Thursday, March 23, 2006

More on Duckworth/Cegalis Disaster in the Making

Shakespeare's Sister gets angry about National Dems undermining a pretty popular local candidate.

The more I read on this race in Illinois, the more I wonder if such actions are symptomatic of the entire national Democratic cause. Wihtout doing any research, I wonder how many times the DCCC and the DSCC have undercut competition in the Democratic primary by supporting a candidate that either is too green, but fits the national Democrats' profile of the "ideal candidate," or lacks the base of support on the local level.

Cegalis held Henry Hyde to just 56% of the vote in 2004. Would her chances not be greater now that Hyde has stepped aside, among independents and swing voters in a non-presidential election year? In nearly every political operative's book, yes. But the Dems wanted someone who could beef up their appearance on defense and security issues, never mind that Tammy Duckworth made a bigger issue of education, health care, and energy matters in her campaign. Iraq is listed on her website, but she offers nothing new on the Democratic side of the debate, i.e., we need to leave sooner rather than later, the entry into Iraq was a mistake (despite admitting that the Iraqi people feel better off now than they did under Hussein) and that we just can't pack up and leave now. Duckworth offers no other plan, no options to consider, simply the straight Democratic line.

This is not to say that Cegalis offered any different ideas either. But she had something Duckworth did not, a base of support, and a base that almost won the primary for her.

With friends like these, Democratic candidates nationwide need to guard against Republican attacks which are sure to come and can be expected, but Democratic candidates need to guard against their DC supporters undermining their position in the eyes of the locals.

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