Wisconsin Assembly Race

[Mr.Phips]

If a State Legislative candidate needed to run on the issue of Iraq in 2006 to win, then that's a significant liability moving forward—a clue that they're just not strong enough candidates to win on their own with a set of real issues; that they don't have a strong enough connection with their district to represent it effectively once they get to the state capitol and have to face issues other than Iraq.

It all comes back to a very pointed statement made by a Republican strategist in 1986 following the loss of a lot of Reagan landslide Senate seats (and I paraphrase)—had we known that we had a chance of winning (in 1980), we'd have run better candidates.

Basically, the lot running for re-election in 1986 just wasn't strong enough to win re-election in a neutral (or worse) environment.  We may see some giveback in 2008 and 2010 of state legislative seats just based on the simple sink/swim notion that a certain number of Democrats who won last year simply do not have the credentials or capabilities of serving effectively.

Here in Oregon, most of the Democrats who helped us take back the State House ran on local issues and against the repugnant Republican State House Speaker. I'm pretty sure we'll hold most the seats we won.  To give you a flavor of the Democratic freshman class, we have a rancher, a community activist, the founder of one of the nation's fastest growing tech consultancy firms, a Rhode Scholar, and the list goes on. These folks aren't David Funderburks or any of the crappy Republicans senators like Mack Mattingly who won in 1980 and then lost in 1986.

I was talking more about places like New Hampshire, where a sizable chunk of the winners were people who stumbled into office without even mounting a serious campaign.  You know how many mother/son- and wife/husband-type legislative teams won last year?

New Hampshire has a different type of legislature.  Being a legislator in New Hampshire is a minimal commitment job and pays about $1000 a year.  There have been college students elected to the New Hampshire legislature.

[Mr.Phips]

If a State Legislative candidate needed to run on the issue of Iraq in 2006 to win, then that's a significant liability moving forward—a clue that they're just not strong enough candidates to win on their own with a set of real issues; that they don't have a strong enough connection with their district to represent it effectively once they get to the state capitol and have to face issues other than Iraq.

It all comes back to a very pointed statement made by a Republican strategist in 1986 following the loss of a lot of Reagan landslide Senate seats (and I paraphrase)—had we known that we had a chance of winning (in 1980), we'd have run better candidates.

Basically, the lot running for re-election in 1986 just wasn't strong enough to win re-election in a neutral (or worse) environment.  We may see some giveback in 2008 and 2010 of state legislative seats just based on the simple sink/swim notion that a certain number of Democrats who won last year simply do not have the credentials or capabilities of serving effectively.

Most of the 1980 Republican Senate incumbents that lost in 1986 lost because 1986 was a bad year for Republicans and most of them barely lost. 

[Mr.Phips]

If a State Legislative candidate needed to run on the issue of Iraq in 2006 to win, then that's a significant liability moving forward—a clue that they're just not strong enough candidates to win on their own with a set of real issues; that they don't have a strong enough connection with their district to represent it effectively once they get to the state capitol and have to face issues other than Iraq.

It all comes back to a very pointed statement made by a Republican strategist in 1986 following the loss of a lot of Reagan landslide Senate seats (and I paraphrase)—had we known that we had a chance of winning (in 1980), we'd have run better candidates.

Basically, the lot running for re-election in 1986 just wasn't strong enough to win re-election in a neutral (or worse) environment.  We may see some giveback in 2008 and 2010 of state legislative seats just based on the simple sink/swim notion that a certain number of Democrats who won last year simply do not have the credentials or capabilities of serving effectively.

Most of the 1980 Republican Senate incumbents that lost in 1986 lost because 1986 was a bad year for Republicans and most of them barely lost. 

Most of the 1980 Republican Senate winners were absolute nobodies when they won.  Had they had even some real experience prior, those narrow losses would have easily flipped to narrow wins.

There were several Republicans who lost that year that had a lot of previous experience.  Both Jim Abdnor(SD) and Mark Andrews(ND) were former House members.  Paula Hawkins(FL) was the state Public Service Commissioner.  There were only two losers that year with no experience and they were Mack Mattingly(GA) and Jeremiah Denton(AL).