Kentucky as they are in Louisiana.
These are considerations that the netroots take seriously, but I’ve never heard anyone even remotely suggest that the likes of Chris Van Hollen or J.B. Poersch concern themselves with this sort of thing. (I’ve also never heard anyone call Bruce Lunsford “fairly progressive,” either, but that’s neither here nor there.) Only two things enter the analysis: which incumbents are vulnerable, and which challengers are most likely to win.
I also disagree with the notion that the GOP establishment is doing anything like this. Norm Coleman, John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell aren’t raising tons of cash because the Republicans are most worried about the ideologies of their Democratic challengers. Losing to Paul Wellstone is as bad as losing to Sam Nunn for the GOP. Rather, Coleman has raised a lot because he’s vulnerable, Cornyn because he hails from Texas, the biggest red state of them all, and McConnell because he’s the extremely well-connected Minority Leader (and he took in most of his campaign funds before he even knew he’d have a serious contest this year). John Ensign is just as calculating as Chuck Schumer.
The fact is that it’s up to the netroots and our progressive allies to focus on candidates who are our ideological kinsmen. Perhaps it might be nice if the DS or D-Trip did the same, but I’m not even sure that that would be the case. The way things are currently, we, and not the establishment, get to take the lead in defining progressive principles and articulating those which matter most. And I think I prefer it that way.
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