Going into the recent election, I believed DFLers' greatest chance for picking up a congressional seat would be in CD3. And I supported Ashwin Madia from well before the CD3 DFL Convention. Yet truth be told, our candidate faired rather poorly. If you supported Team Bonoff or even Team Hovland, perhaps you're thinking that the politically naive got their comeuppance.
A well-placed Team Madia insider mentioned to me--just days after the tragedy--that Madia's mistake lay in failing to seriously address the David Dillon candidacy. But Madia lost by eight points; I don't think that Madia's 'Dillon error' could possibly explain more than a fraction of Ash's loss. Nor am I sure how Ashwin could have successfully attacked Dillon.
Just a gut observation or two:
I'm not sure Team Madia handled Ashwin's 'cultural placement' as well as it might have. Madia supporters had an underlying concern that antiforeign bias might work to Ashwin's disadvantage in the contest--and that Team Paulsen was encouraging such ugliness, at arm's length. (And yes, I think that did happen.) But might Team Madia have played it a bit smarter?
Any person considering throwing her hat in the ring for Congress in CD3 has to expect a few cultural questions. Candidates have always been asked their religious affiliation, for example. Yes, that's probably a dumb tradition: It allows a candidate such as Erik Paulsen to accomplish a great deal of cultural signalling without ever having to face a question on it--and it exacerbates public pondering of irrelevancies, when a non-WASP emerges on the political scene. So when I asked Ashwin his religion, I was surprised to learn he had no prepared response. Rest assured I didn't care what Ashwin's actual spiritual beliefs are, if any--I simply wanted to defuse a question we all knew would eventually be asked. When Ashwin didn't answer the question, I defended his right to not respond. But as a strategic matter, I think it may have made sense to establish some religious affiliation--for public consumption if nothing else.
The religion piece was part of the larger cultural battlefield. And I think Team Madia might have done better in competing for the Fred MacMurray cultural slot.
A second area which Madia's position may have been underfought was in the political cleanliness area. Lots of negativity occurred on both sides--and plenty of phony anti-Paulsen ads were financed by outside groups. But what if Ashwin Madia had committed himself to a genuinely no-bullshit campaign, in which he came down really hard on the anti-Paulsen sleaze coming from his out-of-state supporters as well as his in-state supporters?
What if Madia had established himself as squeaky-clean candidate, firmly in charge of his own campaign, permitting no stupid anti-Paulsen attacks? Might a more upbeat, uplifting Madia campaign have done better at the ballot box?
What if Madia had established himself as squeaky-clean candidate, firmly in charge of his own campaign, permitting no stupid anti-Paulsen attacks? Might a more upbeat, uplifting Madia campaign have done better at the ballot box?
Various only-slightly-political people in my life knew I'd been following Madia-Paulsen quite closely, and that I fervently wanted Ashwin to win. By the end of the campaign, a few people chided me for [what they perceived to be] the Madia [anti-Paulsen] bullshit they'd been bombarded with, on their televisions. And I think that was the general perception--that Team Madia was putting out more yucky bullshit than was Team Paulsen. And I noticed that being an FOA didn't have quite the cache it did some months before.
