Burnt Orange Report

As a Waco-area Democrat I have to think that a big part of why he won was that the Republicans nominated the most unappealing and shrill extremist candidate they possibly could have. I think if they had chosen a moderate "friendly" Republican from the Waco area they would have taken the seat. But Wohlgemuth just did not wear very well outside her home area of Johnson County.

To a large extent that's true. Wohlgemuth just was not someone that the middle could get behind. The bigger point, though, is that Republicans don't want more "friendly" Republicans to win seats.

Just a quick look at the Arlen Specter case right after the election and we can see that Republicans don't want moderates. When Specter said he wasn't going to approve activist judges who would legislate from the bench on abortion, he almost lost his chair for the Judiciary committee. Not one Republican came to his aid. The only people who said anything in his defense were the likes of Josh Marshall.

The GOP wanted Wohlgemuth in that seat, or someone like her who would have been a rubber stamp. Instead of fielding a more appealing candidate, they just redistricted to make it easier for them to elect her. Even that didn't work. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Tom DeLay still thinks we need to consider redistricting to "accurately reflect" the political makeup of Texas.

What DeLay probably has not counted on, is that Edwards is now celebrity for surviving. He's going to be on Paula Zahn tonight, and don't think he won't be on other shows talking about Democratic values in the coming months. He might even parle it into running for the Senate seat everyone think Hutchinson is going to vacate.

Since I'm in his district, I'm definitely going to follow his adventures on my blog.

I would definitely get behind an Edwards for Senate campaign.

The other mistake the Republicans made was nominating someone from the fringe edge of the district. As Tip O'Neal famously said, "all politics are local" and Chet was the local boy from McLennan Co., the largest population center in the district. What I think this election showed was that one of the only thing that trumps ideology is parochialism (did I spell that right?), especially in these more rural areas. The "home town boy" is always going to have a built-in advantage regardless of any other factors, and Edwards was the home-town candidate for a much larger percentage of voters than Wohlgemuth.

I also have to think that being an Aggie couldn't have hurt him in the College Station area that was added to the district in place of Temple/Killeen. Again, when it comes to Aggie-land, being an Aggie was at least as good as being local, if not better. And Wohlgemuth's home was even farther from College Station than Waco.

I think what this shows is that it's not enough to just carve up the map to put a bunch of un-related Republican-leaning areas together into a district, you still need a candidate.

When Edwards talks about "putting the needs of your district first," he is right. He did that more than any other of the endangered Democrats, especially Charles Stenholm.

But when you look at it, Edwards is really the only Democrat whose population center wasn't significantly altered. Waco, his hometown, remained the heart of his district. Sandlin's hometown of Marshall was overshadowed by Tyler-Longview. Lampson's Beaumont was overshadowed by north Houston suburbs. Stenholm's Abilene was overshadowed by Lubbock. And Martin Frost's mid-cities were overtaken by Highland Park. Edwards clearly had a greater advantage over the other endangered Democrats, and he used it well.

There's no way he'd win a Senate seat in 2006, though.

Paula puts Chet on hold:

CNN Edwards profile up in air
From staff reports
Waco Tribune-Herald
12/03/04

The latest guess on when CNN's brief profile on U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, will air on "Paula Zahn Now" is 7 p.m. tonight.

But don't bet the House of Representatives on it.

The Edwards profile, focusing on his re-election victory in President Bush's home district, despite GOP-engineeered redistricting, was due to air Tuesday, then was rolled to Wednesday, only for a piece on Sen. John Edwards to air, not Rep. Edwards.

Edwards spokesman Josh Taylor says the congressman's office received numerous e-mails and phone calls from people wondering what happened to the scheduled Wednesday night broadcast of the piece.

Taylor said the Dallas-based CNN producer of the Edwards piece called the congressman to warn him about the delay on Tuesday but didn't warn of a similar postponement on Wednesday because the producer was undergoing eye surgery.

Now it's slated for Friday.

"Of course," Taylor said, "there are no guarantees."