Posts tagged ‘2008 elections’

DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen on Lessons Learned and the Road Ahead

by , posted on Saturday, May 8th, 2010 at 6:00 am

In Red to Blue: Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Grassroots Politics, author Sanford Gottlieb tells the story of Chris Van Hollen’s successful grassroots campaign for Congress in 2002, and the lessons Van Hollen, and others, took away from that campaign in subsequent election cycles.

Van Hollen’s district

is MD-08, located in Washington DC’s Maryland suburbs. In the primary he beat frontrunner Mark Shriver, a Kennedy cousin with a lot of money to spend and a consultant by the name of David Axelrod on his team. He then went on to unseat longtime incumbent Connie Morella in the general election that fall. Morella was a well-liked, liberal Republican who had been long thought to be unbeatable, having enjoyed more than a little bit of support from local Democrats through the years on election day. And Van Hollen pulled this off in a Republican year. This was the first congressional election to be held after 9/11. The Republicans won back control of the Senate in 2002 and added to their majority in the House. Only two Democrats unseated incumbent Republicans that year. Chris Van Hollen was one of them.

Van Hollen has brought this experience to bear in his subsequent work at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). And he was not the only one to go to school on that 2002 campaign. As Gottlieb puts it:

David Axelrod told Van Hollen in 2008 that he had learned some lessons from being on the other side of the 2002 primary. It was a really good grassroots campaign, Axelrod said, with the passion on Van Hollen’s side. Van Hollen carried the lessons learned in 2002 into the successful effort to build a House Democratic majority in 2006. Axelrod and David Plouffe may have applied those lessons in the 2008 50-state race for the White House. (Gottlieb, Red to Blue, 32)

Last week Van Hollen appeared with Gottlieb at a book event in Washington, DC and talked about his attempt to apply those lessons learned to his work with the DCCC. Van Hollen’s introductory remarks, plus the question and answer session that followed, are presented below.

(more…)

Share

Dems have a Kate Problem

by , posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 2:09 pm

My youngest daughter, Kate, is 31. She’s married with three children. She has Type I Diabetes and was medically bankrupt at the age of 20 when she fell into a coma and spent two weeks in intensive care while uninsured. She is the principal breadwinner for her family, and despite her health challenges and past financial hardships they are doing okay now. In fact, Kate is doing so well right now that the most pressing personal family problem on her mind is that her brother will be deployed to Afghanistan this spring. And that is weighing heavily on her mind, though I won’t here go into what Kate thinks of the Afghanistan escalation.

Up until the 2008 election there was no force on earth – including me – that could move Kate to so much as vote. Her take on it: there is no point, big business owns government, and nothing will change. But in 2007 Kate changed, radically, sharply, suddenly, changed her mind.

(more…)

Share

Has anyone else been wondering whether Bill Foster is running for re-election or not?

by , posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 10:08 am

When Ethan Hastert officially announced he was running for Congress a few weeks ago, a number of the stories made passing reference to Bill Foster’s intentions. Or perhaps I should say lack of intentions, because the impression that was initially given was that maybe Foster hadn’t decided yet whether he was going to run for re-election. Which seemed odd, because why on earth wouldn’t he? He just got the job, what, a little more than a year ago?

And yet, the first story I saw, in DeKalb’s Daily Chronicle, stated that “Foster said this afternoon that he hasn’t decided if he’ll run for re-election.”

The next story I saw, in the Kane County Chronicle, said Foster wasn’t undecided at all: “Foster is planning on running for re-election, according to a spokeswoman who released a statement Monday in response to Ethan Hastert’s announcement.” But all the statement itself had to say about whether Foster was or was not planning on running was this: “he is not thinking about elections right now,” which didn’t seem to unambiguously support the claim that he was indeed planning on running again. Washington Wire, a Wall Street Journal blog, quoted that same line from the official statement, but said nothing to indicate that he was nevertheless going to run again.

That Daily Chronicle story seemed pretty unambiguous. “Foster said … he hasn’t decided.” Where was the Kane County Chronicle‘s certainty coming from? Was it possible that some of these media outlets were running only a part of the statement that Foster’s office had released? “What’s the deal, here?” I wondered.

(more…)

Share

IL-14: Bill Foster and ETC

by , posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

Originally posted at Fireside 14 and Daily Kos.

As a newcomer to the political scene in IL-14, Bill Foster, more than most, has had to spend time telling voters his “story,” has had to spend time, and a lot of money, introducing himself to a community he had been a stranger to until he moved back to the district from Washington, D.C., a month or so after he announced he would be a candidate for Congress back in Illinois. From the beginning, his story has been based upon the notion that he has a track record as a “successful businessman and accomplished scientist” that spoke to his abilities as a problem solver, and that he would be able to build upon that prior experience to become a successful problem solver as a politician, too. “Businessman, Scientist, Democrat for Change,” as one of his campaign slogans puts it.

Here is the thumbnail description of Foster’s career as a businessman that his campaign offers to those seeking to learn more about that part of his life:

Before coming to Fermilab, Bill was a successful businessman. When he was 19, Bill and his younger brother started a business from scratch in their basement. Starting with $500 from their parents, they built a company that now manufactures over half of the theater lighting equipment in the United States. Their equipment is used on Broadway shows, Rolling Stones tours, the great Opera houses, half-time shows at the Super-Bowl, and at churches, schools, and community theaters throughout the country. Their company sells millions of dollars of equipment around the world and provides over 500 good jobs — with good pay and benefits — here in the Midwest.

On one occasion, Foster campaign manager Tom Bowen put a finer point on the equation, stating that “as a businessman, [Foster] has experience solving problems close to home like meeting payrolls and budgeting for the future.” But for the most part, the blockquote above is representative of what has been consistently said by the Foster campaign about his career in business. Bill and his brother started a company from scratch while they were still in college, and now that company is enormously successful. And while there is much that is left unsaid in the gap between the beginning and the end of this part of Foster’s story, it is clear that the point that everyone is supposed to be taking away from this narrative is that Bill Foster played a major role in the development of an extremely successful company and that this accomplishment is evidence that he can be expected to be an effective member of Congress.

The problem with all this, however, is that no one has ever tried to fill in the gaps in the story of Bill Foster’s career as a businessman in order to see what the truth of the matter really is.

(more…)

Share

IL-14: The Losing Strategy

by , posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 8:53 pm

Originally posted at Fireside 14, Prairie State Blue, Open Left and MyDD.

What happens in Podunk shouldn’t stay there.  Or at least if it does, the Democratic Party Establishment, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, the Blue Dogs among us, will have won one more unrecorded battle against those of us who want real change.

What’s happening most immediately in the IL-14 corner of Podunk (a term I use here to describe anything not directly inside the DC Beltway) is a primary and a special primary on Tuesday, between the DC insider “pick” for our district, an attorney who is a relative newcomer to both politics and our area, and John Laesch, the nominee against Denny Hastert last time out, and the only progressive in the race.

At this point, I’d call it a significant bellwether for the upcoming Congressional elections that virtually no one outside of IL-14 is paying much attention to in the glare of the presidential race, as well as a bellwether event in the battle for control of the party.  So while I don’t expect this diary to get much attention, I want to leave a record of what has happened in this primary.  Bellwethers, however unobserved at the time, sometimes have a way of becoming useful history for those who follow.  

(more…)

Share

IL-14: Podunk, IL vs. the New Chicago Machine

by , posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 5:05 pm

Originally posted at Fireside 14, Prairie State Blue, MyDD, Open Left and Daily Kos.

Not long ago, I ran across this comment from a dedicated Foster volunteer and supporter:  

This will be unpopular… (0.00 / 0) 
…but you know I’m going to say it anyway! 
I am much more interested in what goes on in Northern IL than I am in what happens downstate. With work, I get more than my fill of politics in Springfield and the rest of the cornfields in IL. 
I just really don’t care what is happening in politics in Podunk, IL unless it’s really sexy and scandalous. Otherwise, I am bored.  (emphasis added)

by: bridgetdooley @ Thu Dec 06, 2007 at 22:18:39 PM CST

As anyone who lives in Illinois knows, anything not in the City or collar counties is routinely considered “downstate” (aka “Podunk” to Ms. Dooley) even if it’s north of Chicago.  The distinction here, if you are local, is that Kane and (parts of) Kendall, being collar counties, are typically considered part of the greater Chicagoland region, while everything west of the urbanized strip on the far east of IL-14 really qualifies as “downstate.”  

Which would seem to imply Ms. Dooley’s term “Podunk, IL” represents the vast majority of the geographic area of IL-14, containing somewhat more than half of the voters in the district.  (Of course, if you are a Chicago political insider, anything not in, oh, Chicago, pretty much qualifies as “Podunk.”  Much in the way that, to a DC political insider, anything not in New York, Chicago, LA, or DC pretty much qualifies as “Podunk” but we’ll get to that later.)  But maybe she really meant further downstate.

(more…)

Share

IL-14: Capitulation, “With Biometrics if Necessary”

by , posted on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 10:03 am

Originally posted at Fireside 14, Open Left, MyDD and Daily Kos.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I was in a public place, right here in St. Charles, Illinois, when I overheard a conversation that alarmed, but failed to surprise, me. The person doing most of the talking was talking complaining bitterly about her new job in an area public elementary school. Not a St. Charles school and not an educator. She’s a peripheral professional who has frequent contact with children however, and that’s bad enough.

Her major complaint? “All these Hispanic children.”

According to her, not only are “all these Hispanic children” unable to communicate, they are “aggressive and obnoxiously rude –
especially the girls.” I was supposed to be paying attention to what the person in front of me was saying and lost some of the conversation I was overhearing, but suspect her companion must have voiced some objections, because she started trying to explain herself dig herself in deeper.

(more…)

Share

IL-14: I Quit the Laesch Campaign Today UPDATE II

by , posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 10:13 am

Originally posted at Daily Kos.

So I could say this:  

Planned Parenthood betrayed me and all the women of IL-14 yesterday.

Some of you may remember this memorable DKos diary by Planned Parenthood back in September, when their new clinic in Aurora was under attack.  Some of you may even remember that there was one Kossack/candidate here who stepped up.  

(more…)

Share

Today I am a Healthcare Voter: a personal rant

by , posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

Originally posted at Daily Kos.

In case anyone is unaware, I want to state for the record that I worked for the Laesch for Congress campaign in ’06, I work for it now, I will work for it in future. But this diary is a personal story, not vetted by the campaign, although also an explanation of why, in fact, I started working for the election of John Laesch as my congressperson in the first place, why I’m probably going to drop in an ActBlue link in the end anyway, as well as why I am, oh, pissed off at the world today.  Again.

Today Kate’s life is in danger.  Again.

Kate is my late-twenty-something youngest daughter.  She is herself the mother of two, my only grandchildren.  Kate is smart, witty, charming, creative, funny, willful, stubborn, disorganized, proud, courageous, kind, and a free-spirit if ever there was one.  I mention these things because, like most people with a chronic illness, she hates being defined by it so I don’t want it to be the only thing I say about her here, but Kate has Type I Diabetes.

(more…)

Share

Drinking Liberally in DC with Chris Bowers

by , posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 11:10 pm

Originally posted at Fireside 14 and Prairie State Blue.

Drinking Liberally is, in it’s own words, “an informal gathering of like-minded left-leaners who want to trade ideas, get more involved, or just share each other’s company… and every week kvetch, vent, ponder, and pontificate on the issues of the day.”  And in DC once a month they have guest speakers.  Last Thursday the guest speaker was Chris Bowers of Open Left, and I stopped in to hear what he had to say.

(more…)

Share