Within the Margin

With the 2012 elections over, it is time to highlight the politician that shone brightest: Senator Patty Murray. The Chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee(DSCC) had the best year in Washington, maintaining control of the Senate and even expanding upon the Democratic majority in a year that on the onset of the cycle looked bleak.

Both Brian and I looked at the map last year and were worried about how bad our losses were going to be: Missouri and Claire McCaskill’s terrible approvals and the red hue of the “Show Me State” was a sure fire loss; Kent Conrad’s seat looked like a goner after the blood bath of 2010; Indiana was another lost cause seat since we were going to lose it in the Presidential; Scott Brown was that rarest of species…a New England Republican; Things looked dicey in Virginia and Montana where we won nail-biters six years earlier; money poured like coffee in Ohio where Sherrod Brown was taking on State Treasurer Josh Mandel; also things looked bleak in Wisconsin after the losses we took over the last two years there, but we elected our first openly gay US Senator in Tammy Baldwin. But then a funny thing happened on Election Night: we won them all. Now, does Patty Murray deserve all the credit; no, each candidate ran great campaigns and at the end of the day, the voters elected the Senators. But Patty Murray made the decisions to back each of these campaigns vigorously. Now, we also lost some tough races this year: Richard Carmona made things very interesting against Senator-Elect Jeff Flake and Rep. Shelley Berkley took a hard luck loss against Sen Dean Heller, we’ll inspect more on those loses another time. Senator Murray made wise bets and was able to come off with a remarkable string of wins in spots my colleague and I thought would be tough holds or likely goners.

Granted, in two of the races mentioned the Republican nominees preformed hari-kari on their candidacies at the worst possible times in the campaign cycle, but former Rep Todd Akin was able to re-gain some polling ground on McCaskill based on voters dislike of the state’s senior Senator. For Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, his fall happened a few weeks after Congressman Akin’s contemptible remarks on rape and abortion and Mourdock simply bet the house by EXPANDING upon them. From there Congressman Joe Donnelly’s life in what was to be a tough pickup if at all, became a lot easier. Their (Akin and Mourdock) candidacies were ruined as the national discussion caused by their remarks put national Republicans on the defense with a rather large constituency group: women, with whom they hoped to do better this year. (the reasons for this are many and to be expanded upon in future posts). In both cases, the DSCC smelled blood in the water and pounced with vigor, moving resources needed to hold and pick up a seat.

Murray also showed great recruiting throughout the cycle securing top names to run in order to force the Republicans hands and when presented a curveball with the candidacy of Angus King in Maine was able to withhold from actively campaigning against King to allow for the Senator-Elect to choose caucusing with the majority party (which he was likely to do regardless, but it’s much easier to make friends when you don’t attack them in a campaign). Also the selections of Elizabeth Warren and Tim Kaine in Massachusetts and Virginia made for an easier time flipping and holding those respective seats. Warren went on to be the top fundraiser in the Senate for the cycle and is the sort of liberal you want holding the seat of the late, great Ted Kennedy. Kaine made for a great race against Former Senator George Allen who’d been itching to regain his seat after losing it in 2006, one of the great upsets of that year.

But really, the crowning achievement for Democrats and Senator Murray this year had to be the selection of Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota. After I read that Senator Conrad was stepping down I thought for certain we had lost the seat just then, even telling Brian as much. In 2010 we lost the seat of Earl Pomeroy in the House and then Governor John Hoeven easily took the seat of retiring Sen. Byron Dorgan; we currently have no statewide elected officials and no majorities in either chamber of the State House. Congressman Rick Berg announced for the Senate seat and it seemed like a sure win, but then Heidi Heitkamp, former Attorney General of the state, jumped into the race. At first it seemed like Heitkamp was toast, she was a former elected and likely not well remembered and didn’t have much money and got a late start. However, for those who did remember her, her exit from the 200 governors race, in which she left the campaign to fight cancer, may have bought some extra good will. But Heitkamp built up her organization (an impressive one that needs more inspection) and got help from the DSCC early in the game, enough so to help her cross the finish line ahead of Congressman Berg, effectively ending his career, for the moment.

Not mentioned at all in my post is Senator Jon Tester and his win in Montana. Tester withstood a strong challenge From Congressman Denny Rehberg. Brian and I were always a bit more confident in Tester than some of the other names mentioned already in this post. Tester and Rehberg ran neck and neck in poll after poll and it looked dicey, but he was able to emerge victorious, retaining both seats for Team Blue in Big Sky Country.

For maintaining the majority and expanding it, and for recruiting great candidates for their seats, Patty Murray had the best election year in Washington and deserves our thanks…I shudder to think what a Republican-led Senate would do.