It meant nothing of the sort. What it DID mean was this: You only nationalize Congressional elections when the environment is in your favor. Else, you make the race my guy (the 8-year incumbent who has done so much for this District) against your guy (about whom you know nothing).
If something happens in Washington which is good for your District then, by all means, shout from the rooftops what a huge leadership role your boss took in helping get the amendment adopted or the bill passed.
If something dreadful happens, shout from those same rooftops that your boss, having fought like Jean Valjean in the barricade scene in Les Misérables, is now limping through Statuary Hall, bloodied but unbowed, vowing to fight on every day against whatever it was that was in the bill which was going to cause your District to fall into the sea.
When I went to work in the US House back in '77, Democrats came into the post-Watergate 95th Congress with a veto-proof margin of 292-143. The Democrats had a majority (149 seats) larger than the entire GOP membership.
So, I know what it is like to be way, WAY in the minority as a GOP press secretary.
I might have just been a rube from Marietta, Ohio 45750 but I knew this: If I had anything to do with it, Rep. John Erlenborn was not going to lose his next election.
I did, and he didn't. |