Greg takes a long and well-deserved victory lap over the primary runoff win for Borris Miles. Read it for a good insider’s account of what went on in that campaign.
One point to highlight:
Obviously, I’m glad we won as I tend to prefer that over the other option. It was just over a year ago that I first called out the current incumbent. Over time, other bloggers would follow. Nathan Wilcox’s profile still adorns the wall of HQ as it’s perhaps the single best distillation of the case against Al in one blogpost. The next time you read something about the low batting average of national bloggers on seeing wins on Election night, know that there’s a lot of proud Texas bloggers with some fingerprints on this win.
Let’s not forget Carlos Uresti‘s win over State Sen. Frank Madla, or Donna Howard in the HD48 special election, either. There was a lot of tongue-clucking in the national press and elsewhere over the “failure” of progressive blogs to oust Rep. Henry Cuellar in the CD28 primary. Well, from where I sit, the record of Texas netroots-supported candidates so far this year is three and two (I’ll accept our share of the blame for Katy Hubener‘s loss in the HD106 special as well). I’m certainly not going to claim that we were difference-makers; we helped, but so did a zillion other people, many of whom did a lot of real, actual, old-fashioned non-glamorous campaign work while we banged our virtual pots and pans and maybe raised a few pennies to help those folks out. But hey, if we’re going to get tagged for a loss in CD28, we’re damn sure going to claim our share of the wins in SD19, HD48, and HD146. And how sweet they are. Here’s to a few more in November, too.
Borris ran a great campaign with a new team. And check out the campaign teams of Donna Howard and Carlos Uresti, two great candidates who also drove consistent, compelling messages from start to finish. Then check out the teams of Katy Hubener, Ciro Rodriguez and the others who came up short. The point is that running new style campaigns works and running the same old tired campaigns doesn’t.
And what exactly is a “new style” campaign? What is an “old style” campaign? Ciro lost because he failed to put a decent campaign team together and the one he had should have been out blockwalking in November. They didn’t do anything until February. Katy Huebner lost because it’s a Republican district and Democrats have more work to do in the area before we can pick it up.
There is no “old vs. new.” You either get the voters out or you don’t.
i would also claim victory for us in helping to oust kent grusendorf. the texas-wide coverage of his nasty anti-teacher tactics helped, i know that for sure.