They’re all good ones, but #4 resonates:

No. 4: This one is for the Republican party: Run candidates in every legislative district, even if you have to put up the lame and the halt. That was how Tip O’Neill did it in the 1940s – he’d field Democrats in even the most Republican districts, getting the challenger’s name out and waiting for the GOP incumbent to retire or move on, at which point the Democrat would have more name recognition than the new Republican. Every cycle, Tip’s Dems picked off a few more GOP seats. The Democrats finally took over the Massachusetts House in 1946, and haven’t looked back. The other plus: Whenever a summer scandal breaks (think OUI, think young girlfriend working for lobbyist, think money-laundering scheme), the Republicans would already have a candidate in place to take advantage of the anti-incumbent vote.

#4, in fact, has resonance outside of Massachusetts. Frankly, that’s one of the reasons that we won LA-02: if we hadn’t had keeping running candidates there we would have never been able to take advantage of Jefferson’s weakness. Make ‘em work for it, and wait patiently for our chance to take the shot.  I also like Jules Crittenden’s #11/#1: having these people work part-time appeals on general principles.  The less time that they’re there, the less opportunities to spend money they’ll have.

Moe Lane

This would be the point where people tell me that Massachusetts is impossible to reform, impossible to repair, and impossible to flip. So we shouldn’t even think about trying, because we don’t have a chance in heck of doing anything useful.

Funny: that’s what they said about Louisiana.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.