Crowdsourcing the 50 State Strategy: Put down the pie

A movement is building here (and here and here and here and here ) on DKos to fix a major problem in our party --regardless of whether Hillary, Bernie, or Martin wins the Presidential nomination.

We have come together to achieve great things through crowdsourcing before on DKos: organized the first YearlyKos/Netroots Nation, brainstormed debate questions, op researched Republican candidates, drafted candidates, etc.

Will you join us in this effort?

The problem is a massive candidate recruiting failure that will result in many voters having no Democrat to choose when they go vote in November 2016.

One example of this recruiting failure is US House races:

• We need to pick up 30 seats to win back the House and actually have a shot at governing
• 34 of the 79 Republican Members of the House of Representatives who represent districts where President Obama got at least 47% of the vote currently are running unopposed
• 139 Republican Members of the House of Representatives currently have no Democrat running against them
• In many of the seats where we have candidates, those candidates do not have the resources currently to get their message out
• Ohio’s Congressional filing deadline is December 16, 2015 and currently 7 out of 12 Republicans in Ohio are running unopposed

But sadly the recruiting failure is often even worse at the state and local level. We don’t want people to experience what Steven D did which he wrote about in his Recommended Diary i.e. when he showed up to vote this November many of his local races in Upstate NY didn’t have a Democrat on the ballot. That is even sadder because many of those districts are small enough that door knocking, volunteers, and neighbor-to-neighbor communication can have much more impact than money alone.

We as a community can crowdsource our way out of this problem and ensure voters have meaningful choices when they go vote.

Can you put down the pie long enough to draft or recommend diaries on the following:

1. Candidate recruiting needs
2. Profiles on down ballot races where candidates are needed
   1. These could be organized by state or some other category like open seats or seats in districts where the median household income is below $39,000
   2. These could include ideas on where incumbents are vulnerable (votes they took at odds with their constituents needs, scandals, crazy statements, etc)
3. Filing procedures
4. To start a draft movement or report on draft movements

Join me below the fold for:

1. A list of resources I find useful or were recommended to me by crowdsourcing the 50 State Strategy expert BENAWU
2. My outline of the current situation in US House races in OH
   1. please add to or correct anything I get wrong
   2. please do your own versions for other states and/or for state and local races and post them on DKos and cross post them on state and local blogs for the areas you write about
3. A list of each states filing deadline