9th Representative District-Dick Cathcart, House Minority Leader
Democratic insiders will tell you that no one ran a more disappointing 2008 campaign than Becky Walker against Dick Cathcart. Her entire campaign should be a case study on how not to take a second run at somebody. OK, you’ve convinced him, El Somnambulo will provide a brief case study on why Walker failed to win.
1. You must keep running. When you lose a competitive campaign the first time out, you must keep running for election if you really are serious about winning. That means showing up at civic association meetings, being visible in the District, having the occasional campaign event to keep the volunteers stoked, raising money for next time. Both Earl Jacques and, to a lesser extent, Mike Barbieri followed this time-honored path to second-chance victories in 2008. There are an awful lot of others that ‘bulo could cite from over the past 20 years or so, but he respects his readership to understand that continuing to campaign makes a lot more sense than not continuing to campaign. Sadly, Becky Walker either did not understand or, more likely, chose not to take that path.
2. You must use everything you accumulated first time around. Even if you ignore Point #1, you should have several advantages that first-time candidates don’t. The most important of these should be a canvassing list of people who supported you last time. This should be your first resource for volunteers, sign locations, and proxies for the campaign. You should also have a list of your financial contributors so that you can build your war chest early. The Beast Who Slumbers knows that Walker did not make optimal use of resources from the first time, caused in part by failure to do a great job of keeping good notes from the first time around.
3. Like the first time, you must examine your situation and ask yourself whether the time is right to run. Any prospective candidate must ask themselves whether the time is right (a) with your family situation and (b) with your employment situation. If the answer to either is no, then the time simply isn’t right. If answers to both are ‘yes’, then they must honestly ask and answer the question do they have the fire in the belly? If the answer is no, no harm and no foul, the time is just not right. Becky Walker’s work situation was so demanding that, in hindsight, there was no way that she would have had enough time to do sufficient outreach to the voters.
In spite of these failures, she almost took out Dick Cathcart twice. In 2006, she got 46.5% against Cathcart. In 2008, her woeful campaign still yielded 46.2%.
The numbers in the 9th District heavily favor the Democrats. 8156 D’s, 6396 R’s, and 4517 I’s. The District has experienced some of the heaviest growth in the State in the Middletown-Odessa area; that growth has boosted the Democratic numbers; and these are largely people new to the area and not loyal to Cathcart or the Republicans. Here’s the map.
Now, let’s look at Cathcart himself. A well-connected Republican has told El Somnambulo that he believes Cathcart will retire. While ‘bulo is skeptical and expects him to run for at least one more term, he could well understand why Cathcart would pack it in. Cathcart was born in 1944, so he’s already 64 years old. He will be about a week shy of his 66th birthday come Election Day, 2010. Cathcart is politically astute, and he realizes that ‘the trend is not his friend‘, that the numbers in his district can only get worse. He also appears to subscribe to the ‘bulo Philosophy of Exercising, aka ‘it’ll kill ya’, and will not be able to campaign nearly as vigorously as a younger challenger, although some women admire a manly ‘pear-shape’.
Cathcart has at least one other major potential issue, his job, which is, according to his legislative profile: Associate Vice President of University Operations, Delaware State University.
Just read that job title and ask yourself, is there any way that this is not a euphemism for what he appears to be?: “Bagman-Delaware State University”. BTW, El Somnambulo has it on good authority that Cathcart’s life ambition is to rise to the level of Assistant Vice President of University Operations, Delaware State University. Or is that the job that former Rep. Nancy Wagner already has there? Somehow ‘bag man’ seems more respectable than ‘bag lady’, but ‘bulo digresses.
This job should have been a major issue in 2008, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be front and center in 2010, if Cathcart runs. People hate double-dipping, especially now. State employees really hate it when they see this as their friends are getting laid off. Cathcart is by no means the only offender, and there are plenty of double-dipping D’s, but he happens to be the guy in the crosshairs of this article.
The key to winning this race is simple, but with one potential pitfall. Candidate recruitment. Identify prospective candidates early and settle on one and rally around them. The candidate would ideally be from the ‘new school’, someone with a good handle on the development issues overrunning the district, and someone who can relate to all the new residents.
The potential pitfall is that would-be old school powerbrokers Chris Roberts and Stephanie Hansen might try to impose their will on the selection process. They have meddled like crazy in recent elections, and it’s clear that Chris yearns for a Tom Gordon-like resurrection (return from, at best, ethical purgatory). Come to think of it, El Somnambulo hopes that Chris Roberts has a Gordon-like resurrection as well…
If Democrats don’t get in the way of themselves, this seat will flip in 2010.