The American Prospect has a piece about netroots darling Darcy Burner. Burner lost the WA-8 race in '06 and '08 by almost identical margins, even though she received large donations from Act Blue, the netroots donation aggregator, and was mentioned constantly on the big netroots blogs.
Burner's race is an good study for those interested in the NY-29 race. WA-8 has a PVI of D+2, compared to NY-29's R+5, so Burner should have had an easier win than Massa.
Reading the piece, it's clear that Burner lost for three reasons:
1. She had a better opponent.
According to the Prospect, Burner's opponent, Dave Reichert, was able to escape being painted as a Bush loyalist:
Against Burner, Reichert ran toward the center. He distanced himself from George W. Bush, touted his (limited) bipartisan accomplishments, and plugged his efforts to help restructure the Federal Emergency Management Agency after its failures during Hurricane Katrina.
In the 2008 race, Randy Kuhl was closely tied to Bush, and had no independent accomplishments to tout.
2. She was perceived as being too far under the netroots' thumb.
Burner's campaign had to walk back this reasonable comment from a campaign spokesman after some influential netroots sites complained:
"[The netroots are] not at the point yet where they can really swing a race. Part of my job is making sure people know the blogosphere is not the campaign."
The Burner campaign didn't fire that spokesman, as was demanded by bloggers, but they did distance themselves from his statement. Their quick reaction to netroots criticism, and the differences between Burner's online and real-world rhetoric, caused the local press to make her netroots affiliations an issue.
One of the guiding principles of netroots activism is that electing a conservative Democrat in a Republican district is a win, but Democrats in districts that "ought to be Democratic" should be outspoken progressives. This allowed Eric Massa to collect netroots donations without being called to task for some of his conservative positions.
The notion that a D+2 district "ought to be Democratic" is probably at the root of this whole problem. A strong Republican incumbent can often beat a Democrat in a district that just leans slightly Democratic.
3. She was the target of an effective smear campaign.
Burner's slight mis-statement about her Harvard degree was spun into a major issue by the Reichert campaign.
Massa's win this cycle was a delicate thing, and the Burner story shows how it could have easily gone the other way if only a few things were different.