A few months ago, Six-PAC said we'd do two things:
1. Explain that state races are important to every single one of us. It's about the bench team, about changing the playing field for Congress, about policy waves, about momentum. (The longer explanation is here). And we're going to keep shouting about it till we're blue in the face -- or at least until more states take on that same bluish tinge.
2. Explain which state races are the closest and most critical -- so we can focus resources where a little support does the most good. We chose six candidates, then swapped in another two as it came down to the wire.
So did we get it right?
You bet we did.
We have new Democratic governors in New Jersey and Virginia. Our small (but growing) band of nascent state political junkies didn't have much to do with these big-ticket races, true. But we've proven that the Six-PAC model works. Now we need you to help us spread the word.
We gave you eight races to watch. From the returns thus far (some ballots are still trickling in), we know:
* The Democratic candidates we supported won in at least four of the races we endorsed: new House of Delagates members David Bulova, Dave Marsden, and Chuck Caputo were victorious in Virginia, as was new Assemblyman Nelson Albano in New Jersey.
By the way, Caputo's win comes at the expense of Chris Craddock, the right-wing extremist we profiled on Halloween. Craddock went down in convincing defeat. But even this relative rout was less than a 3,000 vote margin because statehouse districts tend to be small. These races are close.
So, "four out of eight?" you say. "That's not so hot." Well with all due respect, it is pretty hot. We picked eight of the closest races we could find in Virginia and New Jersey, and batting .500 in the most hotly contested races isn't half bad.
* All of our races were unbelievably close, with two of the apparent losses potentially headed for recounts due to skin-of-their-teeth GOP edges after the first count. The numbers are still in flux, but our top-billed race was perhaps the closest of them all: Creigh Deeds, running for Attorney General of Virginia, is less than 0.5% short with almost 2 million votes cast. Only a few thousand votes, at most, separated the candidates for this imprtant statewide office.
We were also especially gratified to see Eric Ferguson running so well in Southwestern Virginia, which has been Republican territory for too long now. Eric put together a brilliant race in the 9th district, but came up just a bit short against an entrenched incumbent.
In the end, we probably weren't big enough to really swing the pendulum on most of these races -- either the Dem victories or the losses. This was in essence our test run before 2006, to see if we could pick the right races and get the word out. We did our job with the picks. Now we need your help with that next step.
Which is why this is not a request for money. (Of course, if you really, really wanted to give...)
Instead, we need help gearing up for 2006. Picking the right races, setting up infrastructure in a whole bunch of new states, getting out the word. We were focusing on a few cities until now, but we're ready -- and rarin' -- to grow.
So if you think that it's a good idea to start building for the future right now, spread the word. Tell your friends and family, neighbors and colleagues. Let them know we're out there, and tell them to sign up at www.06pac.org if they're interested.
And thanks for all of your help so far.
The Six-PAC team
