If you want to get an insider’s view on how one underfunded Democratic congressional candidate beat the insiders’ handpicked contender and then went on to beat her Republican incumbent opponent, check out this diary on Daily Kos. Its author, who worked with Carol Shea-Porter as the second person besides the campaign manager hired on the campaign, writes that they “had a unique, and as history will note, a brilliant strategy to build a massive grass roots network. It was based on the book “The Tipping Point’ by Malcome [sic] Gladwell, which is not a book about politics but about how trends spread through culture.”
And it’s clear from his account that there several tipping points to Shea-Porter’s campaign. Probably most important: the moment when the DCCC endorsed her Democratic primary opponent, which angered NH Democrats for the intrusion in their internal process.
“So many viewed the DCCC endorsement as simply them endorsing the candidate with the largest war chest. While that view might be to some degree practical it is morally bankrupt and undermines democracy itself. Beating back this its-all-about-the-money approach to politics energized out volunteers. This became more than how a campaign develops a winning internal culture.”
Worth reading the whole thing.