You say: "I assert that the lion's share of the responsibility for these shortcomings rest with campaign staff."  Who is ultimately responsible for the conduct of their campaign?  If you observe a failed enterprise, do you normally blame the employees for the failure?

which in itself is probably a symptom of a problem.  I can't help but agree with your assessment that there wasn't a compelling narrative to this race, since I can't think of what that narrative might have been.

I have to wonder, though, about the complaints viz. the staff versus the candidate.  Clearly there were dysfunctional elements of the campaign, and that has been born out by the results.  I just don't know how to qualify who should be deemed responsible for this, considering how little we know about the race due to its low profile.

As an aside, I think that considering their otherwise low profile, the amount that I heard about them on the Internet was impressive.  Frankly it annoyed me at times how much time and publicity Feder got on this blog compared with Periello and Nye, as the Nye/Drake race was always going to be competitive providing for adequate fundraising, given that incumbent's demonstrated vulnerabilities, and Periello had fairly good communications and was the first credible challenger Goode had faced in several cycles.  I worried at times that spending so much time focusing on Feder degraded the signal-to-noise quotient for our more-competitive candidates.  Besides her respectable fundraising work, Lowell's valiant efforts to raise this campaign's profile is why we're having a conversation about this race at all; otherwise the campaign would be as quickly forgotten as our other unsuccessful Democratic challengers.

Whether it was wise use of Lowell's time and effort to plug a dysfunctional race is perhaps a matter for debate, but I don't think there's any debate that at the very least, Judy got her money's worth out of Lowell Feld.

Judy Feder did better than any Democrat has done against Frank Wolf in the past 20 years (both times).

Say what you want. But you don't get to ignore the fact that nobody has yet done a better job than Judy did against Wolf in a long time. There's always a flip-side.

Beyond that....I think this analysis is rather sad.

Full disclosure: I was a consultant to the Feder campaign. If anyone would like accurate and correct information, instead of the ill-informed bullshit written here...feel free to ask.

Don't get me wrong; I think Judy is awesome and I am mighty impressed with her fundraising.  I have contributed, volunteered, and voted for her.

I think that this discussion is badly needed and we need to figure out how we are going to replace Frank Wolf in 2010 by getting to the facts and then coming up with a plan and working hard together to get the information to the voters so they can make the right choice rather than continue voting for Wolf.

So - yes, we'd love to get correct information.  What happened, how can we fix the problems without assigning blame; how can we improve performance in the next election.  These are serious questions and healthy discussion is needed.

Not interested in blaming anyone - more interested in winning elections.

it would help if everyone understood that beating Frank Wolf is a roughly a $4 million dollar endeavor. At a minimum.

My main problem with this whole ridiculous discussion is that RK has someone who has no insight into the campaign whatsoever trying to analyze what happened on the inside. Without, apparently, even asking any intelligent questions of anyone on the campaign.

Moreover, everyone is so quick to blame Judy and the campaign, but no one can really point to anyone else in the last 15 or 20 years who has done better.

Doesn't really make any sense, does it?

I guess I am dismayed that Democrats don't do better... and wish to change that.

I think this diarist has raised some very good issues and they are dismissed only at the next challenger's peril.

Defensiveness isn't necessary--we're all on the same team.  After getting 41% in 2006, I would have expected Judy to at least break 45%.  Yes, Judy did better than any recent challenger, but she did also actually reverse a trend of improving percentages for the Democratic candidate since the low in 2002.  In 2002, John Stevens received only 27%, in 2004 James Socas received 36%, and in 2006, Judy received 41%.  At least we were gaining.

Now, we've regressed back to almost 39%.  That's not good, and makes 2010 that much more difficult.  It may take a Periello-like challenger in 2010, and a redistricting in 2012 to lop Frederick and Clarke counties off the district in order to make this one competitive.

I think the narrative for Judy's candidacy was never properly established.  That's clearly a campaign activity.  It should be something that is hopefully a natural from the candidate.  But if not, it is the campaign's purpose to create such a narrative, isn't it?

I think the campaign clearly lacked.  Mike Turner was saying this in the primary.  I just think he didn't say it very constructively.  He needed to propose that narrative for himself rather than attack Judy's ability to have one, which he ended up undermining, in my opinion.

All in all, it was disappointing in 2008.  We don't need to beat each other up over it though, we need to understand what plays to voters in this district and make sure our candidate for 2010 gets it.

The primary purpose of this forum is to enlighten us all, and in my opinion Josh wrote a good piece on what he perceived to be the problem in Judy's campaign.

As a professional closely involved in the Feder campaign, I think that you could shed some valuable light on what went wrong, and why she did worse this cycle than in '06, and what you would have done differently.

My purpose (and probably Josh's) is not to lay blame for the loss, but to correct things for the future.  I don't think speculation is b.s., and do seek your opinion.

First he said:

"Judy Feder is possibly the only candidate worse served by campaign staff than John McCain in this realigning political year."

Hmmm, wow, you're right, that's very gracious of him and doesn't blame anyone at all. No offense, but that's not speculation, that's just ill-informed blame.

And it's completely unhelpful in the long-term. It's also a childish dig at hard-working campaign staff who don't deserve to be shit-on.

Josh also says:

"Judy was going to be the Health Care Candidate of 2008.  What happened?"

That's intersting, given that Judy was a surrogate for the Obama campaign and the Washington Post explicitly touted her as the Health Care Candidate of 2008.

So, in essence, Judy was known as the health care candidate of 2008 and I'm not sure what Josh is talking about. Her health care expertise is, in fact, what people know about Judy more than anything else.

Look, without picking apart what Josh has written, let's start with what can actually be done to try to win the 10th district. First and foremost, Democrats in the 10th district could start by actually voting for the Democrat and not the Republican.

You can bitch and moan about Judy not being good enough. But can anyone here tell me a position that Judy holds that isn't infinately better than the position Frank Wolf holds on any given issue?

The issue in the 10th district is competing for name recognition in an expensive media market, and nothing else.

THere are far more "moderate" candidates who have run in the past and done significantly worse than Judy. The reason? Fundraising and access to resources.

You need $4 million, at a minimum, to beat Frank Wolf in the 10th. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive.

And no offense to Lowell, but I've never been anything but up front with him, so here goes: If the campaign got their money's worth with Lowell why am I here defending Judy in the comments section of his blog?

Judy Feder since early 2006.  I'm really REALLY bummed it didn't work out...

I gave time, money, and energy to her campaign not only in the blogosphere but by making phone calls and attending a few canvasses despite the fact that my efforts were concentrated in my home district of the 11th. I believe Judy's a great woman and would make an excellent Member of Congress.

That being said, I also think it's important for neither side to be playing the "blame game." By coming out here and attacking bloggers, you aren't doing Judy or her staff any favors. You keep insisting that you want to give the point of view of one of her staffers, but keep launching attacks claiming everyone is clueless and that Lowell didn't do his job. Hate to break it to you, but that doesn't do anybody any good.

I'd love to hear some concrete ideas for improvement, which I'm sure you have, because those might actually help the Democratic candidate in 2010 and encourage people to donate the large sums of money that you claim are necessary.  

I've said quite clearly that I think Josh should have come to the campaign and asked questions before writing this post. The post is ill-informed and full of mis-information that could have been cleared up before writing it.

Given that we paid lowell as a campaign blogger, seems like it would have been fairly easy for them to just come ask us for an interview. Don't you think?

I haven't said anyone was clueless or that Lowell "didn't do his job."

I said, specifically, "if we got our money's worth with Lowell, what am I doing here defending Judy."

My point still stands....

I'm not attacking anyone any more than what Josh himself has done to Judy and most of the campaign staffers. I've answered the questions that I've been asked, and I have continued to voice my opinion about Josh's post.

Josh's post is ill-informed and arrogant...there was also no need for it since he could have come and asked the campaign to answer questions.

I mean, for goodness' sake, Josh claims:

Judy is one of the pre-eminent Health Care experts of the 2006 cycle, yet her positions never broke through, her ideas were never highlighted or contrasted in a compelling way, nor were they attached to the Obama Health Care plan.

Almost every major paper in the 10th (including the Post) endorsed Judy's views on Health care and openly stated she was one of the most well-qualified health care experts in the country. Judy was also an official surrogate for the Obama campaign...why is Josh saying her positions weren't attached to the Obama Health Care plan?

Plain and simple, he just doesn't have any idea what he's talking about and that's the main problem I have. If you don't know what you're talking about...don't talk about it.

But the CAMPAIGN never really got a consistent message out there about it.  In that sense you may be right that the main problem was money.

However, I strongly disagree that the campaign did everything necessary to create the winning narrative.  Frank Wolf was defined by one commercial, which was tragic.  His commercial that attacked Judy as partisan, and defined himself as an "independent-minded centrist" (which is obviously a complete load of bullshit) worked.

Period.

Next time, define your candidate, and try to define your opponent.

Sorry, but the Feder campaign NEVER did that.

I've got to say, my favorite part of Josh's post is the following:

There's simply no indication that the Feder campaign could have or would have taken advantage of any opportunities in the campaign.  They certainly never created any.

You're right Josh.

I suppose we really should be beating ourselves up about missing the opportunity to gay-bait our opponent into a loss.

It's almost as though we had the opportunity to take a strange incident caught on tape and elevate it to every national blog in the county, make news on every local DC media outlet and make the national news (MSNBC) too.

Oh wait...

and as a fellow person who's worked on a Virginia campaign I understand how everything feels personal, but I thought Josh did a pretty good job of offering hypotheses about why Judy not only lost, but did worse than 06 in a year with Obama and Warner on the ticket.

I have no doubt the Feder staff was committed, hard-working and devoted. I think Judy is an amazing woman and would have been a great Congresswoman. I believe think Josh thinks that as well (but I won't speak for him). But you've gone much more ad hominem on him than he did in analyzing the race. You didn't address his points about Judy's image or about tv commercials. Earned media obviously

Finally, I'm sorry you lost. I'm sorry for Virginia. But don't criticize other campaigns that haven't criticized you.

I'm not taking it personally, at all. I think Josh's post is too critical and completely mis-informed. I also think when one is going to write a post like this you should reach out and get some questions answered from the campaign.

We would have gladly given him an interview.

First, where's the evidence that Obama/Warner were going to create a better situation for Feder? That was the hope, it was never a done deal.

VA-10 is an expensive media market in which to communicate. If Judy was never able to completely seal the deal with the voters (and I don't think she ever did) than many of the votes turned out by Obama and Warner were simply votes for Wolf (the known candidate). There's nothing mysterious about it, at all actually.

And for the record, Josh could have asked for an interview and that would avoided embarrassing mistakes on his part (like not realizing Judy was an official surrogate for the Obama campaign). For whatever reason, he chose not to.

As for his concerns about her image or TV commercials, I won't address them because they're so subjective. Lots of people liked the ads, lots of people didn't.

As for the image comments, I'm not going to get into a silly discussion about what Judy looks and sounds like, it's mean and silly. She is who she is.

Josh makes lots of guesses about what he thinks went on inside the campaign...he hasn't actually asked anyone yet, though, what did actually go on. I find it rather offensive that he would write the kind of post he's written and not ask a single question of the campaign.

Frankly, it's akin to what the Seattle Times did to Burner in her race.

I actually haven't critized any other campaigns...at all. I made a comment about gay-baiting, and as far as I know, it was not the campaign who officially did it.

That said, what happened with Virgil Goode, was gay-baiting, period, full stop. I'm glad Perriello won. But let's not pretend it was something more high-minded than it really was.

...you have been on this post promoting yourself as a staffer, which gives the impression that you are representing the campaign. You cannot claim to represent the campaign when it's getting a good response and then claim you don't represent the campaign when you get a bad response.

Your comments have taken what could have been a productive discussion about what needs to be done in the 10th in order for a democrat to win and turned it into a sideshow that does a great disservice to Judy and her campaign.

I said I was a consultant to the campaign. A campaign that doesn't exist anymore, btw.

Furthermore, this comment...

You cannot claim to represent the campaign when it's getting a good response and then claim you don't represent the campaign when you get a bad response.

Doesn't make any sense. I've not spoken to whether I'm representing the campaign or not in any of the comments. In fact, I've stated quite explicitly that Josh could have come to me for an interview instead of making ill-informed "guesses," I further said that I was here to answer questions.

Your comments have taken what could have been a productive discussion about what needs to be done in the 10th in order for a democrat to win and turned it into a sideshow that does a great disservice to Judy and her campaign.

Excuse me, but this entire post was a sideshow about Judy and her campaign and never once proposed any productive comments about how some OTHER candidate could win the race. What on earth are you talking about?

Josh could have written a thoughtful post (with insight from the campaign itself) about how to better make a run for Congress in the 10th. Instead he wrote a whole post critizing Judy and campaign staff (and her commercials and her appearance...yada yada yada). How is that a "productive discussion?"

Please, show me the part of Josh's post which is focused on a "productive discussion about what needs to be done in the 10th in order for a democrat to win."

In any case, if people have actual questions...I'd be more than happy to answer them, or find someone on the campaign how can answer them for you. The offer still stands.

Here's what I got out of it:

-Judy wasn't a "fit", ideologically or in terms of character, for the tenth district.  Thus, we should focus on finding candidates who "click" better with the voters.

-We need to try a new strategy.  Clearly, the basic "Democrats vs. Republican" attack doesn't work in the Tenth.  Personally, I suggested "attacking from the center" to make Wolf look more radical earlier this year, and I still think it would be a good idea.

-Raising money is great, but we need to be more careful and selective with how we spend it.

-We need to do better with the grassroots in the Tenth. If Democrats are growing in strength up there, and they are, then we need to use them better.

- The Campaign wasn't exciting enough.  I personally think that was because Feder had already been interesting in 2006, and been a let-down.  We had all thought she would get close, and she didn't get anywhere near Wolf.  So that wasn't Feder's fault; interest is hard to obtain when the chance of victory seems slim.  Same problem for other Democrats in 2008, like Rasoul, Day, and Harke.

And Just Saying, if you have the time, I'd appreciate a response to my question below.  Thanks for the discussion by the way, it's one I've wanted to have.

could have been said without aiming fire at Judy or her staff less than a week after a loss.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why that wouldn't have been a better option.

Just because you have a blog and the ability to shit on other people doesn't mean you necessarily should.

There were two options here: Write a post about a disappointing loss in the 10th but do so without interjecting personal blame, or write a post all about how Judy and her team sucked.

My problem is that Scott chose to do to the latter rather than the former. I've expressed my disappointment quite clearly, and I don't think it should be so surprising that a former consultant who worked closely with Lowell would be publicly disappointed with what has unfolded here.

Workin' on an answer for the question below...

Perhaps I wrote poorly but I did not mean to imply that either Judy or her team sucked; I think very highly of Judy and would gladly campaign for her again.

Having said that, something we all did together is not working... we need to regroup and think it through.

I meant Josh. Not you. Total mistake.

Sorry!

...could have come to you for an interview about the Feder staff implies that you speak for the staff.

Fine, bryan, whatever.

For the record, stating that Josh could have come to me for an interview means that had Josh come to me for an interview and had I done the interview I would have been speaking on behalf of the campaign, as I often did in the pages of the Washington Post.  

My only point was that they could have requested an interview and someone would have obliged, officially. At the moment there is no campaign so I'm not sure what campaign you think I speak for.

Again, I'm not sure what your point is.

My point is still the same: why write this post without coming to the campaign for clarification about some stuff? And why do it in the way it was done if Josh has so much "respect" for Judy?

We do need to "postmortem" this and figure out what is necessary.

It is an interesting discussion, though I am hoping it turns from he-said-she-said to what-needs-to-be-done-differently soon...

Clearly we are all in agreement that Wolf needs to be replaced.

That was my entire point. Had Josh (and lowell) bothered to take some time to have a conversation with the campaign prior to doing this, it would have been a much more productive outing.

The Feder campaign was fully committed to giving access to the blogosphere and, IMHO, would have been very willing to discuss pros and cons of how the race was run and what could be done differently (or better) going forward.

Had anyone bothered to ask me I would have been more than happy to put a set of questions in front of the campaign manager and field director so that some honest assessment could be done about what it's like to run a race in the 10th.

Put the post that was ultimately put up here at RK was nothing but conjecture, blame and criticism. Even worse, it was sexist. You can't have an honest "postmortem" when nobody bothers to make sure they  have correct information.

What's so crazy about it is that the campaign paid Lowell. Obtaining answers to some of the questions before doing something like this was as easy as sending an email or making a phone call.

I'm still waiting to here from RK, Josh and Lowell about why it wasn't handled that way. Honestly, the blogosphere does itself no favors when things like this happen. It only serves to deepen the distrust between "traditional" campaign staff/consultants and the blogosphere.

I mean, essentially what occurred here is that I woke up yesterday morning to discover that the blog run by the campaign's paid blogger had posted a rather ascerbic and blame-filled "analysis" of VA-10 and had never bothered to call, or send an email, or reach out in any way to ask some reasonable questions before posting such an "analysis."

Furthemore, it's questionable as to whether much of what was written in the post is even "analysis" at all.

For example:

We have to fight for every vote and Judy's campaign simply didn't.  

Is there any evidence that statement is even true? How can Josh even know whether the campaign fought for every vote, he didn't ask anyone what we did or didn't do. It is possible, you know, to fight for every vote and still lose.

or how about:

stylistically, Judy is simply not a good fit for the district, and the campaign didn't try to remake her image in any way.  Judy's speech and presence feels out of touch with the district.  Verbally, she comes across as high-pitched and quick; visually, bookish and wonky.  

Again, Josh writes about things without actually having any idea whether or not it's true. I also happen to believe this is one of the most sexist accusations I've seen in a long time, and I'm rather stunned I found it on a "progressive blog."

Or how about this part:

Politics is for doers and this campaign allowed Judy to appear only a thinker.  That's political malfeasance.

Hmmm, political malfeasance. really?

I think this one might be my favorite:

Judy's team ran essentially the same campaign that they ran in 2006.  It was just more of the same.

Again, no evidence. The truth is that very little was the same. The paid media strategy, earned media strategy, targeting, GOTV...very little of it was the same as 2006, as you would expect given that in 2008 there was, in fact, a rather robust coordinated campaing going on. Josh actually doesn't have any idea whether things were done differently than in 2006, because, again, he didn't bother to ask. But that didn't stop him from writing it on the front page of the blog as though it was the truth.

And this one is so silly I almost can't stand it:

Judy is one of the pre-eminent Health Care experts of the 2006 cycle, yet her positions never broke through, her ideas were never highlighted or contrasted in a compelling way, nor were they attached to the Obama Health Care plan.

Judy's expertise on health care is pretty much the one thing EVERYONE knows about her. Not just because of what the Feder campaign did, but also because the Wolf campaign spent a fair amount of time making sure to tell people that Judy was a socialist because she believes in Universal health care. To say that her positions never broke through is silly. The idea that Judy's position wasn't attached to the Obama campaign is ridiculous, she was a surrogate for the Obama campaign on health care. Again, Josh probably doesn't know that because he didn't bother to ask. Again, the fact that he didn't actually know never stopped him from posting it on the front page of the RK. That's a decision I still don't understand.

Then there's this:

I assert that the lion's share of the responsibility for these shortcomings rest with campaign staff.  They clearly didn't want to do anything or try anything.

I don't even know what to say to this. It's just so obnoxiously inconsiderate of a group of people who worked every day to get Judy elected. Criticize the tactics if you want, blame the campiagn manager for bad decisions if you want, go ahead and say that Judy is a bad fit for the district if you want. But to say the the campaign staff didn't want to "do anything or try anything" is NOT "analysis."

It's nothing more than disrespectful and dismissive wankery on the part of someone who didn't bother to spend a single day at campiagn HQ, or get to know anyone on the staff or even bother to make a phone call to the campaign that employed one of his colleagues in order to make sure that what he was saying was even remotely true.

I didn't pop up here to defend my own honor or to take things personally. I popped up here because this post is out of bounds and disrespectful of campiagn staff who worked really hard that I couldn't not come to their defense. what Josh has written here is wrong, it is mean, it is ill-informed and it is execessively harsh. It is not an analysis, it was a hit job on the front page of a blog run by a consultant who was paid by the campaign and written by someone that lowell has described as "one of his best friends."

This was most certainly not an attempt to start a "productive discussion" about how to replace Frank Wolf.

As I have explained in another comment to another diary, there is no denying the fact that the whole Eden's Curve nonsense had a strong element of gay baiting to it, but there is more, non-gay subtext to it than that. So when you say "period, full stop," I just don't think that is accurate.

Also, as far as I know, the Perriello campaign itself did little in pushing this story -- I think they put out a single press release about one ancillary aspect of it. This story originated from activists in D.C. and was pushed in the District by people outside the campaign without, as far as I know, any cooperation with the campaign.

BTW, I am not affiliated with the Perriello campaign except as a fairly standard-issue volunteer.

And lastly, FWIW, I personally don't think the whole to-do had much effect on the outcome, although reasonable minds can differ on that. Tom's campaign was driven by fairly visible other dynamics.  

That as far as I know the Perriello campaign was not involved with the gay-baiting. From what I saw out of the Perriello campaign they were very explicit in questioning Goode's failure to be transparent about the situation and further about the use of his office for what appears to be inappropriate objectives.

Again, I was quite clear, I wasn't criticizing the Perriello campaign.

Josh never should have even brought Perriello into the discussion, at all, IMHO.

My main purpose was to reiterate that it wasn't solely about gay baiting, although without the gay angle, I don't think the story would have had much traction.

As for my statement about what I saw the campaign do, perhaps I read to much into your use of the word "officially" as a qualifier. I read it as your implying that the campaign was somehow "unofficially " behind it, which from what I could see was not the case.  But, of course, I wasn't at all privy to the inner workings.

I see. No, I wasn't trying to say anything with the use of the word "officially," I was just being technical.

They took advantage of a bad situation for Goode, and that's what a good campaign staff should have been doing. It's unfortunate that it happened to have a gay-baiting angle, but that's the hand that was dealt to them, so....

What are you referring to?  What was the "gay-baiting" in the 10th and 5th races?

The entire Eden's Curve deal was gay-baiting.  I don't know if it lost Goode the election.  But I'm sure it didn't help.

n/t

that was previously had in many of these Eden's Curve diaries on here.  But the thing itself was nothing without the gay movie piece.  The salient points were a $150k earmark to a theater restoration in Danville and the use of a fax line at a congressional office.  That amounts to nothing in the scheme of earmarks or personal use of office equipment.  

And no one has established yet how this was hypocrisy on Goode's part.  He owns earmarks; he bragged about how much money he brought back to his district.  Hypocrisy about what?  Surely not on his anti-gay bigotry.  To me hypocrisy would be: I say I think homosexuality is sinful and then I attend a gay pride parade.  Not, I think homosexuality is sinful and then through some 6 degrees of separation links I end up funding a theater associated with a producer of a gay film.  An inadvertent act does not constitute hypocrisy in my mind.  Or is it that he is a bigot yet he had potentially a gay staff member?

People, I see, still want to hold on to this notion that it was primarily about, some heretofore undefined, hypocrisy, corruption, and an example of the kind of politician that Goode is.  The last two are true of this case, but to hold on to the notion that they are what this was about is silly.  There are much larger examples of earmark abuse by Goode.  But defense contracts in Charlottesville are boring.  What resonates about this entire story is that he was associated with gay film; not that he helps out his friends, abuses earmarks, cares more about his contributers than his constituents.  If you really want to hold on to this as being all about "hypocrisy" and, to Lowell's reply, corruption, you have to answer why this one case was so much more important than any number of cases out there that demonstrate Goode was a bad public servant.

Honestly though, I don't know why I bothered to even agree with Just Saying.  Every time I talk about this it just upsets me.  And it seems that there are few people on here who can be honest about what this was.  That is also disappointing.

made it a stronger hit on Goode. But if Eden's Curve had been a heterosexual porn movie, it'd still have hurt Goode for the simple reason that sex scandals hurt Republicans more, much as political correctness offenses hurt Democrats more.

Is it gay-bashing if the gay-bashing constituents of Goode vote for the Indy Greens, Perriello, or skip the House races?  

I don't believe Eden's Curve was gay porn. It was a film with gay themes.

Nor do I think tx2vadem is accusing anyone of gay bashing, though he/she can certainly speak for themselves. The accusation is one of gay baiting.

People like Goode have caused unimaginable hurt over the years for gay people through their bigotry and homophobia and public stances on gay-related issues.  It's hard for me to muster up any sympathy for him.

That said, using issues like Eden's Curve against him may be a great short-term tactic in the sense of placing Goode in an uncomfortable position and perhaps alienating some of his more doctrinaire voters, but as a long term strategy, IMHO, it is a lost opportunity to educate people and alter belief systems that corrode our society.

Elsewhere today at RK, there is a diary with Keith Olbermann's opinion on Prop. 8  California. In it, he pointedly asks people who voted for it, "Why? Why do you care? If gay people marry, how does that affect the sancity of your own heterosexual marriage?"

Good questions, but they are, of course, rhetorical. We all know it matters not one whit. This is bigotry, pure and simple. It has no reasonable or logical explanation.

The main weapon against bigotry is enlightenment. It is showing people the truth and letting them, over a period of years, if not generations, overcome the prejudices that have been seared into them.

The Eden's Curve issue was a lost opportunity to say to Goode and his supporters, "Hey folks, Virgil is saying one thing, but look at how he views this issue on a personal level. He is, at that level, much more tolerant than he would let you believe. Maybe there is a good reason for that and you should examine your own beliefs."

Rather, the message was, "Don't examine your own anti-gay beliefs or homophobia. In fact, to the extent it keeps you home on election day rather than supporting Virgil Goode, we want you to hold those beliefs dear."

There is always a tension between changing hearts and changing laws. To the extent Virgil out of office helps to change the law, and once laws change, hearts will follow, perhaps it is worth it.

The problem comes, however, with things like Prop. 8. The California vote was not the end -- it s the beginning. And defeating those requires changing hearts.  

I'd just add the less-than-profound (or original) thought that any story with a sexual angle is going to get more attention than one that doesn't. It's just human nature.  

David Vitter sex story -  No impact.
Larry Craig sex story - Ended his political career.
A trip in the way back Machine, Phil Gramm was financially involved in a porn film - Impact, nil.

Homosexuality is still taboo in much of the country.  It has a different and greater effect than just heterosexual sex as an angle generally.

that it cuts from two sides.  From the left, it cuts that Goode over-reacted to it and makes him look like a hypocritical homophobic bigot by forcing his staffer to resign.  From the right, it cuts him with the social conservatives in his base that someone from his office was ever party to the film's production in the first place.

This would not have been such a big deal if homosexuality didn't play a prominent thematic role in the film--if it was a film about virtually any other topic, it would have played out just like the hummer story, where Democrats would condemn him for impropriety, but the Republicans would have rushed to support him.  Republicans aren't nearly so quick to rush to another Republicans' rescue when homosexuality is a factor--just ask Ed Schrock over in Virginia Beach.

The fact that it cuts from two sides does create a curious moral quandry--does this really count as gay-baiting?  I can't help but feel like one has to prove intent--if Goode's critics on the left really believe that the issue is his hypocrisy, it's not their responsibility that Goode's critics on the right thinks the problem is gay people.  If there was willful intent to use homosexuality to isolate Goode on the matter, on the other hand, that does start looking pretty damned sleazy.

This wasn't targeted at the left.  You don't need this to rally the left against Goode.  Goode need only open his mouth to energize the left.  This was playing on certain voters' hate, fear, or ignorance.

I don't think you need to prove intent.  You only need to look at the effect.  Is the burden on folks who accused Bill Clinton of race-baiting in the primaries to prove that was his intent?  What does intent matter if it has the effect?  

I read the diaries on here about this Eden's Curve deal and they were all focused on the gay film.  If their intent was solely to focus on the hypocrisy of Goode hiring gay staff members when he espouses bigotry, that never came across.  If they were solely concerned about his abuse of earmarks, there are million dollar earmarks the man secured that dwarf this.  If your focus is on the association with a gay film, what is your intent?  

Aznew, so far, has been the only person to elucidate what the hypocrisy was.  But I think it still far from being established that Goode is actually okay with Gay people in his personal life or that he had any direct involvement in this film.  And if it was really all about Goode having a gay staffer and being okay with that, that was never the angle that was put forward here.

I was personally contacted by Judy several times during this cycle.  In '06, I co-hosted a fundraiser for her at Local 16.  Plain and simply, and as I don't live in the 10th CD, this year I spent all of my time (and money) working to help get Obama elected in Va.

is roughly what it cost to run TV ads in VA-10. Just so people undersand the monetary limits of running a race in VA-10 in the future.

It's roughly five times what it costs to run ads in, say, VA-05 or something similar.

One of the things that the netroots can do in the future to be more supportive is to actually understand VA-10 and what it takes to run a race there.

No one should be STUNNED that Judy lost. Disappointed, sure, but there was always a better chance that she would lose than win. And no one ever pretended otherwise.

The specifics of gaining or losing three points relative to last cycle is pointless...and has more to do with the demographics of voter turn out than anything that can really be controlled by the campaign.

The idea that she did "worse" this year than 06 is apples and oranges, it's not the same race.

If you want to say she underperformed relative to how she should have done this year, well, that's a discussion we can have. But it needs to start with an honest discussion and actual facts about how we believe she should have performed this year.

So, I guess I put the question out to the rest of you...how well do you think she should have done this year and what's the evidence to back it up?

Wow - that is a staggering market to get the word out in...  

There must be ways to grass-roots base these efforts to scale more effectively at the local level.

I think that groups like the SundaySupperClub can help get people informed in a non-partisan and constructive way...

Neighbors informing neighbors about their options is an appealing ideal.

...what do you think the Feder campaign should done differently in 2008 and why?

It seems to me at this point, that Wolf can only be beaten by an intense grassroots campaign -- the candidate and neighbors talking to folks within the district, explaining why Wolf is not the moderate or independent voice he claims to be. Fact is, this race is unwinnable for Democrats unless at least 10% of the 60% of the citizens of the 10th that vote(d) for Wolf pull the lever for somebody else.

Until the universe is expanded like that, the numbers aren't there. What's disappointing to me is that Wolf is vulnerable, if his record were exposed forcefully. But that will take an intense effort.  

...getting at in my comment. Anyone who knows Judy understands that she is a great woman, both as a person and as a public servant. We need to look at what she did right and what she did wrong.  Perhaps the evaluation shouldn't have been done publicly about a week after the election, but this game being played by "just saying" of 'I'm going to blame everyone else but take none of the responsibility myself' definitely isn't helping the situation. It's okay to admit you messed up somehow. Even victorious candidates make mistakes and the ability to admit to and correct one's mistakes is something I admire in a person.

"Just Saying," even though the campaign is over the fact that you have essentially promoted yourself as speaking on behalf of the campaign while desperately trying to discredit Josh, Lowell, and others does a horrible disservice to Judy and her staffers.

For all we know, the Obama Administration or some other organization might want Judy to advice them on health care policy. And many of her campaign staffers are probably going to be looking for new jobs soon. Your behavior here does not help their causes whatsoever.

Just as you claim it would have been easy for Josh to ask for an interview, it would have been easy for you to send Josh or another blogger a direct email expressing your concerns. If you have a personal grudge against contributors at RK, then that's fine. Just don't drag Judy and her staff down with you.

to discredit anyone. I've simply stated that Josh's comments are wrong and there is no excuse for it given that he could have come and asked the campaign for clarification.

And this....

For all we know, the Obama Administration or some other organization might want Judy to advice them on health care policy. And many of her campaign staffers are probably going to be looking for new jobs soon. Your behavior here does not help their causes whatsoever.

Is just silly. No offense, but I'm pretty sure that if Judy is looking for a job in the administration they're not going to be checking the comments section of RK to see what one of her consultants was saying.

Nor am I saying anything crazy. I said Josh is badly mis-informed and wrote an arrogant blog post without even bothering to try to clarify things with the campaign even though one of his "best friends" was a paid blogger for our campaign.

Just what, exactly, is so questionable about that?  

Glad you've popped in to join the discussion.

My personal opinion is that any candidate who runs against Wolf needs a huge amount of money in order to be able to communicate effectively with the voters of the 10th. Plain and simple, Feder  needed more money.

it's an expensive media market, but furthermore, Wolf is well branded and has the advantage of having been having a conversation with the voters for almost three decades.

IMHO, anyone who thinks Wolf could have been beat this cycle with less than $4 million is kidding themselves.

There are other questions about things at the margin that could be changed, but I'm just not a believer that Judy was a bad a candidate for this district. Her positions are no different than Obama (or probably even Warner) and they both won the district.

The idea the idea that Judy just needed to "harnass the power of the grassroots" is just naive. It takes a lot more than that, particulary against someone like Wolf.

The reason the tenth has changed so much recently, and why Dems like Obama were able to win in 2008, is because of the massive influx of out-of-state voters moving into NoVA, INCLUDING the Tenth.  These are voters who have no loyalty to Wolf whatsoever.  Yet it appears they still supported him over Feder.  Why do you think that is?

There was roughly an 11,000 vote drop off (or something similar) from Presidential to House. Are we sure the newly registered voters even voted for Wolf or Judy?

I think you're making alot of assumptions that we can't possible have answers for at this point.

And as I've said, I believe Judy needed a lot more money to communicate with the voters. Something both Warner and Obama had plenty of.

Judy is a relatively unknown candidate, Warner is the former Governor with probably 80% name recognition and Obama had more than enough money to communicate whatever he wanted to the voters.

Seems pretty simple to me as to why she wasn't able to garner the support of Obama and Warner.

Again I'm quite certain that we could have set up an interview with someone from the campaign had Josh or Lowell bothered to ask.

It's not like anyone is trying to keep secrets...the Feder campaign was pretty willing to give an enormous amount of access to the blogosphere, this is what they get in return?

"Judy is a relatively unknown candidate"

Seeing as this was her second time running, that's quite a problem, isn't it?  And she had much more money that challengers like Glenn Nye.  Virginia Beach is also a very expensive market, and Nye was even more of an unknown.  Yet he pulled that off.

How do you rectify this problem WITHOUT a ridiculous sum of money?  Because, let's face it, nobody is gonna raise the funds you're talking about.  So what else can we do?

Even if these new voters didn't vote for Wolf, they certainly didn't vote for Judy either, which still reveals the weakness that I was trying to get at.  Democrats in the Eleventh, and to a much lesser extent the Second, have used the influx of new voters to their advantage.  And it appears Obama and Warner did as well in the Tenth.  Why couldn't Feder?

"relatively" means relative to others. Judy was running against a 28 year incumbent and on the ticket with the former Gov of VA and a presidential candidate who had a ton of money to spend. SHe was indeed a relatively unknown candidate when you try to compare her name rec with Wolf, Obama and Warner.

And again, you yourself said lots of new people were moving into the area which means Judy's second-time run was meaningless them if they weren't here in 2006. She was unknown to them.

You're acting like Warner and Obama's popularity didn't help.  It should've.  Feder has more in common with these two than Wolf.  These very popular candidates should've helped her, not hurt her!  

And if Judy was unknown to these new guys, then so was Wolf.  Which means people failed to take advantage THIS time around, which again leads one to either campaign or message failure.  New voters, which trends show have been much more Democratic, should've been easy picking.

Obama and Warner's popularity should've HELPED Feder.  The fact that it didn't is a failure on somebody's part.  She should've been able to connect to these two.

should have helped assuming they were turning out voters who were inclined to vote for Judy and not Wolf. I'm not sure that's true. Particularly if Obama and Warner turned out split-ticket Republicans.

Obviously this needs to be looked at much more closely; which is why I think a "postmortem" less than seven days out and without asking some questions of the campaign was a REALLY bad choice on the part of RK and the RK editorial board.

And I think you're making some HUGE assumptions here about Obama/Warner voters.

The job of the campaign was to ride the tails of Obama/Warner, no doubt. And there were definite failures, I also think in order to have actually pulled it off, much  more money was needed.

Also, there weren't exactly coat-tails in NoVa...Gerry should have done better as well.

Both Judy and Gerry underperformed Warner and Obama. I suppose it could the fault of the candidates, but I'm not sure that's necessarily true.

I certainly don't think Scott's post has gotten us any closer to figuring it out. That's been my gripe the whole time.

This post was incredibly unproductive, and unnecessarily full of blame.

Scott, I'm so sorry.

I just replied to your comment and then had you on the brain...

We are all trying to figure out the same problem here.

"The job of the campaign was to ride the tails of Obama/Warner, no doubt. And there were definite failures..."

The entire point I was making.  Thank you for agreeing.  

However, I disagree with a point, and say money isn't everything.  Bill Day did better than Feder in a much harder district with a lot less money against a guy who has been campaiging for a year straight after his special election.  

I'm not making any assumptions about Obama and Warner voters.  I'm saying that if a voter supported Obama, and supported Warner, Feder SHOULD'VE been able to get their support based on the similarities between Feder and the other two on the issues that mattered in this election.  The fact that she didn't speaks volumes.  People that were willing to vote for Democrats on the other issues should've been at the very least open to a competetive Feder campaign.  You're assumption that Warner and Obama brought out voters for themselves that wouldn't help Feder only furthers my suggestion that perhaps Feder isn't the right fit for the district.

And Gerry underperformed because he just rode the wave.  He didn't even break a sweat.  Gerry knew he was gonna win, and played it safe, making sure he didn't do anything too negative.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  In fact, it was probably the smart move.

I'm not sure any of this is true, it's all speculation. And yes, Obama Warner voters should have been persuadable assuming one had the money to do it.

Don't know much about the Day race, so can't really say one way or the other if it's true.

And I'm really tired of arguing about whether Judy is a "good fit" for the district especially based on her "looks." It's sexist and wrong, and one of the things I find most objectionable about Josh's post.

Don't know why you went there.  I think she's too liberal for the district.

But except that she's not. So what you're talking abotu is perception not reality.

She holds the same positions as Obama on just about every issue, and is similarly close to Warner on most issues. So, if Judy is "too liberal" so is Obama and so is warner.

On what issue is Judy "too liberal" for the district?

And the reason I "went there" is because Josh "went there" in this ridiculous post and it's the thing that most caused me to speak up. It was tragically sexist and gross for him to have done so.

Josh basically called her a shrill liberal woman:

Second, stylistically, Judy is simply not a good fit for the district, and the campaign didn't try to remake her image in any way.  Judy's speech and presence feels out of touch with the district.  Verbally, she comes across as high-pitched and quick; visually, bookish and wonky.

 

The above comment was, without a doubt, the most unfortunate set of remarks in his whole post.  

So "reality" means jack sh*t if it doesn't match up with perception.

But, my point still stands, it's perception based on looks and nothing else.

And you didn't say Judy is "perceived as too liberal for the district."

You said you think she's too liberal for the district. I'm still waiting for the answer: What makes you think that?

It's a fair question. You claim it's ideology and not looks, so let's hear it, what ideology of Judy's is too liberal?

It isn't my job to call out WHY she is too liberal.  That was your job, and other campaign officials/consultants.  Perception is all that matters in politics.  

She seems to be too combative, too partisan, and I saw what most other casual voters in the Tenth saw: TV Ads, though I see 'em online.  Obama is liberal, but seemed willing to work with others of different political persuasions.  I never get that sense from Feder, never felt from what I heard about the race that she was reaching out to the other side.  Every ad I saw online was some attack on Wolf.  In a really blue district, that might work.  But it just didn't seem to fit in the Tenth, which is pretty purple.  Whether or not the perception I'm describing is true, it is a perception held by many, many people.  So, NO, it isn't about looks.  It's about message.

By the way, Obama ran a very pragmatic and centrist campaign, both in tone and proposals.  

No, that was my job a week ago (and for the past six months), today I'm simply offering my take on the situation.

And btw, your entire comment above are Wolf's set of talking points. All the more evidence that what really happened was the Wolf got his message out and we didn't.

There's no truth to what you wrote. You've essentially just repeated the nasty direct mail and television ad of the Wolf campaign.

Judy's ads were no more negative than Wolf. We don't disagree, perception is everything. But it's rather hard to blame Judy for that as Josh did. That was my only point.  

But Wolf going negative doesn't give you a blank check for negativity.  And if my talking points were Wolf's, then it's quite clear that he didn't need to spin that much.  Because I didn't read a single press release or watch a single Wolf commercial.  I came to this conclusion by watching the Feder campaign, and only the Feder campaign.

Take that as constructive criticism, NOT an insult.  I think you're confusing the two a lot in this discussion.

There's one other thing you need to understand, Just Saying.  Sometimes speculation ends up being correct.  So don't toss out speculation right off the bat.  Politics is A LOT of speculation.  You simply can't know everything.  You have to go with logical assumptions, which you call speculation.  Judging by Warner's numbers, Obama's numbers, and Wolf's numbers, it is only logical to conclude that there were a large number of Obama/Warner/Wolf voters.  We have to figure out why if we want to be competetive in the future.

The Day race isn't that complicated, especially because it was so short.  No money, late entry, very Republican district. Much harder than the Tenth for Dems.  Obama lost by a pretty solid number.  Yet Day did better than Feder in a tougher district with less resources/coattails.  Now true, Wittman is new.  But he's been campaigning since his special election, and been very well recieved by constituents.

What any of this has to do with the Feder race. Speculating about Day and how it compares to Feder seems rather futile.

In any case, I'm not saying speculation is always wrong when you have no other choice. My point is that Josh chose to speculate about things he needn't have speculated about becuase Lowell was a paid blogger for the campaign and they simply could have asked a few questions before posting information that was so difinitively wrong that it's almost embarassing.

My entire gripe is primarily with Josh (and to some degree lowell, though I've addressed that privately with Lowell, for the most part).

Josh made assumptions and was wrong. He was wrong because he didn't bother to ask anyone. The failure to ask for input from the campaign seems inexplicable to me given that Lowell says Josh is one of his "best friends" and that Lowell was a paid consultant for the campaign.

Just still not sure why anyone on the RK editorial board (or Josh or Lowell) thinks that was the best way to  handle things. And so far, no one has chosen to defend that position publicly or privately.

There is plenty of discussion to be had about what did or didn't happen in the 10th and how to do things better going forward.

Is there anyone here who thinks that Josh's post was the most productive way to have done so?

I mean, for example the following set of remarks:

We have to fight for every vote and Judy's campaign simply didn't.  

Is there anyone here who is willing to defend that statement coming from a blogger who had no contact with the campaign and didn't bother to ask any questions of the campaign about the specifics of the campaign strategy? Anyone here who thinks that was a particularly fair set of comments given that we have staff and volunteers (all of whom were part of the campaign) that worked day and night to get Judy elected?

I didn't pop up here to defend my honor, I'm a grown up I can take some criticism.

I popped up here becuase I think Josh's post was most unfair to staff members who campaigned their hearts out for Judy and weren't even given a week to recoup and find a new job before being blasted on the front page of RK-- a blog run by a paid consultant to the campaign, no less.

You seem to be placing Money as the number one reason that Feder lost.  I'm trying to point out that candidates did fine across Virginia with very little money.

of those candidates ran congressional campaigns in the Washington DC media market where it costs $660 a point to run an ad? And in a media market where the only print media in town is the Washington Post for the most part?

I think you really don't understand the 10th district very well.

If its' so simple, why hasn't Wolf been beat in 28 years?

As far as I'm concerned money is the number one reason Feder lost.

Then I'm pretty convinced that I at least know it better than you do.  

Wolf hasn't been beaten in 28 years because it hasn't been even remotely blue until the last two or four.  Look at the history, man.  NoVA has been a Red area for most of my life.  Check out the past races.  The surge of voters from Maryland and DC is primarily the reason why the area has become competetive.  Your assuming Wolf was always in a competetive district, and that he was always winning against strong ticket toppers.  Incorrect.  Wolf's area has been red for decades.  

And as of October 15th, Feder raised MORE than Wolf, so in terms of getting out the message to those new voters who don't know about either candidate, clearly, it wasn't about cash.  In rallying the base, clearly, it wasn't about cash.  And in getting her message out, clearly, it wasn't about cash, as she spent a LOT more than Wolf did.  Just go look at the FEC.

And go to the front page of Judy's YouTube.  All five ads up there are attack ads on Wolf.  The problem wasn't the money, it was the message.  This was a year when bipartisan candidates promising unity were rewarded (Periello and Nye are good examples) while others were not.  Watching these ads, I'm not sure Feder was on board the national wave that swept Dems further into power.

...stories into the Washington Post, but all the candidates who ran in the DC metro area are facing the same problem. I personally know that because even though I have been successful at getting some stories covered, I know it takes a lot of effort to get stuff covered there -- and even more difficult to get it spun in the direction you want.

That's why a communications director needs to be able to reach out to some of the smaller local papers (of which there are several in the 10th) and the bloggers covering the race. As a blogger who did just that, I have to say that for the most part the Feder campaign did essentially everything I asked of them. I think Luke McFarland as campaign manager was extremely receptive to answering my questions whenever I had any and letting me know when events were coming up that I might want to cover. So yes, I would disagree with Josh on that one point in particular.

Hate to break it to you but even though you have repeatedly said that the campaign is over, it doesn't help that you are throwing such a fit about someone questioning in the campaign's methods. I could see a few comments filled with with what you thought went well (because there were several things done well) but these continued attacks just go overboard. Most of us are having to make guesses at your identity and that's primarily where it's going to harm the other people who worked for Judy. Why? Because the bloggers and reporters who are reading this are going to wonder if we can trust the former Feder staffers not to blow up on us if we say something somewhat negative.

Now you can say all the "oy's" you want and tell me that the campaign is over, but that doesn't change anything. Sometimes you simply have to think before you type and realize that your actions sometimes have an affect on other people.

which is kind of cool.  Yes, Judy Feder had a tough row to hoe.  Yes, it's expensive to run with an ad war in the DC media market.  Yes, a lot of Obama/Warner voters split their tickets down ballot and pulled the lever for Wolf--to a greater extent than did in other DCCC targeted races in Virginia.

We have a lot that everyone seems to agree about, although some people have disagreements about the implications.  Which is fine.

So I want to throw a new question into the mix, just out of curiousity.  One of the charges Josh levels is that team Feder ran the exact same race in 2008 that they did in 2006, that she didn't try anything different and therefore shouldn't have had any expectations of being able to produce different results.  Is that a fair assessment?  If not, what did you all try doing different this time?

I mentioned in my initial comment that I have heard very little about this race, and everything I did hear was from Lowell and mostly was about Wolf and not Feder.  I'm sincerely interested to know more about what was being done to persuade those ticket-splitters to vote straight Democratic, and why you think it didn't work.  Were you all actually banking on raising the $4 million you think is necessary, or...?

No, it wasn't a fair assessment. Nothing about the campaign was the same with respect to strategy. I'm not even sure why someone who had no inside knowledge of what was or wasn't going on would even try to suggest such a thing. Whether it was true or not, there simply isn't any way Josh could have thought he would really have enough information to make a statement like this. He never talked to anyone on the campaign, how could he possibly know anything?

Messaging, earned media, paid media, targeting and GOTV...were all different strategies this time around. Even with respect to the campaign's online strategy you can point to differences. In 2006, for example, there was no paid blogger. this time around Lowell was brought on board not just to do blog outreach but to actually help with online strategy.

In 2006 there was a rather well-known focus on gas prices, for example, that obviously didn't exist this time. the campaign focused a lot of effort on Judy as a health care expert given the importance of health care as an issue this election cycle.

As for targeting and GOTV efforts, that's not my specific area so I can't talk in depth about it, but there was a fairly substantial coordinated campiagn in VA this year that was central to how the Feder field operation was run (as I'm sure was true of all the campaigns around VA), no doubt it was quite different from 2006 given that there was no presidential election in 2006.

Obviously, based on the minimal information I've given here, the notion that the campaign "did nothing different" is rather silly. It was an over-simplistic and harsh criticism that came from no "assessment" whatsoever. "assessment" or "analysis" would have required actually asking questions about what the campiagn did or didn't do. That never happened.

Judy needed more $

Judy needed more effective branding, and needed to define Wolf as NOT a moderate ('cause he's not!).

is face to face, intense grassroots campaigning. Field, field, field, and more field. It's not a name recognition deal -- there are not enough votes in the 10th CD universe for a Democrat to win unless they convince voters that have been pulling the lever for Wolf to instead pull the lever for Feder/Democrat. That only happens by face to face interactions, truth telling, and an aggressive sale/ask by the candidate for support.

It's not sexy, it's not easy, and it doesn't always work, but that's what needs to happen in the 10th. The campaign can only be won by hard work done from June - October of the election year, preceded by a year of organizing a grassroots army. Money is crucial, no doubt. But 80% of the cash has to be spent on voter contact, or it's a waste of resources.  

Now this is a very productive comment. I'm not a field person, so I can't speak to this...but I think it's worth a discussion.

Thank you for a very thoughtful observation about how things could be improved.

...because it seems to me that Congressman Wolf is more than a "brand", as he was labeled elsewhere.  He has been in Congress for a long time, and always had top notch constituent service, even back into the 1980's when the 10th picked up Arlington.

30 years of taking care of constituent needs has to build up a lot of ballot credibility.

It is true that there a lot of new folks who have moved in (as noted above and below)...but these folks are not moving into a vacuum.  They may well have needs that require constituent help from their Congressman-even though they are new to the district.  Or they hear from a neighbor or a co-worker about a Congressman who took care of a problem for him.

I think it is more than he has been in a conversation with the voters for many years, he has gotten things done for them.

Now there are likely folks up and down this string who don't like his voting record, or perhaps had a bad experience with him on a policy matter...they may not like him simply because he is a Republican.

But voters are unlikely to send home a Congressman who takes care of them...and I think that makes a difference in Va-10.

By the same token, Ms. Feder has run once before, so one would think she would understand she needed to be able to spend $4 million in the cycle to win.  Did she think she could raise that much?  If yes, what went haywire?  Did she expect funding from the DCCC?

First, his "brand" and his "conversation with voters" is all a large part of what you call "doing things for the voters."

It's a mix of good branding, long-standing communication and a decent record of accomplishment on issues like transportation and human rights...in my opinion.

As for what the thought was about the fundraising, I can't say. It's my personal opinion that VA-10 is a $4 million race, not necessarily the opinion of those of the campaign.

In any case, Wolf is a shrewd politician who avoids being put on the record on anything that can be used against him or that could "define" him in anyway...that ability has served him well.

This diary makes some really interesting points, which I just want to cite here and not comment upon right away, with the caveat that by citing them as interesting, I am not necessarily agreeing with them, and with the further caveat that I know nothing about the conduct of the Feder campaign:

First, the campaign made a critical mistake in the spring by ignoring primary challenger Mike Turner.

Politics is for doers and this campaign allowed Judy to appear only a thinker.

Fourth, the Feder campaign was unable to tap into the unprecedented grassroots/netroots opportunities presented by this year's campaign. ...  The netroots never seemed to be integrated into the Feder campaign, and that was a big mistake.

As someone who blogged regularly about the Perriello campaign -- my first actual active involvement in a political campaign beyond arguing with friends -- I learned a lot this cycle, about politics, and about blogging.

We've got a very important election coming up in 2009.

My problem with the Campaign is this:

Okay, my first problem with your defense:
You say that she did better than anybody has against Wolf in years.  True, but the demographics of the tenth are changing drastically.  Obama did a lot better than Bill Clinton in 96, when he lost the Commonwealth by 2 points.  Clinton lost the 11th in 92 and 96, now it's a Democratic stronghold, and the 10th is on it's way.  Clinton, on the other hand, won the ninth, which only Mark Warner has carried for Dems recently.  Democrats got crushed in Virgnia Beach in 2002, and the entire GA delegation was GOP.  Webb lost by six points, an improvement, and Obama by only one or two.  And we picked up two delegates recently.  Demographics are changing across the Commonwealth, and the biggest changes are in the Second, the Eleventh, and the Tenth.  So while Judy has done better than others in recent history, demograhpics would suggest she should do better than 16-20 points back, especially with the amount of new voters coming in from Maryland and Fairfax County who have no long-term loyalty to Wolf.  

Now here's my real question, one I'm not sure you've addressed yet:
Judy went from losing by 16 points in 2006 to losing by 20 in 2008.  That means she actually got worse in the two year time frame.  That's very odd in campaigning.  Even Al Weed did better his second time around.  What happened there?

Now, in the name of full honesty, I was a "supporter" of Turner in the primary.  I didn't donate money, and only spent a little time writing in favor of his campaign, seeing as I felt that as a resident of the 9th (College) and 2nd (Home) Districts, it wasn't my job to get involved.  But I felt for all the money Judy raised, she should've done better in 2006, and I thought a new approach might work better rather than re-hashing the fights of 2006.

And if I'm not mistaken, she raised more this time than she did in 2006.  So why did the numbers get worse?  Especially when Obama and Warner did better in the tenth than Webb, meaning she had a stronger top-'o-the-ticket.  What caused so many more split tickets?

So that's my question.  And it's NOT an accusation.  But an honest sense of bewilderment I have here.  I think a lot of people are wondering the same thing.  Ben over at NLS predicted a 6 or 7 point loss, due primarily to the fact that candidates usually do better the second time.  

To me, it just seems that Judy Feder isn't a fit for the district.  However, you may be right.  Wolf may be unbeatable.  But I want to see somebody else give it a shot in 2010 and see if we can't do a little better.  Turner's approach certainly would've been very different from Wolf's.  If not Mike Turner, I'd like to see somebody try the "attack from the center" approach that he wanted to use in 08, which I think would better reveal that Frank Wolf isn't as centrist as he pretends to be.

Especially as it has been asserted that the major strategic barrier to winning in this district is the cost of raising Name ID.  Feder has had several years to improve her Name ID by this point, so why did her voteshare decrease?  Indeed I recall the main reason we were told we should back Feder in the primary was that her higher name ID would give her a strategic advantage that couldn't be capitalized upon if Democrats backed a new challenger.

**

In any event, I think it's time to give up on this one until after redistricting.  I can't get around the fact that there won't be a top-of-the-ticket candidate in 2010 to assume responsibility for the turnout effort--and considering we had the best ground game ever fielded in Virginia this last go around, I don't know how we can expect a House challenger to be competitive if we make them assume responsibility for the 2010 field program on top of the communications responsibilities, which Just Saying keeps describing as an insurmountable burden.  Meanwhile, the DPVA is going to be playing defense with freshmen in the 2nd District and especially in the 5th.  That needs to be their focus--not tilting at Wolf's windmill.

Judy  

Anyway, Judy probably should have done better, but we already took our best bite at this particular apple.  I think it's time we started being a little bit smarter at picking our battles.

You're right, we probably won't win it in 2010.  Still, we should at least try, and my suggestion is try with a new strategy, and try to see any differences in key demographic groups.

and see about moving the fight to the state and local office level next year to build up a local farm team who can develop their own bases of support before we start looking to challenge again in 2012.  It has the strategic benefit of accomplishing two goals--we get stronger candidates to run in this part of Virginia, and any victories at the House level benefit our efforts to control redistricting.

We can't run a no-name in 2010, we won't have a field program on par with what the Campaign for Change built, and I don't know why anyone thinks we'd sink $4 million into one House seat.  We can start sifting through the demographics block-by-block and build an organization with a new strategic emphasis concurrently with the HOD and Gubernatorial campaigns next year.

Wittman just got out of a special election last year, has been campaigning pretty much since then, and thus has pretty solid name recognition.  Bill Day started late, had practically no money, was in a district that Obama lost, and yet somehow still did better than Feder.  So money and name recognition are certainly issues, but not the only ones.

as a workhorse and a human rights activist (deserved or not) would be difficult for anyone in the 10th, even if there was a "Macaca moment. "But I don't think the 10th has any more Wolfes to offer.

Perhaps Frank will take his neighbor Tom's example and high tale it into retirement before the next election?  

My question deals more with how did Feder go from losing by 16 in 2006 to losing by 20 in 2008?  How did she actually get WORSE in two years, when most candidates do better?  That could give a lots of hints as to what to do to beat the eventual Republican when Wolf retires.

How are any of those questions beyond pure speculation?  Maybe people decided to split their vote because they like divided government.  Maybe they love Wolf's constituent services.  Maybe they just like Frank Wolf (you know how people say in polls they hate congress, but love their congressman).  How will you ever discern why voters in the district chose Obama, but not Feder?  Somebody could pay for a poll.  But I imagine that would be expensive asking an open ended question and then aggregating those responses.  

The people who do the break downs of likely switches didn't have this district listed (at least not that I saw).  Why did say Charlie Cook say this was a Likely Republican Seat and not a toss-up?  I don't pay for Cook's reports, but I am guessing that might give more insight than just our speculation.

And what does 16 v 20 points matter in the grand scheme of things?  More voters showed up to the polls between the 2006 and 2008 elections.  What was the composition of voters by demographic and party affiliation in 2006 and 2008 in this Congressional District?  

I think Feder did a great job in the 2006 campaign -- I even remember seeing her commercials.  In 2008 I saw quite a few Frank Wolf commercials -- nothing though from Feder.  My brother who lives in Alexandria and who did see the commercials says that they were the wrong negative tone -- that they stunk.

Even beyond the commercials:

1. Wasn't there some redistricting after 2006?  My recollection is that Jim Moran didn't have Reston as part of his district in 2006.  Perhaps things were gerrymandered to protect Moran and Wolf's seats -- accounting for the poor showing?

2. Wolf is a good fit for the 10th district -- or rather the 10th district has been shaped to fit him.  I think he could be unseated by a strong challenger, but it would take a really strong challenger.

I keep plugging on this one, but Terry McAuliffe strikes me as a good candidate for the 10th district seat.  I can see a road to victory for him.  Perhaps the 10th is too small for his ego or oversized ambitions.

Only happens at the end of the decade.

And I've commented on the negative commercials, that they seemed out of line with the other candidates across the country running of hope, change, and bipartisanship.

1) Redistricting after the 2010 Census (and mid-term elections) will most likely lead to a large part of the 10th falling off.  Frederick, Winchester, Warren, Clarke and Fauquier should be gone, added to the 1st CD or 6th CD.  My math shows that there will be about exactly the population in Prince William, Loudoun, Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, etc to equate to 3 Congressional districts.  This means pulling the part of Prince William that's in the 1st CD into the 11th and making some division line moves within Prince William to share it between the 10th and 11th.  There can be some moves in Fairfax to unpack the 8th - i.e. I would split the 9 districts in Fairfax almost evenly between the three Congressional Districts.

This makes the 10th pretty much all of Loudoun, a good chunk of Fairfax and a small chunk of Prince William.  Thus, quite a bit more Democratic on paper.

2) Wolf retires.  He's pretty old now, has been in there 28 years.  I think he runs one last time in 2010, does a full 32 years in the House, and retires in 2012.  Why? Well, assuming Loudoun keeps getting a bit bluer every year and Fairfax does just a bit more as well, he's suddenly feeling like Tom Davis in that the future holds progressively harder races to win by narrower margins.  And for a guy turns 70 next year and is on the team deep in the minority in the House, that may be simply too much crap to deal with.

DPVA will want to defend VA-02 and VA-05, possibly play offense in VA-01. Any idea when Boucher will retire, or have the Dems given up in 9 much like the GOP gave up on 11?

WaPo endorsement of Wolf might've helped with some of the newer voters in Loudoun.

When VA-01 did better with an underfunded challenger in a lower-cost area (and against a more vulnerable incumbent) ... we could be seeing a DCCC-sponsored challenge there if there is a viable, energetic challenger.

But in an expensive district, with a popular incumbent, and everyone pretty much treading water until redistricting and Obama's re-election in 2012? Nah, it's not going to happen unless there's someone with megabucks and/or fairly high name recognition willing to make the run (or if the Club for Democratic Growth somehow unseats Wolf in the GOP's post-Obama paroxysms of rage.)

The VA State Senate will prevent too much monkey business in redistricting, so I suspect VA-10 will lose some of its redder areas in the west when all is said and done.

In 2012, one of the architects of the Loudoun BoS takeover could launch a bid a la Connelly in 11. The district will be bluer and a Loudoun supervisor will have higher name recognition and perceived ability to work as a legislator in the new district's biggest jurisdiction.

If Wolf retires, all this person would need to do is run a mistake-free campaign a la Connelly.  

I actually think Feder's staff deserves considerable blame. After building three years of name recognition in the district, Feder's staff was able to actually go backwards. The campaign had no message (staff's fault), Feder didn't approve her appearance and tone from 2006 (staff's fault), they thought running a blog-oriented campaign in mostly rural VA-10 was a winning strategy when it clearly is not (again, staff's fault). They didn't know who they needed to reach. In this district, they needed to find and message to Obama-Warner-Wolf voters. You don't speak to them by sending out mailings suggesting Frank Wolf is too old for office (staff's fault). You certainly don't speak to voters in Frederick County, Winchester, Clarke County or Western Loudoun County by having in-your-face trackers (staff's fault).

Over at RK, Judy's staff is being pretty defensive. They should be defensive not because Judy lost but because they didn't put her in a position to improve on 2006 and make a realistic challenge to Wolf. The blame should fall squarely on Luke McFarland. He thought he was running a race in an urban area where Lowell's Farewell Frank blog would make a difference and viral videos like the caning incident would help. What McFarland didn't see is that this is a district where word of mouth is more important than blog noise. This isn't Lowell's fault. He surely did the job that was asked of him.

Overall, the campaign had no strategy to communicate to the voters they needed to communicate to, they targeted the wrong voters and they thought they were running in Fairfax when they were running in a mostly rural district.

All of this and all of the blame should fall on the shoulders of Luke McFarland.

...that would be at:

http://renaissanceruminations....

First of all, while I'm sure Josh made a good faith effort to analyze the outcome of Judy's race, there are a few things he's said that are factually inaccurate.  Judy and her staff were well aware that her public image from 2006 needed improvement.  They DID bring in an image/media consultant to work with her to try to alter the "shrill, liberal" perception.  They style of her campaign ads were also different this year - Judy didn't speak to the camera like she did in '06 because she didn't come off well to voters in the '06 ads.  

I'm not sure what Josh means about not engaging Mike Turner.  Its true that the campaign didn't run as hard as a primary campaign as they could have, but from what I saw, it was because Turner wasn't running a particularly hard challenge.  Time and money and sweat WAS expended during the primary to build a campaign structure - it just wasn't focused on Turner.

There are some differing perceptions in this thread about the campaign's online efforts.  Josh seems to think that the campaign didn't reach out to the blogosphere while VA-10 seems to think the campaign's voter outreach was primarily conducted online.  I would think that hiring Lowell as the netroots coordinator for the campaign illustrates a serious commitment to engage online activists.  But I also think VA-10 is seriously mistaken in believing that the campaign's voter outreach was primarily conducted online.  I received several calls from the campaign to volunteer and I know that their field staff conducted a serious and ambitious effort.

There's a couple other points that I think its important to point out.  First of all, as Just Saying mentioned, the media market for the 10th is ridiculously expensive.  Far more expensive than VA-5, which means that Perriello could afford to run more ads and still have money left over to spend more on producing them.  Comparing the tv presence in the 10th and the 5th is like comparing apples and oranges.  Also remember that the DCCC spent about $750K on the air in the 5th, which buys A LOT of tv - I think that's about the same as Perriello's media budget.  The DCCC did a lot of Perriello's attacking for him.

The second point is that the makeup of the electorate in a presidential year is far different from the makeup in a congressional year.  Presidential elections bring out sporadic voters who don't pay a lot of attention to elections.  These voters are far more likely to have a vague positive impression of Wolf because he's been around for forever.  They also probably know next to nothing about Judy, regardless of her '06 campaign.  If they had been paying attention in '06, they probably would have voted.  Obama, and particularly Warner, brought out a lot of split-ticketers.  Warner outperformed Obama, who outperformed Judy.  In other words, Warner brought out a lot of people who were never going to vote for Judy.  I think '06 was actually an EASIER year for Judy to run because 1) there was some air around her to break through in earned media instead of people being obsessed with Obama and Warner and 2)the electorate was singularly interested in the congressional races, more likely to listen to Judy's message.

The third point is that, if I were Luke McFarland, I would have targeted Fairfax and Loudoun as well.  Judy was never going to win Clarke, Frederick, etc.  I doubt any Democratic candidate would.  Judy's votes are in Fairfax and Loudoun - Democratic voters, Obama voters, newly registered and sporadic voters.  Without knowing for sure, I would speculate that Judy lost the newly registered and presidential year voters - voters with a low level of information who vote what they know - the 28 year congressman.

Finally, I think that Josh erred in so harshly criticizing Judy's campaign staff.  He may disagree with the campaign's strategy, but Judy had a dedicated staff who worked very long hours all day every day to attempt to put her in office.  They deserve accolades for all they do to try to make our country a better place, not public derision and a snide insinuation that they sat on their duffs for 10 months.

...that brings up some disagreements with Josh. No matter where you stand on the issues being discussed, you have to admit that this comment was designed to promote more productive comments. Quite frankly, I think this is what makes the blogosphere productive. Consultants who seem to only want to blame everyone else, on the other hand, don't help the discussion whatsoever.

For those who haven't understood my defensiveness please read the last paragraph of this comment very carefully.

My entire point has been that the this post was unfair to Judy's staff. Moreover, it was particularly unfair given that it would have been so easy for Josh to come and ask questions.

Blame the consultants (myself and others) if you want. Blame Luke if you want. But lay-off the staff. They did nothing but work long and hard to try to get a Democrat elected in the 10th.

The point of any postmortem is to evaluate the situation, learn the important lessons and move on.

The most important takeaway from Feder 2008, I would posit, is the following:

---

The job of campaign communications is to set 2 narratives: one about your opponent and one about yourself.  Take a look at the narratives this election season.  Obama set Change vs. Bush.  Warner set Success vs. Failure.  Perriello set Progressive Faith vs. Conservative Corruption.  Nye set New Blood vs. Bush Hack.  Connolly set Effective Governance vs. Republican Bimbo.  

Judy set no solid message, her top communications staff may have tried to set a message, but told compelling stories neither about why to support Judy nor about why to get rid of Frank Wolf.  It wasn't effective.

---

All of the other issues I listed in the blog post, failure to engage in the primary, failure to change the presentation of the candidate, failure to change things up from 2006, failure to engage the netroots/grassroots, failure to brand the campaign, and failure to take risks, all of these go back to narrative.  

In my experience in politics, I've won and lost.  The lessons of a winning campaign are more fun to learn, but the lessons of a losing campaign are no less important.  It appears from the discussion in this thread that the executive staff is unwilling to face the reality of this loss.  If the assertion is that the Feder campaign needed more money, and needed voters to "get it", I'm forced again to assert my claim of political malfeasance.  

You don't just get a bunch of money and get to set your message.  You earn money by giving a compelling story.  You win voters by giving a compelling story.  You set a powerful narrative so that your troops, yes your troops, the dedicated and pure-hearted believers have a crystalline pure mission to carry door to door and phone call to phone call so that their endless and patriotic efforts are rewarded with the only reward they seek:  victory for the better candidate and a better future for their great nation. If you fail to set a compelling narrative, you rob your troops of that critical purposefulness it takes to carry joyful responsibility through a long campaign.

For senior staff to come to a blog, and in effect demand an apology for a few poorly worded but insightful paragraphs critiquing a factually failed campaign implies a need for those staff members to seek different work.  

Failure is not unforgivable, but a failure to learn from mistakes most certainly is.  This isn't about your career or your next job, this is about better governance, or it could have been if the executive staff in charge of Judy Feder's campaign could have crafted a message, a compelling storyline, a narrative worth believing and made it stick.  As an interested and hopeful supporter of the Feder campaign, that's what I hoped for this year, but that's not what I got.  I didn't get a narrative from the Feder campaign, and neither did those Frank Wolf constituents who are, quite obviously, increasingly comfortable with the job the Congressman is doing in Washington.

A great Democratic strategist once told me "When you win, you're a genius, when you lose, you're an idiot", and I've always hated that.  It took me a half dozen losses to face the reality of it.  On my terms, though I prefer the aphorism, "When you win expect appreciation, when you lose, expect criticism". My intent with this post mortem was not to place blame, but rather, both for executive staff and for for those dedicated front-line Democrats who are left looking at the 2008 VA-10 results and scratching their heads, to take an unflinching look at what has most obviously gone wrong.  If I hurt the feelings of executive staff, unwilling or unable to learn the lessons of this campaign, then again, I respectfully suggest another line of work.  I say that with utmost respect, as a fellow Democrat who has been in the course of my modest career in politics alternatively derided, ostracized, hated, reviled, triumphed, heralded, rewarded, memorialized and forgotten.

This is a bumpy game guys, we need to learn from each other.   As Judy Feder's top campaign team, you will all have bright futures ahead of you.  Judy's communications staff and campaign managers will lead future Congressional and Senate campaigns, work for Governors and for other state-wide races.  I challenge you to take this away from the Feder campaign and hold it to your heart - set your narrative.  Understand the constituents and give them positive stories about your candidate and contrasting stories against your opponent that resonate.  Use every resource and every campaign event; from the surreal and unexpected, to the plodding and mundane, to underscore your two central stories. You owe it to your volunteers, your candidate and your constituents.  Without compelling stories, you have only the database and IDs can only take you so far.  Without compelling stories you have no mandate for governance, just the office.

For future challengers in the 10th, I hope that you will do the same.

If this is what you had written the first time we would never have been having this argument.

Just to clarify some things:

1) I am not senior staff, I was a consultant to the campaign and I've said that several times.

2) Consultants (mostly paid media) are the one's largely responsible for setting strategy and message, so to continue to use the word "staff" is what is getting you in trouble here.

3) I never demanded an apology, nor do I intend to.

4) The point was never that you hurt the feelings of "executive staff" or consultants, it was that you thoughtlessly put the blame at the feet of the entire staff. You didn't bruise the feelings of the consultants, Josh, you made hard-working junior staff feel like total shit after they spent months dedicated to trying to elect a Democrat in the 10th. Based on what I see written here, it seems as though the distinction is still completely lost on you.

5) We're all still waiting to hear why you just didn't send an email or pick up a phone and ask some questions about the campiagn so that you could actually make an honest assessment of what happened in the race.  

Goode's corruption was atiny piece of the narrative. I would say the narrative as it actually played in the District was Practical Solutions v. Ineffective and Self-defeating Ideology.

I don't want to get into the spat over the Feder campaign, but I think it is significant to properly define the narratives that did work if we are to replicate them.

I should have just skipped to the bottom.

I completely agree with Josh on this post.  I did think some of the language you used in the original post was a bit strong, and I can understand why some Feder staffers might have taken offense.  This post, however, makes the biggest and best point to take away from VA-10 in 2008:

Define yourself

Define your opponent

Unfortunately, we accomplished neither this cycle.  Here's hoping we will do that for the 2010 cycle!