Apology on IL-05

by: Chris Bowers

Wed Mar 04, 2009 at 12:26


Given that Tom Geoghegan finished in 7th place last night, with only 6% of the vote, I wanted to take a moment to apologize to the Open Left community on the front page about this campaign. Given that 212 of you donated over $11,500 to Geoghegan, it is the least you deserve. I can see two main things that went wrong in my decision making on the race:
  1. Went in flying blind: There was only one poll on the campaign that I saw. The top three candidates in that poll finished in the top three, including a victory for the leader, Mike Quigley. Clearly, it was actually a good poll. The poll was conducted before Tom Geoghegan entered the campaign, and I thought the low numbers for the leader made it an attractive, and winnable, possibility. However, I probably should have waited for another poll showing Geoghegan at least in the mix, rather than just jumping in blindly.

  2. Kept disregarding warning signs: I should have taken more heed of the warning signs that kept appearing. Geoghegan was not endorsed by local unions, by local ward leaders, or local newspapers. Also, his field campaign was, from what I heard "good but not great." In such a low turnout election, all four of those factors are absolutely crucial. These warning signs kept appearing in January and February, and I did not take the appropriate caution from them. Again, I allowed my hopes of what could be achieved in a wide open, low-turnout primary to get the best of me.
Now, I donated to Geoghegan's campaign as well, as I always make a point of taking whatever action I ask of the community. Also, while it appears that Geoghegan only received one vote for every $100 he raised, that amount seems pretty similar to everyone else in the campaign. We should have done better, but the lack of endorsements was the main cause for that.

This isn't the first time we have backed a candidate who lost by double digits, and I doubt it will be the last time, either. I am still happy to have supported such a strong progressive, and I don't think less of Tom Geoghegan as a person because of this. However, in the future, I promise to do a better job of gathering information on the campaign beforehand, and of monitoring warning signs as I see them appear. There were other, pretty progressive candidates in this campaign, and if I had done more due diligence, we might have been able to help one of them.

Thank you to those who donated. I will do better for you in the future.

Chris Bowers :: Apology on IL-05

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Apology on IL-05 | 46 comments
No apology necessary (4.00 / 9)
The tactics may have been in error, but the strategy is sound. Compete everywhere; it's as much the message as the candidate, and it needs to be heard even in places where people aren't presently disposed to listen.
I agree, I'd draw a far different lesson (4.00 / 3)
In my mind, this race just once again proved that the best things blogs can provide is communication. The fundraising wasn't bad, but how many stories did the blogs drive into the local press? Why wasn't there a narrative for the race other than Tom is a good guy? Why wasn't there national press to lead the local media?

On twitter: @BobBrigham
[ Parent ]
if you're going to go all in for a longshot (4.00 / 7)
You may as well do it in a crowded, low-turnout primary.

I agree that no apology is needed.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
I disagree (4.00 / 2)
I think it's a mistake to support a long-shot progressive when you have other good progressives in the race with a far better chance of winning.  Everything turned out okay, but it would have been a tragedy to see a mediocre candidate steal this election because the netroots squandered their influence on someone with no shot.

In any event, I think it's the duty of the blogs to give their readership the most accurate information they can.  If people feel as you do, that this was an ideal race to promote a longshot, then fine - but don't hide the fact that the guy is a longshot.  That said, I'm not trying to bash Chris here, as I think it was great of him to write this post.

[ Parent ]
No argument here (4.00 / 1)
It all depends on what you mean by good progressive. I'll take your word for it that Quigley was one, but in my own district, the DCCC sold someone as the only viable candidate, and never mentioned her stands on progressive issues, which were, frankly, clueless. I spent a lot of money and time trying to defeat her in the primary, and don't regret a dollar or minute of it, even though she's a decent person, a good Democrat, and took Rick Renzi's seat away from the Republicans. (I worked to get her elected in the general, also with no regrets.)

This isn't an either or thing, but make no mistake -- it is a fight over the future of the party. It has to be if we don't want to start another one.

[ Parent ]
We considered that very point (4.00 / 1)
But we had so many good candidates and the bad ones had so little chance that it was always ok to vote for and work for the very best, Geoghegan. Those working for him realized that it was a long shot.

Jeff Wegerson
[ Parent ]
Sure (4.00 / 2)
But do you realize it's a little galling after the fact to those who donated money (at least some of them) to be told "hey, we all knew it was a long shot all along, we just didn't bother to tell you"?

I don't expect campaign staff or volunteers to be this candid with people, naturally.  It wouldn't be much of a campaign if people didn't talk like they expected to win.  But bloggers risk their long-term credibility if they keep promoting long-shot candidates as though they have a perfectly decent shot to win.

[ Parent ]
We bloggers at PSB did tell everyone (0.00 / 0)
it was a long shot.

As for Chris, here, he is apologizing for exactly the reason you are concerned about.

But bloggers risk their long-term credibility if they keep promoting long-shot candidates as though they have a perfectly decent shot to win.

But in Chris' defense, the race was pretty much a mystery as to who would get how many votes. There was never any very clear obvious front runner. In such a situation things can happen at any point in a campaign to create the un-expected winner. In that sense Tom had a perfectly decent shot to win. His vote totals were decent enough to say he ran a credible campaign.  

Jeff Wegerson

[ Parent ]
Compared to my financial advisor this year... (4.00 / 4)
...the $100 I blew on your recommendation of Tom Geoghan was pretty small potatoes.  Tater tots, actually.  

If this leads to better accuracy in the future it's all good.  And seriously, progressives need to come together early on--before the primary vote--and get behind 1 candidate.

Thanks for tackling this head on. (4.00 / 5)
I have no doubt that Geoghegan would have been an excellent Congressman.

Here's my question.

This was an intensely local race, where so many of the candidates were quite well known locally.  In addition, the frontrunners were widely viewed as being strong progressives.  Given that, and given that the people who donate to the campaigns that you promote have a limited number of dollars to work with, why choose IL-05 in the first place as a cause for the national netroots?

It would seem to me that the problem was poor assessment of "winnability", but rather, poor prioritization.  This was not a case of "good vs evil" (or, if you prefer, progressive vs blue-dog).  At best (and yes, I was a Quigley guy, so call me biased), I don't think you could have called this any worse than "really, really, really good" vs "really, really good."  

I think that the national causes should be saved for the races where (most important) they're needed, and (then), they can make a difference in the outcome.

oops (4.00 / 1)
Problem was not poor assessment of winnability....
[ Parent ]
Yes, the national push for Geoghegan seemed short on local analysis (4.00 / 1)

[ Parent ]
absolutely (4.00 / 2)
I completely agree that prioritizing this race was odd. Quigley was a formidable candidate, a true progressive as were many of the others. For example, Fritchey and Feigenholtz were co-sponsor's to Greg Harris's HB1826 (extending civil unions to all Illinois couples). Quigley, as has been talked about before, will be a champion of mass transit. I'm not sure I ever bought into the saying that Geoghegan would be the most vocal and proud progressive. Althogh I'm sure he would have been great.

Back to prioritizing, I think the money could have been better spent elsewhere. There are progressive organizations that could always use the $11k for legal fees or PSAs.

In fact, supporting Greg Harris and HB1826 could be a great place to put our monetary support at times like these (few elections). I can't imagine rewarding politicians who are doing good work for equality or other progressive causes is a bad thing moving forward.

[ Parent ]
Class Act (3.56 / 9)
I should probably take this opportunity to apologize for the tone of some of my remarks in the quick hits thread dealing with this.

Also this might be a good place for me and others to express to you our thanks for recognizing the potential (now being realized exponentially)  of the Grayson campaign.  You (and we) hit the jackpot on that one; it will take a long time at the craps table to make a dent in those winnings.

The best money I ever spent and raised if for no other reason than to be able to witness on video in a congressional hearing the question:

"Have you ever heard the expression 'Heads I win, tails you loose,' Mr. Pandit?"

Truly a peak political moment.

Gives one the strength to go on.

Did you have people in the district? (4.00 / 4)
Did you have people in the district who helped you make the call?  To me, that is where the potential failure comes from when this stuff happens.

That said, it was cool getting to know Mr. Geoghan, someone we should all clearly know.

We did, actually (4.00 / 6)
I knew people working in the district. I was getting updates. That is why I should have heeded the warning signs better.
[ Parent ]
No worries. . . (4.00 / 2)
If he had a so-so ground game, then in all likelihood, he only met about 20% of the people who voted for him.  So, you're responsible for 80% of his votes.  Is Quigly any good?
My next question also… (4.00 / 1)
...what do we who aren't locals need to know about Quigley?  

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
[ Parent ]
In short, yes (4.00 / 2)
I don't know how much you know about Cook County (Chicago area) politics but it's currently essentially controlled by a machine dynasty, Quigly has been one of the reformers fighting Todd Stronger's rule. He's passed essentially every major environmental thing that's come out of the board, is a big transit advocate, anti-corruption, also has been pro-full equality since the 90s.

So yes, he's pretty good.  

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power

[ Parent ]
I don't get the apology (4.00 / 5)
I really don't get why anyone should have to apologize - this was always an uphill race, there were no illusions about that, and there was no polling in the race at all. We front paged the campaign a few times, it was a worthy cause, and we lost. I think had we portrayed something different, maybe an apology was due. But I don't recall us putting forward anything other than the truth - Tom has been a movement progressive, he had an outside shot in a very low-turnout election, and there's value in supporting movement progressive candidacies, even if they lost.

I should also add (speaking only for me) - I'm not an investment advisor. That is, I don't portray myself as purely a handicapper of races. Winnability is certainly one factor in who I think we should support, but this isn't just a straight-up handicapping site. There is value even when we lose - and even when we lose badly. I think we are pretty honest about that on this site, and we shouldn't have to apologize if/when we lose (especially in as difficult to read a race as a low-turnout special election primary like this).

I mean, I'm sorry Tom lost, and lost badly. But isn't there any value in movement solidarity?

I guess (4.00 / 5)
I guess it is because I am tired of claiming moral victories in losses, after all these years. So, when we lost this time, an apology felt more appropriate.
[ Parent ]
was this race difficult to read? (0.00 / 0)
A well-funded candidate with both newspaper endorsements won.  But in general, I think the netroots do a pretty good job of prioritizing -- we came in with seed money for Geoghegan early on, but this wasn't the "we must do everything possible!" all-hands-on-deck at the finish the way Donna Edwards was.  I thought we handled Ned Lamont the same way -- October was a lot quieter once the poll numbers were consistently disappointing.
[ Parent ]
Prairie State Blue covered the race pretty well actually. (4.00 / 3)
In it you could have learned that the two independent progressive groups that are large enough to be significant could not unite behind Geoghegan. Northside DFA split between Geoghegan and Quigley while IVI-IPO went a little more opaquely for Fritchey. You could also have learned that indeed folks were comfortable with any of the top four winning and that that was a clear indicator that it would be hard to get progressive activists united and excited about any one of them.

If you also had paid close attention to our writer bored now, you would see that he pretty much nailed how Geoghegan was likely to do.

At PSB it was said early that it was safe to vote for Geoghegan, in that no bad machine type was likely to win and therefore, why not.

That and more could have been learned about the race from the Illinois 50-state blog.

Jeff Wegerson

re (4.00 / 1)
it would be hard to get progressive activists united and excited about any one of them.

feigenholtz included?

I thought she were a progressive, no?

[ Parent ]
She is. (4.00 / 2)
I guess Feigenholtz for some reason just didn't attract as much enthusiasm from the progressive grassroots as much as Geoghegan & Quigley did. Whatever. Maybe some didn't like that EMILY's List made a play here by endorsing her, but I very much appreciated her unequivocal support for full LGBT civil rights (including marriage equality!), women's rights, and families' welfare. But hey, Quigley is pretty much in line with her & Geoghegan on all the issues, so I'm not complaining.

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.
[ Parent ]
very good to hear (4.00 / 1)
and something else andrew

have you seen this?

http://www.openleft.com/showCo...

I had to leave abruptly the other day and wrote quickly and un-carefully, sorry

[ Parent ]
I did. (4.00 / 1)
Thanks for sharing that.

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.
[ Parent ]
All the reasonably progressive candidates (0.00 / 0)
garnered enthusiasm. It's that none of them garnered particularly more than any of the others.

Jeff Wegerson
[ Parent ]
question (4.00 / 1)
any idea on the differences between the winner, quigley, and the other liberal, feigenholtz?

I see the final results (Quigley 11,910, Feigenholtz 9,031, Geoghegan 3,253) and I wonder if it would've been better for us progressives not to split our support between the two liberal candidates, feigenholtz and geoghegan, but get behind one or pressure the one of the two to not run?

There just wasn't much difference. (4.00 / 3)
Just look at Quigley's issues page:

http://www.quigleyforcongress....

He really isn't that far to the right of Geoghegan, and I doubt he's really to the right of Feigenholtz. We just had a wealth of good candidates here, so it was inevitable that one had to win and the rest had to lose.  

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.

[ Parent ]
seems there is a definite improvement over rahm? (4.00 / 3)
nice!
[ Parent ]
Oh, yes. (4.00 / 2)
Did you see his support for Employee Free Choice... IN THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY SECTION??!! I love that! Really, there isn't much reason to be full of sorrow. While I sympathize with those here who are feeling down because Geoghegan lost, I also think they can rest assured that the new IL-05 Congresscritter will likely be a more progressive Democrat. Maybe we haven't moved this seat as far left as we wanted to, but we're moving it in the right... I mean left direction! ;-)

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.
[ Parent ]
Yes (4.00 / 1)
Essentially you would have had Geoghegan being another Jan Schakowsky and Quigley will be another Rush Holt. Not a huge difference.  

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power
[ Parent ]
Quigley and Feigenholtz (4.00 / 1)
First, if you think that you could have magically caused either Quigley or Feigenholtz to not run against each other, when no one who actually knew them couldn't do that, well, here's a dose of reality.  Quigley and Feigenholtz running against each other was an awful spectacle to watch.  The two are friends.  They are from the same ward, use the same precinct captains, share the same district office space.  Their staffs use the same bathrooms.  Quigley ran Feigenholtz' first campaign.  They introduce each other at fundraisers.  Mostly, it's a shame that only one could win.

Second, if you are still trying to convince yourself that Quigley is somehow not one of the "two liberal candidates", well, stop beating yourself up.  Do some research.  Maybe after 10 years in office he can't be as pure as someone who has never held office.  But he is someone whom you will be very happy to have on our side.

As for Geoghegan, I viewed him as a spoiler candidate from the start. I don't know where his voters would have gone, but most likely they would have split.  His being in the race gave Fritchey a greater chance than otherwise possible.

[ Parent ]
thanks (0.00 / 0)
well, stop beating yourself up

haha!

will do!

:-)

[ Parent ]
oh, and no apology needed chris (4.00 / 3)
it's not like you supported wheelan!
It's OK, Chris. (4.00 / 2)
Really, it's fine. We win some and we lose some. But honestly, I don't see this as a loss... Not at all!

OK, so I decided to sit out the primary while most of the rest of the Netroots went wild for Geoghegan. I didn't emotionally invest myself in any one candidate, so I was able to see the good qualities of Mike Quigley and Sara Feigenholtz and conclude that either would make a fine IL-05 Rep, just as Geoghegan would have. I'd just say that more in the Netroots need to understand the thinking of the not-always-wired Grassroots and learn more to connect with them and other local Dems when making a play in races like this one. Unless there's strong local support for the "Official Endorsed Netroots Candidate", all those DKos diaries & Open Left Quick Hits won't make much of a difference.

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.

It is what it is (4.00 / 1)
We had a city council race in New York City last week where of the four candidates left on the ballot, the Democrat with the most institutional support came in THIRD behind the Republican who won and another Democrat who had no institutional support. Everyone thought she would either win or come close, and she did neither.

In the end no one paid attention to the warning signs. She had gotten the frontrunner (a Democrat) thrown off the ballot on a stupid technicality and turned off so many voters, they voted for the other Democrat or went for the Republican.

Obviously these aren't the same circumstances as Geogahan did nothing to turn off voters, but the powers that be in Queens didn't read the tea leaves and was surprised to see a result which in hindsight should not have been all that surprising.


My take on it (4.00 / 9)
Chris, I live in Illinois and was very involved in this race. Almost the whole time it was going on I was torn between Geoghegan and Quigley (who was the winner).  

Ideally, Geoghegan is the kind of candidate I would like to see running -- and winning -- in races all over the country.  And I was glad that the netroots came out in support of him because I think we need to show people (the party bosses in this case) that if you run on progressive issues there IS a base of support for you.  In this case that base of support was not enough to mitigate other factors, but if Geoghegan had run and gotten NO support the lesson would have been "don't bother." You may not feel that this it enough of a reason to ask people to give money, but I do think there was a benefit there.  

I ended up in the last few weeks putting my volunteer time in for Mike Quigley. I had heard from a fellow campaign worker about a rival candidate's internal poll that showed Quigley 22%, Feigenholtz 22%, Fritchey 8% and everyone else below that.  I felt at that point that I should be spending my time helping Quigley win, and I'm glad that he did.

Regarding the comment that their field was "good but not great" -- you just can't put together great field in 2 months.  If it had been a longer race all that could have  been changed.  That is another thing to take into account -- the fact that grassroots campaigns by first time candidates will never fair well in short-term special elections.

Done is good. You got it done. We need more progressives to be getting active. (0.00 / 0)
And I mean active. We need more trained people, more people willing to learn the things to look for, the things to work for and the things to leave alone. There needs to be more conversations going on. The field was too big, the cross talk among progressives wasnt high enough.

All these things are true. But picking a candidate isnt the wrong thing to do, backing her and urging others isn't wrong, even for uphill battles and long shots. The Democrats are winning and its become a meal ticket. People who are willing to stand aside are almost as important as those willing to stand up.

Hell Chris you may as well apologize for the entire Obama administration right now, because no matter how far we move, no matter what progress we make, and no matter how many Americans are covered in how affordable a healthcare system, it will fall short of what could have been done. But thats just silly and counter productive.

Here's the maifesto of DONE, its instructive and heart warming.


The Cult of Done
Manifesto
1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a first draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

http://www.brepettis.com/blog/...

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

Appreciate the apology. (4.00 / 1)
Contrary to some other commenters, I don't think it's out of line at all; in fact, I was anticipating it.  It's what Stoller would have done, for example.

I think Sirota's contrary point would be a lot stronger if Geoghegan came in third, with 15%.  Coming in seventh with six percent is pretty remarkable.  That's very close to being a vanity campaign.  And while it's true that Sirota's posts never argued that Geoghegan was the frontrunner, he also didn't portray him as the utter and total longshot that he evidently was.  Matt's posts on Larry Lessig are a model of how to handle this kind of circumstance well, I think.

And in case the Lessig example doesn't make my argument clear enough, I'm not arguing the straw-man case that Geoghegan should not have been supported at all, under any circumstances, and with any kind of exhortative rhetoric.  That's not my point.  Again, if one goes back to see how Matt handled Lessig, I think that's a model for how to do this well.

If he was omniscient (0.00 / 0)
than this would be true:

Coming in seventh with six percent is pretty remarkable.  That's very close to being a vanity campaign.  

It was an open seat with no clear favorite (at least for much of the campaign.) No need to assume bad motives.

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

[ Parent ]
no worries (0.00 / 0)
I threw money at Charlie Brown and Darcy Burner too. I'm not crying about them either.  So Geoghegan was wishful thinking.  Don't worry about it. Be like Sherman - "never admitted a mistake, or repeated one".
A mistake, but not a useless one (4.00 / 3)
Sure, Geoghegan tanked. But aggressive promotion of progressive causes forced Quigley, Feigenholtz and co. to tack close to Tom.

Sure, that's not a great achievement in a seat as Democratic as IL-05. Still, better to have the force of the outsider on the left than to have Charlie Wheelan as the only oppositional candidate.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

Seems to me... (0.00 / 0)
...the logic of supporting Geoghegan was pretty straight-forward:

1) The United States faces a financial crisis of historic proportions, one that threatens the very existence of its middle-class.

2) The Democrats' response to this crisis thus far has been tepid, at best; essentially putting out fires here and there, instead of attempting to address the crisis' underlying causes.

3) The proper response requires robust social democratic measures: increasing Social Security benefits, relieving businesses of health care costs by heading toward single-payer, attempting to lower private debt by heavily regulating financial institutions through caps on the interest rates of credit cards/student loans, etc., and strengthening labor by going beyond EFCA and making organizing a civil right.  

If you disagree with the above, think it's too shrill or over-the-top, then sure, Quigley would be a totally reasonable pick, a conventional Democrat with a high degree of personal competence. But if you believe we're heading toward an unconventional disaster, one that should cause us to radically re-think the assumptions and commitments of the past thirty years, then Tom was your man; and there should be no reason to apologize for it.  

Thanks. (0.00 / 0)
A belated comment here...  I did feel slightly misled by the hype around here and the intelligent post-mortem posts by you and David to address that feeling are part of the reason I love OpenLeft.

That said, while I was surprised and bummed that Tom finished 7th, I don't regret the $$ or the phone calls I gave.  I read "Which Side Are You On?" before getting involved in the race and loved it -- probably wouldn't have ever read it had it not been for the Geoghegan coverage here.

So thanks for telling me about Tom in the first place and I appreciate the morning after introspection as it mirrors the thoughts I (and I assume others) are having.

Apology on IL-05 | 46 comments
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