Terry's Election Recap: The Analysis!
I'm thrilled with how the elections turned out, especially the amazing fact that Democrats didn't lose a single seat in either the House or the Senate, and they kept their hold on all their governorships. And it took me a few days to realize this, but Democrats also took back the Senate by beating six Republican incumbents without losing a single seat. That is ridiculous: open seats are easier to take over by leaps and bounds, and the fact that Democrats somehow beat six ideologically diverse incumbents (Chafee, Santorum, DeWine, Allen, Burns and Talent) makes regaining the Senate all the more impressive.
I'm also impressed by how many of the House winners came out of nowhere. Most of the Democratic pickups were in districts considered uncompetitive at the beginning of the cycle, and very few of the candidates heralded as major stars actually wound up winning. It's tempting to chalk it up to a number of factors - the netroots doing a better job of finding and promoting candidates than the DC establishment, the early effort to recruit Democratic war veterans largely washing out - but I have a feeling that it's simply a matter of which Republican incumbents were better prepared for strong challengers. I can think of very few examples (Clay Shaw in Florida and maybe Rob Simmons in Connecticut) where Republican incumbents knew all along they would face a tough opponent and lost anyway. A good example that distinguishes netroots support from late-breaking races is Kansas' 2nd district, where Democrat Nancy Boyda made a really stunning upset of incumbent Republican Jim Ryun. This race was never on the netroots' radar screens, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made a big investment in the district a week or so before the election, catching by surprise the DC Republicans who didn't expect to have to compete there. So even though the DCCC was much more interested in the district than Democratic bloggers, that didn't mean the Democratic candidate lost: it was the element of surprise that won it. I'm not sure if how far we can extrapolate from these results, but this is a concern of mine for 2008 House races.
Still, 2006 retired the increasingly troubling feeling (deja vu for us Red Sox fans) that maybe the Democrats could just never have a successful Election Day again. I'm also excited that another one of my major concerns about democracy looks like it's beginning the path to a solution. For the first time in a while, Republicans as well as Democrats have been upset at how many voters are incorrectly refused the opportunity to vote. Democrats are more concerned about what appears to be a stolen election for, appropriately, the seat Katherine Harris is giving up in Florida, but a fair number of actual Republican officeholders were prevented from voting due to registry mistakes or not bringing proper ID. Provisional ballots, where they let you vote anyway and then check later whether they can count it, are a good start. Two good posts on DailyKos, though, illustrate how we should just drop polling places entirely and move to vote-by-mail. Apparently these systems work marvelously: there's much higher turnout, people have time to study the candidates, there's an automatic paper trail, and if you happen to work late on election day you don't have to skip voting. You can read the arguments here and here. I'm feeling good that we can turn these proposals into reality fairly soon.
But despite all the progress, I'm still only cautiously optimistic about Democratic expansion into previously Republican-dominated areas. I love this "the Republican Party is now a regional party confined to the Deep South" idea, but it's a little early to start gloating. I understand that Democrats are now the dominant party in the Northeast, things went well in the Midwest, and we're making serious inroads in the Plains states and the Rocky Mountain states, but Bush carried most of the states from Oklahoma to Montana with 60% of the vote in our last presidential election and the people of Kansas have still never elected a Democratic senator. I'm optimistic that this will be a progressive region someday, but let's celebrate once we pick up Senate seats in Wyoming and Texas and our presidential candidates start carrying Utah.
The other sad part of Election Day were that a lot of Democratic candidates came very close to winning. It's terrific that Democrats picked up three seats in New York, but two other New York candidates hit 49%, another candidate took 48%, and all three of them lost. There are plenty of other examples throughout the country, like Darcy Burner in Washington or Gary Trauner in Wyoming. I'm not sure what this means in a big-picture sense, but it does underscore the importance of tactics. After 2004, Democrats realized their relative inadequacy at get-out-the-vote programs, and hopefully by 2008 they will catch up.
I'm also optimistic about 2008 because the Senate outlook looks terrific. Look at these posts on DailyKos and TAPPED to see two competing but similarly optimistic outlooks, and neither of those mentions that U.S. Rep. Artur Davis is thinking of challenging Jeff Sessions, even if an African-American Democrat running for Senate in Alabama probably starts at a disadvantage.
Finally, the truth is that even though the balance of power has shifted, Washington is still a pretty fucked-up place. I have two great examples of the judgment calls Washington reporters bring to their jobs. Look at this quick comparison of Newsweek covers after the 1994 and 2006 elections to remind yourself how unwilling the mainstream media is to cheer for Democrats. And if you want to see a real profile in courage, read this article from a longtime CBS reporter in Washington who says that the Republican leadership who came to power in 1994 is "a bunch of weirdos." Seriously, he felt like now was the appropriate time to point this out. Thanks for the news, buddy. I also read this post by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz alum Glenn Greenwald where he responds to the ridiculous and usually sexist Washington insider critiques of Nancy Pelosi thusly:
It's what these pundits and journalists do. They have pre-conceived, vapid notions about everything and everyone -- all driven by deep self-love for their own superior wisdom -- and they dixstort reality and crowd out sober analysis of everything that matters.
So that's the pundit class. I've noticed similar streaks in many of the Washington-based Democratic staffers I've known, the same traits I assume give rise to the derisive nickname "Kool Kidz" that a lot of bloggers have been using to describe the Democratic insider establishment. Basically, a lot of these people are kind of jerks: there's a drive towards social exclusion which I find completely inexplicable, both on its face and in light of the fact that a political party runs on including as many people into the circle as possible. Also, these folks aren't that cool to begin with!
I'll give two examples of annoying behavior that doesn't help anybody. First, I remember one time I was at a Democratic job fair and I was breathlessly introduced to some guy who was political director at the DSCC (or something), in the way that's supposed to make you think you're talking to someone special. Our well-established protagonist was catching up with friends, one of whom asked him why he hadn't helped a certain younger contact find a job in DC. "Oh, I didn't know he was your friend!" said the godfather with a grin. "I just saw the name and thought I didn't recognize it, and then why would I call them back?" Chortle chortle. I love this attitude: if you don't know someone, there's no reason to talk to them. You know you've made it when you have so many friends that you can function without reaching out to new people. That's awesome, and it establishes this guy as the alpha male, regardless of what everyone said in high school. Except for two things: one, Democratic politics is devoid of accountability, and half of why this guy was in the position he was in was because he didn't go to law school or find a job back wherever he was from. Two, that is a ridiculous attitude for a prominent figure in a political party: the point of a party is to bring in more people, especially the dedicated young activists who are trying to get involved. That's a pretty cheap elitism to sacrifice the next generation over.
Similarly, I was at the same early 2003 job fair, and I was standing with my friend Brian at the bottom of a staircase with a crowd of people lined up behind us. (It was a popular event, and they were only letting in so many people at a time.) Some Democratic staffer comes strolling out and announces to the crowd that the best experience you can get is to work on a campaign that year, during the off-year, specifically citing the New Jersey and Virginia legislative races. (For reference, and I don't know why the guy didn't mention this, while NJ and VA only had races that year for the state legislature, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi all had competitive governor's races.) My friend Brian says, "what about the San Francisco mayor's race?" (This is the one that ended up with Gavin Newsom barely beating out a Green Party candidate and then legalizing gay marriage.) The Democratic staffer guy, who mind you had only come out to let us know how much more experienced he has, paused for a second, mentioned the name of some other kool kid he knew, tried finding them for 30 seconds, looked kind of lost, and then when Brian said "should I talk to the California Democratic Party?" confidently proclaimed, "yeah, talk to the California Democratic Party" and promptly walked away. Brian turns to me: "Or, 'hey, I can't find the person who's working on that race, so give me one of the 50 resumes you brought and I'll find a way to get it to someone on that campaign.'" Ever since then I've been especially attuned to connecting people when I can. It's just common sense. Oh, that was the next thing Brian said: "Would the Republicans have blown me off like that?"
These stories are neither conclusory, relevant, or well-written, but I hope they underscore the atmosphere of getting a Democratic job in DC so much as it resembles the long-delayed consolation prize for not being very cool in high school, and a poorly operated one at that. Election Day was a good start for fixing Washington, but we have a very long way to go.