Damn straight.

Not in a million years.

Seems like a lot of money to me. I'll count them for $10,000! I'd really wish the establishment would just stay out of primaries to be honest. Let the people who live there decide who they want, regardless of 'electability'. It's their choice. That said, I don't think Duckworth is a bad candidate. From what  little I know, both seemed to be good people.

William Rivers Pitt of PDA and truthout here.  Spent the last two days in Cegelis headquarters and at the election night shindig.  Came up with a really goofy idea:

http://blog.pdamerica.org/?p=581

This another example of how there are still too many ordinary Dems who let the corrupt wing of the party machine do their thinking for them.

But it seems to be getting incrementally better. Just got to keep plugging away at exposing the ugly truth to those who don't yet get it.

Is it possible to agree with the DNC sometimes without being "corrupted"?

As for the person before who said that now, Emmanuel needs to deliver a landslide, yes it's bad press right now for a recount, but all that matters is getting one more vote than the other guy in November.

http://cosstandard.blogspot.com

I think its too big a gap now, at over 1k votes, to justify a recount. Damm, I lost a beer by hoping for Cegelis. I think Duckworth should be supported though, though I realize its going to be tough for her to rely upon suppport from those activists. Anyway, best wishes for Cegelis and her team, they ran a terrific race, and should feel good, but to come up just short sucks.

What Jerome said.  She lost by over 1,000 votes. If you have any actual evidence of vote rigging, that might be something, but otherwise, it's just a huge waste of money for nothing.

In Canada, our electoral districts (known as ridings) get vote totals roughly the same as this, and when recounts are held, the numbers will change by at most 20 votes one way or the other.  To be sure, we use paper ballots and hand counting, but as I said, if you have no evidence of vote rigging, I doubt the number would be much different.

Gotta hand it to Emanuel, Durbin, Obama, et al.  They know how to buy an election.  If the final count does show Duckworth won, she really didn't.  It just means that Emanuel sold IL-06 to Roskam.

Roskam really won.  

Now Emanuel will pour millions into ONE CD sacrificing every other candidate in the country just for his pet project.

How can this country pretend to fight for democracy when it doesn't even know the definition of the word?

I think these results are terrible for Hillary in 2008. Because it shows that, regardless of what the Washington Democrats say or spend, the people of the district will vote for someone they believe in.

Even though our side lost. It was still a very impressive showing (we lost by 2%) given how badly we were outspent and how much free air time and Washington support our opponent had.

when Emanuel or Duckworth discuss inside interests or a culture of corruption.  If I ever meet them, I will be sure to stamp their heads with a dollar sign in blue ink.  To be a Democrat means to either be wealthy or easily manipulated.

Your candidate lost in the primary and you're too bitter to actively support the other candidate? Do something productive.

Find out how to run for party ward or precinct committee. File for it and run. You'd be surprised by the number of open spots. Take over the party from within.

Find another local, statewide or national candidate you can support and put the volunteer skills you learned in this campaign to work. Make a difference for them (and for you). Do that and you can truly call yourself an activist. Lose one election and walk away - then you're nothing but a a consumerist dilettante - and I don't want to know you.

Let me say upfront that I'm not a big fan of the DCCC - my wife and I contributed to them on a regular basis for a number of years and watched them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory year after year.

However, why should they support a proven loser? At least with Duckworth Dems have a fresh face, who is a injured vet, to throw against a well-financed Republican in  a heavily GOP district. Winning this district is going to be a longshot anyway.

It's the day after now - everyone should wipe the tears from their eyes/wipe the smiles off their faces, kiss and make-up, and get started working to win in November. Regardless of what happened yesterday, you have a common enemy.

And, save the $75,000 for something useful, like yard signs and pizza.

His public diatribe against Cook County's vote tabulation system on behalf of Claypool, but then he is orchestrating Duckworth's ethically compromised campaign.  A nice media distraction, but a complete cover up of the ethical flaws of the Duckworth campaign.  And what about those Cook County votes that were not counted until the very early hours of the morning?  All were from Cook County, and those votes increased Duckworth's margin.  I smell a bit of fraud.  And notice those votes are from Cook County.

Very interesting.

A campaign in NJ costs $1.5M, so a campaign in IL is probably at most a $1M campaign.

You are asking the DCCC to pony up 7.5 percent of an entire campaign on a recount with no evidence of wrongdoing just to make nice?

The DCCC doesn't have the money for that.  It'd be better if they pledged $100K to the Duckworth campaign and earmark it for grassroots organizing.  

Giving it to the state to count votes is just tossing it down the drain.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I really don't understand how any Cegelis activists can refuse to help Duckworth and seriously say they care about their district or their country.  

I get that it's disappointing when your candidate loses a primary and that some people don't feel that Duckworth is AS progressive a candidate.  But for all the normal people in this district and accross the country who are/will be hurt by a Republican controlled congress, that kind of a disagreement has to seem pretty insignificant.  I mean honestly, what is your motivation where if you don't win you just take your ball and go home?  If the idea is to actually HELP the people that need it the most, then everyone should be supporting Duckworth 110%.  

At some point, they have to at least try to lessen the ongoing tensions in the activist class war, or we will all spit apart at the seams. If possible, show us that you care.

This may well describe the happenings in the PA democratic party in its premature support for DINO young Bob Casey. We will see if the resultant splitting allows Santorum to win.

What  a shame as Dems could still win PA with a more socially liberal candidate than conservative Bob Casey!  I for one cannot vote for the likes of young Casey until he comes out and says his religion is his business only, and he will not force it on others (That's called CHOICE!).

Personally I'm not a fan of Cegelis at all. I think her supporters online have acted foolishly and really put me off from her. Too many people got behind her thinking that they know what is best for IL-06, forgetting that perhaps someone like Duckworth is more in-line with that district's sensibilities. Regardless of Dem establishment involvement, Democrats went to the polls and by a slim margin chose Duckworth over someone who has been campaigning in that district non-stop since 2004.

Any disabled war veteran who shows themselves to be at least competent has a built-in advantage with voters, and to defeat someone like that, Cegelis had to walk a very thin line when it came to questioning Duckworth as a candidate. Now, because of how bitter the primary has become, the Democratic candidate won't get the full support of the netroots the way Dems need support these days.

Flame me all you want. I'm a Dem who bleeds blue, and I know for damn sure that I'd rather have Duckworth than a Republican in IL-06.

You want the DCCC to piss away $75,000 to make some Cegelis supporters feel good? Are you kidding me? That's 75K they could spend to ACTUALLY WIN A FUCKING ELECTION.

Some Cegelis supporters epitomize a larger problem with the netroots - namely that many of them have taken their eyes off the ball. Too often it's about how much influence they, the netroots, have, and not about beating Republicans.

Cegelis lost. She had a decent showing at the polls but the turnout was abysmal. She could never have won that seat. Unless you people want to be represented by Peter Roskam, time support your nominee.

I preferred Cegelis, sent her money, talked her up, put her on my ActBlue page.

More voters who actually live in the district pulled the other lever, though.

Time to move on. Take some time to mourn if you had a lot of personal energy invested in this race, but when you're ready, move up the timeline to the next challenge, the next race.

Francine Busby's special election in CA-50 is April 11. That's where I'm headed. Short deadline, big opportunity, and as a bonus, not a race where Democrats are forming a firing circle. We can get back to that, if there's a taste for it, in the Pennsylvania primary. In the mean time, why not pull together, for a change, and win a flippable seat in California?

We can reconsider IL-6 when we're all calmer, in the Fall (those of us outside the district, I mean).  

So, now the DCCC is supposed to pay for recounts in every district across the United States where there was a hard-fought primary battle and where they allow you to buy a recount?  So, anytime the side that lost starts whining (and I'm in NC...didn't back anyone on this) we should trigger a recount?

There are other candidates out there that need the $75,000 you want to throw away to appease the Cegelis supporters.  You seriously need to re-think this.  This is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my 43 years.

We just had an excellent Democratic candidate back out of the race in NC because of a lack of financing and you want to piss away $75,000????  Wow.

they already fucked it up.

If the DCCC wants to make nice with activists... not just in Il-06 but across the country... then they'll replace Rahm.

That'll get my attention and it will cause me to allow the new D-trip leader to show me something different.

Rahm and the current D-trip leadership have shown me that they consider me and the many people like me to be their enemies.

Screw'm.

A little background. I volunteered my time for free this past weekend along with hundreds of others for Duckworth pounding the pavement to ring doorbells. For all of Cegelis's vaunted grassroots efforts - which near as I can tell consists of reaching out to the existing Dem orgs in towns of the district - she didn't win. In 2004 she got 44% of the vote against decrepid Hyde who wasn't able to do much campaigning. I heard last night she was outperformed in the district by the thoroughly swiftboated Kerry in 2004. Seriously that's not such a hot showing considering her predecessor in the last presidential year 2000 got 41% against a more vigorus Hyde.

With Duckworth we have a real shot at taking this seat. Cegelis's campaign seemed to be geared toward tearing Duckworth down. Imagine the  message Repubs would use with Independents if Cegelis had won. "Dems voters rejecting a  disabled Iraqi war vet shows how little they care about vets or the military." And that's the kinder gentler version which I'm sure by November would have morphed into vicious attacks on all our  character and patriotism including Christine's.

As for Tammy's Democratic credentials and positions, there's not much difference between her and Cegelis. That fact, and the freezing temps yesterday probably explains the low turnout. A lot of voters are turned off by intraparty fights and if there's no clear idealogical differences between the candidates they don't want to get involved. A lot of people here act like Obama, Durbin and Emanuel supported a closet Republican. That's ludicrous.

And for all the people who gripe about the outside money and influence what exactly do you think 99% of netroot money is? Yeah it comes in small increments like the $50 I sent Hackett but it all adds up and we're gonna need every bit of it we can get from big and small donors. Roskam already has over a million in the bank and Cheney was here a week ago and raised another $200,000 for him in an afternoon. The guy didn't even have a primary opponent and he had yard signs out and bought thousands of door hanger bags with his name on it for downticket candidates to stuff with their flyers.    

To win this race we need everybody just as Tammy said last night. The netroots who can give $5 or $10 a pop and rich fatcats who can pony up two grand without so much as blinking an eye. People who volunteered for Cegelis, Scott and Duckworth will all have to work together or this seat will go to a Republican who started his career as an aide to Tom Delay, is a protege of Hyde and is even more conservative than he is and has been shopping around for a US congressional seat since at least 1998 when he ran as an out of district candidate in the 13th when Erlenborn retired.  

The bottom line is with Cegelis we could have sent
a strong message to Washington. With Duckworth we can stop sending messages and send an actual congresswoman to represent and help take back the House.  

That's right ElitistJohn, I live in Downers Grove about a mile outside the district. I'd campaign for the guy in the my district, the 13th, but he's a church robe salesman who's raised all of $4000 and of that $3000 is his own money. Can't take him too seriously when he's going up against Biggert and her $400,000 war chest. Signed up at Duckworth's website on Monday, they called back Wednesday, I came out Saturday.

Let's see I'm 50 years old. I canvassed with Carol a nursing student on Saturday who is also from DG and about my age. She said a prof at school told the class they were looking for canvassers. Then on Sunday my partner was Mark an airline pilot, about 45 I'd guess who got involved via his drinking liberally group in Evanston. Met a few others from his group too. On Tuesday I worked with Phil a retired Proctor and Gamble salesman and Shirley a retired college professor from Wheaton. None of them made any money except for Carol who said she was promised $75 for a day's work.  

Most of the people at the election day training session Sunday looked at least over 50 and most looked old enough to be retired.

Nobody I talked to except Carol and the 5 or so professional campaign staff got paid. I heard the guy running the campaign managed the race for the new Democratic mayor of Parsipanny NJ which I understand was quite an upset in a red town.

Of the half mill Tammy reportedly raised by 3/1 I think $400,000 was spent on pretty effective TV ads early in the campaign (some starring Obama) to get her name out there. The campaign itself was pretty tight, for instance they wanted us to account for all our door hangers as there were only so many to go around.

Oh, that's a radical idea, I know.  But it's not terribly different from the strategy that the machine Dems have pursued against Cegalis.

This primary season, we are engaged in a big game of intra-party "Chicken."  Well, The Machine won this round, but they stand to lose the general election because of it.  What a big surprise!

Chris, I've showered you with my love on here before, so I hate to stand so starkly in opposition to you on this, knowing how hard you are working to win the Congress back this November.  But there is something larger afoot here.  You know it as well as I do, so let's get it out in the open.

Before we can defeat the Republicans, we have cut the anchor in our own party that saps our strength.  There is one big issue this year, and it will be the same issue in 2008: The Iraq Quagmire.  Defensive arguments in favor of the status quo on this just will not cut it with a public as angry as it is.

The response of Vichy Dems is to stand in opposition to us, as the "radical" base (how funny, me being an ex-Republican and all, to be part of the "radical base of the Democratic Party, huh?) and to proclaim that if WE don't get in line, WE will be disunified in November.

I say, Au contrair, mon ami!  Unless THEY get in line with US, we won't support THEM in November.  To a great many people in the Party, obviously, that's non-negotiable.  Does that make us radical, that we apply their same "chicken" strategy back at them?  Then I say to them: YOU BLINK FIRST.

It's a shame because Duckworth looks like a really admirable person.  But my own personal issue is less with her than with all the dead weight that stands behind her.  Apparently, many people in IL-06 felt the same way.

I think the best thing Duckworth could do to gain our support is to dump her campaign management.  Read the polls.  Find out what her people want, not what the Hillary4Pres sycophants say we want.  And speak with a unified voice with the people.

All the trolls have invaded.  Why must the DCCC perform so much damage control?  Guilt from stealing an election?  They are unreal.