In the past few months, our anger and desire to strike back at the incompetent Bush Administration and the corrupt Washington Republicans have led us to jump in with both feet backing Democratic candidates in special elections in districts in which Republicans enjoyed enormous structural advantages.
In indulging our reflexive need to strike back blindly and immediately, we have been overlooking better opportunities to flip historically Democratic districts currently held by Republicans.
In WV-02 we have an energetic challenger stalking a well-financed but seriously wounded ultraconservative Republican Congresswoman and Bush-smoocher ((pix) in a district which enjoys a roughly two-to-one Democratic edge in voter registration.
I am begging each of you to kick in to Mike Callaghan's campaign to unseat Rep. Shelley Moore Capito in WV-02. Five bucks, ten bucks....anything you can afford. Anyone who gives $2100 I will name a pet after. Below is the link. If you are unconvinced or interested in more reason why this one matters and can be won, read on for more.
Callaghan For Congress Campaign Site
THE STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE:
We've been drawn into tilting at windmills trying to flip historically Republican seats outside San Diego and Cincinnati.
What's next? Trying to flip a seat in the Provo suburbs.
No, we need to choose our ground wisely. Unlike the Bush Administration, we need to learn from experience and fight where we can win.
If Democrats are to regain a House majority, we need to pick low-hanging fruit before we start reaching for the stars.
In WV-02 we have numbers on our side. We have a rural distirct with disproportionately high numbers of lower-income and elderly voters. We have a district the manufacuring base of which is threatened by outsourcing. And we face a Wall Street Journal Republican who has done herself some serious damage in the last two years.
In WV-02 we have a district wide open to a successful populist campaign. And in Mike Callaghan we have precisely the person who can pull it off.
THE DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGER:
You can check my previous posts here and at Our Congress, as well as Davidnyc's exceptional coverage at Swingstateproject, for more info but here's another screed on why you should support Mike Callaghan.
But here goes:
Mike Callaghan is a 43-year-old former federal prosecutor, Secretary of the WV Department of Environmental Protection, and state Democratic Chair.
Callaghan is an exceptionally energetic retail campaigner. In past posts folks have questioned my estimation of his skills. After Callaghan won the Democratic primary in May despite being outspent 15-to-one on media, I do not think Callaghan's knack for the campaign trail is in question. He has the skills.
In terms of positioning he is as an ideal candidate as progressives could hope for and still have a prayer of winning a rural district.
Mike Callaghan is:
1) Unapologetically pro-choice...a brave stance in a district in which roughly half the Democrats are pro-life.
2) An advocate for universal health care...which has brought down the wrath of PHARMA as the big drug companies are filling his opponents' coffers in response.
3) For getting out of Iraq and refocusing on the real War on Terror
4) For developing alternative sources and cleaner energy production.
5) Against privatization of Social Security
6) For repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans
7) For restoring fiscal sanity and Washington and eliminating the federal deficit
8) For restoring the Bush/Washington Republican cuts to Medicaid
9) ForIncreasing investment in rural health care
10) For real ethics reform to drain the swamps of corruption in Washington and reduce the influence of Big Money in politics
11) Against outsourcing
12) For elimination of Corporate Welfare
13) For stiking a reasonable balance between the competing needs for responsible environmental stewardship and job creation and stopping the ravaging of our landscape by the extraction industries
14) And ultimately he is one of us. He will represent the people of WV-02 rather than subordinate their interests to those of Wall Street and the big Pharmaceutical corporations
THE REPUBLICAN INCUMBENT (HISS!)
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is the third-term Republican currently holding this seat. Capito is the daughter of former three-term Governor and two-term federal inmate Arch Moore. This, along with a pleasant personality and an aversion to risk, seems to be her prime qualification for office. Folks in West Virginia know her. They watched her grow up in the Governor;s Mansion.
Capito is an exceedingly cautious pol. While in terms of positioning she is firmly in the far right, she is always keen to take the edge of her hardcore conservatism by invariably tacking on language to her extreme positions which make her appear more moderate than her voting record.
Some back ground on Capito's positioning and record:
1) Strongly pro-life...is against reproductive rights, allowing for abortion only in cases of rape, incest and life of the woman
2) A staunch Stay-The-Courser on the War in Iraq. She is in Bush's pocket and happy to stay there. Bush will be doing a fundraiser for her in Charleston later this month.
3) Utterly tainted with ties to the Culture of Corruption. To my knowledge, Capito is the only House Republican who pulled off the trifecta of being implicated in each of the Big Three Ethics Scandals. She took money from Duke Cinningham she had to give back. She was the largest single recipient of Tom DeLay's dirty campiagn money in the entire House. And one of her aides was implicated in the GSA aspect of the Abramoff scandal. The aide fell on his sword, claiming he acted without the knowledge of his boss.
Well, if she didn't know, she should have. Then again, Republicans aren't much for taking responsibility for managerial incompetence.
By the way, she also took bundled contributions from Abramoff, including some of the Indian tirbal money.
4) In the pharmaceutical industry's pocket. As vice-chair of the House Republican conference on prescription drugs, she played a leading role in the Tauzin Rule fiasco that tacked the Average Wholesale Pricing provision onto the Medicare Prescription Drug bill. This law makes it illgeal for the federal government to negotitate lower prices for seniors buying durgs under this program. It actually requires the government to pay full-pop retail for medicine. Capito picked the pockets of every American taxpayer to do a favor for her campaign contributors in the pharmaceutical industry.
5) Favors privatization of Social Security, putting all of our retirements at risk in the volatile stock market. While Capito is currently dodging and weaving on this stance, she volunteered on her Project Vote Smart issue survey that she supported individual accounts over which workers have full control.
6) Conflicts of Interest? What are those? Despite her husband being an executive with a large financial services firm, Capito never is shy about voting to inflate Wall Street's bottom line. Despite her family's financial stake in such legislation, Capito voted for the credit card company-friendly bankruptcy bill, against protection for consumers. and to remove regulations which prevented financial advisors from pushing their own companies products even when competitiors were cheaper or superior.
7) Subordinates the interests of the district to her own personal political ambitions. In the session during which the big Roads Bill was being cobbled together, Capito abandoned her post on House Transportation in favor of one on House Rules.
What does this mean? Well, rather than deliver badly needed funding for transportation infrastructure, Capito chose a slot on a committee that does nothing but rig debate rules so the Washington Republican leadership can ram their extremist agaenda through Congress.
Given a choice, Capito would rather carry water for the corrupt Republican House leadership than deliver for her constituents.
8) Despite her posturing as a supreme patriot (ostentatiously supporting anti-flag-burning amendments and such), Capito voted to cut veteran's health benefits. She voted against paying a $1500 bonus to our soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, she thinks it's fine to guarantee billions of dollars in profits to prescription drug manufacturers but fifteen hundred bucks to soldiers fighting a war she enthusiastically supports is a dangerous budget-busting precedent.
9) Forgive a bit of a lengthy diversion but Capito hurt herself with the sustained flirtation with a challenge to Senator Robert Byrd.
You may recall last spring the national Republicans were trying to coax Capito into running against Byrd for his Senate seat. You may recall the background: the Bushies were infuriated with Byrd spanking them on the war.
Well, in their desire for payback, the RSCC and Bushies tried to get Capito to run against Byrd. They are said to have promised her a guarantee of $14 million in funding, plenty of stump support by Bush and other leading lights of the GOP, and a top-tier sub-cabinet post like SBA should her bid fall short. I reckon the Bushies figured they might force Byrd out. Given his fraility and the failing health of his wife (since departed, bless her soul), they may have hoped that facing the physical demand of a retail campaign would force him to retire.
Capito played coy with the offer, never making a Shermanesque declaration for several months. Meanwhile she used her artificially heightened profile to raise money under false pretenses. While considering the Byrd challenge, Capito was able to raise money from conervative activists across the country for whom Byrd is a favorite whipping boy.
Capito took their money then turned tail. When it became apparent that Byrd would not be forced from the race, she announced she was running for reelection to her House seat. And just plowed the money folks hoped would be used against Byrd into her House race coffers.
The Byrd float exposed Capito as a cynical operator and ghoulishly opportunistic (waiting for an old man to get too sick or too dead to run). Ultimately she looked cowardly. She had the guts to consider it but not the guts to take the risk.
THE DISTRICT HISTORY
WV-02 is a historically Democratic district. Since the Rossevelt realignment that ended the Republican ere in West Virginia, only two Republicans have held this seat.
In 1980 long-time Democratic Congressman John Slack passed away. Republican Mick Staton won the seat by walking the entire district. OK, he lost it in 1982 when Democrats hit hard on Medicare and the economy was still in recession, but Staton established one salient characteristic of this distirct in particular and West Virginia generally: we reward pols who work retail.
This is a predominantly rural district in which voters expect to have personal contact with their elected officials. In a small, sparsely populated state like West Virginia everyone knows everyone else...or at least someone who does. Our politics are of an extremely personal nature.
In Capito's initial election in 2000, this truth was reenforced. Despite being outspent at least two-to-one by a wealthy trial lawyer, Capito squeaked out a victory. In a 2002 rematch she was again outpent but blew her opponent out, clearing 60 percent as the Democratic campaign imploded with an overreaching negative media campaign.
In her first two races Capito won by beating her opponent on the ground. She had better GOTV and, most importantly, rather than relying on paid media she hit every county fair, parade and supermarket. She got out there and met people. Her opponent relied on a consultant-driven air war.
In 2004 Capito began to display signs of weakness. Despite facing an underfunded token challenger ($89K total) she actually dropped two points, falling to 57 percent. With the wind at her back, she fell.
While 57 percent is below the magic number of 55 under which incumbents are supposed to be vulnerable, consider this:
1) In 2004 Capito was boosted by the massive Bush GOTV effort flooding the DC exurb Eastern Panhandle counties. They did an exceptionally good job, roughly doubling their turnout from four years before. Capito's ability to mount a GOTV operation on this scale is extremely doubtful.
2) When you look at the Bush and Capito vote totals by county, they almost precisley coincide. One has to conculde she was held up by Bush as much as on her own, especially was the Wells campaign just wasn't visible.
3) Democratic House totals were hurt by Kerry's poor performance in the state. Do not forget that his "voted-for-it-before-against-it" moment happened at a rally in West Virginia.
4) Bush has sky-high approvals in West Virginia in 2004. He doesn't now. And Capito is tied to him at the hip.
5) New Democratic Governor Joe Manchin is exceptionally popular and has created a psychic separation betwen the West Virginia and national parties.
The Republican Attack Machine is going to have a hard time painting Democrats pink in West Virginia when the public face of the party in state is a pro-life, pro-business moderate. Manchin's popularity among the Democrats who have crossed over to Bush and Capito in the past three cycles is going to hurt GOP efforts to whip the chuches up on God, guns, gays and abortion.
6) During Callaghan's tenure as party chair and continuing under the Manchin Administration, the WV Democratic party has been rebuilt and modernized. They are going to have a real GOTV capability this year which will spillover into the federal races.
7) In 2000 and 2004 Capito had help at the top of the ticket as Bush was rolling. In 2006 Capito has around her neck the millstone of the collapsing John Raese Senate campaign. Byrd is sure to clear 60 percent and may hit 70 if Raese doesn't get his house in order.
Callaghan is going to benefit greatly from Byrd coattails.
HOW CALLAGHAN WINS
Callaghan has the wind at his back. His number one issue of health care is strong and cuts hard against Capito. Any election with a focus on ethics is going to be tough for a candidate with Moore in her name.
Callaghan wins by beating Capito on the ground. He needs just enough money to show the flag in the air war so Capito can't define the race through exclusively owning the air waves...but Callaghan will win by flat outworking her.
Doing that is his job. What we need to do is get this guy the resources to get it done. The Callaghan campaign will around a million dollars total, half for the ground operation and half for the air war. Capito will have around three million, but this is survivable. This district is won and lost on the ground. Callaghan spending $50K on TV and his opponent dropping $750 established this clearly. Let Capito drop a couple million on paid ads. Anything over half a million in this district is just waste.
Give Callaghan half a million to neutralize the air war, and it is game over for Capito.
That is our job.
I'd love it if y'all would jump on the bandwagon and start flogging this race on the blogs. I suck at this and need you help. That's what I want.
But what we need to do right now is get this guy some money. He will win it on the ground...but the ground game costs money....so....
Write some checks.
LINK TO DONATE TO MIKE CALLAGHAN
I have to go sucker and water my tomatos. If you were kind enough to comment, I will respond once the garden is done. Meantime, feel free toa rgue among yourselves.
And I'd appreciate any recs. We need to raise this race's profile or we're throwing away a pick-up.