The price of a flawed coordinated campaign

by desmoinesdem, Sat Feb 21, 2009 at 04:28:53 AM EST

It's the third year that Democrats control both chambers of the Iowa legislature as well as the governor's chair, and party leaders want to seize the opportunity to pass some good labor legislation. In 2007, Democrats controlled the Iowa House 53-47 but couldn't find enough votes to pass a "fair share" bill that would have forced individuals represented by unions to stop being "free riders." In 2008, Governor Chet Culver angered labor activists by vetoing a bill that would have expanded collective bargaining rights. That prompted several major labor unions in Iowa to stop giving to Culver's campaign committee.

This week a "prevailing wage" bill dominated debate in the Iowa House. It's one of organized labor's top legislative priorities for this session. Democratic leaders want to pass this bill, and Culver, who wants to heal last year's wounds, has spoken out strongly on the issue.

Although Democrats now have a 56-44 majority in the lower chamber, they were unable to find a 51st vote for the prevailing wage bill during five hours of debate on Friday. Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy now plans to keep the vote open all weekend, sleeping in the chamber, until some Democrat's arm can be twisted on this issue.

I don't want to wade too far into the Iowa weeds here; I've written more on this mess at Bleeding Heartland.

I'm bringing this to the attention of the MyDD community because it underscores the cost of the inadequate get-out-the-vote effort last year on behalf of our statehouse candidates.

Last summer Barack Obama's campaign took over the "coordinated campaign" role from the Iowa Democratic Party and promised to work for candidates up and down the ticket. But staffers and volunteers in the unprecedented number of Obama field offices didn't even collect voter IDs for our state House and Senate candidates. Our legislative candidates weren't usually mentioned in scripts for canvassers and rarely had their fliers included in lit drops. After the election, Rob Hubler, the Democratic candidate in Iowa's fifth Congressional district, took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the GOTV effort.

In the end, Obama carried this state by 9 points, but we lost several excrutiatingly close races in the Iowa House (more details on that are at Bleeding Heartland). If even one of those races had gone the other way, we would have the votes to pass the prevailing wage bill without the fiasco that is now unfolding.

The Iowa Democratic Party must run a better coordinated campaign in 2010 and must insist that the GOTV in 2012 is about more than re-electing President Obama. Even Obama's general election campaign director in Iowa, Jackie Norris, admitted that more could have been done for the down-ticket candidates:

I also think that a lot of the people who voted were new voters and while we educated them enough to get them out to support the president they need to now be educated about the down ballot races.

I have stopped donating to the Democratic National Committee for now, because I am concerned that new DNC chairman Tim Kaine plans to replace efforts to strengthen state parties across the country with a 50-state strategy to re-elect President Obama.

We need better coordinated campaigns to GOTV in 2010 and 2012, because even if Obama remains as popular as he is now, support for him will not magically translate into votes for other Democratic candidates.

As the fate of the prevailing wage bill in Iowa shows, lack of attention to down-ticket races will affect what Democrats can achieve long after the election.

Tags: 50-State Strategy, Chet Culver, Democratic National Committee, DNC, Iowa, Iowa Democratic Party, organized labor, prevailing wages, Tim Kaine (all tags)

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Re: The price of a flawed coordinated campaign

It wasn't just in Iowa. My campaign for state assembly saw all of our volunteers sucked up by the Campaign for Change.

I lobbied hard to get an office opened in my district. The intent was to take a purple part of the state and make is blue, in order to save our seat in the House and get my campaign over the hump.

I am now left wondering if I sacrificed my race simply to benefit a party that threw me aside. I'm pretty certain the answer is yes.

by Noonan 2009-02-21 06:21AM | 0 recs

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I am sorry to hear about your experience

That must have been very frustrating.

by desmoinesdem 2009-02-21 12:01PM | 0 recs

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Re: The price of a flawed coordinated campaign

I think you ar very correct.

Much of the Obama campaign efforts centered around the individual rather than the party. All that bipartisan talk was in a sense short for non-partisan and in some ways above it all.

Yes we won Senate and House seats but in district after district, Obama seemed to show a remarkable lack of coat tails. At least some of the voters he brought in voted for Obama and left the rest of the ticket blank. With a huge lead in the last week, Obama did not work to carry home Jim Martin and Al Franken. He never got his 60th vote in the Senate and the nation paid a terrible price in the stimulus bill and will continue to pay a huge price in the next two years.

Swing State Project has been conducting anarduous attempt to create Presidential voye totals for all 435 congressional districts. It is mostly finished. A few days ago, I counted 32 districts that elected a Republican where Obama got at least 50% and 15 where he got 53% or more that elected a House Republican. The number will surely rise. How do you explain Obama running 16% ahead of Dan Seals in the hotly contested IL-10 (61% O; 45% S)? IL-6 went 56% for Obama and Gi Jill Morgenthaler failed to remove Tom DeLay associate Peter Roskam. In PA-6 the gap was 10 points with Obama at 58% and Rogio at 48%.

Then there was the inexplicable lack of effort in the Georgia run-off where Republicans threw in everything but the kitchen sink and Fox News made multiple pitxhes for money for Saxby the mear artist Chambliss on a nightly basis. Prestige? The idea of keeping your powder fey is to use it not to keep it in a museum or for four years later.

You are not only right you are 100% right.

by David Kowalski 2009-02-21 06:37AM | 0 recs

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Um

Two of those districts Illinois-6 and Pennsylvania-6, the Democrats, including us on the netroots, had tossed aside early the campaign. If I remember correctly, we were all shocked that Roggio got 48% against Gerlach...seems like coattails to me.

Obama never carried Georgia, how was he supposed to have coattails there? and if 15% of voters didn't vote for Barkley, perhaps Franken would have won a lot more comfortably.

8 Senate seat, 7 of them in states Obama carried, sure indicates some coattails to me.

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 07:22AM | 0 recs

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Re: Um

1) Georgia: spend money and make appearances in the last week to boost turnouy in yhe hope that Martin would benefit. Also, campaign like crazy and spend money in the special. Low turn out but they did a better job geting Republican voters out. If the Obama voters got out, Martin wins.

2) Some coat tails. Roggio lost. Seals lost. Obama ran 10 to 15 points ahead of these guys.

4) Every candidate with abig lead in the last 40 years campaigned to pull in down ticket races except Obama.

5) Democrat for A Day? Bipartisan? It was all calculated to help Obama with little thought of down ticket consequences.

6) In the last two elections, GOPers lost 25% of Senate seats and 24% of House seats. Overall, despite huge edges in donations, 2006 was netter than 2008.

by David Kowalski 2009-02-21 12:39PM | 0 recs

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It is quite irritating

I had suggested that Obama take the last week to simply campaign for House and Senate candidates. Many people on here dismissed the idea.

by Kent 2009-02-21 02:15PM | 0 recs

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If I remember correctly

wasn't he in Hawaii for a couple days in the last week with his dying grandmother?

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 08:52PM | 0 recs

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Re: The price of a flawed coordinated campaign

LOL. That is all Obama's fault.

If you look at how much Martin lost by in the recount. You will see how big Obama's coattails were in the GE. The fact that there was even a revote in GA shows that Democratic voter turnout was huge in that red state.

Franken won so I am not sure what you are complaining about there. He had over a ten point lead in MN and many people would have been pissed if he went there during the last week to campaign. That would have been dumb strategy.

Many people in the US only care about presidential elections, Obama cannot magically fix this problem. I doubt that most of his volunteers, me included, would have donated time or money to smaller, local races. So I wouldn't say he sucked up those volunteers. Many people realized we needed a dramatic change from the top down and voters who show up and only vote for Obama are exercising their rights as voters.

by Lolis 2009-02-21 10:19AM | 0 recs

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point by point

Obama did have coattails in the GA general election but didn't do much to help Martin in the recount.

Franken hasn't even been seated yet, because it was so close the GOP has been able to keep it tied up in court. That cost us on the stimulus bill, because we had to get 3 Republicans, not just 2.

Many people were saying Obama should try to bring some of our House and Senate candidates across the finish line during the last week. He made a quick stop in Des Moines during the final week, even though his lead in Iowa was as big as his lead in MN.

Franken barely won, Jeff Merkley barely won despite a double-digit Obama victory in Oregon, and there are many more examples from around the country.

You are correct that many Americans only care about presidential elections. There is always a "drop-off" when you get to the down-ticket races, but the drop-off was reportedly bigger this year than in the typical presidential year. I believe the way the Obama campaign was run exacerbated this problem in Iowa and in many other states. He had some coattails but should have had longer coattails.

by desmoinesdem 2009-02-21 12:16PM | 0 recs

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The drop off was larger this year than other years

I said so at the time. It was clear from the Texas primary on in which there were other races on the ballot....that his coattails were limited. In the districts Hillary won the down ticker races did better. Those voters also cared about the party as well as her.

Obama's coattails were limited for 2 reasons. the kind of people he attracted and the fact that his campaigns focussed on him and not down ticket races.

This is the problem when you make an election about just a person, not a party.

by debcoop 2009-02-21 08:05PM | 0 recs

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Speaking from New York

I was at an Obama rally on Long Island the day of the debate out there and they were certainly focusing on state legislature races as well as the Presidential race. Those who spoke focused on voting Democratic from Obama on down and there was literature being passed out for Carolyn McCarthy and Graham Long for Congress, and State Senate and State Assembly races. I still have literature from Stephanie Ovadia and John Pinto from that rally and I don't think either of those two had much of a chance in their races.

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 09:55PM | 0 recs

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Five Democrats won't vote for this bill?

How do we know by electing a few more, they wouldn't have joined those five? Especially in close races.

Seems the problem here isn't GOTV last November, it's what Democrats we did elect. Where are these Democrats? Are their districts blue? What about Republicans in blue districts...why isn't there pressure on them?

There isn't any excuse for not passing this bill when we have a 56-44 majority.

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 07:38AM | 0 recs

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six Democrats won't vote for it

And two of them (possibly three) are in safe D districts. No excuse.

At Bleeding Heartland I went over the four House races we lost by the smallest margins. I believe any of those four candidates would have voted for this bill. Also, I think Tim Hoy, who lost by a somewhat larger margin in House district 44, would have voted for this bill.

Two of our House incumbents lost--one by 13 (thirteen!) votes, and the other by 163 votes. Either of them definitely would have voted for this bill.

Obama's coattails may have won us a few close House races, but we should have won more. Even the Republicans were surprised by some of the districts they held.

by desmoinesdem 2009-02-21 12:22PM | 0 recs

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forgot to mention that

there aren't really any Iowa Republicans left in blue districts. We've had net gains in both chambers for four elections in a row, and we took all the low-hanging Republicans out. The GOP is at its lowest point ever in the Iowa Senate (18 out of 50 seats) and lower than it's been in the Iowa House for many years.

From the perspective of organized labor, we need "better Democrats" more than we need "more Democrats." Some of the newly elected Democrats in marginal districts are scared to vote for labor bills.

by desmoinesdem 2009-02-21 12:31PM | 0 recs

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I thought you said

some of those narrow losses were in Obama districts...if they were in districts Obama lost then you couldn't have counted on him being a help there...he could have been a drag.

And if they are in districts he won, aren't those blue districts?

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 03:05PM | 0 recs

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sorry for the confusion

We did lose some close races in districts Obama won. The biggest problem there was the "drop-off" (people voting for Obama but not marking the ballot at all on the statehouse races). Yes, we will target those districts again in 2010, but a higher-turnout presidential year is a better time to capitalize on straight-ticket Democratic voting.

When I said there are no Republicans left in blue districts, I meant there are no obvious target Republicans who are way out of step with their districts. We took those out in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

The Obama campaign did not do enough to urge people to vote all the way down the ballot. Rarely did their canvassers even mention our Congressional candidates, let alone our statehouse candidates.

A separate problem was that the Obama campaign didn't focus much on certain regions of the state where he was weak. Statewide, turnout in 2008 was barely higher than in 2004. In some counties it was significantly higher, but in other counties it was lower.

Democratic turnout in western Iowa was very poor compared to 2004, which cost us Iowa House district 99 and nearly cost our incumbents in House districts 1 and 8, which Republicans weren't even seriously targeting.

by desmoinesdem 2009-02-21 04:11PM | 0 recs

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That wasn't the case everywhere though

I know in Virginia, especially in the 2nd and 5th districts, they absolutely did work in tandem with Perrelio and Nye's people to help win there.

Same was true in Grayson's district in Florida. You spoke about Roggio in Pennsylvania, but in the weekend before the election, someone on Obama's Pennsylvania campaign told me they were working in tandem with Kanjorksi's and Carney's people in their respective districts.

Maybe that was a fault of his Iowa team or the fact that Iowa was taken out of play so early...McCain still went after the state even after it was considered out of play, many wondered why, perhaps this was why. Also there were no competitive House/Senate races in Iowa. Control of the state legislature wasn't really in question either.

I think maybe we should consider the number of Republicans or Independent Republican voters who cast votes for Obama as another possibility. Perhaps a number of people voted Obama, then Republican downticket, never having any intention of voting Democratic downticket.

Or there could have been a situation where since control of Congress wasn't in doubt, the party focused on the Presidential race...I'm just not sure an extra push by Obama would've really helped anywhere...maybe a clearer Franken win, but I noticed that most of our big pickups downticket were in swing states (Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, Colorado)

Conversly, someone here was talking about a similar thing happening in New York, but backwards where McCain voters went Democrat down the ticket...a PUMA effect maybe. I think we saw that in some of the state senate races in New York downstate.

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 04:37PM | 0 recs

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In NY there was no coordianted campaign at all for

the state. In both Clinton campaigns theee were coordinated campaigns focussed on the atate.

Indeed NY was ordered to provide money and manpower for other states to elect Barack Obama. There were tons of phone banks for that and very few for the local races.

We had some really important races here for the State Senate. There were winnable races in Queens, Long Isalnd and upstate that we could have won with more money, 500K to 1 million and there were 3 other races we could have had.

And those races were starved of volunteers as well as money. Sure we have won the State Senate but it hangs by a thread. There were 3 Dems elected who hold the balance of power. Any day they can walk out (and they threaten) and the Republicans regain the chamber.

With a few hundred more volunteers and some money (it was very clear that the Obama campaign would end up with more money that they could spend, 13 million), lots of other states besides mine would have benefitted.

There are lots of good bills that won't get passed.

by debcoop 2009-02-21 08:17PM | 0 recs

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In all honesty

I covered some of the State Senate campaigns and had friends in the party who kept me informed...some in the party didn't think they'd flip the Senate in September and October.

The thought was only two seats would flip; Maltese would be defeated in Queens and Robach would lose in Rochester, but Bill Stachowski would lose a seat for the Democrats in Buffalo and we'd be at a 31-31 tie. Democrats also thought for a while that Craig Johnson was in trouble on Long Island, which turned out not to be the case.

No one in the party really gave any hope for Gennaro in Queens and McElroy on Long Island and after the election some of the local Democrats said they wished they HAD pushed the alarm before the election and asked for more help from higher up.

That was really more the fault of the state party. In the end, Maltese did lose, Stachowski won, and they were able to flip a seat on Long Island, but Robach kept his seat. They didn't ask for the help, they didn't think they needed it.

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 08:41PM | 0 recs

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Re: The price of a flawed coordinated campaign

We saw a similar effect in WI, though not as bad as you describe for Iowa. Virtually all of the leadership, all the way down to the deputy regional level, and a great many of the other staff as well were hold-overs from the long primary, and were very cognizant of who they worked for. They'd given up a year, in some cases two, to live in borrowed housing and eat other people's leftovers, to work 100+ hours a week for poverty wages, and they didn't do that for no damn Blue Dog state legislator.
For many of these people, Obama was not their first foray into politics. These were people who'd done coordinated campaigns before, who'd already sacrificed themselves once before to win the Democratic Congressional majorities we were all told would save us. In light of the 'successes' of that Congress, it doesn't surprise me that individual staff, some quite influential, would tend to neglect legislators.
But as we saw in November, with the huge voluntary movement of former campaign staff into MN and GA, there was more at play than the idiosyncrasies of the staff. There were two other crucial factors in the failure to coordinate. The first, and less important, was the downticket campaigns themselves. There is no one more difficult for a Democrat to convince that they know what they're doing than another Democrat. The Obama campaign brought in a lot of well-developed and innovative systems, and while they were completely unwilling to forgo using their new techniques, many candidates were unwilling to take a hand in adapting them to their own needs, opting instead to insist on the primacy of their own experience. Age was a factor here, because you simply cannot convince a gray-haired representative that some twenty-five-year-old has more hours of campaigning under their belt, even when, as it was in so many cases by November, it's 100% true. The other factor derives in part from the recalcitrance of the downticket candidates, but showed up even in situations where coordination was seamless: the volunteers. Most of the work done by the Obama campaign was done by volunteers. Those volunteers were motivated by the same factors that motivated the staff. Burned by the Party's refusal to impeach or even obstruct after 2006, burned by the Party's refusal to go to court in 2004, even some burned by the Party's disastrous cowardice in 2000 and 2001 and 2002 and 2003; these volunteers were not there for anyone but Obama, and they acted accordingly. I remember overhearing one staffer spinning like a freaking top for nearly ten minutes in an attempt to get a volunteer to make Kagen/Obama calls, only to finally concede and switch the volunteer to an uncoordinated list and script. It wasn't that the volunteer had anything against Kagan, she just didn't know him.
What we need to understand going forward is that the alliance between Democratic politicians and Democratic voters is pervaded by a mutual expectation of betrayal. Both groups have preemptively betrayed each other so many times in the last 20 years that it's astounding kids these days vote at all.

by Endymion 2009-02-21 07:41AM | 0 recs

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This actually makes sense

What we need to understand going forward is that the alliance between Democratic politicians and Democratic voters is pervaded by a mutual expectation of betrayal.

I think there are a group of people out there who were waiting for their first disagreement with Obama and the Democrats so they can pounce and scream "BETRAYAL!" and there are some Democratic politicians who get frustrated because they feel some activists point out one or two things as a means to trash the entire party.

This, in my opinion, is the legacy of Ralph Nader & 2000. This sorta calls back to that situation in 2007 with David Obey screaming at the anti-war activists. As much as I felt somewhat disgusted by Obey, I understood his frustration.

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 07:57AM | 0 recs

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Not so in Virginia

I did a lot of canvassing in Virginia, mostly in Wittman's house district. No one thought the Democrat, Bill Day, had any chance whatsoever. Yet the Obama canvassers all carried Day's palmcards and were instructed to do voter ID for Day. Day wound up getting the same percentage as Judy Feder got in her hotly contested districted.

by BRoss 2009-02-21 07:55AM | 0 recs

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Re: Not so in Virginia

I should also say that the GOTV door hangers that the Obama campaign put out over the 4 days before election day had every democrat down to the county level on them for all 1800 precincts in Iowa. I also know that the Iowa coordinated didn't help pay for those, so I think a little tempering of attitudes needs to happen here. Did we lose some races? Yes. Now it looks clear that Obama was obviously going to win, but I know I didn't feel that it was rock solid. What if he had lost? The critique would be that his campaign got cocky and decided to focus on other things.

We should always strive for improvement, but I agree with the other commenters who think that now we need to work with what we have and exert pressure in the right places.

by rodageo 2009-02-21 03:31PM | 0 recs

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I got that door-hanger on the Sunday

It did have the statehouse candidate and county candidates (in 8-point font, I think), way near the bottom.

Talk to any experienced political hack in Iowa. They will tell you that not enough was done for the down-ticket candidates. There were big fights behind the scenes between people involved with the Iowa Democratic Party and people involved with the Obama campaign. A lot of people are not happy with Jackie Norris.

Obama was above 50 percent in Iowa with a double-digit lead over McCain in something like 15 separate polls in September and October. More attention should have been paid to the battleground districts in the legislature. But the Obama campaign wasn't IDing for those candidates and stuck with its field plan of GOTV for Obama.

by desmoinesdem 2009-02-21 04:14PM | 0 recs

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Re: The price of a flawed coordinated campaign

I expect that the people in Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, etc will have different experiences from the people in Minnesota, New York, Iowa, etc.

by Judeling 2009-02-21 10:52AM | 0 recs

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We had at least 3 more races we could have won

1. Padavan only won by 500 vores.

2. Dollinger -the state party didn't have enough money so they withdrew, the only help he got was from NARAL/NY and he still almost won

3. The Kristen McElroy race was close- no help
Joe Mesi could have been won with more moeny and volunteers
David Nachbar also had a shot with more money and volunteers.

They were all closer than expected but there just wasn't enough people or funds/

In Queens, Addabbo won because he was the one the city politicians could help. There was lots of manpower but in one way or another it was dragooned to the presidential race.

by debcoop 2009-02-21 08:31PM | 0 recs

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As I said above

the state level didn't really want the help. They misjudged Gennaro and McElroy's chances. I had someone flat out tell me in October they had "no chance"

The party pulled out of Dollinger's race cause
they thought he had it in the bag and put their upstate resources into saving Stachowski in Buffalo.

by DTOzone 2009-02-21 08:44PM | 0 recs

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I generally agree

I think we should have picked up at least another 10 House seats and another 100-150 state legislative seats. We could very well have done better in legislative races in Florida, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, and the Dakotas.

by Kent 2009-02-21 02:09PM | 0 recs

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Great insight, desmoinesdem!

I very strongly believe that in the ordinary course of things vr/gotv efforts by local candidates inure to the benefit of top-ballot candidates far more than the big cigars' big talk and empty promises helps down-ballot little guys.

Local candidates who are awed and deferential to DC (or state capitol) big cigars only shoot themselves in the foot (i.e., lose).

Never believe anyone's promise that vr/gotv is being done for you.

At best, the big campaigns can create opinion/ enthusiasm atmospherics that can make your plans and your work more successful.

Vr/gotv are effective when they are front-porch and face-to-face.

Big cigars do not know the people who answer the door when a local legislative candidate knocks.

Really, they do not know anything about them.

Local candidates: vr/gotv is YOUR job.

Activists take note: If you want to be of great help to the high profile, glamourous campaigns ... help local candidates with their vr/gotv efforts.

by Prairie 2009-02-21 02:42PM | 0 recs