In the tidal wave of hope and change, we got lost. Confused. Scared. The mistakes made by Linda Stender's campaign last cycle were exposed and maybe even magnified in this year's go-around. And what do we end up with, after 2+ years of blood and tears for the 7th district...
nothing but a damn lot of should have, would have, could have.
Kudos to NJDSC for running a very comprehensive field program, capitalizing on Obama's focus on grassroots. It brought in volunteers for Linda, under the guise of helping the top of the ticket. Once they were in, we helped them fall in love with her, cleverly pointing out that there's no point in having a Democrat in the White House if we don't have a Congress we can work with (i.e. SCHIP). The field team was composed of the most talent I've seen in a long time, with Jorge Santos and Travis Levitt at the reins. Sold red towns were canvassed (Clark, Warren) with the sole purpose of maintaining a presence even in areas that had no hope. Each organizer, responsible for their towns, created a comprehensive plan and established a volunteer base previously unseen in the district.
And now for what went wrong...
Emily's List. Two words to fuck a campaign sideways with an ice-pick. Yes, they enabled Heather DeJong to raise ridiculous amounts of money, but that came with a major caveat. They controlled the message. In a year when the economy was the number one, two, three & four issue for a strong majority of voters, the last six weeks were spent talking about reproductive rights. Unacceptable. I'm just as pro-choice as the next person, but when you're running against a candidate who successfully played himself off as a moderate on choice... not a good move. In addition, E-List pushed very strongly for the hiring of Irene Lin as communications director. Lin came with an impressive resume but not much to back it up. When you're given full control over a campaign's message and you turn the focus away from what the rest of the candidates are talking about, you don't deserve to cry as the returns come in.
Mismanagement and fear perpetuated by the broken wheel in the finely tuned machine is purely what E-List has become for Linda.
She deserved so much more than a second chance at failure.
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