This is still a very close election, and it's not over. I do, however, at some point have to go to bed. The current projections look like a very, very narrow edge for Duckworth, but that could change. But if it doesn't, I received this almost piece of analysis via email from a source of mine who will remain anonymous:
This is a complete validation of everyone who claimed Christine had a massive ground game.
Tammy Duckworth had an unbelievable amount of free media ... they are even doing it tonight on the WGN (Chicago) coverage starting off coverage of the race with a 3 minute story about Tammy's heroism. It's been article after article, even Nightline did a national piece the night before the election.
Tammy got all three major newspaper endorsements -- Tribune, Sun-Times and Daily Herald.
John Kerry raised a 1/4 million dollars in an email. Hillary Clinton had a fundraiser for Tammy. Dick Durbin raised money for Tammy, taking her around to Chicago and D.C. donors personally. Obama raised money for Tammy. Rahm raised money for Tammy.
Tammy probably outspent Christine at least 6 or 7 to 1.
We'll find out if the DCCC put in any Independent expenditures.
And Christine had a rag-tag group of DFAs and grassroots organization who fought this tooth-and-nail -- they protested when it started and naysayers said her support was a myth and blown out of proportion. They floated some bullshit 22% polling edge that Duckworth had -- she obviously didn't.
This was truly grassroots on-the-ground vs. powerful influence of state powerbrokers like rahm and durbin vs. people on the ground. And they held it close.
People in the 6th have a real reason to be pissed -- the activists that do the dirty work all loved Christine BEFORE this happened, and they will all love her AFTER. They completely invested of themselves, and came up just short.
Tammy is now going to have to buy the election, because party activists might very well be bitter -- a 800 vote loss is pretty tough to swallow.
Christine literally fought the ENTIRE Democratic machine, in the House and Senate .... it was them vs. people on the ground that actually believed in a candidate .... and they came up just short.
No matter what happens, I think this close result shows the following:
- Believing in a candidate is a lot more effective than either believing in an "electability profile" or working to defeat another candidate. The Cegalis true believers kicked ass.
- The Democratic establishment is weak. I haven't seen this much establishment support line up against someone since Dean. Considering the massive amount of fundraising, big name support, advocacy group support, free media, and direct DCCC contributions, Duckworth will finish way, way under 50%. The Democratic and progressive establishment, even the vaunted Chicago machine, is clearly losing the ability to control and influence its own base.
- Strong ground games in primaries and other low turnout elections work. Ciro's ground game in TX-28 was weak. Hackett's in OH-02 was strong. Lamont's ground game in CT could result in an enormous surprise.
Hold your heads high Cegalis supporters. The Dem establishment that tried to swing this election is going to wish they had you after Labor Day. You were the equal of literally their entire bag of tricks. I wonder if this will make them reconsider whether they should have thrown all of their resources in a different direction. It should be pretty clear that combining their resources with your activism would have made this a very, very winnable district, but they decided they could do this on their own and didn't need you. Now, if I were a Cegalis activist in IL-06, I would think long and hard about whether I would do anything besides vote in November. If they think they can do this without your activism, I'd be very tempted to just say "fine, go ahead and see if you can."
At the very least, I, for one, would hope that this does at least some damage to the "Rahm Emmanuel is hyper-effective" meme for a long time to come. It hard to imagine how anyone could have fucked up a district worse than this. Well done man--you built an utterly ineffective political operation in the area and simultaneously embittered every grassroots activist who could have helped breath some life into that operation. This just gives me loads of confidence for November.
Update: I stand corrected. Charlie Wilson in OH-06 remains the ultimate district fuck-up, and porbably will even until the ending of the world. Maybe this is just second place.
