From the Down With Tyranny blog...."Who won the house for the Dems redux".

[madfloridian]

In November I wrote about a guy named Dan Drasin who has been working with the FEC figures to come up with what worked and what didn't. I am posting his latest number crunching, not because its a "who won" situation, but because it really truly in the long run matters to our party.

When James Carville stuck his bald head on TV, claimed credit for Rahm, accused Howard Dean of Rumsfeldian incompetence....then it became vital to find out the real story. This guy has far more knowledge than I do, but I know enough about some of the districts to know he is right on them at least. He made it all fair game for discussion, in fact it became a very important matter.

Here is the previous data by him, then the updated stuff.

From November, analyzing the data for the House wins

His latest write-up, very long, very detailed, and it shows up some careless mistakes in the FEC data. I will only post a couple of paragraphs, but it is important stuff for the future planning of our party.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/01/who-won-house-for-dems-redux-hint-it.html

Summary: So with all of the data in, the conclusion of the original analysis still hold - had the DCCC "swing state" strategy been the dominant strategy in operation during the 2006 election cycle, then the Dems might not have taken the house. And in particular, this update shows that a lot of the late spending by the DCCC in expensive media markets was wasted. At the same time, analysis of DNC spending on infrastructure as part of the "50-state strategy" has been shown to have been quite effective in the 2006 house election cycle. (Elaine Kamarck has an article in The Forum on "Assessing Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy and the 2006 Midterm Elections" where she shows through statistical analysis that the impact of DNC infrastructure spending doubled the overall Democratic shift in votes.) With that said, the questions I posed in the original post are still out there-- in particular, why did some of these "swing states" fail to fall under intense spending by the DCCC while other "2nd tier" races were picked-up with minimal or no DCCC support.

Here is the Harvard study by Kamarck on the 50 State Plan referred to by Drasin, and here is one paragraph from that.

As Table 1 indicates, those congressional districts where the DNC had paid organizers on the ground for over a year more than doubled the Democratic vote over what would have happened due to forces outside the control of the Party, such as the war in Iraq and the unpopularity of a Republican President. This is a powerful testament to the value of a long-term party building approach.

Link to the write-up about Kamarck's study.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/921

In January Dean spoke out a little in his own defense, something he has not done much of at all. He made this video for Poltics TV.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/899

Here is the most interesting statement from that video, and is more understandable in the light of the research by Drasin.

"Nine out of the 35 races that were selected by the DCCC were winners...the rest of them were all folks who started on their own with enormous grassroots organizations."

(Key word here is selected. Most started out on their own with grassroots groups and DCCC and DNC helped fund some eventually. I had to listen a couple of times to get what he was saying.)

I admire this guy for his several efforts at working with the FEC data. It become important the day James Carville asked Howard Dean to step down as chair and let Harold Ford take his place. Of course Carville doesn't have that authority, but most people in the general public don't know that. They consider Carville credible and funny, and the data needed to be done.

[illinoisprogressive]

1. Carvelle is slime and Dean is a hero.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Facts Are For Losers

Do you doubt Mrs. Clinton's proxy attacks via Carville? Do you think that mere facts and math can support your claims?

Perhaps you just hate powerful women, eh?

[madfloridian]

3. Made me chuckle....you are right.

Actually you said a mouthful. Their voice has such media access people do take them seriously.

And all kidding aside, Carville when asked said the Clintons had not called him to tell him to stop the attacks. So....:shrug: He's got a big mouth, so hard to tell.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Given That She Was On Kerry in a Second When He Botched His Joke

I think that we can safely assume that Mrs. Clinton can speak when she hears something she doesn't like.

Rumsfedian defeat my ass.

Thanks for the post.

[madfloridian]

5. You are welcome.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

6. Now she has her own botched joke.

I guess everyone has to go through that stuff.

[madfloridian]

7. Compares the Netroots and DCCC contributions to the win loss column.

This is interesting stuff, really. Candidates were winning without the huge big bucks, and some who got them lost.

From the DWT blog:

5. In September, the DCCC spent crazy money in some expensive markets that didn't fall (600K in KY4, 500K in OH15, 350K in PA6, 300K in VA2) and still NO money in a number of races that were eventual pickups or close recount situations (or had polls showing them as competitive-- CA-11, CT-02, IA-02, KS-02, KY-03, NC-08, NH-01, NH-02, NY-19, OH-02, PA-07, and WY-AL). They underspent in some additional races that were pickups (like PA-08) or very close (like WA-08) as well.
update: Not much change, however updated analysis did show significant spending by the DCCC in CT-02 and PA-07, and trivial spending in NH-02.

6. At the same time, the races where the DCCC didn't spend, were kept alive by different groups (like MoveOn, The Netroots, Blue America, etc working through ActBlue) following different investment strategies (like the 50-state strategy.) The ALL Contributions in PICKUPS tab shows all investment (by all parties) in each of the districts by time-period. This gives an idea of the total amount of money effecting these races and hence the impact that DCCC participation (both in dollars and publicity) would have had.
update: As true as ever

7. After October 1, the DCCC investment pattern improved as they finally jumped into some of the winning races that that they had previously ignored (like IN-02, MN-01, PA-04, PA-08) in a significant way. But even so, their record was only $8.2M out of $14.1M going to winning races and significant support in only 18 winning races.
update: Still true although the total spending after 10/1 came to $20 million and of that $11.3 was spent in pickup races

8. In October they spent large sums of money on some key "swing races" that didn't break ($2.5M in PA-06, $800K in KY-04, $500K in OH-01, $450K in OH-15, $300K in VA-02, $250K in CT-04, and $100K in CO-04.)
update: Add to that $800k in IL-06, $750k in WA-08, $400K in NM-01, and $325K in MN-06

It's kind of hard to wade through but not so bad if you followed the district races. I find it a good thing that the new DCCC chairman, Van Hollen has met with Howard Dean already in a more congenial way. They both have a lot to offer each other. And the amazing thing is that though the grassroots are still underfunded as compared to the big money folks......we are where the votes are and the enthusiasm.

I think since the vote for war, or the IWR vote, whichever....most don't fall for snow jobs anymore. People have to be real, and they have to stand for something.

[madfloridian]

8. From the comments....about Chris Van Hollen, the new DCCC chair.

At 6:56 AM, DownWithTyranny said...
"I had a great talk with Chris Van Hollen on the phone last week-- formal interview to follow-- and he said all the right things about developing a cooperative relationship with grassroots and netroots activists. His own voting record is more progressive than Emanuel's but that isn't the real point. He doesn't have the vibe of a ruthless predator who would disregard any rule and transgress all societal mores and norms to get ahead-- the mark of a Tom DeLay and a Rahm Emanuel. CVH has proven he knows how to beat Republicans without turning into them. He will be a wonderful ally for making America a better place."

Sounds good to me. He has already met with Howard Dean, and they are supposedly going to work together. Looking forward to the full interview.