From the "Me too" file…

Tom Schaller, guest blogging at The Carpetbagger Report…

I actually think both Dean and Emanuel can be right—that it is not a mutually-exclusive choice. To explain:

As I understand it, Dean’s 50-state strategy calls for a minimum floor in each state which will essentially prevent the Democrats from (a) ever being caught totally unprepared and unarmed if, suddenly, a death or scandal or retirement provides a great opportunity; (b) having to reinvent the wheel every two years by having a semi-permanent staff—or at least a rotating permanent staff, with institutional memory and data and contacts and experience passed along—so that the party does not have to suffer the inefficiencies of starting anew each cycle.

This makes perfect sense. Dean is calling for a mininum floor, not an overhead ceiling. If, on the other hand, he were calling for an equal distribution of DNC resources—or worse, a proportional, population-based distribution of resources—I’d be the first respond by calling for him to get a CAT-scan.

Meanwhile, Emanuel is right, too: A party concentrates its resources based on its best risk-reward assessment of the present state of play. Will that mean sometimes dumping money into what turns out to be a lost cause (think Babbit’s run against Renzi in 2004) or, conversely, missing what could have been a great opportunity (think Gore in Ohio in 2000)? Of course. But if Ike had decided to distribute our troops evenly across every inch of the French coast, rather than concentrating on Normandy, we might all be speaking German right now. You target as best you can, work hard, and hope most of the breaks go your way. That’s applying the basics of game theory to modern politics, and we need more of that kind of thinking.

Different approaches for different jobs, maybe, but a common purpose. We've got lots to do. Lots of different things, in different ways, by different folks. That's why we have a DNC and a DcCC and a DSCC.

Of course, they all need and deserve our support. That's why all of the above are on the Upper Left ActBlue page.