N.C. Controversy Reveals Perils of Reporting on Polls

By Stuart Rothenberg

One of the growing problems with political reporting is the explosion of polls and the tendency — particularly among local TV reporters and editors, cable TV hosts and bloggers — to report all of them as if they are equally reliable and newsworthy, and to draw dramatic conclusions from small subsamples and from statistically insignificant changes.

Polls receive so much attention that they become the focus of races — even if the actual races haven’t really started. This is true right now in North Carolina and Nevada, where Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) look weak in early surveys even though they have not drawn heavyweight opponents.

Recently, Republicans have started complaining long and hard about polling conducted this cycle by Public Policy Polling in the Tar Heel State. They note, quite correctly, that PPP is a Democratic polling firm and that too many reporters fail to note their partisan bent. GOP insiders also complain about the firm’s sample, arguing that it often is too urban and too Democratic, and that its surveys understate Burr’s strength and his prospects for re-election.

If readers don’t know that PPP is a Democratic firm, they are reading the wrong publications. At the Rothenberg Political Report, we’ve regarded PPP as a Democratic firm, and identified it as such, since it has been around. In February, Roll Call reporter John McArdle wrote a lengthy article about PPP, calling it “a Democratic firm based in Raleigh” and referring to the company’s “controversial” methodology. National Journal’s Hotline also identifies PPP as a Democratic firm, as does the News & Observer (Raleigh).

It’s true that some newspapers don’t always note PPP’s Democratic credentials — including the Charlotte Observer, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the News-Topic (Lenoir, N.C.) — but that’s not PPP’s fault. Obviously, any reporter who fails to note the firm’s partisan bent is making an error, and Republicans have a legitimate gripe with them.

GOP efforts to discredit PPP because it is a Democratic firm are a different story. Yes, it’s important to note the firm’s partisan connections, and it’s not unreasonable to be wary, at least initially, of its numbers. But the fact that the polling firm works for Democrats doesn’t make its poll numbers inherently flawed.

In fact, the handful of us who have been reporting on and handicapping House and Senate races for many years tend to believe that partisan pollsters generally produce more reliable numbers than colleges and some newspapers. The key, of course, is to get them to share those numbers and to discuss them free of spin.

I personally have been slow to give PPP’s surveys a lot of credibility because of its interactive voice response methodology. Pollsters who are relatively new to political polling need to prove that they have a successful track record before they deserve to be taken seriously, and I haven’t been convinced that PPP has met that standard.

But PPP’s polling in this year’s Virginia Democratic gubernatorial primary was good, and a pollster whom I respect highly tells me that the firm’s poll numbers in North Carolina last year were good, as well. So dismissing PPP’s data out of hand seems unwise.

PPP puts its polls up on its Web site, including the demographics of each survey, so anyone who is interested can view those data and evaluate the sample. Of course, many people who talk about polls don’t pay any attention to the mechanics of polling or to individual samples, but that’s part of the broader problem that I already mentioned.

Ironically, in reporting on the North Carolina controversy recently, Politico mistakenly treated a seriously flawed Republican “poll” as if it were a legitimate public opinion survey. The Hotline made the same mistake, proving that even careful, politically astute journalists can miss things.

Politico’s article on PPP refers to Burr consultant Paul Shumaker and a “survey” conducted by his firm, Carolina Strategy Group, which appears to show the Senator somewhat better positioned for re-election than does PPP’s polling.

The problem is that many of the questions in that particular “poll” are loaded, discrediting the entire survey and making it look much worse than PPP’s approach. (Interestingly, Republican strategists aren’t complaining about it — or Republican or Republican-leaning pollsters who also produce survey results that sometimes seem mind-bogglingly outlandish.)

For example, instead of asking a straight Congressional job approval question, Shumaker’s survey asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Congress is doing under the leadership of Senator Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi?”

National surveys increasingly show Pelosi is a divisive figure, so including a mention of her in the question could well distort the results about respondents’ attitudes about Congress. It could also poison the rest of the survey.

Two questions later, respondents are asked which Senate candidate, Burr or North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall (D), would “better serve the people of North Carolina as a check and balance on the policies of President Obama.”

That question is followed immediately by a straight ballot test between Burr and Marshall. Unfortunately, the results from this question — which showed Burr ahead 52 percent to 37 percent — have been polluted by the previous questions, two of which included the “check and balance” language.

Rather than whining about PPP, Republicans might want to try to set the record straight in North Carolina by releasing their own poll by a credible, full-time polling firm. That would go a long way to helping develop a more balanced, more thoughtful narrative about the race.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on June 29, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New Print Edition: Maryland 1 & Kansas Senate

The June 26, 2009 print edition of the Rothenberg Political Report is on its way to subscribers.

The print edition of the Report comes out every two weeks. Subscribers get in-depth analysis of the most competitive races in the country, as well as quarterly House and Senate ratings, and coverage of the gubernatorial races nationwide. To subscribe, simply click on the Google checkout button on the website or send a check.

Here is a brief preview of introduction to this edition:

Maryland 1: Shoring up the Base
By Nathan L. Gonzales

Abraham Lincoln was right: A house divided against itself cannot stand – at least not in Maryland’s 1st District.

Last cycle, Republicans suffered through a bitter primary that left incumbent Cong. Wayne Gilchrest in its wake. Gilchrest subsequently endorsed Queen Anne’s State’s Attorney Frank Kratovil (D) for the general election, helping Kratovil win in November over state Sen. Andy Harris (R).

Kratovil’s narrow victory and the fact that John McCain won the district by almost 20 points over Barack Obama virtually guarantee that the freshman congressman will be a target in 2010. Harris is running again, and has a new campaign team in tow, but Republicans may be facing another competitive primary.

While the Republicans get their ducks in a row, Kratovil is working to prove the independence he promised on the campaign trail. He’ll need to work hard and have a little help to keep enough Republicans on the Eastern Shore in his column if he wants to win a second term. Subscribers get the whole story in the print edition of the Report.

Kansas Senate: Degrees of Difference
By Nathan L. Gonzales

Who said President Obama doesn’t have the interests of Republicans at heart? When the president chose Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) to be his secretary of Health and Human Services, he took the Democrats’ best potential Senate candidate with him.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R) is abiding by his term limits pledge and exiting the Senate to run for governor —a race he is heavily favored to win.

Meanwhile Republican Congressmen Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt are battling for their party’s Senate nomination and essentially the seat now that Sebelius is out of the state and out of the picture. Subscribers get the whole story in the print edition of the Report.

Georgia Governor: Roy Barnes Hopes for a Successful Second Act

By Stuart Rothenberg

The last time I saw Roy Barnes was the day before Election Day in 2002. The Democrat was hobnobbing with CNN executives, reporters and producers in a hip Atlanta condo.

I’m not certain that Barnes, who was then governor of Georgia, knew that he was less than 24 hours from suffering a stunning re-election defeat. I know I was surprised, as were many others, including some Democrats who talked about Barnes as a presidential candidate in 2004.

Now, Barnes is ready to make another gubernatorial run, hoping that changed circumstances and a considerable dose of new-found humility will help him win a second term as Georgia’s chief executive.

Barnes’ defeat more than six years ago can be traced to his controversial decision to change the state flag, his alienation of state teachers and his inability to resolve the state’s transportation problems.

National Democratic strategists were euphoric at the news that Barnes wanted to make a comeback. The Democratic field without him was far from intimidating, and Barnes’ campaign skills and past fundraising success has most state political observers rating him the early favorite in the Democratic race. Polling substantiates that.

Also in the race is state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, state House Minority Leader DuBose Porter and Lt. Gen. David Poythress, a retired Georgia adjutant general who also served as secretary of state and state labor commissioner. But observers are skeptical that any of them can raise enough money to compete with the former governor.

Baker, who is black, would seem to be a formidable opponent in the primary. African-Americans, after all, account for more than 45 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, and Baker has not had a difficult race since he was appointed to his office in 1997 by then-Gov. Zell Miller (D).

But Baker has compiled a generally pro-business record, and he angered African- American leaders when he appealed a lower court decision that reduced the charge against and ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, a 17-year-old high school athlete who was convicted of felony aggravated child molestation for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a party. (The Georgia Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the 10-year sentence was “grossly disproportionate” and released Wilson.)

Unfortunately for Barnes, the primary is likely to be his easier challenge.

While the GOP field is not intimidating, the state has changed considerably since Barnes’ last campaign, and it is not to his advantage.

When Barnes was first elected governor, Democrats controlled both chambers of the state’s General Assembly and had won 14 of the previous 15 gubernatorial contests. But the GOP made considerable gains in the 2002 elections, and shortly after Election Day, a handful of Democrats switched parties to give the GOP a majority in the state Senate. Republicans won the Georgia House in 2004, the same year they captured a second U.S. Senate seat — putting two Republicans in the Senate for the first time since the passage of the 17th Amendment (which transferred Senators’ selection from the state legislatures to a popular election).

Georgia has now become a red state, with a Republican governor, two GOP Senators and solid Republican legislative majorities. Democrat Barack Obama drew 47 percent of the vote in last year’s presidential race.

Following the surprising exit of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle from the race, the frontrunners for the Republican nomination appear to be Rep. Nathan Deal and Secretary of State Karen Handel. State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and state Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson are regarded as long shots. Oxendine, who was first elected to his office in 1994, leads in some polling but has been dogged with ethics controversies and isn’t seen as the likely GOP nominee.

Observers see Deal as a more formidable general election candidate, though they agree that his service in Washington, D.C., may not be an asset given Congress’ image.

Handel, who earned a GED and worked in the nation’s capital for Hallmark Cards and later in the Bush-Quayle White House before moving to Georgia and being elected to the Fulton County Commission, is regarded as less prepared to stand toe-to-toe with Barnes in a debate.

Democrats hope that, while partisan trends in the state have worked against Barnes, the state’s current problems will work to his advantage. They note that the state’s economy is an albatross around the GOP’s neck, and Georgia Republicans have failed to deliver on their promises to deal with the state’s transportation problems.

Republican legislators recently cut $3 billion in spending, and party leaders may need to call a special legislative session to cut another $1 billion from the state’s budget.

Barnes’ prospects will depend on both the strength of the Republican nominee and the quality of the former governor’s campaign. Some observers are concerned that while Barnes talks of having changed his approach (by listening more to others) and promises to run a very different campaign than he did in 2002, he is surrounding himself with many of the same people who served him as governor and who worked for him in his last race.

Veteran consultant Ray Strother, for example, will come out of retirement to consult, while Chris Carpenter, who was deputy chief of staff during Barnes’ term as governor, will serve as campaign manager.

The state’s Republican bent means that Barnes starts off as an underdog. But depending on who wins the GOP nomination, how the state’s finances look 15 months from now, and whether Barnes can control himself and not sneer at his adversaries, the former governor may find himself with an opportunity to prove he has learned his lessons.


This column first appeared in Roll Call on June 25, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Florida Senate: Just What Is Marco Rubio Up to?

By Stuart Rothenberg

The GOP field in the 2010 Florida Senate race was supposed to clear quickly when Gov. Charlie Crist (R) announced his bid. But someone forget to tell former state Speaker Marco Rubio (R).

Most observers believe that Rubio, who jumped into the race before the governor, has little chance of wrestling the Republican nomination away from Crist. Even if that’s true (and I’m agnostic on that question at this point), there is still reason to keep an eye on the GOP contest.

Rubio, who turned 38 years old recently, began his career as a city commissioner for West Miami, eventually winning a seat in the Florida House during a 2000 special election. He was elected Speaker of the House for 2007 and 2008.

Rubio eyed a statewide bid for months, and insiders confirm that he initially intended on waiting to commit himself to a race until Crist revealed his plans. If Crist ran for re-election, Rubio would run for the Senate. If Crist switched to the Senate race, Rubio would run for governor.

But when Crist sat on his decision, Rubio jumped into the Senate contest, insisting that he was in the race no matter what Crist decided. (Rubio explained his decision by asserting that he couldn’t wait to finalize his plans, an assessment that few others share.)

Most observers doubted that the Miami-area Republican was serious. They believed that if Crist opted for the Senate, Rubio would run in the open gubernatorial race or possibly for state attorney general, depending on what Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) did.

But when the dominoes fell, McCollum was in the gubernatorial race, while Crist and Rubio were running for Senate. So, instead of coasting into the high-profile attorney general’s office, Rubio is now in a fight with the top state elected official of his party — and a man with a job-approval rating well over 60 percent.

Initial public polling in the Senate primary shows Crist over 50 percent and leading Rubio by more than 30 points. That’s a big problem for Rubio, considering that state voters aren’t traditionally all that interested in politics and the local media prefers covering crime, growth issues and tourism concerns rather than politics.

Geography is another problem for the former Speaker. His Miami base is not an asset in a primary or a general election, since the area is seen by voters in North Florida and in the crucial I-4 Corridor (from Tampa/St. Petersburg to Orlando and Daytona) as different from their own communities and interests.

Money is a challenge for Rubio. Florida is a large, expensive state that includes 10 media markets (including three extremely pricey ones), and Rubio must prove that he can raise enough money to run a credible campaign. He will be heavily outspent by the governor.

Pretty daunting, isn’t it? So what’s Rubio up to?

GOP insiders say the former Speaker is being encouraged to run by friends of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who like Rubio also believes that Crist was too quick to yield to state legislators about backtracking on some of Bush’s accomplishments.

Tensions in the state between Crist supporters and Bush loyalists haven’t been much of a secret, and allies of the former governor apparently have been happy to encourage Rubio’s Senate ambitions, hoping that even if he can’t win the nomination, Rubio can damage Crist’s reputation, thereby undermining his national ambitions.

Rubio’s opening salvo against Crist, a Web video, suggested that the former Florida Speaker hopes to make the 2010 contest into a referendum about both ideology and change, portraying the governor as a selfish politician who has put his own ambitions first and who would not be a reliable opponent of President Barack Obama on Capitol Hill.

“Some politicians support trillions in spending, borrowed money from China and the Middle East, mountains of debt for our children,” says an announcer shortly before a photograph of Crist and Obama comes into focus in the Rubio video. “Today, too many politicians embrace Washington’s same old broken ways ... ” continues the announcer, the photograph of the two men filling the screen.

“Movement conservatives” already call Crist “a squish,” so it wouldn’t be surprising to see plenty of them in the Sunshine State embrace Rubio. The question is how much the former Speaker can broaden his support. A recent endorsement from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is meaningless but reflects Rubio’s approach.

Supporters of Rubio talk about the primary as a national race, with the former Speaker appearing on Fox News and raising money nationally from conservatives. Rubio has already begun to court the Club for Growth, and knowledgeable sources tell me the club is “actively considering the race and Rubio’s candidacy.” Some observers see Rubio as trying to imitate then-Rep. Pat Toomey’s (R-Pa.) 2004 primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter, which became a cause célèbre for many on the right.

Some insiders whisper that Rubio expects to lose but is running statewide to establish himself for a future race, possibly the seat held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D) in 2012. That’s possible, but running for and winning election as Florida’s attorney general would seem to be a better way for Rubio to set himself up for a run for governor or the Senate.

“People thought initially that Marco wouldn’t even be a nuisance [to Crist],” said one Rubio supporter. “But that sentiment is starting to turn. They realize that his candidacy isn’t a sign of selfishness. Nobody thinks that running against the governor is the easiest road Marco Rubio could have taken.”



This column first appeared in Roll Call on June 22, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Ohio River Valley Lacks Competition

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Three years ago, the Ohio River Valley was the epicenter of the battle for control of Congress. But in just two election cycles, the long swath of Republican territory has moved from red to blue to virtually uncompetitive on the Congressional level.

Inspired by a spring 2006 column by Roll Call contributing writer Stuart Rothenberg, Roll Call alumni Chris Cillizza and Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post embarked on the “Ohio River Ramble” that fall, posting dispatches from nine contiguous and competitive districts that run from Evansville, Ind., to Wheeling, W.Va.

At the time, Republicans held seven of the nine districts, and George W. Bush carried all but one (Kentucky’s 3rd) in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. But the competitive nature of the races and the fact that the GOP was playing defense foreshadowed the Democratic tidal wave that was about to hit.

Now, Republicans control only two of the nine seats. And with few recruits and more limited resources, only one of the districts even looks competitive in 2010 at this point.

There has been plenty of attention paid to the extinction of House Republicans in the Northeast. But if the GOP is going to win back the majority anytime soon — as House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was the latest to predict — it’s difficult to see the party gaining 41 seats without making significant inroads in Middle America territory such as the Ohio River Valley.

Republicans are actively recruiting in Ohio’s 18th district, but the party has struggled to find a top-notch candidate ever since then-Rep. Bob Ney (R) pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges and left Congress under a cloud of scandal in November 2006. Rep. Zack Space (D), won the open-seat race to succeed Ney and then easily disposed of his little-known GOP opponent in 2008.

“Republicans aren’t going to take back the majority without this district,” one GOP operative said about Ohio’s 18th. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won there with 52 percent in 2008, and Bush won 57 percent in 2004 and 55 percent in 2000.

The Ohio River territory demonstrates that developing a list of targets is much more sophisticated than matching a district’s presidential preference against the current Member’s party identification. If it were that simple, Republicans would clearly have more opportunities to go on offense in the region, since McCain carried all but two of the nine districts — Ohio’s 1st and Kentucky’s 3rd.

Whether it’s the current political environment, the strength of the incumbent or the threat of losing the seat in two years because of reapportionment and redistricting, Republicans have simply come up empty in terms of recruiting in many of these districts. Currently, GOP strategists are most excited about the opportunity to reclaim Ohio’s 1st district, where President Barack Obama won by 11 points but former Rep. Steve Chabot (R) is running to reclaim the seat that he lost in 2008.

Chabot was one of the Republicans’ few success stories in the area in 2006, as he narrowly held on to win re-election.

In 2006, Democrats won four of the seven GOP-held seats in the region as part of their 30-seat pickup nationwide.

Meanwhile, Republicans were unable to capitalize on the flurry of ethical questions surrounding Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) at the time, and the veteran lawmaker won re-election.

The GOP also missed an opportunity when then-state Sen. Charlie Wilson (D) failed to gather 50 valid signatures to qualify for the primary ballot in Ohio's 6th district open-seat race. But the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee stepped in to help Wilson win the primary as a write-in candidate and then win the general, and he was re-elected with 62 percent.

Republican Mike Sodrel and Democrat Baron Hill faced off four consecutive times in Indiana’s 9th district. But after Hill defeated Sodrel by 5 points in 2006 and 20 points in 2008, Democrats are optimistic that he will have an easier road to re-election in 2010. And in the neighboring 8th district, now-Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D) demolished then-Rep. John Hostettler (R) by 22 points in 2006 and then cruised to a 30-point win in 2008.

All four districts went for Bush twice and then McCain, yet now there is only a faint pulse of competitiveness.

“John McCain carried 49 districts that are currently represented by a Democrat,” National Republican Congressional Committee Communications Director Ken Spain said. “Our goal is to put a number of those seats in play and create new opportunities in places where we feel we have strong candidates looking at running.”

But a big part of the Republicans’ problem is the strength of the Democratic incumbents.

“The No. 1 factor is candidate quality,” said Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group. “And we have really good Democratic candidates in those districts.” Yang works for Ellsworth and Hill, and also worked on state Sen. David Boswell’s (D) unsuccessful run in Kentucky’s 2nd district last year.

Republican recruitment prospects against Wilson, Ellsworth, Hill and Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) are dim, if not dormant. Republicans may find a candidate to run against Mollohan, who was unopposed in 2008.

“We may have a better opportunity in a more marginal district where the incumbent is soft,” admitted one GOP strategist, who also explained that the longer these incumbents go without serious challenges, the more difficult they will be to defeat in the future.

With multiple, inefficient media markets, advertising in the Ohio River Valley districts can be an expensive affair for the DCCC and the NRCC.

In 2006, the two campaign committees combined to spend more than $25 million in independent expenditures in the nine races. Two years later, the two parties spent less than $6 million in the same nine districts, as Republicans had less money and the races became less competitive. Even less money is likely to be spent in the region in 2010.

As the pendulum decidedly swung toward Democrats in the past two cycles, there have been a couple of bright spots for Republicans. Democrats have targeted Kentucky’s 2nd district twice, but then-Rep. Ron Lewis (R) turned back state Rep. Mike Weaver (D) in 2006, and now-Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) held the seat when Lewis retired in 2008.

Rep. Geoff Davis (R-Ky.) has solidified his position over the last three years in the 4th district. After losing his initial race to then-Rep. Ken Lucas (D) in 2002, Davis won the open-seat race two years later when Lucas retired. In 2006, Davis faced off against Lucas, but the Republican prevailed easily. Last cycle, Davis won with more than 60 percent of the vote, and he’s not at risk in 2010.

Republicans have also held Ohio’s 2nd district and West Virginia’s 2nd district despite Democratic attempts to target GOP Reps. Jean Schmidt and Shelley Moore Capito, respectively.

House Republicans have not made any one region their top priority in 2010, instead focusing on fielding a diverse crop of challengers and trying to regain strength across the country. It’s psychologically necessary for the morale of the party, according to one House GOP operative.

Still, many Republicans acknowledge they face a significant challenge overall.

“We have a problem everywhere,” one GOP strategist said.

This story first appeared in Roll Call on June 18, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved.

Connecticut Senate: For Dodd, the News Is Decidedly Mixed

By Stuart Rothenberg

Since my April 6 column (“The Most Vulnerable Senator Up for Re-Election in 2010?”), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has had his ups and his downs. His supporters happily point to a number of “ups.”

After playing a highly visible role in the bank bailout, Dodd led the charge on a credit card bill that should find favor with consumers. The Senator received positive ink about the bill and about his role in its passage, and he will use it to make the case for his effectiveness to state voters.

And now, the Connecticut Democrat also finds himself pinch-hitting for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) as the Senate takes steps to write a health care reform bill.

So Dodd is square in the middle of the biggest legislative battle that President Barack Obama is likely to face in his four-year term, and if Congress can get a bill to the president’s desk, Dodd can also take credit for being a major player in that dramatic piece of legislation.

Some observers have commented that Dodd has “rebounded” from an April Quinnipiac University poll that showed him trailing former Rep. Rob Simmons (R) by a stunning 16-point margin. They point to a May 20-25 Quinnipiac survey of 1,575 registered voters that showed Simmons with “only” a 6-point lead over Dodd, who is in his 29th year in the Senate.

But Democratic insiders say they never believed the large deficit, and they remain convinced that while the Senator is weaker than they would like, he has weathered the worst of the political storm.

And Democratic political operatives point out that Dodd eventually will face a Republican who will have spent resources and positioned himself to get through a GOP primary, and that the Republican nominee will have warts that can be exploited.

“Gravity will take hold in a very blue state. If [Dodd] were running in North Carolina, this would be a very, very difficult race,” one Dodd ally said.

All of that is true. But for every step forward that the Connecticut Democrat takes toward re-election, he seems to take one backward.

Months ago, Dodd’s problems involved a sweetheart loan he received (possibly unknowingly) from the CEO of Countrywide Financial as a “friend of Angelo” and questions about his role in a bill that didn’t limit bonuses to executives from mismanaged financial institutions. (His move to Iowa during his quixotic 2008 presidential run remains a sore spot with some voters, too.)

Now, the Senator is taking some hits in local media for allegedly failing to list on Senate financial disclosure forms the accurate value of a cottage he owns in Ireland.

“A new appraisal of the Irish cottage owned by Sen. Christopher Dodd concludes that it is worth about three times as much as Dodd has been reporting on his financial disclosure forms,” two Hartford Courant reporters began their June 13 front-page story.

The same article raised the issue of Jackie Clegg Dodd’s income. Dodd’s wife is on the boards of a number of health care companies, and the Senator’s Democratic primary opponent, Merrick Alpert, a businessman who served on Vice President Al Gore’s advance team, didn’t hesitate in lobbing criticism.

“The fact that Mrs. Dodd receives half a million dollars a year to sit on the boards of companies that are regulated by Sen. Dodd’s committee is further evidence of the need to clean up the corrupt system in Washington,” Alpert said, according to the Courant.

While some observers continue to speculate that Dodd eventually will decide to take a graceful exit and not seek re-election, all of the evidence is to the contrary.

Knowledgeable Democrats say the Senator is increasingly committed to the race, and they point out that a number of his closest advisers — including pollster Stan Greenberg and his wife, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), strategist Jim Jordan, media consultant Saul Shorr, campaign manager Jay Howser and Chief of Staff Miles Lackey — are unlikely to shy away from a fight.

“The Senator seems fully committed to running,” one savvy observer says. “There is no sense that he will re-evaluate his options in the future. In fact, he and his people think they are in a little better place now. They feel like they’ve dealt with a lot of [stuff] and things can’t get much worse. Plus they look at the Republican primary” and feel good.

My own view is that it’s unwise to over-interpret the Quinnipiac University poll numbers from month to month. Dodd’s showing in the April survey looks unreasonably poor given the March and May results, so portraying the May numbers as a “rebound” is unwise.

That said, there is a general pattern in the Senator’s poll numbers. Dodd has now been stuck in the upper 30s or low 40s in the general election ballot test for three straight months, and his job approval (38 percent) and favorable name ID (40 percent) in the most recent Quinnipiac survey are equally horrendous for a veteran incumbent. He has been seriously damaged personally.

Dodd’s problems seem unlikely to simply go away, and the kinds of controversies that have dogged him could continue to “drip, drip, drip” for many months. He must now “educate” voters on his accomplishments — which is why he already has run two ads on Hartford TV — and make his re-election a referendum on Barack Obama, George W. Bush and his eventual GOP opponent.

That’s an embarrassing position for a five-term incumbent to be in, and it suggests that he will be in a tenuous position for re-election for months, no matter what happens with health care reform.


This column first appeared in Roll Call on June 18, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

A Candidate Meeting That I’ll Never Forget — Even if I’d Like to

By Stuart Rothenberg

When I interview candidates, the meetings normally last 45 minutes to an hour. That’s the only thing they have in common. Each meeting is different because each candidate is unique.

But rarely do I have a meeting like the one that I had recently with Peter Schiff, the well-known investment guru who takes credit for predicting the bankruptcies of the auto companies, the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing bubble and the recession (which he says actually is a depression — and will get worse). If you are looking for modesty or humility, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

Schiff, whose father, Irwin, is a noted tax protester who currently resides in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Ind., says he is considering a run for the Republican Senate nomination in Connecticut, though he seemed blasé about a race and may merely be looking for attention. If he is seriously pondering the race, he ought to stop doing so immediately.

Schiff is the first candidate I’ve ever interviewed who proudly says he can’t recall the last time he voted. “I’ve never seen a real reason to vote,” he says without hesitation, adding that he registered to vote only recently in Connecticut. Apparently, he’s never heard of the concept of civic duty or considered the meaning of 200 years of American history.

Not surprisingly, he is also the first candidate I’ve ever interviewed who brags that he can raise most of his money out of state and can win by bringing supporters from around the country into Connecticut to campaign for him. (That certainly worked for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, didn’t it?)

Finally, Schiff is the only major party hopeful I’ve ever interviewed who said there is no difference — absolutely no difference — between Republicans and Democrats, between President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Schiff obviously isn’t a politician, but he isn’t a complete political neophyte either. He served as an economic adviser to presidential hopeful Ron Paul (R) during the Texas Congressman’s 2008 campaign, and he endorsed Libertarian-turned-Republican Murray Sabrin’s bid for the New Jersey GOP Senate nomination in 2008.

Sabrin, I should add, came in to see me during that race and made much the same case as Schiff. He drew 14 percent of the vote in a three-way primary.

Schiff is a darling of libertarians, and they have taken to the Web to raise money for him and to tell him how much they want him to run for the Senate. Maybe they can do for him what they did for Paul.

Schiff thinks that he might be able to win in Connecticut because, unlike Paul, he has to win in “only” one state, while Paul had to win in the entire country. Maybe someone should tell him that Paul didn’t come close to winning either the Iowa straw poll or the Iowa caucuses, two low-turnout events that were made to order for the Texan given the enthusiasm of his supporters.

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse,” Schiff is president and chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, a Darien, Conn.-based investment firm that its Web site says specializes in international securities.

He’s well-dressed and articulate. He’s also adept at talking about the nation’s economic programs, and he has logged a good deal of time on cable’s business programming. But being an entertaining guest on CNBC doesn’t automatically translate to being a serious candidate for the U.S. Senate.

If and when Schiff focuses on what he’d do to get the American economy out of the ditch, he’ll scare the living daylights out of state voters, who are more concerned with their jobs and government services than with Austrian economics. Simply put, a majority of Connecticut Republicans are not ready for the second coming of Ron Paul.

Schiff seems to think that voters are heavily ideological. During my interview with him, he said he’ll attract support from across the country because, if elected, he would represent them and their views.

I don’t know whether Schiff, who lives in Fairfield County, has ever been to Willimantic, Torrington, Coventry or Naugatuck, but someone needs to mention to him that telling Nutmeg State voters that he would “represent” people in other states isn’t necessarily the best way to get elected in Connecticut. Nor is it wise to tell Republican primary voters, even in Connecticut, that there is no difference between the two parties.

Schiff may or may not be right about what ails America. That’s not the issue. But I saw no evidence that he understands how to talk to voters who have the kinds of problems that average Americans in Connecticut face each and every day, no evidence that he’d be effective in the Senate and no evidence that he has even the vaguest idea how to put together a campaign.

For a man who supposedly makes decisions on the basis of data and analysis, Schiff seemed to lack any empirical evidence that he could win a Senate race, let alone a primary. Maybe that’s because he’d really rather appear on the Daily Show or spout off in national publications than do what is necessary to win a Senate seat.



This column first appeared in Roll Call on June 15, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved.