In OH-06, an open seat to replace Ted Strickland, Charlie Wilson was the favorite candidate of the DCCC and the Democratic Party in OH-06. However, he quickly earned the scorn of many people online when he failed to make the ballot a couple of months ago. This is because he could not even gather the fifty, that's right, fifty signatures necessary to appear on the ballot. Something that pathetic demonstrates just how lacking his campaign was in terms of a field plan and in terms of grassroots support. However, last night he won the Democratic primary through a write in campaign. And here is how he did it: The TV might have been a little excessive, but being placed in this position actually forced his campaign to develop an extensive list of volunteers and operate a real ground game. This is going to make him a far, far better candidate this fall. I am sure there are some people in the establishment who would simply look at this and consider it a waste of money, but with an operation like this Wilson has to be considered the favorite to win this open seat now. Now, he has 900 volunteers and an extensive list of voter contacts already completed. Had Wilson found five or six more signatures during the filing period, I have to wonder if he would have even bothered to build an operation like this. Considering the level of incompetence his campaign was demonstrating before his campaign was forced into this desperate situation, I bet he would have gone the way of Joe Sulzer in OH-18 had he not been forced to pursue the write-in route.

By being forced into a contested, competitive primary, Charlie Wilson was forced to significantly upgrade the quality of what to that point had been an extremely lazy campaign. Now, Democratic chances to hold the OH-06 have improved significantly. I hope this is the lesson the DCCC and others take form yesterday, rather than just looking at this election and seeing a big waste of resources.