Obama State Directors on Front Lines of 2010

By Nathan L. Gonzales

The men and women who served as state directors for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign were on the front lines of one of the best-run political operations in recent history.

After Obama’s victory, more than a dozen of them took jobs in the administration. But another group couldn’t stay away from the campaign trail, and they are now at the center of the party’s efforts to retain its Congressional majorities.

“It is important that they stay engaged,” Organizing for America Deputy National Director Jeremy Bird said about the state directors.

“Folks were amazing, some of the best people I’ve ever worked with,” added Bird, who was the Maryland state director for the Obama campaign during the Democratic primary.

A comprehensive look at where the 50 general election state directors are today shows that former Obama operatives have key positions in Democratic efforts to hold control of the Senate in the November midterms. Click here for the chart of all 50 state directors.

In Connecticut, former Obama New Hampshire state director Mindy Myers was recently hired to manage state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s (D) campaign for retiring Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D) seat. Obama’s Connecticut state director, Justin Kronholm, is also working with the Blumenthal campaign as director of political operations.

In California, former Obama state director Mike Dorsey is deputy campaign manager for Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D) re-election campaign. In 2008, Dorsey landed in Montana for the general election, where Obama lost by only 3 points.

In Washington state, Carol Albert managed Sen. Patty Murray’s (D) re-election in 2004, was Obama’s state director in 2008 and is at the helm of Murray’s campaign once again.

And in Colorado, Craig Hughes was a senior adviser to the Obama campaign in the Centennial State and is now managing appointed Sen. Michael Bennet’s (D) tough election bid this year.

Republicans will likely need to win three of those four states to get to a 51-seat majority in the next Congress.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, complete with more Obama campaign veterans, will be there to back up the campaigns in those states, if needed. DSCC field director Rob Hill was Obama’s Oregon state director before moving to Nevada as a senior adviser. (He’s also married to Jarel LaPan, who moved into the Oregon role for the Obama campaign and now works for the administration.) Jackie Bray worked in Ohio during the 2008 general election and is now at the DSCC as well.

After being deeply involved in the Obama campaign and experiencing the organization and enthusiasm firsthand, former state directors are trying to apply 2008’s successful tactics to their 2010 campaigns.

“It’s a reminder of the importance of building a true grass-roots operation,” explained Aaron Pickrell, Obama’s Ohio state director who is managing Gov. Ted Strickland’s (D) re-election bid this year.

Multiple former state directors would speak only on the condition of anonymity for fear of disrupting the rhythm and message of their tough races, but they all agreed that the Obama campaign did a fantastic job fusing the old and the new when it comes to voter contact.

“It’s important to utilize the Internet and new media, not just for communications, but as a field tool and voter contact tool,” said Pickrell, who worked with Bird and Bray in the Buckeye State. But “the most effective campaign is still knocking on doors and neighbor-to-neighbor contact.”

Multiple former state directors also agreed on the necessity of replicating the “buy-in” of the Obama campaign. “If people feel like they have ownership in the campaign, they are more likely to be involved,” Pickrell explained. Democratic campaigns nationwide are hoping to take advantage of the infrastructure from the 2008 campaign and tap in to the larger pool of potential voters and volunteers.

As the state director in Ohio, Pickrell was part of a somewhat exclusive club. Ohio was one of the 18 states targeted by the Obama campaign, and those state directors had a different set of marching orders than the rest. The other targeted states were Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Former Obama campaign operatives are also in key roles on the House side.

New Mexico state director Adrian Saenz is now chief of staff for Rep. Harry Teague, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the country. Moving north, former Florida Campaign for Change field director Angela Botticella is running Rep. Betsy Markey’s (D) campaign in Colorado’s 4th district, also one of the most competitive races this cycle.

While some former state directors, such as Saenz and Pickrell, are using the local expertise to help individual Democrats in 2010, others are using their influence at a broader level.

Former state directors Steve Schale (Florida), Craig Schirmer (Pennsylvania) and others are involved in 2010 races as consultants instead of on official campaign staffs. Former Missouri state director Buffy Wicks (who was one of four regional state directors early in the campaign) moved from the White House Office of Public Engagement to AKPD Message and Media, senior White House adviser David Axelrod’s consulting firm.

Former Virginia state director Mitch Stewart is the head of OFA, which is essentially the Obama campaign embedded within the Democratic National Committee.

The DNC just announced that it plans to invest $50 million into races this year. A chunk of that money includes staffing, field support, data and targeting, and volunteer programs provided by OFA.

While the DNC is focused on 2010, the OFA’s purpose is to keep the president’s supporters engaged to help this year and looking ahead to his re-election.

“Whether it’s 2012 or 20 years from now, the investment we’re putting in now is helpful for the long term,” Bird said.

Tricia Miller, Daniel Newhauser, Jeremy B. White, Kristin Coyner and Zack Hale contributed to this report. This story first appeared in Roll Call on April 27, 2010 and on CQPolitics.com on April 28, 2010. 2010 © 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.

Seniors, Health Care and Their Impact on the 2010 Midterms

By Stuart Rothenberg

The nation’s two main political parties are a little like an old married couple. Both are carrying chips on their shoulders from past slights and injustices, real and imagined. It’s all about “getting even” these days — plus a dose of short-term politics for good measure.

The current fight over health care reform, and particularly over how seniors view the debate, is a clear case in point.

Senior citizens remain a crucial electoral group, both because of their attention to politics and because they vote, even in midterms. So the two parties are jockeying for position, trying to portray themselves as “friends” of seniors and the opposing party as an enemy.

In both 2004 and 2008, exit polls showed that voters age 65 and older constituted 16 percent of the presidential year electorate. But in 2006, voters 65 and older constituted 19 percent of the midterm electorate. That’s a significant difference.

Total turnout drops noticeably from the presidential year to the midterm election, and participation among lower-turnout groups (i.e., younger voters, African-Americans and voters at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder) traditionally drops off more than among higher turnout groups.

The overall drop in participation translates into the increased importance of seniors during midterms, and that’s particularly the case next year because of the heavy media attention given to health care and Medicare this year.

Seniors age 65 and older were a particular problem for President Barack Obama last year, both in the Democratic primaries (against then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton), and also in the general election.

Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who lost to Obama by about 7 points nationally, carried voters 65 and older by 8 points, 53 percent to 45 percent, according to the national exit poll. That was the only age cohort won by the Republican.

Obama carried voters 18-29 years of age by 66 percent to 32 percent, and he won voters age 30-44 by 6 points, 52 percent to 46 percent. Voters in the largest age demographic, 45- to 64-year-olds, split almost evenly between the two candidates, 50 percent for Obama and 49 percent for McCain.

Recent polling has shown seniors particularly skeptical about the president’s health care agenda.

A late August survey by Republican polling firm OnMessage Inc. showed only 39 percent of voters age 65 and older approving of the president’s job performance on health care, while 51 percent disapproved.

In an effort to tweak Democrats and use an issue that Democratic political strategists have been using against GOP candidates and the Republican Party for at least the past 30 years, the Republican National Committee recently aired a morning TV spot on FOX News’ “Fox & Friends” and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” — as well as more heavily in the Panama City, Fla., media market.

The ad featured RNC Chairman Michael Steele urging Congress to pass a senior citizens’ bill of rights.

While the ad buy wasn’t significant enough to have much bite, except possibly in the single Florida media market, it reflects the view of GOP strategists that seniors (along with independents, of course) will be a key component in their party’s midterm election rebound.

Republicans chuckle that when Democratic Members of Congress started to talk about Medicare “savings” to pay for health care “reform,” it presented them with an opportunity to give Democrats a dose of their own medicine.

Most Democrats (and some in the media) apparently don’t see the humor — or the irony — in the GOP tactic, instead preferring to complain about Republican hypocrisy.

But Democrats certainly are aware of their vulnerability with seniors, and they quickly fired back with a TV spot of their own, though party insiders say that the ad buy had been in the works before the RNC ad hit and wasn’t a “response” to the very light Republican TV buy.

The Democratic National Committee-produced TV spot, “Republicans Want to End Medicare,” charges that Republicans have “voted to abolish Medicare for future generations” and includes photographs of former President George W. Bush and former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

The ad ends with the announcer saying “The Republican Party: No friend of Seniors,” as the same words appear on the TV screen.

The DNC put more than $100,000 behind the ad, running it on national and Washington, D.C., cable TV stations and in 10 districts represented by GOP incumbents.

We are likely to see more of these kinds of skirmishes between now and next November, as the two parties try to define themselves and their opponents, and to woo seniors. But Democrats, almost certain to lose some ground with seniors, must find a way to offset those losses by motivating groups who turned out in big numbers last time for Obama but normally vote in fewer numbers in midterm elections.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on September 21, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Parties Watching 2009 Races for Clues

By Nathan L. Gonzales

With the midterm elections more than a year away, all eyes are on this fall’s gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. But instead of simply tallying wins and losses, party operatives are digging below the surface for clues as to what the political environment will be like next year.

In Virginia, Republicans are watching how former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell (R) performs in three Congressional districts that span three very distinct regions of the commonwealth: Southside (Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello’s 5th district), the Valley (Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s 6th district) and Southwest (Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher’s 9th district).

Republicans believe both Perriello and Boucher are vulnerable, but they’re looking for broader implications for other GOP-leaning districts that are currently represented by Democrats.

“If we get ... to the Bush 2000 number in those regions then we will have ‘bounced back’ in our base areas,” according to one House GOP strategist, referring to George W. Bush’s vote totals in the 2000 presidential race. “That’s the first step toward getting healthy.”

George W. Bush received 55 percent in the 5th and 9th districts and 60 percent in the 6th in 2000, when he faced then-Vice-President Al Gore. But Democrat Mark Warner outperformed Gore’s percentage by at least 10 points in the trio of districts in his successful 2001 gubernatorial run. And Gov. Tim Kaine (D) did about 8 points better than Gore in the 5th and 6th when he was elected to the governor’s mansion in 2005.

Kaine equaled Gore’s 2000 percentage in the 9th only because it was GOP nominee Jerry Kilgore’s home district. In similar fashion, McDonnell may have a hard time racking up big margins in the Shenandoah Valley and southwestern Virginia because his opponent, state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D), is from the 6th district. But Republicans believe their nominee will do well.

Both parties are also looking at how specific demographic groups perform statewide, including suburban voters, seniors, African-Americans and college students. All of them were keys to President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, both in Virginia and elsewhere, and they will go a long way in determining which party is successful in 2010.

If McDonnell does well in Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties in the Northern Virginia suburbs, as well as Henrico County (a Richmond suburb) and the city of Chesapeake, Republicans believe it could foreshadow their ability to win over suburban voters in other states for the first time in four years.

Seniors have traditionally been an important voting group in midterm elections because of their propensity to vote. And Republicans believe Democrats gave them a window of opportunity by mentioning Medicare as part of the broader health care reform debate.

Meanwhile, both parties are interested in how dramatic the drop in turnout among African-Americans and college students will be when Obama is not on the ballot this fall.

Plus, overall turnout in both states is likely to be even lower next year because of the absence of any statewide or legislative elections.

In 2001, the Republican National Committee used the off-year gubernatorial elections to test-drive its 72 Hour Task Force. The RNC targeted areas with different get-out-the-vote tactics in an effort to hone its ground game for the 2002 midterm elections and ultimately Bush’s 2004 re-election. But this year, Republicans are taking a different approach.

“We’re done with experimenting,” one Republican strategist said. “We need to win.”

In the end, the RNC will spend at least $7 million in Virginia to help McDonnell take over the governorship after eight years of Democratic control. At least $5 million of that total will be spent on the ground in what one strategist called a massive, “Obama-style” get-out-the-vote effort.

“It’s an acknowledgement that the Obama campaign was in every way superior than the McCain campaign at getting people to the polls,” said the GOP strategist, referencing Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) failed bid for the presidency.

The Democratic National Committee, led by Kaine has also committed $5 million to the race.

But with Democratic nominees in both New Jersey and Virginia down in the polls, and facing the real possibility of losing both states, Democrats are quicker to downplay the 2009 results and much slower to draw any conclusions for 2010.

“The race will be decided by Virginia voters,” said one DNC official trying to set expectations low. “We’re not using it as any sort of litmus test.”

Strategists on both sides of the aisle do seem to agree that the New Jersey race is more an anomaly than a road map to the midterm elections.

“New Jersey is tougher,” according to one House GOP operative. “It appears to be more of a referendum on [incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon] Corzine than anything else.”

If former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (R) defeats Corzine, it will be Republicans’ first statewide victory in more than a dozen years. Christie will need Democrats to cross over in order to win, but that doesn’t mean GOP candidates nationwide should expect Democratic support in next year’s midterms.

House Democratic strategists aren’t dismissing the New Jersey results entirely. They’re interested in the 3rd district, where Rep. John Adler (D) took over a Republican-held open seat in 2008 and could potentially be vulnerable next year.

There is a danger in projecting 2010 results simply based on 2009 outcomes. When Republicans won New Jersey and Virginia in 1993, it was the beginning of a tidal wave that reached its peak a year later. But when Republicans lost New Jersey and Virginia in 2001, they still made limited gains in 2002.

Even if they lose both governorships this fall and the expected special election in New York’s 23rd district, Democrats don’t consider the whole year a loss. They held New York’s 20th district in a competitive special election this spring, held a state House seat in Iowa, held a state Senate seat in Louisiana and took over a state Senate seat in Kentucky.

Rest assured that the party that wins big this fall will say it’s just a taste of what’s to come next year. The party that loses will be channeling former Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.) and dusting off the “all politics is local” mantra.

This story first appeared in Roll Call on September 15, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.