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August 15, 2005
The Hackett Line
Baseball fans know that the "Mendoza Line" is a batting average of about .200. It's a pretty bad average for an everyday player and if a player's average falls below that he's either in a slump or not going to make it in the Majors very long.
In honor of Paul Hackett, Democrats in Georgia and other places should make a serious effort to field candidates and work in districts similar to Hackett's. IIRC, Kerry got about 35% in the second district of Ohio, so Democrats in Georgia should draw a "Hackett line" at 35% and work towards future victory in those districts.
The good news is that Kerry's performance in many of these districts is pretty close to the bottom of the barrel. As you work your way up to local candidates, you'll find Congressional candidates doing better than Kerry, state legislative candidates besting Congressional dems, and finally Democratic county commissioners and sheriffs still getting elected by healthy margins in these "red" areas.
According to the latest Survey USA poll of Georgia, Bush's approval is down to 47-51 in Georgia. (The link is to a June poll, a tracking link on the same page shows the current results) While that doesn't spell trouble in general for Perdue or Georgia's Republican Congressmen, it may mean some districts could be 5 points better next year.
One of the secrets of the political trade is that campaign tactics really only tinker at the margins. A candidate that loses by 10 points one year might be able to squeak out a win the next time by running a more effective campaign, but for the most part you inherit a political landscape instead of creating it. That's especially true the further down the ballot you travel. With partisanship increasingly driving state legislative races, we have to be ready if Bush implodes (just by having candidates people can vote for) and even if he's just a drag on the ticket compared to 2004 (by actually running effective campaigns where we can win).
So, that's the theory of the Hackett Line. Let's get good candidates in every district we can conceivably win, and then run effective campaigns in those districts close enough where campaigns could be the deciding difference if the partisan winds happen to be blowing our way in November 2006.
Posted by Chris at August 15, 2005 07:52 PM
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