cellini's Diaryland Diary

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Lovely News

My friend, C. formally announced yesterday that he is running for Governor. YES! He lost a race for Attorney General by 300 some votes 2 years ago. The narrowest race in this state's history. We've been itching for another fight for a state-wide office ever since.

So my break from politics this past year is officially over. I'm back on a Democratic Party Committee (though fortunately not as an officer this time) and I've already volunteered to take responsibility for my candidate's signature drive in this Congressional District (you need a certain number of signatures to get on the ballot for the primary).

C. sent me a very kind email this morning about a piece of legislation that I suggested a few months ago. It seems that since we just took control of the state Senate last month, he's taking another stab at getting it done. He also apparently finds time to read my blog (not this diary - my blog under my real name).

I'm acting as his volunteer attack dog online right now. Tearing into the guy who will probably run against him for the nomination and hopefully weakening him to the point where he will reconsider whether he even wants to run. Not personal attacks per se. Just laying out exactly why this other guy doesn't have a prayer of winning in the general election and convincing enough bloggers, political consultants and journalists to make my take on it into the Conventional Wisdom. I want all the big money guys to hear my opinions from so many different directions that they withhold donations from the other guy, causing him to wither on the vine.

It is no exaggeration to say that I am really fucking good at what I do for my candidates. My goal every time is to mold the opinions of a relative handful of politically important people in order to influence media coverage and the decisions of other politicians. I inject ideas into the political mainstream both on a state and federal level and I do so undetected. Now only someone would actually pay me for this unique service then I would be very happy indeed.

Simultaneously I'm working on something for the Senator whom I busted ass for to get elected last year. I ran his signature drive in this CD and gave speeches and shit for him in the primary and then lined up gun voters for him in the general election. Hint - this was the surprise victory that handed control of the US Senate to the Democrats. Anyway, literally since the day after he won election I've been working on turning him into the favored pick for Vice President. And it's actually working.

If and when C wins this election for Governor, I may call in political favors for the first time. I've never really done that - I fight primarily for my candidate and what he or she stands for rather than for my personal gain. But if he wins, that will dramatically increase the odds that I will run for a seat in the state House. Because I could likely get his endorsement and his help with fundraising.

I have a really crafty idea. My district's House seat is held by an incumbent Republican who is well-entrenched. The district has trended majority Democrat in other races but this guy hangs in because he's an incumbent. He's so well-entrenched that this past November, he went unopposed. Nobody even wanted the Democratic nomination. Now, if this was an open seat then things would change. A half-way decent Democratic nominee would be heavily favored to win it given the changed demographics. All kinds of locally heavy hitters would want in on that and it would be a tough primary field for me.

C. is currently the State Senator representing this area. If he wins his race for Governor then that seat opens up. Odds are pretty good that the Republican House rep. would jump at the chance to try to move up to the Senate and would run for that. The elections for state House and Senate are at the same time and he basically can't run for both. So this guy would have to open up the House seat in order to run for Senate. And suddenly the odds of a Democratic pickup become very, very favorable and everyone with a D next to his name comes out of the woodwork to pursue the nomination.

So, here is what I should do. Announce my intention to run for the House very soon. In the next 6 months. Well before that 2009 election and before most people have done the math and realized that this nomination is suddenly worth having. Do waaay more work than is really necessary. Go to every Democratic party leader and donor and make a big thing about asking for and receiving their promises of support. Which they will easily give since nobody else wants the nomination. Do whatever is possible to put those leaders in a spot where they declare their support publicly. So that when the shit hits the fan and the seat opens up, I've already got the whole district's political establishment lined up behind me and they would look really bad for switching sides to support some more established local politician (Board of Supervisors member, etc.).

Yeah. This is a good plan.

Part 2 is to do everything possible to goad this incumbent into giving up his seat to run for state Senate. I'd wait on that until I already have the Democratic institutional support behind me. Even a bit of buzz would bring some competition sniffing around and I don't want that. But when the time is right and I have my support in place, I'd manufacture some online buzz about how this Republican should run for the open state Senate seat and get a bunch of Republican bloggers in a tizzy about it. This would prompt local political columnists to start writing about 'the speculation' and then the game is afoot. At that point my target would get asked about it by a reporter and thus begin to seriously consider the move. I wonder if I could anonymously start a 'draft so-and-so' movement? Sow the seeds for grassroots work to get him in that race.

1:43 p.m. - 2007-12-14

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