Just-defeated Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) rose in Tuesday’s caucus meeting to declare that Pelosi is “the face of our defeat.” He told his soon-to-be-former colleagues that “we need new leadership.” ...
Democrats who side with Pelosi are upset with the moderate Blue Dog Democrats, many of whom were the beneficiaries of big spending by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Some of them could hardly have been competitive without the party’s money.
The DCCC spent nearly $60 million on Blue Dogs and centrist New Democrats during the 2010 election cycle, according to federal election reports. Meanwhile, Blue Dogs contributed only $1.9 million of their $9.6 million in dues goals, according to the latest DCCC dues report.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45215.html#ixzz15X6WdYil
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These numbers are quite revealing, but it makes sense that a lot of money was spent in the "blue dog" districts, since many of these were in the 2006 and 2008 swing districts--mostly districts that McCain won in 2008 (include PA-10 here). These were the candidates being attacked most aggressively. That Blue Dogs Dems were not able to raise money also indicates a big problem. These aren't districts that are friendly to Democratic candidates, and many of the Blue Dogs knew they were not likely to win reelection running on the accomplishments that the Republicans were running against. They might have done best off doing that--you have to at least try to make the case.
Chris Carney apparently settled on a strategy of only attacking Tom Marino, and that strategy didn't work--it backfired. It cost Carney the Daily Item's endorsement (this was the only reason they cited for endorsing Marino) and turned off a lot of other voters. It also led people to forget why they liked Carney in the first place--and all the things that he'd done in four years.
The question now is: do we want Chris Carney to run again in 2012 or someone else? If Carney runs again, what should he do differently next time around?
On my list: Explain whether his political views on abortion have changed since he first ran in 2006. (He allowed his views to be characterized as pro-life this time around, but he had always resisted that label and staked out a middle ground position in the past.) Push a positive message. Good ads should speak directly to voters while fitting into the overall campaign themes. We never heard any optimism in this campaign, only anger, and it showed in the turnout and in the results.
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