What Have We Learned From Our Special Elections: CA-48, CA-50, TX-28 and One State Race?

What have we, as individual activists, staffers, bloggers and campaigners learned from the Special Elections of 2005's CA-48 and 2006's TX-28, CA-50 and CA State Senate District 35? Or have we learned anything that can be applied to the future?

First an update as of 1:44pm PDT 4.11.06:

Francine Busby took the Primary with a huge lead. Her result= 43.92%
Her nearest challenger was at 15.15%
It took the top 5 Republican challengers together to beat her result and then it would have been only by 2.93%.
Turnout was weak as expected except in one place: Absentee Ballots.
While the General will be different as she faces only one Republican and the Opposistion can unite, she still has a commanding lead.

The balance of this article is about the things we may have learned from all of these races.

In CA-48 in 2005 the eventual winner John Campbell won strictly on absentee ballots. He spent $450,000 mailing just 40,000 households 11 times to ask that they request absentee ballots. $450,000. An amazing number. He beat the Democrat Steve Young strictly based on that effort. Did you know Campbell, who now sits in Washington came in last in precinct voting? That's right, last!

In TX-28 Ciro Rodriguez lost by 3% and I've been unable to determine the Absentee Impact as it was gerrymandered over three counties at least. But 3%!

In CA-50 Primary: There are 110,000 Absentee Voters Registered. 59% of them sent in their ballot before election day. Another 10,000 Absentee and Provisional Ballots were either at the Registrar's PO Box in the morning or dropped off at the precincts. According to Kathy at that office a few moments ago, approximately 70-80% of the 10,000 are Absentee Ballots that have to be counted by hand.

Therefore the Absentee Ballot population turned out at approximately 66%. The total 50th District turnout is unofficially at 36.19% as of today.

(Keep reading for the amazing turnout stats from the CA State Senate race from this last Tuesday.)

So look at the totally amazing difference in turnout in the Absentee Ballot Campaigns! Does this suggest any thing to any one who is running for office?
[stay with me on the flip]

Since the John Campbell Campaign in the 2005 CA-48th Special Election was so arrogant as to disclose their strategy in a front page story in the Orange County Register weeks before the election, I've studied the impact of Absentee Ballots on other races.

Now for the State Race: CA-State Senate District 35 is the seat vacated by John Campbell when he won the CA-48 Congressional. It is solidly Republican. Two Republican Candidates slugged it out. One, Diane Harkey tried to buy the race with her own money of $700K plus contributions and run a slick mailer campaign. A Californian Assemblyman Tom Harman (not the actor) ran on a thin budget augmented at the last second by mailers donated by outside sources of about 300K.
As of now, 10:25 AM 4.13.06 the outcome is in doubt.

Harman, the underdog it seemed, is leading the race by 289 votes with 650 Absentee Ballots left to be counted by hand. The result should be finished tomorrow or late today. Already the Harkey camp is talking about a 'recount'. Since Harkey sent over 40 mailings into the District I guess they can't imagine a loss.

But what's the real amazement? The overall turnout was 19%, really got everyone excited right? But of that 79% was generated by Absentee Balloting!

The Republicans figured out two facts over 15 years ago:
A. An Absentee Ballot voter, either Republican or Democrat, is an almost guaranteed vote.
B. An Absentee Ballot Voter takes one phone call, at the most two phone calls, as a GOTV effort. This lowers GOTV costs allowing those funds to be deployed elsewhere.

So the Republicans figured this out first. What did they do? With mechanical precision they have gone after their Holy Grail of a 100% Absentee Ballot Universe of Republican Voters. Their national leadership knows the importance of this goal and does their affiliated PAC and other organizations. All their campaigns know it and use it.

It is a formidable weapon. It beat Steve Young, a charismatic speaker, a qualified candidate....a man so powerful on a platform that a major So Cal Republican leader came to me after a debate and said, "You know, Stuart, if your boy was a Republican he'd take this race in a cake walk!" And he walked away smiling...happy that Steve was a Democrat instead. Steve lost by Absentee Ballots. The winner came in dead last in precinct voting.

And 79% of the vote in the CA State Senate Race came from Absentee Ballots! That's simply amazing!

So have all of us learned anything?

Are Absentee Ballot campaigns all like John Campbell's, expensive slick mailers? No.

You know what an Absentee Ballot Campaign at it's most basic looks like?

It's one person who stopped by an office, maybe the Registrar's or a Candidates, and picked up some forms, got a folding table, some homemade signs and sat down in front of a supermarket! That's an Absentee Ballot Campaign. She/he didn't need to ask any one's permission. They didn't need to sign a schedule. They just needed to do it.

You know what every campaign website should have? An Absentee Ballot request form built right in as a .PDF file so supporters can print it out and send it in. If your county won't allow that, frame in the county page with their absentee ballot request page so the supporter can go to their site and never leave yours.

Here's the real hard part.

We have over two and half years until we elect a new President. What if we all, as individuals, as Democats, as club members, as DFA members,as PDA members, as State Party Club members, as Bloggers, as activists, as staffers, as Candidates make it our priority to create more Democratic Absentee Ballot registrants than this country has ever seen?

What happens in 2008 then?

What if we don't ask for Party help? What if we don't as anyone's permission?  What if we just do it?

It's up to us. No excuses. It doesn't cost anything. We need no ones permission. It's simply up to us.

And imagine how powerful the results of thousands of us doing the same thing, when possible, for 2.5 years might be on Election Day 2008.