I've Had Just About Enough of This Nonsense

Like a toddler who isn't getting enough attention, Andre's is flipping over the furniture again-posting his frustrations with the DPG on Peach Pundit, a republican blog. This is like complaining about your husband to his ex-lover. Except I'm not sure that Andre' and Erick were ever officially dating, given that Erick's been busy condemning an entire denomination.

There certainly are things that need to improve with the DPG, candidate recruitment being at the top of the list, so complain about the party. Fine. I don't mind criticism, especially constructive criticism, but it does sort of send me to the edge when someone who once worked for the party consistently behaves in a distracting and destructive manner rather than constructively attempting to become a part of the solution(s). It also send me over the edge when folks go over to republican-land to vent their spleen-especially when that criticism is devoid of a single constructive suggestion.

Amazing, really, that Andre' doesn't want anyone to brag about the seats we picked up in the House. I happily spent hours-for free-helping Bubber Epps who finally defeated Allen Freeman after two previous close calls. I have friends in the blogosphere who freely gave their time and talent to get commercials cut for him, as well. And, he won in a tough district, by less than 100 votes. That may not matter to Andre', but to us in Middle Georgia who genuinely believe we will be better represented, it does matter. And, I happily turned over every rock I could find to help Pat Dooley get the resources she needed to win her race, as did many other democrats and democratic groups. I'm curious about what Andre', who is a member of the state committee, did to help recruit candidates or get the ones we had in the field elected? Maybe he should write about his own efforts and in those we might find some solutions. One point of interest-he praises Rep. Winfred Dukes for calling for an investigation into the party's dealings in a school board race, but fails to mention that Dukes is Vice Chair of Candidate Recruitment for the DPG, presumably responsible for, oh, I don't know? Candidate recruitment? But, there is not a word of criticism for Dukes, just Jane Kidd. Maybe Jane spirited Dukes away to some undisclosed location. Clearly, it is ALL her fault.

Now, Andre is attempting to use the results of the Martin and Powell campaigns as support for his ongoing campaign to attack Jane Kidd. Perhaps Andre's thinks we'll elect him. Or maybe Vernon Jones. There clearly is a long line of people who want to work for free at a job guaranteed to award a permanent spot on the dunking booth perch so Andre' and others can gleefully hurl their softballs.

But, let's take a breath and look realistically at what the results of the runoff do, and do not mean. Of the 35 U.S. Senate seats up for re-election this cycle, exactly four incumbents, all republicans, were defeated. Three of those seats are in states with democratic governors-North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Oregon, and all three of those states went for Obama in the presidential election. Only Alaska, where Mark Begich barely defeated convicted felon Ted Stevens, had a republican governor (you might've heard of her) and voted for McCain in the presidential election. Oh, and, by the way, in these four races, only the two women, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, got more than 50% of the vote in the general election. Shaheen had the advantage of high statewide name recognition because she was a former governor. Think Barnes v. Chambliss. And, then in one of the stupidest political moves in my memory, Liddy Dole called Kay Hagan "godless" and that race was all over-probably the presidential, too in N.C. So, except for the narrow defeat of Ted Stevens (did I mention that he was a convicted felon?), there was no state in the whole county that McCain carried in the presidential that ousted an incumbent republican senator. But, obviously, Georgia should be cutting edge.

So what do the Georgia results mean? We do need a more coordinated, pro-active approach to candidate recruitment. We do have enough democrats in Georgia to win statewide elections, if we can figure out how to get them to the polls. And, we do need to raise money-not easy to do as the opposition party, but it will be easier with a democratic president, U.S. House and U.S. Senate. And, by the way, would you rather the party have money in the bank after an election or rather that they spent all they had, and more to help candidates? And, fyi, the 40K for the space for the inaugural party will be reimbursed in full to the party by another organization.

The bottom line? Saxby was bad, really bad. But he was not a convicted felon. The time to win that senate race was in the general, and if the DSCC had spent in the general like they did in the runoff, there might've been a chance. Everyone with two neurons to make a synapse knew that Martin and Powell winning the runoff was a Hail Mary. We hoped for the miracle. We gave, we phoned, volunteers came in droves, but it just wasn't happening. And, that's not Jane Kidd's fault.

Sphere: Related Content