Good comment by Hunter, and one that Democrats should take pretty seriously:
A 70% Republican district was turned into an edge-of-your-seat race -- I'd have liked to win the thing outright too, but realistically, these results are fantastic. Make them battle for every seat, in every state. Use our grassroots to bleed the Republican money machine.
Every once in awhile, I jump back on my kick about the Republican's sustained and multifront effort to cut off most sources of Democratic cash. As summary, they've:
- They've tried to revise McCain-Feingold to kill 527's, thereby cutting off our soft money and our issue groups;
- Tried to institute "paycheck protection" for unions, which'd force them to get permission from each and every union member to use any part of their dues for political organizing. Ever heard of this done against corporations?
- Attempted tort reform, which'd bleed the lawyers.
- Used the "K" Street Project to systematically exclude Democrats from lobbying firms and freeze our groups, industries, and actors who donate any significant sums of cash to Democrats;
- Reworked the way legislation is made so, instead of crafting bills able to get the broadest bipartisan support, they do their damndest to write legislation that no Democrat, in good conscience, can support. Then, they can go to the affected industries, explain to them how Democrats are against their interests, and cut off business donations to those Dems. CAFTA was an example of them doing this with the tech industry.
So make no mistake, they're trying to bleed our bank account. We should bleed theirs. If the netroots can continue to support and sustain candidates all over the map, if Democrats can really figure out online fundraising and build lists in every state that can be deployed at any time for any race, we're going to force the Republican party to spend so much in so many unexpected quarters that the rest of their economic sabotage won't make a damn bit of difference.
Hackett proved this. Most of his fundraising came from a few extraordinary days on the net, and it was enough to do, well, exactly what we saw. Force them to spend half a million, get Democrats an avalanche of good press, and almost win a seat. That's a hell of an investment and, in the end, it cost the DCCC very little, individuals very little, and the Republican party a whole hell of a lot.
We should do it more often.
