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Seattlepi.com Election Commentary
It's time for me to fess up to my misunderestimations
By JOEL CONNELLY
November 9, 2006
P-I ColuministIf interrogators at Guantanamo need a non-physical method of forcing terrorism suspects to talk, they should consider forcing them to watch post-election analysis by pundits and political consultants on C-SPAN.
Our political experts don't just kill time: They torture it. And nobody ever admits to a misjudgment. Fatal mistakes get dropped in the laps of candidates.
Won't name names, lest I get another insult-filled e-mail from one Virginia quote machine. Instead, it's time to fess up to what this columnist "misunderestimated," as President Bush would put it, in 2006.
Weeks apart last spring, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., and Berkeley-based liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga -- Daily Kos -- spoke in the Seattle Labor Temple basement.
Emanuel, tough-as-nails boss of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was checking out 8th District House hopeful Darcy Burner. He gave her a limited blessing, making clear she needed to show more progress before national money would flow.
Emanuel was clear on strategy. House Democrats didn't have as many bucks as their Republican counterparts. The limited coffers would be focused on just 25 to 30 races, which, he hoped, would produce the 15-seat gain needed for House control.
Moulitsas called for a radically different approach: Contest seats everywhere, including "safe" GOP districts; fuel self-starting long-shot challengers; and move the battle onto the Republicans' turf.
The 34-year-old blogger talked with absolute self- assurance, insulting the corporatist Democratic Leadership Council, even making a scathing private crack about New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
I came away thinking Emanuel was much more realistic. Moulitsas was, however, right to think big -- and move the battleground. In bloggers around the country, he had a constituency ready to walk its computerized talk.
The "net roots" of the Democratic Party jump-started challenges to seemingly entrenched Republican incumbents.
They gave a vital boost to candidates who made it -- Reps.-elect Carol Shea-Porter in New Hampshire and Nancy Boyda in Kansas -- and others like Burner, who may emerge among the election's near- misses.In several cases, winners on Tuesday started out the year as underdogs even in the Democratic Party.
Emanuel backed Shea-Porter's primary opponent. Party heavies in California thought wind energy expert Jerry McNerney was tilting at windmills. McNerney won his primary, and upset Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Committee.
Seattle-area bloggers latched on early to an underdog Senate hopeful, a Big Sandy, Mont., farmer and state senator named Jon Tester -- known mainly for three missing fingers and a flattop haircut.
"I am staying up for Jon Tester," a bleary Moulitsas wrote late on election night.
Tester was on CNN's "Situation Room" Thursday after beating three-term GOP Sen. Conrad Burns by less than 3,000 votes. What did it? A "grass-roots effort" with volunteers "on the ground," Tester replied. Online as well.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says annoying things, and he screwed up Seattle visits, but he was also "misunderestimated."
Dean wasn't any great shakes as a fundraiser, but he pursued a strategy of putting organizers in all 50 states.
The results registered on Tuesday: the pickup of three U.S. House seats in conservative Indiana, control of Iowa's state Legislature (and 22 others), the gain of two seats in Congress and 80 state legislators in New Hampshire. The Democrats gained 275 seats in legislatures across the country.
Of course, those who were "misunderestimated" had their own bad moments.
With Daily Kos sounding the trumpet, liberal bloggers ganged up on Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., in the Nutmeg State's August primary. He was demonized as Bush's collaborator on Iraq, his work on such issues as global warming ignored.
A wealthy newcomer, Ned Lamont, upset Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Running as an independent, Lieberman roared back to win in November: He now occupies a pivotal position in the Senate.
Two more cases where voters delivered welcome surprises:
In a desperate last-minute tactic, Sen. George "Macaca" Allen tried to save himself by quoting steamy passages from the highly regarded novels of his challenger, Jim Webb. The ears of Virginia voters did not turn red. They elected Webb.
Choteau County, Mont., astride the front range of the Rockies, is a beautiful -- and traditional -- place. Its residents have fought plans for natural gas development in one of America's premier wildlife habitats.
These conservative folk provided Jon Tester with a small, much needed majority in America's tightest Senate race.
The bottom line: Grass roots, or "net roots," still count in America, for all the TV blitzes.
And it pays to think big.
P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com.