Grossman, a committed and pragmatic progressive, says this with a twinkle in his eye...and then launches into the heart of his analysis. "The DCCC has traditionally done targeting in such a narrowly focused manner, targeting and fully funding so few races, that the Democrats would have to draw an inside straight to take back the House...pretty much taking every seat they contest. On the other hand, and in part in response to this narrow point of view, the netroots has tended to choose races as if resources and political capital were in endless supply. Too often, there's been heartbreak at the end of the rainbow for the netroots...dollars, sweat and tears have run up against races where, truth be told, we didn't really have a chance. There's a middle path."
Joshua's middle path comes out of his background as a political demographer and consultant. His website, Progressive Punch.org is a well-known online resource for evaluating congressional voting records using a progressive yardstick. At the core of Joshua's analysis is this precept: the first factor to look at when we consider the pool of races to consider for targeting is the districts themselves...