mikemcgann.org

It’s morning and the votes are being recounted and lawyers are everywhere.

So what went right? Joe Sestak’s excellent campaign turned what looked into a single-digit win into a blow out. Even without the announcement of the Curt Weldon investigation by the FBI, Sestak looked to be right there, based on polling. Weldon’s baggage got to be too much and Sestak was just too good a candidate for the people of the 7th to pass on.

Patrick Murphy, it appears, won a close fight over Mike Fitzpatrick, as I predicted Monday, although by a slimmer margin than I expected.
On the statewide races, I expected solid win, not the blowouts by Ed Rendell and Bob Casey, Jr. Both numbers suggest GOP turnout issues, which should have helped a couple of other races.

Brian Lentz’ win over Tom Gannon for the state house in the 161st is a big win for Democrats and shows the Democratic wave continues it’s move westward. Even in the 160th, where I ran in 2004, Shawn Diggory put up better numbers than I did this year, showing an increased vulnerability, which means that seat has one or two cycles before it should flip.  What should be more entertaining, though, I’m told, is that Steve Barrar is seriously thinking about running for the 7th CD seat — I’ll pause for a moment to allow you to finish laughing and to clean up whatever it was you just spit out on your computer screen. Better, now? Okay, anyhow, Barrar for Congress is my personal dream come true — basically, the Showgirls of politics, awful but so compellingly so, that you have to watch.

Mike Veon’s loss — knocking off the Democrats’ no. 2 man in the state house — is probably good for the Democrats, long term. Better, of course, would have been the defeat of both Veon and Bill DeWeese, who appears to have narrowly kept his seat. Without new, and non-corrupt leadership.

What went wrong: Two words — Lois Murphy. Exactly as a I forecast Monday, she lost another close election. Why? Once again, she got crushed in Chester County — in some part, a self-inflicted wound. Sources within the Democratic Party tell me that GOTV resources were moved from her campaign to Sestak’s when her field director failed to respond to numerous offers of help. All year, for the second straight cycle, her staff didn’t play well with others, failed to engage the local Democratic worker base and ignored counsel from people who knew the turf.

As of this writing, Barbara McIlivane Smith trails Shannon Royer by 19 votes and there’s some question about changes in vote numbers, in favor of Royer, in at least one West Chester precinct. Anne Crowley lost by less than 200 votes…despite running an outstanding race. While the local Chester County organization deserves some blame, DeWeese also has to shoulder blame here, forced both Smith and Crowley to stay away from the pay raise issue or lose HDCC funding. That handcuffed the ability of both candidates to run as reformers, which might have made the difference.

So what conclusions should we take from these numbers?

While Delaware County rode the wave and made big gains, the wildly dysfunctional Chester County Democrats couldn’t even tread water. The loss in the 6th District is probably the most galling — based on how races went elsewhere in the region, this race shouldn’t have been a loss. Once again, Chester County was a black hole — and the county party’s ground game was lousy. While there are some people who are good at raising money and getting things organized within the party, there is a lack of overall strategic ability and zero media ability.

Worse, when it comes to the state house races, no one was there to pick up the pay raise issue. When I planned to run for county chair myself in the early spring, I pointed out the holes in both those areas, that the party needed an attack dog as chair. Michele Vaughn, who ultimately won the chair election was little more than a yappy Pomeranian.

In short, there’s no excuse for losing these three races and I lay a lot of the blame on the Chester County Democratic Party. Without major changes, you can expect the same pattern to continue next year during the race for county commissioner.

Voting was a bit of mess, with many people finding the new optical scanner system used in my precinct confusion and uncomfortable. At least, though, it has a paper trail. So, I’ll reserve judgment. Maybe the better news is that the election fraud looks to have been pretty close to equal on both sides. That’s good news for our democracy.