November Victory Follow-Up

I spent nearly an hour on the phone yesterday with Cynthia Pooler, the originator of the November Victory listserve. Ms Pooler has devoted the past two years and what she describes as “her heart and soul” to the project of reclaiming Congress for the Democrats. She believes that the secret to doing this is better support of our grass roots candidates

November Victory is intended to be a source of support for those candidates who, Ms Pooler says, often feel isolated and alone—struggling with finances and frequently ignored by the party leadership. It is because their exchanges are sometimes quite personal that she restricts membership in the list to candidates.

It is this failure of support for the grass roots that she believes is responsible for the party’s poor showing and she has a name for them that seems to me to sum up perfectly one of the failures of party leadership. She calls them
Disposable Candidates.

What she has in mind, I believe, is the following situation. A candidate runs in a district almost as a “forlorn hope” because he or she simply believes the incumbent can’t go unchallenged. Then an almost miracle occurs…no, not a win, but a loss by a small margin that indicates the incumbent is vulnerable. When the challenger tries again two years later he or she is cast aside…”after all he lost last time”…or disposed of as nothing more than the past’s sacrificial goat.

If I have misread Ms Pooler, I’m sure she’ll comment here. Do look at this related web site, DCCPAC.