When you are overwhelmingly outnumbered in your district it is a very very shrewd move to "just put someone on the ballot". It annoys me that so few Democrats are aware of this tactic--it really is Political Strategy 101 and we have seen the Republicans make it work many times over in the last twenty (forty) years.
For example, the Republicans in MA always run someone against Ted Kennedy. They always lose by wide margins.
1964: 74-25;
1970: 62-37;
1976: 69-29;
1982: 60-38;
1988: 65-35;
1994: 58-41;
2000: 73-13-12 (the libertarians ran a candidate who apparently didn't take many votes from the Blue Team).
1994 was the Mitt Romney year, which Rs correctly celebrated as a victory, because they broke 40%. It gave Mitt statewide name recognition for his successful governor's race and now he's running for the Red Team presidential nomination. On the strength of a 17 point loss!!!
"Just putting someone on the ballot" in a state/district/county/city where you believe you are overwhelmingly outnumbered helps the party and the individual candidate in a whole host of ways:
- It allows the party to measure and identify (hard) core support. You find out who will turn out to vote for anyone running against a candidate or party they despise.
- It can generate new volunteers, new donors, new addresses and phone numbers for mailing lists.
- It gives name recognition to a fresh face candidate in case s/he wants to run again for a different office or in a more winnable race. You've heard of "run twice to win once"? Bobby Jindal is a prime example of this.
- It builds party organizational structure and strengthens party communication networks in ways that benefit future candidates. Deval Patrick is reaping great rewards from the progressive activist network built by Robert Reich when he ran for governor and lost in 2002.
Sometimes when you are a novice candidate it actually helps to run as an extreme long shot so that everyone involved knows it's basically just practice and can concentrate exclusively on mastering the process. Sometimes when the stars are perfectly in alignment you do luck out and win, but there is no shame in starting with the assumption that the first campaign is a practice run, because right now there is no school to go to (at least not on the Democratic side!) to learn how to be a political candidate. A practice run campaign is the only way to gain certain kinds of essential political experience:
- You learn the basics of how the political system works in your area. what is the process to get a candidate on the ballot? caucus system, town meeting, straw poll? when are the filing deadlines, where are the official election offices, etc.
- If you need to collect signatures, you get practice in doing that. You find out what the petitions have to look like, how many signatures you need, the best places to get signatures, etc. and collecting signatures is a great way to practice one-on-one conversation with supporters (and detractors).
- You find out who the people are who have been involved in grassroots-level politics for a while in your area and are in a position to help (or hurt) you. You also find out who are the corresponding people on the other side of the aisle. Know your enemy.
- You learn a lot of basics about media relations. You learn the names of the appropriate contacts on the political beat for the major media outlets in your area. Not the faces on TV and the bylines in the paper, but the name of the op-ed page editor, the person who assigns political coverage stories for the local news station, the guest booker for the local radio talk shows.
- You learn about how to handle the print media. You learn how to write the kind of press release that gets printed. You learn how to get newspapers to show up at campaign events. You learn ways to get your events in the paper without paying for advertising.
- You learn how to handle the electronic media. You learn how to scene-set for effective TV coverage--how to create a backdrop that makes your event visually interesting. You learn how to give a pithy TV or radio interview. You become accustomed to live microphones and more aware of which camera is on.
- You get vetted by the media so that any embarrassing stuff about you can come out and be dealt with in the "meaningless" campaign so that when you are really grabbing for the brass ring there are no surprises left.
- The concession speech is the most important part of a "losing" campaign. You learn how to give the kind of concession speech that makes people remember you and actually sets the stage for your repeat run for the same or higher office.
If you wait to even run a candidate until you think you have a realistic chance to win, you miss the opportunity to see how your minority support is fluctuating over time. If you run "losing" candidates over a period of generations as the Republicans did, you get to see the line move. In one election you get 20%, but eventually you break through to 30%, and then reach the critical threshold of 40%. As each milestone is passed, the party remains energized even in "losing" years, and people are filled with hope because they see the numbers are moving in the right direction.
From a psychological standpoint I think all this is a serious contributing factor to why Joe and Jane Redvoter do not respect the Democratic party. It hangs a very submissive/cautious/wimpy label on the whole party when the prevailing "wisdom" among party leadership is advising people "wait to run until you (we!) are sure you can run to win." Or, "Well, we don't have any support in that city/county/district/state so let's not even try." Or, "We have to concede that area to the Rs because we haven't won there in a generation, so let's give up without a fight." Meanwhile, for forty years the Rs created the impression of courage, power, and conviction by saying: "I don't care if only 20% of the voters in this district support me, I'm going to be a candidate to give them someone to vote for and let them know someone is speaking for them and standing up for what they, and I, believe is right." (Pause to put on asbestos protective gear.) People who believe in traditional sex roles would even call the first mindset "feminine" and the second mindset "masculine." Don't shoot the messenger! I'm just explaining how traditionalist thinkers think. Of course I know there are women who have done the latter. We should all be proud as hell of Francine Busby for having the courage to run in 2004. Finally a Dem who passed Political Strategy 101!
NO UNCONTESTED SEATS NO UNCONTESTED SEATS NO UNCONTESTED SEATS G-D DAMMIT! Dems MUST learn this basic lesson in 2006 so that we can have a lot more people seasoned and ready to run in 2008 and beyond. The enemy will teach you how to defeat him! If we had grasped this simple point earlier we would be in better shape with lots of pre-tested candidates ready to take advantage of the perfect storm political climate sweeping the across the country today.
Well, no point in complaining about not having done this earlier. Let's do it NOW. There is no other way to measure the level of R disaffection and whether that disenchantment is moving people to Democrats or not. I can't figure out how to get the Radical Russ map to animate (If someone else knows how to post it, please leave it in a comment), so please click over to his site and meditate on the map for a while. In Delaware Dem's words: "Look at the wave of deep blue wash over our land!" The mission field is ripe and we need candidates to gather in the abundant harvest.
All we need to do is take advantage of the Republicans' own very successful propaganda that told their base George W Bush was the best (!) and the brightest (!!!) example of the core values of the Republican party. It is a short step to connect disapproval of Bush to disapproval of the Rpug party in general. If we do that, we could win in places where we haven't won since Lyndon Johnson.
So this is just a short list of reasons why it is important to "just put someone on the ballot." If I had more time I could come up with more, and maybe in the comments other people will say some of the obvious things I missed or left out. I haven't even mentioned the importance of entering the political blogosphere!
Fifty state strategy! Howard Dean is right! Make them fight/spend money/burn resources/defend their policies/and sweat for every single race! Even running a losing campaign helps the party. If there is an uncontested R in your district, put your own name on the ballot if you have to. Just do it. Anything can happen. Learn from the example of Francine Busby. You'll see for yourself why it benefits the progressive cause in the short run and the long run.
Have I said lately NO UNCONTESTED SEATS??!!
*Just put someone on the ballot!*