All Politics is Local (for me)

You know I'm in deep when I don't make it home until after 2am and I'm working off less than 6 hours sleep in the last two days.

I spent last night at the campaign HQ watching the results of the races roll in. I felt strangely disconnected to all of the national news. When you work on every local race, you are emotionally invested in every local race. I was huddled in the corner hitting the "refresh" button on my iphone, loading up election results from 4 counties. I was kicking myself for not paying more attention to one assembly seat and wondering if we spent too much time in another. Working to win every council seat, board seat, and measure means you are not going to win every race. The organization is important but it really does come down to the candidate. That realization should make you less cynical, if you think about it. We had one fantastic candidate and he absolutely destroyed his opponent. In two similar districts nearby, we lost. Same voter reg; Same ground game; Same money. There is only so much you can do for a candidate.

The only election of national significance was the CA 20th and I paced the floor with everyone else. We weren't getting results in from our strongest county (Kings) and results were pouring in from our weakest one (Fresno). I think we'll win the 20th, because Andy Vidak was a great candidate. He overcame money and a 20 point reg disadvantage. Amazing. He had no business winning that seat, really. There wasn't a single statistical model that gave him any shot. But he is winning by 1600 votes now. That is history in the making, and politics isn't science.