Open Left

In most cases a Republican.

It is easier to defeat a member of the opposing party with a good candidate than an incumbent (in most cases, good candidates won't even challenge an incumbent, the power of incumbency is too great particularly in early primary fund raising).

The party infrastructure can fund raise on the gaffes and even just the ideology of a member of the opposite party, at all levels (local, state and federal party orgs raising money off your local official of the opposite party).

Third, that mediocre, corrupt, Blue Dog, or just inept/unqualified Congressman is going to hurt the local party and progress in the district in a number of ways.  They are likely not to be a "party builder" aggressively building and supplementing local infrastructure, they are likely to dampen messaging coming from Strong D's outside the district - going as far as leading the charge calling Strong Dems leading the way "crazy liberals", opposing major party agenda items like Health Care reform, pushing GOP talking points like "socialized medicine"...

If the party has and will hold a majority - there is 0 reason to back a less than worthy Democrat to take the seat, particularly if the seat is held by either a moderate R or a gaffe prone or particularly wingnutty conservative.

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

---

by: mp @ Wed Apr 01, 2009 at 18:41:37 PM CDT