Yesterday I wrote about how Barack Obama’s campaign has changed the ideological makeup of young Idahoans, who are overwhelmingly rejecting the conservatism of their parents in favor of support for Obama’s campaign. In a real sense, Obama is doing this all over the country, but in Idaho it didn’t hurt that he showed up to campaign.
Student support for Obama is a result of Obama’s appeal to the young and his appearance in Boise in February.
“If Obama hadn’t come to Idaho, this turnout wouldn’t be so big,” conceded Rafael Villegas, who gave the nominating speech for Obama at the mock convention. Still, Villegas said, young people are involved in numbers not seen since the Vietnam War. “Everybody wants a different route.”
Villegas, who will be 18 in June, volunteered for Obama in the Idaho caucus. He said Canyon Democrats will benefit from youth activism.
I’m a firm believer that there are always early signs that augur realigning elections. When Donna Edwards defeated Rep. Al Wynn in a Democratic primary and Bill Foster captured Dennis Hastert’s old seat in a special election, it demonstrated that change is in the air. We’re seeing more signs in the polling for upcoming special elections in Louisiana’s Sixth District and Mississippi’s First District, where the Democrat is ahead and tied, respectively. These are not districts where Democrats have been competitive in recent years. But they are competitive in this election cycle.
We’re seeing signs in the candidate recruitment successes and failures and the fundraising differential between the two parties. And we’re seeing concrete examples of Obama’s 50-state strategy actually resulting in different candidates winning Democratic primaries. Take the example of Minnesota’s Third District where long-time moderate Republican Jim Ramstad is retiring.
The Democratic challenger for the Third District was determined on Saturday at the DFL district convention. The Minnesota Campaign Report was there and offered blow by blow coverage as the contest between state Senator Terri Bonoff and Iraq War Veteran Ashwin Madia went on for eight ballots until Bonoff finally conceded. Mr. Madia is a political neophyte that entered the convention as a decided underdog. But he had one unforeseen advantage. Turnout to the Minnesota caucuses had been so huge and so dominated by newly activated young Obama voters, that Bonoff could not rely on the political establishment to put her over the top because so many of the delegates were from outside the system.
Chris Truscott, a spokesman for Madia, told CQ Politics that record turnout at the Feb. 5 precinct caucuses led to a host of new delegates for the state Senate district conventions who “didn’t come in with a whole lot of preconceptions” and Madia was able to win them over.
“On paper it certainly looks like Terri was going in with a pretty big advantage. But when you factor in the new delegates, that really levels the playing field. And they came through big-time for us in the last two months,” Truscott said.
It’s almost a certainty that Bonoff would have won this nomination if not for Barack Obama’s strong performance in the Minnesota caucuses.
In some ways I am a little disappointed that Bonoff lost because I really do believe that we need more women representing us in Congress. But from what I’ve read, Bonoff was a typical New Democrat type of pol. Madia is the son of Indian immigrants who went on to be student body president of the University of Minnesota, get a law degree from NYU, and join the Marines and serve in Iraq. He wasn’t recruited by the DCCC and he wasn’t the candidate of the Democratic Establishment in Minnesota.
But part of the fallout from Obama’s 50-state strategy is that the people are gaining power at the expense of the DCCC and the local party establishments. In this case, I don’t think the powers-that-be are too disappointed because Madia appears to be a very viable candidate. They are, though, probably concerned to learn that they no longer can dictate outcomes. We’ll see if the same thing happens in Nebraska when Scott Kleeb and former Republican Tony Raimando face off in a primary to earn the right to contest Chuck Hagel’s senate seat. My guess is that Kleeb wins for the same reason that Madia did. Newly activated Obama supporters will swamp Ben Nelson’s old machine.