The last elections in this incredible 2007-2008 cycle occur today. We Democrats will win the seat that we'd be happiest of any to lose, William "Cold Cash" Jefferson's in LA-02. We should win the race in LA-04, covering all but the southernmost stripe of the western third of the state.
We should, but we might not, because the race has largely been ignored here.
Our collective head seems not to be in the game right now. We'll hear plenty of gnashing of teeth on Sunday if we do lose this race -- a race where the Democrat was polling ten points ahead a few weeks ago but is now polling pretty much even. We'll hear more when we can't do anything than we hear now, when we can.
Despite being a R+6.5 district with a Republican incumbent, this race should be ours for the taking, if we do simple, basic GOTV phone banking today for the Democrat, Paul Carmouche.
In the scrappy Daily Kos of old, we'd've been all over this race. Now, we seem ready to just give this one away.
So, each of us has a decision to make about how to spend our Saturday. Do we want to win another seat -- one that could prove critical -- or end this cycle by losing?
Note: this is the third diary I've done on this race this week, after -- in the wake of Jim Martin's loss -- I had frankly forgotten that it was still on the horizon. For background, see my Thursday diary asking what was up with the lack of interest, yesterday's front page story by brownsox reminding us of the race, and yesterday's attempt to gin up interest in phone banking. In the latter, note particularly this post by a representative of the DCCC, talking about the importance of the phone bank.
If you wonder why I say there's a lack of interest here, the total number of comments, many of which are about LA-02, for all three diaries is around 80. Maybe a quarter of those are substantive. When did we stop caring about close House races?
Louisiana's 4th district includes the towns of Shreveport, DeRidder, and Natchitoches. (The last of these, pronounced NAK-ə-təsh, is where I've was calling yesterday. It's population of around 18,000 is 53% Black and 44% white. You don't see that every day.) It's a conservative area that will have a conservative representative, at least on social issues. But it's one where a populist message of change has a shot of garnering another vote for progressive economic policies.
Having a Democrat in that seat may come in handy -- when we vote on health care, for example, don't be surprised to see the Obama Administration have to peel off every single vote one-by-one, making concessions for each of the last few votes needed to reach 218. Having Paul Carmouche rather than the Republican John Fleming in Congress will make our job that much easier and the final health care bill that much better, that much less watered-down to pass.
If you plan on phone banking to Get Out The Vote today, I have to warn you: these are not good lists. A huge number of the numbers are wrong; a huge number of the entries are duplicates. This poor region of the country doesn't seem to have been quite so blessed by the 50-state strategy -- at least not enough so to have volunteers go through and clean a list up so volunteers from places like DKos can sail through them in the last moment.
That may lead some of you to say that you don't want to go through the hassle. But to me, the message is that if the lists are bad we need more people to get through them if we're to have the same effect. We won this year largely due to a strong ground game, great GOTV. In a low-turnout election such as this, a hundred people from Daily Kos making a hundred calls apiece seriously could swing this race. This is a far easier hill to climb than Jim Martin's race was -- if we decide to make the effort.
We are here on this site for many reasons. We are hear to talk, to listen, and to have fun. But we are also here to work. This site exists to elect Democrats. Carmouche falls more into the "More Democrats" than the "Better Democrats" category, but he's better than many and probably about as good as we could hope to elect from this conservative district. And his being in Congress will make the "Better Democrats" stronger.
We are not here on this site simply as political observers. We are here as political actors. Today -- TODAY -- let's all take some time away from observing and act. We were supposed to leave everything on the road this year. Let's not quit a day before we can get a better Congress.
Go to the DCCC site and sign up. Make some calls. Make some calls.