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Top 10 Races

by Mike Lux

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Every year, there are certain political races that become really important symbolically and substantively in terms of the impact that an election cycle has on the country’s politics. In 1994, the fact that Republicans took out Speaker Foley and the giant presence of Gov. Cuomo added to the huge symbolic weight of their victory. In 1998, the fact that we took out both D’Amato and Faircloth, the two leading architects of the Whitewater investigation strategy for the Republicans, had a huge impact on the interpretation of that election. In 2004, Thune’s victory over Daschle became a symbol of the total GOP victory that year, and had a bigger impact on Capitol Hill politics than any Congressional or Senate election in years. In 2006, the stunning primary loss of Lieberman changed the way politicos in D.C. perceived the emerging progressive coalition. So far this year, the Donna Edwards primary landslide and the loss of Hastert’s seat in the special election have carried big weight among the chattering classes.
Even beyond these highest profile races, though, there are slightly less seismic races that matter in the nature of how politics is viewed and how power flows. In 2006, Jim Webb’s victory, fueled by the Macaca video, signaled an important new trend in politics. The combination of Webb, Tester, and Sherrod Brown winning victories on sharply populist themes created some real fear in corporate interests. Key committee chairs going down can change power dynamics dramatically, for good or bad, in Congress- for example, Pombo losing in 2006 made enviro members of Congress more aggressive.
So I thought it would be worth coming up with a list of the ten 10 most important races for this cycle outside of the Presidential. I factored in symbolic weight, elections that could bring people in who would be true progressive leaders, taking out especially bad conservatives, the importance of the race in terms of Presidential politics, the competitiveness of the race, potential longer-term importance (for example, beating George Allen and Rick Santorum last cycle took out two potentially strong Republican Presidential or VP candidates for 2008), and special reasons that might make media pundits and political insiders sit up and take notice
Supporting these folks now, will really help them show their strengths when the June 30 FEC filings are released.
Thanks for all that you do,
Mike