Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Steele In; Cardin Leads

As Serge points out in a comment to the previous post, Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele has entered the race to replace retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes. Dave Myers took issue with my last post on this one, and this expected development lends itself to offering some clarification on a few points. First, though, in case anyone missed it, a poll came out today confirming what I had said regarding Steele's chances against the Democrats. No, polls taken a year out are not the be all and end all, but with Steele's name recognition, they are a pretty good indicator of where things stand.

What Dave apparently missed is that I do, in word, support Steele. He's an excellent candidate and would make a great Senator. By all means, if you're in or near Maryland and have some extra time on your hands, or if you have unlimited funds to spent, put some into this race. A word of advice on doing so, though. Don't work for Steele until the primary. If you're dead set on trying to elect Steele, then you should be doing everything you possibly can to help Kweisi Mfume win the Democrat primary. He finished the third quarter with less than $100,000 on hand and needs all the help he can get. If and only if Mfume wins the primary, this race becomes top-tier.

That having been said, resources are not unlimited. Choices must be made. This is not a novel concept but an age old rule. When the campaign committees determine how to spend their resources, they do not give out money equally or tie it to the expense of the race. Instead, they put races into one of six categories: vulnerable own party, vulnerable opposition party, semi-vulnerable own party, semi-vulnerable opposition party, safe own party, safe opposition party. About half of all Senate races fall into the final two categories. Parties use this order of priorities, and races in the final two get nothing. The reason for this is that the limited resources must be put into races where they are most likely to change the outcome of the race.

Using this categorization, the Maryland Senate race would fall into the category of "semi-vulnerable opposition party". For those who have limited resources, my advice - make of it what you will - is to do what you can to help candidates in the first two or three categories. If you are, for whatever reason, only able to lend a hand with races in the fourth, by all means go ahead. You might get lucky. At the very least, you might not win that race but force the Democrats to spend money where they would rather not have to do so. All things being equal, though, it is essential to use resources where they can make a difference. You will not see the GOP pouring money into Jeanine Pirro's campaign because she can't win. The same can be said of several others. The prospect of unwinnable races is not a fun one to accept, but a quick glance at the Kos efforts from last year shows just how much can be wasted instead of being well spent.

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