The power of incumbency - Keep donating

Several diaries have been written here and elsewhere on how well our fundraising is doing.  Friday there was a front page diary on the 50 most competitive House races and how 40 are Republican-held.  Last Tuesday at MyDD a diary mentioned that 51 of the 61 most competitive House seats are held by Republicans.  Great for us.  However, I don't think that we all fully appreciate the power of incumbency - it totally eliminates any fundraising advantage that a challenger may have.

Case in point:  In my district, Republican Tom Davis is going to coast to raising a couple million and could easily raise a couple more if he tried.  Challenger Andrew Hurst was broke after the June primary and had around 40-50k on hand by the June FEC filing deadline.  This is a district that is a reach for Democrats to pick up - but it's still doable.  Davis won in 2004 by a 60-40 margin against Ken Longmeyer - and Mr. Longmeyer didn't even jump into the race until June, barely raised 50-60k total the entire cycle, never really advertised, and had zero name recognition.  So the absolute bottom of the support for a generic Democrat in the district was 40%.  Hurst has been in the campaign since last 2005, has been tirelessly walking precincts and getting his name out there as best he can given his resources.  Additionally, Fairfax County which makes up much of the district is turning Bluer, and George Bush's approval ratings have fallen through the floor.  Even though the local media cannot cover Tom Davis without saying "Moderate Republican Tom Davis" or something similar, Davis's voting record is not moderate and a well-honed attack could generate a victory here in a tidal-wave sort of year for Democrats.

Davis didn't help himself when last week a front-page washington post story pointed out how corrupt heis - the way to get what you want from Davis is not to donate money to him, but hire his wife at a $80k salary for 10 hours per week as a "consultant."  (Also for you keen eyed folks - note how his wife is now his wife, but early in the washington post story was married to someone else and had kids... then Tom Davis starts being her "political mentor" and next thing you know... nice family values, eh?).  

However - today in my mailbox I got my first full-color glossy mailer from Mr. Davis.  You know the type, back and front nicely printed, full of glowing reasons to vote for Davis.  However, the mailer does not explicitly ask you to vote for Tom Davis.  The mailer just talks about how much Tom Davis has done to ease Northern Virginia traffic congestion... ironic given that he Opposes smart growth that would build up housing around metro stations because it may cause more Democrats to move into his district.  And the neatest thing of all - the note that this was prepared, printed, and mailed at taxpayer expense.  See - congresscritters can do that.  

So when you see your favorite challenger getting close or even surpassing a Republican incumbent in fundraising - realize that the Republican has gobs of free taxpayer cash at his/her disposal, so long as the mailer is just a positive story about what the incumbent has accomplished while in DC.  There is no such thing as a challenger who has enough campaign cash.  

-Fred