Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
Electoral Math
Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
I Saw That Too | Home | Loyalty
While I'm still on the fence when it comes to Joe Lieberman, I think we can all agree that it is well past time for Henry Cuellar to go. Cuellar was a Texas State Senator in 2000 who, as a Democrat, endorsed Bush (okay, fine, at that point Bush sounded a lot more bipartisan, and state pols do this sort of thing more often than national pols). He ran for congress in 2002, lost, then his district disappeared in the DeLaymander of 2003. Forced into a contested primary, he defeated incumbent Ciro Rodriguez (D) in the primary. His district is so heavily Democratic the Texas GOP isn't even bothering to put up a candidate, yet.he ranks as one of the ten most conservative Democrats in the house. Now, I cut most conservative Democrats a bit of slack [for example, I have no quarrel with Gene Taylor (R-MS)], since they represent tough districts for Democrats, but Cuellar has no excuse.
Cuellar is so unpopular with Democrats the Blue Dogs wouldn't let him into their club. He is more cozy with the GOP than turncoat Rodney Alexander (R-LA) , who switched parties on filing day so Democrats could not mount a challenge. Now, the Texas filing deadline has passed, so that won't happen at the very least until after the election. But there's no reason to tolerate this sort of behavior at the national level.
Meanwhile, I think Ned Lamont's arithmetic is a bit off. Raw turnout for the 2004 primary in Connecticut, in which there were a few competitive races, totaled 170,000 Democratic voters. Since 2006 is an off year, but there will be a well covered Democratic primary, turnout is likely to be the same, if not higher. The average volunteer can doorbell about 75 households or roughly 100 voters in a day's work. Assuming your canvassing reaches actual voters 50 or 60% of the time, and you would ideally canvass your supporters and undecideds two or three times, you really need about 6,000 volunteer-days at a minimum. And this doesn't count the time it will take to build walk lists, stuff fundraising envelopes, and do all the other things a campaign needs to do. I think Lamont will end up needing over 2,000 volunteers, assuming an average of three days of field work per person.
This is an awful lot of sweat-hours that could go towards defeating vulnerable Northeast Republican like Rob Simmons (CT), Chris Shays (CT), Vito Fossella (NY-Staten Island), and whichever upstate New York Republicans live closest to Connecticut.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 11:58 04 February 2006
