Update [2005-8-18 13:15:21 by BooMan]: Here is Bowers’s article on last night’s conference call.

This blog is about national and global issues. So, I am not going to take up a lot of space on the front-page talking about local issues. But ‘all politics is local’, and it’s important that you know what we are trying to do here in southeastern Pennsylvania because we hope it will be a model for the whole country.

Chris Bowers from MyDD is spearheading the effort. First he linked up the many Philly bloggers into a new blogads network (you can see the logo on the left). Then he set up a series of conference calls for the bloggers to talk to our aspiring Democratic candidates for Congress. There are four suburban seats, held by crazed Republicans, that we are targeting:

Lois Murphy in the 6th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by the loony Jim Gerlach.
Lois Herr in the 16th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by lunatic, Joe Pitts.
Paul Scoles in the 7th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by wingnut, Curt Weldon.
Ginny Schrader in the 8th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by headcase, Michael Fitzpatrick.
Patrick Murphy in the 8th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by headcase, Michael Fitzpatrick.

:::more on the flip:::
We held a conference call with Ginny Schrader a couple of weeks ago. We had a conference call with Paul Scoles last night. We also had a big bash at the Yards Brewery two weeks ago where all five candidates gave speeches and mixed with the Philly activist community.

Paul Scoles jumped into the 2004 race late, when our candidate was deployed to Iraq. He outperformed historical standards by getting 41.4% of the vote. Still, that is not enough to attract the attention of the DCCC. The DCCC prefers to fund races that fall in the 55%-45% range.

But that leaves a lot of seats without any support:

Walter Ludwig, a former aide in Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, has calculated that Democrats failed to mount serious challenges to about 120 House Republicans in each of the last three elections — and that those Republicans contributed $63 million to colleagues in closer races.

“The fact that we are basically giving up on a quarter of the House in every cycle is just appalling,” said Ludwig, who has formed a political action committee called Project 90 to support Democratic challenges in heavily Republican districts.
LA Times

Walter was on the call last night, and he is taking an active interest in several of our Pennsylvania races. But our efforts are not without controversy. One part of the blogosphere is attacking us because of our association with Simon Rosenberg. (I have no association with Simon). Meanwhile, party insiders think we’re nuts:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has responded to the pressure from liberal activists by saying he intends next year to fund Democratic challengers for 50 Republican-held seats, about double the number the campaign committee backed in 2004.

But the committee, and many leading Democratic strategists, say that funding a wider circle of challengers in heavily Republican areas would divert money better spent on districts more closely balanced between the parties.

Mark Gersh, a longtime strategist for Democrats, said the liberal websites and blogs were right that the party needed to expand the battlefield for House seats.

“But to expand it into districts where [Democrats] have no chance of winning is absolutely crazy,” he said.

The dispute, complete with incendiary attacks on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from some liberal websites, marks the latest disagreement between the Democratic political hierarchy and a left-leaning Internet activist base demanding a more aggressive strategy to regain power.

“The challenge the bloggers are laying on the table is to not concede and not accept becoming a minority party,” said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a centrist Democratic group that has befriended Internet activists. “Their argument is correct. If we really want to win in 2006 and 2008, we have to expand the playing field.”

The basic philosophy is:

a) some of these races are very winnable
b) by making serious challenges in ‘safe’ districts, we prevent the incumbents from sending their money to endangered friends.
c) we’ll never take back the house without some big upsets.
d) if the party won’t do what we want, we’ll do it ourselves.

So, that’s a little update on what we’re up to in Philly. As these races heat up and I get more involved in them I’ll keep you updated in the diaries.