Funding California Challengers and Looking Forward

by Lucas O'Connor [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Last week I ran down the unused money from last year's unopposed and underopposed California members of Congress.  It was a long list. 22 districts held by Democrats fielded no Republican challenger who met a very low bar of fundraising legitimacy.  Really not impressive, but really not surprising either.  So what about the flipside?  How did Democrats do in going after Republicans?

Democrats left only one California seat unopposed, and failed to raise money in one other.  Of the 21 Republican-held seats, only 4 qualified as as unopposed or underopposed (challenger raising less than $25,000).  It suggests two things to me.  One, Democrats are already doing a pretty good job of funding candidates in red districts (although there's still room to improve of course), and two, that strong funding only goes so far given the way these districts are drawn.  So as I would be cautioning anyways, fundraising is only one piece of the puzzle.  It still takes the right candidate in the right context.

Warning: I get long-winded on the flip
Republicans held 21 districts going into the 2006 elections, and faced the following challenges by the dollars:

CA-02 Sekhon $193,582
CA-03 Durston $308,664
CA-04 Brown $1,711,967
CA-11 McNerney $2,461,329 (pickup)
CA-19 Cox $688,175
CA-21 Haze $152,530
CA-22 Beery $27,206
CA-24 Martinez $134,371
CA-25 Rodriguez $207,844
CA-26 Matthews $54,484
CA-40 Hoffman $143,706
CA-41 Contreras $0
CA-42 Unopposed
CA-43 Folkens $17,104
CA-44 Vandeberg $8,668
CA-45 Roth $725,020
CA-46 Brandt $77,764
CA-48 Young $435,083
CA-49 Criscenzo $90,050
CA-50 Busby $3,634,467
CA-52 Rinaldi $80,480

The infrastructure clearly exists to support a full slate of well-funded Democrats in California.  Indeed, on top of the above numbers was the more than $6 million that un- and under- challenged CA Dems had left over after last year.  That's a lot of Democratic money just at the congressional level ready to roll.  I bring this up primarily in the context of discussions that have taken place here at Calitics as well as in other corners of the Internet regarding the distribution of funds and the virtues of various plans to standardize said funds.

So at the risk of starting an actual conversation here, I'd like to throw open the floor to suggestions as to how best to harness this monetary strength.  I think it's great that there's so much money out there and that it's already being used to mount legitimate campaigns in tough Republican districts.  The capacity and the willingness to fight it out against long odds is already in place and that's encouraging.  So what's the next step?  How do we work to fill every district with a strong candidate who will use that money effectively?

Despite my track record of hearing crickets when I ask for feedback and suggestions, I think this is an open question that deserves a discussion (perhaps one that lasts all...weekend...).  California is a huge state and the manpower to investigate every race doesn't exist here.  Even if it did, the subjectivity would turn some people off.  So I think that instead it may be that, as a community (not just a community of Front Pagers), we should be identifying and seeking out relationships with pre-existing grassroots organizations in these districts where we, quite frankly, don't know much.

As has been discussed in several different forums, blogs serve several purposes.  Not least among these purposes is being a megaphone for the issues of existing grassroots organizations.  I know that members of Calitics have made and continue to make strides in reaching out to communities that may otherwise not be heard from online, and I'm encouraged by some of the progress that's been made in this regard.  My question to the readers in general though is how best to bring the insights of these groups into the collective wisdom of the site.

Put shortly for anyone who skimmed to the bottom: What candidates do we want, how do we find them, and how do we get the right money to them once it happens?  This isn't a new discussion, but it isn't one that's over either.