Dan Gilgoff, John Arthur Eaves, and the way the National Stuff Works

I just posted the article from this Sunday's Dallas Morning News about John Arthur Eaves, and it seemed necessary to talk about the article in one post and do the analysis in another.

Dan Gilgoff is a widely respected author who puts a lot of rubber on the road. I think however, that he's missing the angle on this one and attributing to The National Democratic Party a thing that is inherently local. He makes the assumption that the DNC is involved in recruiting for the Governorships in the way that they're involved in recruiting Congressional and Senate candidates. It's not entirely the same.

I don't want to be misinterpreted as saying that the Eaves campaign doesn't have the support of the DNC or DGA or whatever. That is a separate conversation. Although I hear that he and Gov. Dean do have a good relationship.

Legislative calculus goes on for months or years. Thus legislating is a team sport. In 2006 the DCCC in conjunction with (at the time) Rep. Pelosi's office put together a national policy plan. They said, this is what our team is going to do. And the folks who were top and second tier congressional candidates got on board with that package. They became the local representatives of the larger national organizations. "We're going to be on the Anti-Iraq, pro environment, minimum wage raising team," they said. Senate races work the same way. Sen. Schumer gets on the phone and says "Mr. Webb, this is what we're going to do and it's a great way to sell yourself to the folks back home in Manassas." And in order to get those agendas passed, those organizations are heavily invested in each targeted race. There are weekly, and then nightly conference calls with staff and the DSCC or DCCC folks assigned to your race.

Gubernatorials don't work that way. They're races about leadership and character and completely determined by the local political circumstances. In Ohio, Ted Strickland got elected by saying "Ohio Republicans are corrupt. They steal your money, falsify elections, and have for sale signs sitting on their desks. And the national Republican party has the same problems" among other things. There's a harder time nationalizing elections for state offices. If the problem is in Jackson, talking about DC probably won't get the job done.

So the DGA, DLGA, DAGA, and all of the other state office associations function differently than DCCC and DSCC. My experience with them is that they serve primarily as information clearing houses. They store institutional memories. If you need a good media guy, you call and get a recommendation. You need advice on how to target your field plan, they can talk to you about what's worked in the past. They serve other functions, but that's how my involvement with those organizations has gone. My impression has always been that my campaign was a box on a grid. Their purpose is not to be heavily invested in the local political circumstances. It's resource allocation.

The reason that's important to know is that although the DNC and the DGA will be involved in this election, the Eaves candidacy is ultimately a thing generated, sustained by, and ultimately judged by local circumstances. The fact that there's a guy running as a Pro-Life, Pro-School Prayer, Baby Baptizing Democrat in Mississippi says more about Mississippi than it does the National Democratic Party. That's a point that Dan Gilgoff seems to ignore.