The article does a good job talking about the evolution of the campaign and contrasting it with Ryun's. But it also acknowledges very key differences between 2004 and 2006.

1. The war that Boyda was attacked for opposing it turns out WAS a disaster after all. Dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars on an ad buy in 2004 that called Boyda a terrorist because she opposed the war . . . turns out . . . that was dumb in 04 (re-energized Boyda's base and made him look like the bully of a wife and mother) and again in 2006 (because she was right).
2. Again - 04 - not 06. The whole country is in a different place both politically and emotionally. We're not nearly as frightened as we use to be. People don't buy the "if you don't vote for me we'll all die" commercials any more.
3. And for the third time - 04 was not 06 - having John Kerry at the top of the ticket vs. a popular governor of the same party who emphesized local successes from her own leadership - also, big help.
4. Too - I don't know if you noticed but 04 was not 06 - 10million evangelicals didn't come out and vote and in fact the decline in the country easily attributed to an unpopular president of the opposing party equaled a huge decrease in turnout.

Why is it that no one mentions the numbers. The numbers are important.

In the election where Boyda lost by 16 points we had 294,436 come out and vote. In the previous election (2002) where Kathleen Sebelius was running for the first time there was a turnout of 208,718. And in 2006 = 220,867.

In 2004 Nancy lost by 16 points and got 120k votes. In 06 she won by 111k votes. Comparably Ryun's votes changed by over 60,000 votes.

A lot of things changed in Boyda's campaign strategy but some other things happened in terms of the state party's strategy. In 2002 Sebelius ran her own $4million campaign where her operatives designed a field campaign to GOTV all of her targeted votes. 2004 was the first time the KDP tried a coordinated campaign that didn't include all that much coordination. In 2006 everyone was working together. Progressive PACs, the democratic caucuses, two major state wide campaigns, and three US House races.

The Advanced Ballots turned into more than the suggestion they were in 2004 to a movement in 2006, and every democrat who voted early was recruited to work E-Day. This is how operations should work and have worked in most states that run coordinated efforts. The state party woke up.

Back to Boyda. After her loss in 2004 most of us in the district saw her at our county party meetings talking about her new found love. George Lakoff. While I'll admit I still have never read Lakoff's book, re"spinning" the issues is an important start. But Lakoff is only part of the equation. Add to that a consistent delivery of the same message, as well as delivering the message in a way that is most comfortable for people to hear is how you get them to actually HEAR what you're saying.

C&E says its well when they attacked Ryun's operations

The Ryun camp "locked in a strategic plan that did not respond well to changing circumstances on the ground or to an opponent who seems to possess an en exhaustible supply of energy."

I don't know about Boyda's energy levels but Ryun's inability to change things as situations changed is a notable flaw we see in campaigns. The plan is devised months in advance - we'll do X, Y, and Z - we'll run these ads - attack on these issues, blah blah... Boyda changed her strategy every month - Ryun stayed the course. While it might be disorganized and a little erratic - rethinking and retooling your operation while staying consistent with your message makes for an up to date operation that can deal with more specific issues.

A few months ago also in C&E Mag they did a wrap up of the 2006 cycle looking at a number of races. One of which was an over hyped, top target, democratic challenger who got all the Washington help and money anyone could ever want. The opponent (the incumbent) responded to the challenge by going more local and dealing with very specific small issues that his federal office had little to nothing to do with. But his connection to the people in his district inoculated him from being labeled along with the other Washington DC Republicans.

Boyda did things differently - I won't dispute that. But she did them in a local way. They call it grassroots but I think its a mischaracterization of just a more local campaign mix in with a grassroots operation.

Ryun's mistake was not inoculating himself against every label Boyda could give him. Certainly by not being more localize. In fact - he screwed up by playing into every single one. And as he continued to screw up, the Boyda operation must have seen the trajectory he was headed on. My guess is they kept their head down and stayed true to their own campaign while watching Ryun dig his own grave.

Boyda never needed to inoculate herself. The issues that Ryun hit her on in 2004 - the protesting and being a carpetbagger worked - but they couldn't in 2006 because as it turns out - she really wasn't a carpetbagger and God love her for protesting a war that has lost over 3,300 of our children and more money than you can shake a stick at.

In a way - this was Ryun's race to lose and boy did he lose it. And while Boyda's plan was unique and certainly outside the box she never made the mistakes that Ryun did.

Boyda says it best when she acknowledges that there was a tidal wave in this country and that they rode the wave and ran their own show. I think when you're a target race and you have everyone helping you and all the money you could need and IE's out the wazoo it makes things easier. But for races that are harder like Boyda's you have to be more creative and think outside the box for new ideas and different ways to do things.

The real test will be to see if Boyda can keep from going Washington - something I hear many think happened the second she stepped off the plane and gaffed on ABC News but I hope the blowback brought her back to reality.

If the opponent is Ryun in 2008 I think Boyda wins. I think his campaign showed all the flaws that people have said about him for years and more people realized that they've been speaking the truth. Now if its Lynn - that's gonna be tough. Because Lynn takes away Boyda's best characteristics: wife, mother, local political figure, moderate and essentially makes them equals. But if its Ryun, as I assume it will be because the KS-GOP is run by the right wing arm of the republican party, then Boyda's only job is to show how she has done more in her first 6 months than Ryun did in 10 years.

end result... Kansas keeps a Representative who is working for their interests.