Lest anyone think otherwise, I am impressed with what I consider a fairly successful campaign that was backed by the netroots and embraced the same. To do so well in a staunchly-GOP district, that's amazing progress.
This said, criticisms in any efforts, be it fully successful or a complete failure, are an important part of the feedback loop. As the special election has ended, I think all of these post-mortems that we are seeing are in order. Such things are an important part of any project. Lessons learned are key. Posters (and commenters) need to take care as to not be overtly offensive, and those involved in the effort need to be aware that such criticisms are not generally personal attacks.
And my observations? Well, to summarise the relevant portions of two comments I made last night, and I apologise to those who saw this already... Christine Pelosi posted the following snippet last night, regarding the Busby campaign's GOTV efforts. I read it and immediately took pause... (read on)
The GOTV strategy is simple: turn out registered voters who have cast ballots in recent special and primary elections.
Priority voters in this bellwether Congressional race are:
1. People who voted for Francine in the primary
2. People who voted against Schwarzenegger's ill-conceived and unsuccessful initiatives last fall
3. People who voted in two or more of the most recent special and primary elections
Why the concern?
I remember, when reading CtG, that this bit initially stood out in my mind. I feel it's once again relevant (emphasis mine):
After $50 million in testing and research, the GOP rolled out its "72-Hour Effort" in 2002, focusing on election day and the two preceding days. They targeted voters with calls, flyers and door-to-door visits -- the same way Democrats do. But while Democratic-aligned groups concentrated heavily in Democratic areas (ACT targeted districts that had over 70 percent "Democratic Performance"), Republicans took it to the next level, competing everywhere, including those very same 70 percent "Democratic performance" districts.
Comparing those two snippets indicates to me that there was still some reversion back to the "old ways", pounding at the base and ignoring the edge cases. This is still old "DC Democrats" playbook material, and I'm convinced that Democrats will still struggle until we take into account these very same methods.
Note that the above realisation does not discount the need, or lessen the requirements of basic pre-election campaign canvassing -- indeed, these two are not the same thing, and both are required. CtG mentions this as well, in the pages that follow the quote above. What is evident, however, is that campaigns still need to reach out beyond the core, if they are to be successful.
So... yes, the netroots were of unequivocable importance in this race. That the Busby campaign was recognisant of this is great too. This said, the campaign nonetheless used some classic tactics -- or rather, they didn't use all the lessons learned -- from 2000 on. Otherwise, I am quite impressed with the work the Busby team did. I am hopeful that they will look back at the campaign, consider the positives and negatives, and move towards a win in the November election.