Politics, at the end of the day, boils down to priorities.
Like many kossacks/korgs/kogs, I made somewhere around 1400 phone calls leading up the 2004 election. Over three weeks, I called voters in Oregon, Ohio, New Mexico, Minnesota, California, Hawaii, and Nevada. Sometimes we called highly targeted lists, for example, middle-aged women in a specific congressional district. Sometimes we called from what seemed like a generic list of registered voters, and the results showed...half the numbers were disconnected or out of service and the number of GOP voters large.
When you're a volunteer, you just do what you're told. That's the gig. But there was a lesson in that experience. Targeted is best. Focused priorities maximize effectiveness and results. So often in politics, we end up doing things ad hoc and in the vague hope that we will be effective. That might feel good; it doesn't necessarily win elections.
Politics does come down to priorities, to making tough choices about maximizing effectiveness and the use of resources. With that in mind, tonight I am asking for your help...
If you've read my
blog or my posts on
dailykos,
MyDD or
BooManTribune, you'll already know that, for the rest of this election season, I'm dedicating my blogging to covering local races and the blogs that cover them.
In fact, on my blog k/o, I've dedicated my blog roll to a "one-stop shopping" list of the most vital local races and the local blogs that cover them. I'm calling it the k/o list (very much a work in progress) because I intend that this blog roll, ultimately, will create a map of how the local netroots is covering and supporting the candidates who are taking our Congress back, State by State, district by district, link by link.
Now, in working on compiling this list and thinking about what constitutes a "priority political race" I've bumped against criticism and the need for an even larger project that I think might help all of us in the netroots focus our priorities and maximize our effectiveness. Here's the concept in a nutshell:
We in the netroots should be able to answer for any state or region in the nation what the top five races are in order of significance and likelihood of success. Further, when a volunteer or donor comes to us, we should be able to answer, in straightforward terms, "Here are the top five races near you ranked by priority and likelihood of victory, here's what those top five races need from you, and here, specifically, is how you can help."
Now, that project is bigger than a single diary on dailykos. In an ideal world, just mentioning this idea would result in experts in database creation, PERL script, and Website construction coming to the fore. Let's not worry about that now, especially since there are many excellent and similar efforts under way. (Though, if you're any of the above and this diary generates some results that interest you, then by all means email me at kidoakland"at"comcast"dot"net.)
Here's what I'd like to do with this diary.
(Bear with me here, this will take a brief set up...)
One the other political hats I wear is as the creator of a small DFA-link group called Bloggers United. There's about 60 of us and we're all bloggers who are focused on local blogging. (Feel free to join if you're already on DFA-link and if you're not on DFA-link and want to join, just email me) One of the members of Bloggers United is a local blogger based in Minnesota who goes by Ollie Ox and has a blog called A Blue Stem Prairie focused on the race in MN-01 between GOP incumbent Gil Gutknecht and Democrat Tim Walz. As part of emailing back and forth about Bloggers United I asked Ollie to name her "top five" races in MN by priority and likelihood of success.
Here was her response:
Anybody who reads this blog knows my top U.S. Representative pick: Tim Walz The next two are obvious--the open seats in the Senate and the Sixth: Amy Klobuchar and Patty Wetterling.
The next two are the toughest calls. I'll go for a down-ticket race, secretary of state candidate Mark Ritchie (for whom I've done some research as a volunteer). The next one is a toughie, and I'm going to wait until after the September primary to make the call. I'm genuinely undecided about the AG race and don't want to eliminate it from my calculations.
Now, the process of making that selection meant Ollie made some tough calls. She left out, for now, Coleen Rowley's fight against John Kline in MN-02 and, less controversially, Wendy Wilde's symbolic campaign against Jim Ramstad in MN-03. However, in doing so, Ollie brought to our attention Mark Ritchie's campaign for MN Secretary of State, her #4 priority and highlighted the importance of the AG race. That's what focusing our priorities does. Making lists isn't just an intellectual exercise. In fact, making a Top Five list for each of our states is exactly what I'm proposing doing right now.
Going through this excercise, at the very least, will be interesting and, I hope, help me focus and hone my own targeted list of local blogs on k/o. (You can see some of my raw start points here and here.) Of course, if we generate something of more substance here and folks are interested in that larger project, I'll be happy to keep this project rolling a bit.
So, all that being given, here's what I'd like to do with this diary.
I'd like to invite each of you to make your own "Top Five" list for your state. Here are the only requirements I would ask:
Your list should be numeric.
Put your state in your comment headline
Your list should include, this time out, only races for Congress or State-wide office
Your list should express a hierarchy from most significant/likely to win to less signficant/likely to win.
Please do not allow your personal bias/ideology/location to sway your results. (ie. try to be dispassionate).
Please number your list and use the format for race identification that I follow below so that if we do crunch this data for a project some day, we can do so without trying to figure out what you meant or tying our fingers in knots.
Here's how I would translate Ollie's MN Top Five list into the above format:
1. Tim Walz (D) MN-01
2. (tie) Amy Klobuchar (D) U.S. Senate race
2. (tie) Patty Wetterling (D) MN-06
4. Mark Ritchie (D) running for MN Secretary of State
5. undecided, maybe MN Attorney General
It's that simple. This being a blog, you can and should follow up with your justifications and thoughts. If you don't have five, then, by all means, list fewer! This is not a test, just an attempt at sharing and broadening our pool of knowledge. And, of course, any and all links and insights are most welcome.
Like I said in my introduction, politics is about priorities. Politics always comes down to hard choices. Now, you and I are just bloggers on dailykos. When Rahm Emanuel or Chuck Schumer gets out the legal pad to make a list like this...political careers are made and lost.
With that in mind, have at it. I'm all ears.
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Update: for those looking for online resources and help, you can use this website to learn about all the 2006 races in your state. (Just click on the map.) It's called Politics1 and it's useful for getting up to date candidate listings of races.
For evaluation of Congressional races, this diary I did is one the tools I use...but check out Superibbie and Nathanial Ament Stone and, of course, you could always dive in to the Cook Report.