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Thursday, November 16, 2006

Would Republicans write this about Rahm Emanuel's "Only fight battles you can win" strategy?
Posted by Jill | 7:26 AM
This is from Red State, the conservative version of Daily Kos:

"All politics is local", is a phrase all political pundits know by heart. Yet, when Howard Dean revealed his plan to transfer money from the DNC to state and local committees he was said to be wasting valuable resouces. Later, in the final weeks of the campaign when the RNC held a $17.8 million advantage over the DNC, many in Democratic circles were calling for Dean's head.

However, Even though the RNC had a huge financial advantage in the final weeks of the campaign, the RNC failed to stem the tide and put enough Republicans over the top to maintain control of Congress, or at least the Senate. Could Howard Dean's strategy be part of the reason why Republicans lost so badly? An example of his strategy in action is below the fold...

In August, Howard Dean sent $100,000 to lowly Delaware as part of his "50 State Strategy." Delaware is a State that has gone for the Democratic Candidate for the past four Presidential elections. All pundits agree Delaware is a solidly Blue state.

The Delaware Republicans were putting up the most experienced prosecutor, with a 6-1 favorability, as their candidate for attorney general. The Democrats ran Beau Biden, who's never prosecuted a single criminal case in Delaware. In the final weeks of the campaign, the Republican Ferris Wharton, and two Republican state senate (farm team) candidates held leads in the polls. That all changed however, in the final 72 hours of the campaign.

Turns out, the Democrats used the DNC's $100,000 to pay for 2 field representatives who engineered the largest GOTV effort the Democrats had ever put forth in Delaware's history. The state party used that money to rent 36 vans for union workers and paid college students to go door to door and drag Democrats to the polls and pull the blue lever. It provided the difference as Beau Biden won by a few percentage points. Both of the Republicans hoped-for farm team candidates lost badly as well.

While Dean's strategy may have seemed initially to be a poor use of limited resources, it effectively destroyed the Republican Party in Delaware. Even the respected centrist Mike Castle received 10 percentage points less than what he's accustomed to each election day.

Across the country, blue states were able to use the DNC's funds to solidify their ground game. Just look at what happened in Pennsylvania. In the midwest, the DNC was able to finance the state efforts in Indiana and Ohio, which rejected Republicans left and right. In the south, where Dean was criticized wherever he went, The Democrats were able to win a US Senate Seat in Virginia and a house race in North Carolina.

Republicans have criticized him everywhere with "scream contests", and Democrats have disagreed with him internally. Yet the week after the polls closed it wasn't the DNC chair who had to resign and whose replacement was being debated.


Now, Rahm, go sit in the corner like a good boy and shut the fuck up.
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