FEC Decision on Fundraising for Redistricting Delayed

By Nathan L. Gonzales

After three hours of discussion on Thursday, a deadlocked Federal Election Commission postponed until next week an important decision about whether Members of Congress can raise soft money for some redistricting activities until next week.

In March, the National Democratic Redistricting Trust requested an advisory opinion about whether Members are allowed to raise money for the trust, which is handling the legal aspect of the Democrats’ redistricting effort.

On Monday, the FEC released two opposing draft advisory opinions — one that would allow and one that would forbid the trust from using federal lawmakers and candidates to raise unlimited funds for the organization.

After Thursday’s proceedings, it appears that commissioners Matthew Petersen, Donald McGahn, and Caroline Hunter agree with the first opinion that would allow the trust to proceed. Commissioner Cynthia Bauerly agrees with the second opinion, and commissioners Ellen Weintraub and Steven Walther are undecided.

A chunk of the discussion centered on whether redistricting activities are “in connection with” a federal election, a key legal distinction.

“Reapportionment is not drawing maps, it’s who gets how many seats,” said McGahn, a Republican. “If raising money for litigation” and its defense is regulated as a election-related activity, “then is the federal government spending money in connection with a federal election when they are running those Census ads?”

The FEC is expected to decide the matter by May 7.

It is possible that neither opinion garners the four votes necessary to issue an advisory opinion. In that instance, the FEC would not issue an opinion and the trust and other similar groups would be left where they started — without clarity on the issue.

“An advisory opinion is a shield, not a sword,” Democratic attorney Marc Elias told Roll Call before the most recent hearing, about the usefulness of the FEC’s decision when future complaints are filed. Elias filed the request on behalf of the trust.

Republicans are anxiously awaiting the decision as well.

Depending on how the FEC crafts its response to the trust, it could allow Making America’s Promise Secure, a 501(c)(4) that is coordinating the legal and data aspects of redistricting for Republicans, to raise money with Members’ help as well.

A favorable or neutral opinion from the FEC wouldn’t change the strategy for the trust or MAPS, but it could ease the fundraising lift.

The FEC’s decision will not affect the Republican State Leadership Committee’s Redistricting Majority Project or the Democrats’ Foundation for the Future, which are deeply involved in the redistricting process but are organized as 527s.

The next round of reapportionment and redistricting will be the first since the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which eliminated soft money and therefore is expected to severely limit Members’ involvement in the process.

Alex Knott contributed to this report.

This story first appeared on RollCall.com on April 30, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Could Lieberman Hold the Senate’s Balance of Power After November?

By Stuart Rothenberg

As the midterms approach and substantial GOP Senate gains seem inevitable, more attention will fall on Connecticut’s soon-to-be-senior Senator, Joe Lieberman (ID). That’s because Lieberman, one of two Independents in the Senate, could become a major target of Republicans if they net nine seats in the midterms.

If that were to happen — and it’s still a long shot — Lieberman would become either the Democrats’ 50th vote or the Republicans’ 51st for organizing the Senate. Either way, he could decide which party would control the Senate for the last two years of President Barack Obama’s term.

Getting to “plus nine” for Republicans doesn’t look as impossible as it once did.

Assuming that the GOP holds all of its own seats, the party would need to win four Democratic open seats (Delaware, North Dakota, Illinois and Indiana) and knock off four Democratic incumbents (in Arkansas, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Colorado). The crucial ninth seat would then come from one of four states: California, Connecticut, Washington or Wisconsin, where Democrats either have potentially vulnerable nominees or Republicans have surprisingly interesting candidates of their own.

Lieberman certainly would relish the attention of being the “decider,” and his decision surely would take into consideration whether he plans to seek re-election in 2012, when he will be 70 years old.

Shortly after he was first elected in 1988, the Almanac of American Politics wrote that “Lieberman is likely to be more of a team player in his party than [Republican Lowell] Weicker was in his.”

I suppose that may be true only because the Connecticut Senator was such a thorn in the GOP’s side, but in any case, it failed to imagine the kind of political figure that Lieberman would become in his own right.

Like Weicker, whom he defeated by less than a point for the Senate seat, Lieberman last won statewide office in the Nutmeg State as an Independent. But while Weicker won a term as governor running on A Connecticut Party line (a party he founded), Lieberman still operates in a very partisan body and has found himself in the middle of partisan maneuverings.

Though conservatives found Weicker’s style and voting record impossible to swallow, he never faced a primary challenge for renomination, since each time he sought re-election a GOP convention selected him to carry the party’s banner.

Lieberman, of course, lost the 2006 Democratic primary to businessman Ned Lamont, only to win re-election that November as an Independent with the help of a strong showing from Republican and independent voters.

Even though Democrats rejected Lieberman in 2006, he chose to caucus with his old party after those elections, receiving the chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (of which he was the ranking member before the 2006 elections).

There are many reasons why Lieberman would vote with Democrats to organize the Senate after the 2010 elections.

He’s been a Democrat his entire life, and changing parties doesn’t come easy to elected officials who have spent 40 years in politics. He served in the Connecticut state Senate and as the state’s attorney general as a Democrat, was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.

On many of the key issues of the day, from the environment and abortion to the minimum wage, cap-and-trade and the auto industry bailout, Lieberman is simply closer to Democrats than to Republicans — particularly a GOP of tea party activists, pro-lifers and Southerners.

But Lieberman seems to like being able to stick it to Democrats now and then, as he did when he said he could not support a public option in the health care bill.

“The public option I think was raised in the last year by people who really want to have a government-controlled health insurance system. That’s their right. I think they’re wrong,” Lieberman said in November on “Face the Nation,” using language that must have sounded comfortable to even the most conservative Republican.

And, of course, Lieberman spoke at the 2008 Republican National Convention and campaigned for his friend, Arizona Sen. John McCain (R), in the presidential race.

Actually, Lieberman’s record is filled with instances where he distanced himself from his party or his party’s allies, in Hollywood, for example.

If Republicans have a shot at getting Lieberman’s vote to organize the Senate, it will be because of foreign policy. With the Obama administration increasingly critical of Israel and Iran continuing to take steps to be able to build a nuclear weapon, Lieberman may just believe that Republicans better understand what he considers to be the top issue of the day — national security.

But would Lieberman really switch, the way Arlen Specter (Pa.), Jim Jeffords (Vt.) and Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Colo.) did? Not everyone agrees.

“I don’t see him joining the Republicans,” says Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. “He’s had chances to do that already, and he didn’t take them. It’s unlikely that he would in the future.”

“I think he might,” counters Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “Joe Lieberman puts principle above politics, and if he thought he could make a difference on important issues, he certainly would consider it.”

Lieberman could still call himself an Independent but decide to caucus with the GOP. That would drive many of his former friends (and all of his liberal enemies) crazy. But he just might like the idea of doing that.

This column first appeared in Roll Call and CQPolitics.com on April 22, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

If Everyone Is Looking at the Economy, Watch Foreign Policy

By Stuart Rothenberg

It was more than 10 months ago (Jan. 6, It May Not Be the Economy, Stupid, in the End) that I wrote in this space that, despite the nation’s focus on the economy and multiple assessments that Barack Obama’s presidency would depend on his actions on the economy during the first 100 days, the president’s ultimate standing might turn on international issues.

I continue to believe that is the case.

Given the primacy of domestic issues to the public, particularly the undeniable importance of unemployment, health care and spending issues, that may seem an unwise guess. But if there are any issues that can rival, or in fact trump, kitchen-table concerns, one of them surely is national security.

While his Afghanistan policy has generated some controversy, foreign policy remains Obama’s strength.

The public’s evaluation of his overall job performance has slipped since the early days of his presidency, when his job approval was artificially high, but his approval still stands generally in the low 50s, certainly a decent number considering the administration’s level of activity and the problems still facing the country.

While his job approval on domestic issues such as health care and the federal budget deficit has slipped noticeably — with more adults saying they disapprove of the president’s performance in those two areas than those who approve — Obama’s numbers on international issues and fighting terrorism have remained stronger. For example, 6 in 10 Americans said they approve of his handling of international issues.

But foreign policy remains fraught with danger for the White House.

While the president has more latitude to create policy in the international arena, he is dealing with an array of state and nonstate actors who don’t necessarily have America’s interests at heart. For a White House that enjoys being proactive and staying on message, foreign policy can be frustratingly reactive.

Figuring out how Blue Dogs and liberals can sign onto the same health care or climate change bills is difficult, but it’s easier than having to worry about whether Russia and China are serious about ratcheting up the pressure on Iran, how close the government of Iran is to acquiring nuclear weapons or deciding whether to put more troops into Afghanistan.

For all the problems that Obama has on Capitol Hill with moderate Democrats who are trying to demonstrate their independence from the administration and from Republicans who have a very different vision of health care reform and economic policy — and who score political points by discrediting the president’s agenda and defeating his efforts — at least those domestic players (and adversaries) have America’s best interests at heart.

True, some partisan crackpots treat Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) or South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) as traitors because they don’t always agree with their party’s leaders, but there should be little doubt about their allegiance.

But nobody in their right mind thinks that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will make decisions on the basis of what the United States wants or needs.

Since foreign policy remains one of Obama’s assets to date, he could create dramatic problems for himself when forced to make difficult decisions involving U.S. foreign policy.

Afghanistan is the most obvious problem, and a perfectly reasonable decision in late November could look like a horrible one six months later.

Even before his decision about how to respond to calls for additional troops, Obama’s disapproval on his handling of the war in Afghanistan (48 percent) is higher than his approval (45 percent). Those are worrisome numbers given that his decision on future troop levels could well anger those on the right and the left.

But beyond Afghanistan, Iran looks to become a nightmare for Obama unless his current strategy of encouraging Iran to give up his nuclear program bears fruit. And for many Americans, only the most naive of presidents would truly believe that international pressure on Iran would succeed in persuading the current government to “walk through the door” that the president has said the international community has opened.

Like everything else, foreign policy is about the results, and it is easy to see the president looking too weak to moderates and conservatives, as well as to pro-Israel liberals, if he fails to act decisively on Iran, and looking too hawkish to anti-war liberals if he supports military measures aimed at damaging Iran’s nuclear capability.

Right now, Obama represents restraint and multilateralism in foreign policy. But as George W. Bush found out, sometimes strengths turn into weakness during the four years of a presidency.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on November 23, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Sarah Palin? Frankly, My Dear, I Don’t Give a Damn

By Stuart Rothenberg

If you are planning on reading a column about former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s presidential prospects, you will be deeply disappointed.

I don’t know whether Palin will run for president in 2012, and right now I don’t really care. Most in the media do care, of course, which is why they can’t seem to stop buzzing about her book, her book tour and her political intentions. You’d think the Iowa caucuses were right around the corner.

Even “real” news programs, such as CNN’s “State of the Union,” hosted by John King, spent too much time for my taste on Palin last weekend, both during the program’s political roundtable, during an interview with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) and then during an unnecessarily long piece about her book.

Most — maybe all — of the current media coverage of the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 will be irrelevant for anyone who wants to know whom the GOP will nominate to take on President Barack Obama three years from now. There will be so many other developments over the next two years that will color that race that Palin’s book will be barely an asterisk.

Of course, if you are simply looking for entertainment rather than trying to understand how the next GOP presidential field will develop, then it’s certainly reasonable to pay attention to anything Palin, as well as to every speech by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

There are many in the media who will wax poetic about Palin and the 2012 race, so you won’t have trouble finding people who want to talk about the contest, even though there is no race now and there won’t be one for many, many months.

Ultimately, you have a simple choice: Do you get more enjoyment out of watching “The Biggest Loser,” “CSI” or “The Office,” or would you rather watch politics? If your answer is politics, then following all of the speculation about Palin and other potential candidates is the right thing for you to do.

And if you hate politics, you can watch Palin the way you watch any other pseudo-celebrity — on “Oprah” or “Entertainment Tonight.”

But don’t think for even a moment that any chatter now about the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president has any bearing on the 2012 GOP contest.

True, who will be in the race and who is raising big money for “next time” matters, but you don’t need to follow the Palin book tour or opinions about Pawlenty’s last speech to do that.

Even with their victories in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, the Republicans are pretty much irrelevant now. That’s not terrible for them, and it’s not unusual for the “out” party to be irrelevant.

All of the nation’s focus right now is on Obama, and almost every day there is some news item that seems to put the White House or the Democratic Party in an unflattering light.

Whether it’s unemployment, the deficit, health care, Afghanistan, the president bowing to the emperor of Japan or the ill-advised comments from a single Florida House Democrat, Democrats seem to have more problems than they need.

Democratic activist Al Sharpton commented over the weekend how happy he was that Palin is getting so much attention. The more attention, she gets, said the Rev. Sharpton, a man who is no stranger to media attention or to self-induced controversy, the better for the Democrats.

That may be true today, but not 10 months from now, when the midterm elections are likely to be about Obama no matter what wacky things Palin does now.

Yes, both the national media and Democrats are likely to keep Palin in the spotlight as long as possible.

For the media, the former governor of Alaska is a celebrity with an “interesting” family, while for Democrats, she is an easy target — a political lightweight of uncertain substance, who drives “tea party” conservatives into a euphoric frenzy but divides the GOP into two very different camps.

Palin may or may not be particularly relevant in early 2012, as the first states begin to select delegates to the next Republican National Convention. Right now, I’d guess she won’t. But that’s still two years away, so I’m not going to spend much more than a few seconds thinking about it.

Instead, I’m going to watch the last episode of “The Office,” which I missed.


This column first appeared in Roll Call on November 19, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Parties Solidifying Redistricting Plans

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Republicans were at risk of falling further behind Democrats in organizing for the post-2010 round of redistricting, but a new group led by former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) is looking to fill the gap.

Redistricting may seem like a far-off exercise, but both parties are solidifying their strategies to tackle the expansive and expensive decennial task. Making America’s Promise Secure, the group headed by Lott and Gingrich, is a 501(c)(4) focused on the GOP redistricting effort.

Until now, the two parties have taken different approaches to tackling the electoral, analytical and legal components of the redistricting process.

Traditionally, the Republican National Committee centralized the GOP effort while Democrats relied on a coalition of outside groups. But passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002 left Republicans scrambling to reconfigure their traditional strategy, since the RNC used to fund the redistricting tasks with soft money. Democrats, meanwhile, because they had not relied on soft money to fund their redistricting efforts in the past, have been viewed as better positioned ahead of the 2011-2012 redraw.

“We saw a need and stepped up to fill it,” said Charlie Black, chairman of the MAPS Board of Directors.

Earlier this year, Republicans were in the conversation stage while Democrats were hitting their stride. This spring a group of former high-level operatives from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee formed the National Democratic Redistricting Trust to lead the legal leg of the party’s redistricting tripod.

The group’s trustees include former DCCC executive directors Brian Wolff and John Lapp and former DCCC Political Director Peter Cari. Prominent Democratic attorney Bob Bauer, who is married to White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, is the chief counsel for the group.

During the last round of redistricting, many Democrats felt like they couldn’t match the Republicans’ legal resources, so the redistricting trust is the Democratic effort to bolster that component of the party’s strategy.

Democrats believe that a trust — and not a 527 or 501(c)(4) — is the most flexible structure for this particular purpose, since other traditional tax-exempt structures aren’t appropriate and the group does not support specific candidates.

“We’re putting together a national legal advisory board along with state-by-state legal teams in cooperation with Congressional delegations and state delegations,” said Brian Smoot, the trust’s executive director and a former DCCC political director. “And we will be undertaking legal research and drafting strategic memos for each state.”

Foundation for the Future, a 527 organized in July 2006, will continue to lead the analytical component of redistricting for the Democrats. The coalition, which includes the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Committee for an Effective Congress and other Democratic groups, seeks to provide Democratic caucuses in each state with data, mapmaking software and demographic projections.

The Democratic National Committee convenes regular meetings with the key players in the party to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Democrats have left the analytical work to Foundation for the Future and the legal work to the redistricting trust. MAPS is seeking to fill both roles on the Republican side and provide a new home for the stable of Republican operatives who traditionally work on redistricting through the RNC.

The RNC, which appointed Tennessee National Committeeman John Ryder to head the redistricting committee this spring, will still have a role in redistricting, but many GOP strategists agree that they shouldn’t spend hard dollars on a task that can be done by an outside group using soft money.

The passage of BCRA, which eliminated soft money, severely limits Members’ involvement in the process. That’s why it is critical for former Members such as Gingrich and Lott and ex-Reps. Bob Walker (R-Pa.) and Vin Weber (R-Minn.) to be involved. Making America’s Promise Secure, the National Democratic Redistricting Trust and Foundation for the Future are not subject to federal contribution limits.

This spring, the RNC also signed on GOP redistricting authority Tom Hofeller as an outside consultant, but strategists believe he could eventually have a dual role as an outside consultant with MAPS as well.

“We want to provide the best umbrella for all experienced people who want to be involved to work on redistricting,” said Black, a lobbyist with BKSH & Associates Worldwide and a former senior adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential bid.

Democrats “have a permanent organization and never stopped,” Black said. “We felt some urgency, but we still have plenty of time.”

MAPS, with the help of national Republican data and technology firm Intell360, is looking to take on the laborious and expensive process of analyzing the data. There is a need to collect and reformat the data (including election results and voter registration) in such a way that it can be easily merged with the new census data when it becomes available.

Then the data needs to be put in a usable format, coupled with mapmaking technology and made available to state caucuses or national groups at a minimal price. And key elected officials, staff and attorneys that will be involved in the redistricting process need to be trained.

“We’re trying very hard to be one-stop shopping, under the law,” said MAPS Executive Director Michael Smith, an Ohio field operative who was working for a 527 called Majority America and is closely tied with House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) staff.

MAPS is also seeking to lead the Republicans’ legal strategy by incorporating many of the party’s attorneys with experience on redistricting, including Ben Ginsberg, Mark Braden and Cleta Mitchell.

While there is some skepticism that one organization can do it all, MAPS is working quickly to corral the experienced redistricting talent on the Republican side.

“They’re the first out of the gate and have some heavyweights on their side,” said one House GOP aide, who expects MAPS to go through some growing pains.

This story first appeared in Roll Call on September 24, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Parties Prepping for Redistricting Fight

By Nathan L. Gonzales and Lauren W. Whittington

Republicans and Democrats are already organizing and strategizing for their decennial battle over Congressional redistricting, with a decade’s worth of elections hanging in the balance.

While the fight over conducting the census is expected to take center stage over the next year and a half, partisans on both sides of the aisle are keenly aware of what is at stake in the post-2010 redrawing of district boundaries.

Democrats thus far appear to have the upper hand over their GOP counterparts in terms of behind-the-scenes planning for the fight, perhaps a result of the fact that the party lost the overall battle in the last round of redistricting.

Democrats are also now in control of Congress and the White House, which was not the case at the time of the last redraw, and they will no doubt look to the upcoming effort to help cement, and grow, their majority.

Former Rep. Tom Davis (Va.) was deeply involved in the last redistricting as head of the National Republican Congressional Committee from 1999 through 2002.

“They were sleeping last time,” Davis said of Democrats. “They slept through this stuff. I think they’ve gone to school on what we did.”

The upcoming round of redistricting will be unlike any other because it is the first since passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which prohibits the use of soft money and thus severely limits the involvement of Members. Lawmakers can still raise hard dollars for the effort, but party strategists on both sides of the aisle are trying to figure out how to tackle redistricting under the new guidelines.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has tapped fellow California Rep. Mike Thompson (D) to spearhead the party’s redistricting effort.

“We just want to make sure everybody’s ready,” Thompson said. “I’ve been meeting with the different delegations and making sure that any questions that they have can be answered. [That] they know exactly what they can and can’t do. And making sure that the states are ramped up and ready to go so that we don’t get caught flat-footed.”

Traditionally, Democrats have relied on outside groups to handle the nuts and bolts of their redistricting effort, putting them in a better position to adapt to the new rules.

The Democratic effort will utilize a divide-and-conquer strategy, covering the electoral, analytical and legal battles of the redistricting war.

A new entity is forming to head up the party’s legal strategy. According to multiple Democratic sources, it’s likely to be called the Redistricting Trust.

Final details and paperwork for the organization are still being worked out but former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Political Director Brian Smoot will be the executive director and a number of high-level DCCC veterans will be involved as well. The group will focus on developing national and state-specific legal strategies, according to Smoot, who is also a partner with 4C Partners.

The new group will be able to accept non-federal dollars, placing the funding burden squarely on outside groups.

“In 2003, progressive groups attacked redistricting as a political problem, but it was a legal problem,” said Democratic strategist Matt Angle. He stressed the need for progressive groups to embrace the legal cause, as well as the map-drawing and electoral aspects.

In July 2008, representatives from the major groups involved in the redistricting process — including the National Committee for an Effective Congress, Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees — met at Democratic National Committee headquarters.

The Democratic Governors Association and DLCC are focused on making sure that Democrats have as many seats at the redistricting table as possible. That means winning gubernatorial and state legislative races beginning this year.

“It’s all incidental if you don’t have the seats,” said one Democratic strategist. “It’s important to control the chambers.”

The governorships of 36 states are up for election next year. The governor has a direct role in Congressional remapping (whether it is veto power or appointment of a commission) in all but eight states. State legislatures will draw the lines in 36 states.

The DLCC is also involved in the Foundation for the Future, a Democratic 527 organized in July 2006 to prepare for redistricting.

The AFSCME is also involved with the foundation and party insiders credit the labor union for important work at the state level and bringing financial backing to the table. The NCEC, including Washington Director Mark Gersh, is considered the gold-standard when it comes to number-crunching, data analysis and projecting demographic trends in districts on the Democratic side and is also a key player in the Foundation for the Future.

Democrats view the NCEC’s work as critical because redistricting is more than drawing maps. It’s about understanding population trends in order to draw districts that survive electoral ups and downs. Data analysis is also important because this is the first remapping that will be undertaken with a Democratic-led Justice Department since passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The foundation appears to be the latest version of the National Democratic Redistricting Project, which began in the late 1980s and was led by then-Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Calif.) in the early 1990s.

Then-Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas) led the party’s effort a decade ago through IMPAC 2000, and he is also likely to be involved again.

Angle, Frost’s former chief of staff, worked closely with IMPAC 2000 and has subsequently focused on Democratic efforts in Texas and is working as an outside consultant to the Foundation for the Future. Former DCCC political director and media consultant Peter Cari was executive director of IMPAC 2000 and is likely to be involved in the overall redistricting effort in some capacity.

In 2002, redistricting helped George W. Bush buck history, as Republicans gained seats in the president’s first midterm elections for only the second time since Abraham Lincoln. Fueled by their losses that cycle and a mid-decade redistricting by Republicans in Texas, Democrats are determined to not let that happen again.

“We want to make sure things are fair,” Thompson said. “We saw what happened in Texas where there was pretty unfair tactics used to redistrict that state. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

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

White House 2012 Polls: Not So Fast

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Barack Obama hasn’t even been sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, and the media can’t wait to name a leading candidate to take him on in four years.

Incessant speculation and polling are staples of today’s media, and any talk about the 2012 presidential race should be labeled as fantasy, not treated as news or analysis.

Not only are Americans — and many reporters — eager for a break after a seemingly eternal presidential race, but it is simply too early to predict which candidates will actually run for the White House four years from now and, more importantly, which issues will be center stage.

Four years ago, Obama had not yet been sworn into the U.S. Senate, after an easy general election win over Alan Keyes (R). Now, he is the president-elect.

Obama gave a memorable speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, but no one predicted he would be standing on the steps of the Capitol taking the oath of office in January 2009.

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll taken Nov. 16-17 in 2004 showed New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) defeating Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), John Edwards (N.C.) and John Kerry (Mass.) in hypothetical 2008 general election matchups.

A month later, another Fox poll showed Clinton defeating Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and New York Gov. George Pataki (R) in potential 2008 matchups. It also showed Kerry defeating Bush, 45 percent to 37 percent.

In addition, a Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates (R) survey taken Nov. 14-16 in 2004 showed Clinton defeating Edwards, 46 percent to 28 percent, for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. On the Republican side, Giuliani led Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), 42 percent to 24 percent.

A look at polls of presidential races going even further back proves early speculation is extremely premature, and most often wrong.

Eight years ago, speculation about the 2004 race was initially muted as the Florida recount and subsequent Supreme Court decision delayed the results of the 2000 race. But a Zogby International poll taken Dec. 15-17 in 2000 showed Vice President Al Gore leading the 2004 Democratic primary field. That’s not all that surprising because part of the electorate believed — and still believes — he won the 2000 race.

Clinton, who hadn’t yet been sworn in as the junior Senator from New York, was second in the survey at 18 percent. Former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) was third with 7 percent, and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), the Rev. Jesse Jackson (D) and former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) all received 5 percent or less.

Eventual 2004 nominee Kerry received 3 percent in the poll, just a couple points ahead of then-California Gov. Gray Davis (D).

Early presidential polls are more about name identification and past support, rather than revealing much about candidates’ future appeal and success, or the likelihood that they will run at all.

That’s why people should be very skeptical about all of this 2012 talk.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey taken Dec. 1-2, 34 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said they were likely to support former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) if he were the party’s nominee. A similar 32 percent said they would support Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R).

The survey was not a horse race poll, pitting candidates against each other, but instead an attempted measure of party support. But of course, ranking becomes inevitable.

The survey is somewhat futile because the vast majority of Republicans are going to support the GOP presidential nominee, no matter who it is. McCain received 90 percent of the Republican vote on Nov. 4. And President George W. Bush received 93 percent and 91 percent in his two elections, but that’s beside the point.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) finished third with 28 percent, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) received 27 percent, Giuliani had 23 percent, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) had 19 percent, and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) had 7 percent.

It’s a cliché, but four years is about two lifetimes in politics. Four years ago, Palin was the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the former head of the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and barely even known in Alaska. Now she is regarded as one of the national leaders of her party.

It’s impossible to recognize all of the potential candidates that could affect the dynamic of the 2012 field. And it’s too early to start tracking trips to Dubuque, Iowa.

A Selzer & Co. Inc. poll taken Jan. 15-21, 2001, for the Des Moines Register showed Gore leading the field in the Hawkeye State with 39 percent. Clinton was second with 12 percent, and Gephardt was third with 9 percent, followed by Kerrey (6 percent), Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (5 percent), South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle (4 percent) and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (4 percent).

Of those seven candidates, only Gephardt participated in the 2004 Iowa caucus, and he finished fourth with 11 percent. Kerry, who tied for ninth place and received 2 percent in the 2001 poll, ended up winning Iowa with 39 percent. Edwards (32 percent) and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (18 percent) finished second and third but were not part of the early speculation.

Before the handicapping can begin, it helps to know who is actually running.

An early January 1997 poll by Opinion Research showed Colin Powell leading the 2000 GOP presidential race with 32 percent. Former Rep. Jack Kemp (N.Y.) was second with 15 percent, and Bush was third with 10 percent. Of course, Bush won the nomination and the presidency, while Powell and Kemp didn’t even run.

On the Democratic side, polls in early 1997 showing Gore with the advantage in the 2000 race proved to be correct. But he was the heir apparent for the Democratic nomination as the sitting vice president under a term-limited Bill Clinton.

Back in December 1992, Kemp was the first choice of Republicans for the 1996 race with 17 percent, according to a poll for Gannett News Service. White House Chief of Staff James Baker was at 16 percent, while Kansas Sen. Bob Dole received 15 percent and outgoing Vice President Dan Quayle had 13 percent. Even Defense Secretary Dick Cheney received 9 percent. Of the five candidates, only Dole ran.

It is still unclear how many of the current field of conventional wisdom candidates will actually run in 2012. But there are other unanswered questions.

How do the former officeholders stay relevant? By the time 2012 rolls around, Gingrich and Giuliani will have been out of office for more than a decade, while it will be six years each for Romney and Huckabee.

Besides the volatile list of potential candidates, it is even more impossible to predict how voters will prioritize issues in four years.

Just a year ago, the war in Iraq dominated the news and boosted Obama to the Democratic nomination. When the general election rolled around, the economy was far and away the top issue on voters’ minds and helped the Illinois Senator defeat McCain.

Because the economy is in such tough shape, it is not unreasonable to predict that it will be the top issue again in 2012. But who knows for sure? One terrorist attack or major international event could shift the issue landscape back to foreign affairs.

And if foreign policy is the top issue, how does that affect a potential GOP field of candidates largely void of significant overseas credentials?

Obama’s presidential candidacy and election demonstrates that most of politics is timing and factors outside of a candidate’s control. Without knowing the issue landscape, it is impossible to handicap the potential field of candidates.


This story first appeared in Roll Call on December 11, 2008. 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.