I was thinking today about possible strategies for future cycles that the Democrats could take use of and shake up the way traditional party machinery works. One way we could do this would be a system where a safe or not-up-for-reelection U.S. House or Senate Democrat adopts a challenger. Read on for details...
Now, I don't claim for this to be completely feasible or even well-thought out, but what I'm envisioning right now is a perfect complement to Bower's "Use It or Lose It" campaign and the 50-state-strategy (shout out to Howard Dean).
Safe Incumbents could adopt challengers in far-off districts and 'adopt' them by channeling money to their campaign accounts or running ads in support of them through committees like the DCCC (to get around campaign finance laws that prevent direct transfers). This would achieve many things. One, we would prevent the huge chunks of change that comes from incumbents from going to the DCCC base line and having that money used on the top 20 or 40 races. The adoptee would be in a non-traditionally competitive district, either through the strength of the challenger themselves or other factors. The incumbent would come in and campaign on behalf of the challenger, and introduce them to many fund-raisers and other useful connections within the party and donor structure. The incumbent would spend heavy resources in all aspects to get their challenger into congress. Maybe even the system could get weighted to where incumbents with more money would be assigned to more expensive districts, and incumbents who get their challenger across the finish line in more hostile territory get more of a reward for their efforts. We could also probably match incumbents with challengers that have more similarity to them ideologically or background-wise.
This system might even develop to the point where the incumbents get assigned the adoptee early in the cycle so that they can help with recruiting/ground game/build-up of local party before crunch time later. This also complements well the system in place in the Senate and House where freshmen have a 'mentor' and are taught the rules of the body by this senior member. The adopter and adoptee could form a close bond personally, politically, and otherwise. This helps caucus unity and many, many other things.
One of the most frustrating things this cycle is that a quarter million Rahm drops in a PA district could help Kleeb or Grant or Trauner overwhelm their opponent. We could bypass the DCCC (which would focus on the real top tier) and have many benefits through this system of Adopt-a-Challenger. What do you all think?