Burka: Winning is Bad for Democrats

BurkaBlog: Have House D's reached their high-water mark?

The allegedly "liberal media" in high gear ... Dems pick up seats in 2004, 2006, and now 2008. Clearly this is all bad news, we're told. The end result is that now, Democrats are likelier to lose seats in 2010 than to win a net gain. That's Burka's thesis in a nutshell. He breaks out some math, which I don't quibble with. But here are my objections:

* Burka makes a great deal about districts getting more Democratic in parallel to their gains in minority population. Ya know, because us white folk don't vote Dem, apparently. This fails to explain the fact that the majority of Dem gains in the State House are in suburban seats. True, some of those have had minority population growth as the leading indicator (HD149, for example). But this fails to define all of them (HD134 definitely ... and I'm willing to bet a little on Donna Howard's HD48). Even in districts that we aren't winning yet (Burka is fairly harsh on HD129), the fact that Democratic candidates are peeling off an additional 7-10% points is a rather telling point that maybe it's not just all about the demographic makeup. Someone get Burka a copy of Judis & Teixeira's "Emerging Democratic Majority" for Christmas. Please.

* Burka makes the following point about Democrats in Harris County not voting:

For all the talk about how important Harris County was, Democrats didn't seem to have their act together for phone banks and get out the vote. Democratic turnout on election day was pitiful.

Absolutely. Ignores. Reality. Turnout went up across the board. The gains among Dem-leaning demographics/geographics went up more than those for GOP-leans. The fact that we banked more of our vote early this time does not suggest that "GOTV stunk on E-day" ... it suggests we had our vote identified and "gotten out." The aim of GOTV isn't to merely wait until the last second ... it's to get out the vote. I mean, that's what the acronym stands for, doesn't it?

* Burka identifies three potential pickups for Dems in 2010 (one of which is enduring a recount right now), and lists eight vulnerable holds for same. I don't quarrel with either identification. But we went into this cycle with more seats to defend than hold, so what makes 2010 inherently more of a challenge? In fact, some of those on the list going into 2008 aren't on Burka's list for 2010. That's an indicator of some intrinsic strength of the party brand that Burka might be missing out on in his lunch discussions with GOP consultants.

Kuff, Phil Martin, and Bill Kelly joust with Burka in the comments. They're all worthwhile reading.