How Archie Parnell Ran the Best Democratic Campaign of 2017

Archie who, you ask? Exactly.
By BILL SCHER June 21, 2017

He didn’t build a nationwide army of liberal small donors. He didn’t brandish any weaponry. He had no experience in elective politics. Yet out of the four Democrats nominated in U.S. House special elections this year, Archie Parnell came the closest to snagging a Republican-held seat.

Haven’t heard of Archie Parnell? That may be because he never got the kind of national media attention of Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, the boy wonder of the Atlanta suburbs, or Rob Quist, the singing cowboy of Montana. Even James Thompson, who lost a surprisingly close Kansas House race in April, got more ink.


But it’s Parnell, the mild-mannered, globetrotting tax attorney from Sumter, South Carolina, who came closest to shocking the political system—falling just 3.2 percentage points and 2,836 votes short on Tuesday night. And he did it on the cheap. While Ossoff spent $30 million to lose the most expensive House race in history, Parnell reported spending of slightly more than a half-million through the end of May.




How did Parnell almost get away with all that in the deep red South Carolina fifth congressional district? By laying low.
With all the attention on Ossoff, Parnell never got blitzed by a multi-million dollar attack campaign. He was not yoked to Nancy Pelosi. He was not accused of being in league with Kathy Griffin and the congressional shooter.

When some progressives lambasted the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for abandoning Thompson in Kansas, a party official defended staying out on the grounds that it would be “extremely damaging” to make the race “nationalized.” The timidity was widely mocked. Slate’s Jim Newell concluded, “it doesn’t say much good about your party’s health if this ridiculous strategy is the consensus approach.” But Parnell’s near-miss suggests the DCCC, which quietly chipped in $275,000 to the South Carolina special, was on to something.


http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/21/archie-parnell-2017-campaign-215290