FEC: Members Can Raise Soft Money for Redistricting Activities

By Nathan L. Gonzales

After hours of discussion and a weeklong delay, the Federal Election Commission on Friday voted to allow Members of Congress to raise soft money for some redistricting activities.

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’ post-2010 redistricting effort.

Last week, 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 hours of discussion, the commission deadlocked and pushed off making a decision for a week.

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, Members’ involvement in the process was expected to severely limited.

But after a tally vote on Friday, all six commissioners agreed to allow the trust to proceed.

“This is simply confirmation of existing FEC precedent — that raising funds for legal trusts is permitted under the campaign finance laws,” said Democratic attorney Marc Elias, who filed the initial request on behalf of the trust. “The trust will continue its work to lay a strong legal foundation for redistricting.”

Commissioner Steve Walther did not support the entirety of the analysis and issued a separate concurring opinion that cited Advisory Opinion 2003-15 (Majette) as the key precedent.

That advisory opinion, by a 5-0 vote, allowed Georgia Democrat Denise Majette to raise money outside of normal contribution rules for a legal expense trust fund after she was named as a defendant in a post-primary election lawsuit.

“I’m always happy that more folks can be fundraising for the lawyers,” veteran GOP attorney Mark Braden joked. “I hope to avoid becoming an involuntary major donor to various redistricting efforts this cycle!”

Republicans were anxiously awaiting the FEC’s most recent decision as well, but it’s unclear how it will effect GOP redistricting efforts.

Braden is working with Making America’s Promise Secure, a 501(c)(4) which is coordinating the legal, data-gathering and map-drawing aspects of redistricting for the GOP. The FEC’s decision appears to be focused narrowly on fundraising for legal activities.

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 and cannot have Member involvement.

This story first appeared on RollCall.com and CQPolitics.com on May 8, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

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.

Democrats Tap O’Shea to Head Redistricting Trust

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee National Field Director Casey O’Shea will be the new executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Trust.

Democrats are making the change after former Executive Director Brian Smoot shifted over to run the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure effort this year. But the trust didn’t have to go far to find his replacement.

After working with Smoot at the DCCC last cycle (when Smoot was political director), the pair formed their own consulting firm, 4C Partners, along with other former DCCC operatives Nicole Runge and Seth Pendleton. Before the DCCC, O’Shea was campaign manager and chief of staff for Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.).

“I’m very excited to be working with our top legal team to lay the foundation for the upcoming redistricting,” O’Shea told Roll Call on Friday.

The trust formed last year to coordinate state-by-state legal strategies and raise money for inevitable court battles in the next round of redistricting.

This story first appeared on RollCall.com and CQPolitics.com on April 2, 2010 and in Roll Call on April 5, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New Players Enter Redistricting Fight

By Nathan L. Gonzales

While Republicans and Democrats battle for the upper hand in selling the recently enacted health care bill, party operatives on both sides of the aisle are solidifying their strategies behind the scenes for the upcoming redistricting fight that will have an impact on Congressional politics for the next decade.

Democrats are making a change at the top of one if their key groups, the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, since Executive Director Brian Smoot is leaving his post to run the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure effort.

“I will be working with the trustees to identify a new director to ensure a smooth and seamless transition,” Smoot said. A decision on his replacement is expected to be made very soon.

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.

The parties are forced to use hard dollars or rely on outside groups without Member involvement. But the trust recently asked the Federal Election Commission for an advisory opinion to clarify Members’ roles in certain redistricting activities.

“The Trust seeks to confirm that Members of Congress may solicit funds for the Trust outside the limits and source restrictions prescribed by the Federal Election Campaign Act,” according to the February 19 letter signed by Marc Elias of Perkins Coie on behalf of the trust. “[S]uch solicitations are not intended to influence any federal or non-federal election and will not advocate the election or defeat of any candidate for office.”

“An advisory opinion is a shield, not a sword,” Elias explained in an interview about potential FEC complaints filed by opponents in the future.

Even though redistricting is an inherently political task, Democrats want the FEC to continue to differentiate between legal activity and electioneering.

Republicans are anxiously awaiting the opinion as well. “Everyone wants to see what [the FEC] says,” explained one GOP operative.

“I’m very interested,” laughed prominent GOP attorney Mark Braden, who is working with Making America’s Promise Secure. Depending on how the FEC crafts its response to the trust, it could allow MAPS, 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 has 60 days from when it received the letter, in mid-February, to respond.

Overall, the trust is just one part of the Democrats’ three-legged redistricting stool. The trust handles the legal component while Foundation for the Future, a 527, handles the data and analytical component in preparation for drawing the maps. But the political and electoral element is critical, too.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and its executive director, Michael Sargeant, recently announced a $20 million effort to capture state legislative chambers in order to control the redistricting process.

“The bottom line: The results of the 2010 state legislative elections will define how key reforms and policies are decided for the next decade,” Sargeant said in a March 15 memo.

The Democratic Governors Association is also part of the electoral component since governors in most states have a role in signing off on or vetoing maps. The DGA recently hired veteran Democratic operative Harold Ickes as fundraiser in chief to highlight the importance of gubernatorial races in the redistricting process.

As Democrats ramp up, Republicans are finally catching up with the formation of a new group that features some high-powered GOP players. Last month, the Republican State Leadership Committee, led by former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, launched its REDistricting MAjority Project.

“We want to make sure Republican legislators have pens in their hands,” former National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) told Roll Call. Reynolds and others are quick to point out that the redistricting process starts with controlling as many legislative chambers as possible.

The former Congressman is vice chairman of the RSLC and heading up REDMAP, which is organized as a 527 and has a budget of $20 million for nonfederal races this November. Even if the FEC allows Members to raise money for the trust, current Members still could not get involved with a 527 such as REDMAP or Foundation for the Future.

REDMAP’s formation relieves some tension on the Republican side. Traditionally, the RNC has coordinated the GOP’s redistricting effort, relying heavily on soft money. Now post-BCRA, the party was forced to completely restructure its redistricting effort. The RNC will play more of an advisory and educational role this time around.

In contrast, Democrats have relied on outside groups in the past, such as labor unions for fundraising and coordination, making it easier for them to adapt to the new rules this time around.

The Republicans finally seem to be streamlining their operation. REDMAP has essentially joined forces with the American Majority Project, which was created in December and led by former Tennessee Sen. Bill Brock, former North Carolina Rep. Robin Hayes and former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan.

While REDMAP and the Republican Governors Association focus on the 2010 elections and winning seats at the redistricting table, MAPS will handle the data and technical element of redistricting as well as coordinate for the party’s legal strategy for the inevitable legal battles after the maps are drawn.

This story first appeared in Roll Call and on CQPolitics.com on March 29, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Republicans Risk Sour Grapes Label With Talk of Repeal

By Stuart Rothenberg

Hold the phone, Martha. Congressional Republicans may give Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and President Barack Obama a big present with a beautiful bow wrapped around it.

Apparently unaware that Americans who strongly oppose the Democratic health care overhaul are already poised to vote Republican in November, many GOP officeholders and candidates have decided to focus their energy on repealing the recently enacted law.

Even before the Democratic bill passed the House, some Republican campaigns unleashed a blizzard of e-mails promising to repeal the measure.

Within 24 hours of the bill’s passage I had received “repeal” e-mails from New York Congressional hopeful Chris Cox, Missouri Congressional candidate Bill Stouffer, Kansas Congressional candidate Wink Hartman, Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, Arizona Congressional hopeful Jim Ward, Connecticut Senate candidate Rob Simmons, Texas Congressional candidate Quico Canseco, Wisconsin Senate hopeful Terrence Wall, Arizona Congressional candidate Jesse Kelly, Arkansas Senate wannabe Gilbert Baker and New Hampshire Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte.

No, that’s not the whole list. But you get the gist.

Some of these Republicans are in primaries or in rabidly anti-Obama states, so there is at least some logic to their calls. And, admittedly, some of the e-mails are little more than frantic, over-the-top fundraising letters aimed at tapping the anger among conservatives directed at the law. Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) e-mail is an obvious case in point.

But for others, calling for repeal of the law moments after the bill’s passage is a statement of ideological faith, a rallying cry for conservatives who never liked the bill and wish it had never passed.

On Sunday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) posted on his Web site that he would introduce a bill this week repealing “President Obama’s government takeover of health care.”

“Unless this trillion-dollar assault on our freedoms is repealed, it will force Americans to purchase Washington-approved health plans or face stiff penalties. It will fund abortions, raise taxes and insurance premiums, while reducing health care choices and quality,” the Senator wrote.

“This arrogant power grab proves that the President and his party care more about government control than the will of the American people. Americans told Washington to keep its hands off their health care in opinion polls, at public protests, and at the ballot box, but their pleas were ignored.”

Not to be outdone, on Monday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the mere mention of whose name can send Democratic true believers into cardiac arrest, posted on Townhall.com, a conservative Web site, that she had already “filed legislation to repeal Obamacare in hopes that we can start from scratch and give the American people true health care reform that won’t break the bank nor rob us of our individual liberty and freedom.”

OK. We get it. They didn’t like the bill and don’t like the law. And they voted against it. Fine.

But trying to refight the last war, on the same battlefield and with the same forces, isn’t dedication; it’s political stupidity.

Obviously, repeal is not possible now with Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House, and by demanding repeal, Republicans look like a bunch of spoiled children who didn’t get their way rather than adults focused on fixing a problem. Voters won’t like that.

From a political point of view, it’s an amateurish mistake. In fact, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has been goading Republican candidates into taking a stand on repeal for months, understanding the damage that Republicans could do to themselves by making the midterm elections a referendum on themselves, instead of on the president and Congress.

That doesn’t mean Republicans should forget about health care, of course.

Polling has long shown that the public isn’t crazy about the law (forget the quick post-passage polls that reflect short-term events), and as long as Republicans don’t make their quest for repeal into this cycle’s version of the Clinton impeachment zoo, the GOP stands to benefit from the issue in many states and districts this fall.

Now that the bill has been enacted into law, Republican political leaders and candidates should talk about the overhaul’s problems and relate those problems back to the public’s larger concerns, whether growing debt, higher taxes or government intrusion into people’s lives. But talking about the law’s ramifications and keeping the focus on the Democrats’ performance is very different than ranting about repeal.

More importantly, Republicans probably shouldn’t forget what Democrats unwisely did forget for a year — that Americans care more about jobs than anything else.

The 2010 elections are likely to be about jobs and the economy, and that’s what Republicans should be talking about as they criticize the Obama administration and Democratic Congress, whether they are talking about health care, cap-and-trade or the 2009 economic stimulus bill.

By demanding repeal immediately after passage, Republicans resemble unsuccessful candidates who keep challenging election results and refuse to concede. Voters don’t like candidates who sound like sour grapes, and they won’t like a party that sounds that way either.

This column first appeared in Roll Call and CQPolitics.com on March 25, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

For Democrats, This Isn’t Simply Another Chicken Little Story

By Stuart Rothenberg

For Democrats, the sky is falling, according to two national polls, one conducted by Peter Hart and Bill McInturff for NBC News/Wall Street Journal and the other by OnMessage Inc. for the Republican National Committee.

The results of the two surveys are very much in sync and present an increasingly disturbing picture for Democrats.

OnMessage’s March 9-11 survey found President Barack Obama’s job rating at 49 percent approve/47 percent disapprove, while the Hart/McInturff survey (March 11, 13-14) found it at 48 percent approve/47 percent disapprove.

Both found far more Americans believing the country was headed off on the wrong track (66 percent in OnMessage and 59 percent in Hart/McInturff) than in the right direction, and both found the once strong Democratic advantage in the generic ballot, which measures how people plan to vote in November (OnMessage) or which party they would like to control Congress after the next election (Hart/McInturff), has narrowed or disappeared.

The Hart/McInturff poll shows only 35 percent of respondents saying the February 2009 stimulus legislation was a good idea, while 42 percent said it was a bad idea.

Even worse for Democrats, by 61 percent to 30 percent, Americans now say it is better to have different parties controlling Congress and the presidency rather than to have one party controlling both branches — a significant increase in the “different parties” response compared to the October 2008 Hart/McInturff poll.

On specific issues, Democratic numbers have weakened dramatically, according to NBC News/Wall Street Journal polling

When asked which party would do a better job dealing with health care, the Democrats’ 31-point advantage in July 2008 has slipped to a mere 9 points now. The party’s 16-point advantage in July 2008 on dealing with the economy has evaporated completely, and the parties are now even. And on taxes, the Democrats’ 1-point advantage in July 2008 has turned into an 11-point GOP advantage.

No matter what happens with the health care bill (and it may well have been passed by the House by the time you read this), the issue has severely damaged Democratic prospects for the fall.

Not surprisingly, the OnMessage survey shows Democratic support for the bill and Republican opposition, but it also shows 2-to-1 opposition from voters who identify themselves as undecided about which party they plan to support in the midterm elections. In question after question in the OnMessage poll, these “generic undecided voters” look like very much like Republican voters.

After scouring dozens of polls over the past couple of weeks, I have found only a few poll questions that can give Democrats much hope for November.

First, the Republican brand still stinks. Voters aren’t clamoring for Republicans to run anything in Washington, D.C., and polls continue to show that Americans still think that former President George W. Bush bears more of the responsibility for the nation’s economic pain than anyone else.

Unfortunately for Democrats, their own brand has fallen like a rock.

In April, almost a year ago, the Hart/McInturff poll found 45 percent of Americans with a positive view of the Democratic Party and 34 percent with a negative view. In the most recent Hart/McInturff survey, the Democratic Party’s positives have sunk to 37 percent and its negatives have risen to 43 percent. Yes, those numbers are slightly better than the GOP’s (31 percent positive/43 percent negative), but not enough to help Democrats in the fall.

As for Bush, he won’t be on the ballot or in the public’s consciousness in November, so Democrats will have to spend a great deal of time (and money) trying to make the midterms a referendum on the former president rather than on the sitting president. The chances that most Democratic candidates will succeed in that effort are exceedingly small.

Privately, many Democratic insiders acknowledge that the party’s outlook is increasingly bleak for the fall. Health care reform, once seen as a party strength, has turned into a significant liability, and few think the economy will turn around far enough or fast enough to help Democratic candidates in the midterm elections.

Even before this election cycle started, midterm election turnout trends put Democrats at something of a disadvantage. But now, every poll that I have seen suggests that Republicans are dramatically more motivated than are Democrats, which means a more conservative and Republican electorate this year than in 2008, as well as much-improved Republican prospects.

I have been hesitant — and I remain hesitant — to get too far in front of the election cycle, since circumstances can change and Democrats could well have an important financial advantage in the key post-Labor Day time period. But let’s be clear about what is developing: Obama and the Democratic Congressional leadership have dug themselves into a deep and dangerous political hole, and the only question right now seems to be the severity of the drubbing.

As one smart Democratic strategist told me recently, “All of the elements are in place for a disaster like 1994. But it could be even worse.”

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

No Easy Answers for Democrats' Problems

Stu takes a look at the Democrats' challenge in this election year on CBS News' Washington Unplugged with Bill Plante and The Washington Post's Scott Wilson. You can watch the video below or click here.



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Good News Is Hard to Find for Democrats as Spring Begins

By Stuart Rothenberg

With a nearly 80-seat House majority, 60 seats in the Senate for more than eight months, a GOP brand so damaged that the party looked completely incompetent and a charismatic African-American president taking over from a failed two-term Republican president, you’d have thought that Democrats were set up for a pretty decent two years.

But only one year after the passage of the economic stimulus that was advertised as the first step to revitalizing the American economy and getting Americans back to work, the outlook for November is increasingly troubling for Democrats.

Democrats are headed for big losses in the House and Senate, but the Obama administration and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill continue to plow ahead on health care reform instead of successfully pivoting to jobs and the economy.

The economic news generally is depressing for Democrats. Recent data on seasonally adjusted first-time unemployment claims and on new housing starts offer no reason for optimism, so it’s not surprising that two measures of consumer sentiment, the ABC News Consumer Comfort Index and the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey, declined sharply recently.

Democrats have botched their top legislative priority — health care reform — in so many ways that there is plenty of blame to go around. Yes, they may pass a comprehensive bill, but at a steep cost.

The White House failed to give Congress enough direction on policy, letting each chamber chew over the issue until a wide gap existed between the House and Senate bills.

Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was too interested in laying down a liberal marker from which to negotiate and too sensitive to the concerns of her senior Members, all of whom represent safe seats. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the other major player, seemed deaf to his chamber’s political realities.

Of course the party’s most ideological wing wanted a “robust” public insurance option, higher taxes on the wealthy and abortion-friendly legislation. But it was up to Democratic leaders to bring the base along at some point during 2009. If that had happened, Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) upset victory in January would not have mattered.

And now, you can add to the list of Democratic problems an ethics panel admonishment of House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel, the powerful New York Democrat who has given up his gavel, at least temporarily.

Democrats don’t have a monopoly on public corruption or personal scandal, as anyone who has lived through the past decade knows. For every former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), there is a South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R). For every former Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), there is a former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.).

The problem for Democrats, of course, is that they ran against the “culture of corruption” just a couple of cycles ago, so the admonishment of Rangel, combined with questions about other Democratic Members, scandals surrounding two consecutive Democratic governors of New York and the upcoming trial of a former Democratic governor of Illinois, create an impression that Democrats could do without.

Fairly or not, Democratic control of both chambers of Congress during a period of voter disenchantment enhances the chance that voters will punish Democrats for any shortcoming, legislative or ethical.

Finally, there is the president, whose job approval and favorable numbers have plummeted since his election.

Of course President Barack Obama’s 75 percent job approval numbers in December 2008 didn’t measure anything but Americans’ hope for success. But it’s the rise in his disapproval ratings from the mid-20s in early March 2009 to the mid-40s now that ought to be troubling for Democratic strategists.

Historical survey data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research show that the job approval of each of the last eight presidents has fallen between January and October of midterm election years (based on the average from all polls conducted during those months), and if that trend continues, it obviously creates additional problems for Democratic candidates.

Even more troubling for Democratic strategists is the drastic change in the attitude of independents, from virtually mirroring the sentiments of Democrats during the last two election cycles to now more closely resembling the views of Republicans (on both mood and issues).

Unfortunately for Democrats, passing legislation between now and November isn’t likely to change the political landscape nationally, though it could close the enthusiasm gap by energizing Democratic voters who have been disappointed by the Obama administration’s performance.

Republicans are not likely to change their views of the president and the Congress before the midterms, and the opinions (and political behavior) of independents and weak Democrats are much more likely to be tied to their perceptions of the economy and the job market than to whether Congress passes a particular piece of legislation.

Still, Democratic leaders from the White House to Congress have to do anything they can to alter the trajectory of the 2010 elections, and with eight months to go until Election Day, almost anything is possible. But the one thing Obama and Congressional Democrats need is some good news.

This column first appeared in Roll Call and on CQPolitics.com on March 4, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Would Reconciliation for Health Care Affect Midterm Elections?

By Stuart Rothenberg

Democrats have plenty of reasons to try to pass health care reform through the Senate using reconciliation to avoid the need for a 60-vote majority. But using the process would constitute a risky roll of the dice for party leaders.

Democratic strategists clearly understand the importance of passing some sort of health care reform bill before November, and they aren’t at all optimistic about working with Republicans from scratch on a new measure. Their view, right or wrong, is that Republicans aren’t serious about working on a bipartisan measure.

Given that, reconciliation could be the only way for Democrats — and for the president — to pass a bill that they desperately need in order to deliver on a key campaign promise.

Using reconciliation to circumvent unified Republican opposition would generate applause on the left, and especially with Democrats who have complained that party leaders have placed too high a priority on reaching out to Republicans and not enough on passing reform that the Democratic base wants.

Democratic enthusiasm has been a problem at the grass roots (at least compared with the GOP), so a confrontation with Republicans over reconciliation and passage of a reform bill would almost certainly energize Democrats (assuming, of course, that the grass roots were pleased with the final bill). That could close the enthusiasm gap that separates the two parties going into the midterm elections.

One GOP strategist I talked with argued that Democrats have already been damaged by the health care reform debate, and using reconciliation would not make things that much worse for the president’s party.

Passing any health care reform bill could lead to a quick uptick in overall public sentiment, since some of the negativity about Congress and about the direction of the country stems from Washington’s inability to address the nation’s toughest problems.

But while using the reconciliation process could help Democrats deliver on their promise, it could also give Republicans yet another arrow in the party’s already well-stocked quiver.

While Republican legislators and their talking-head allies would be sure to bash the substance of the proposal — just as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) did on Monday in his press release, criticizing “another partisan, back-room bill that slashes Medicare for our seniors, raises a half-trillion in new taxes, fines them if they don’t buy the right insurance and further expands the role of government” — they also would be able to attack Democrats for how they passed the measure.

I recently spoke with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, a veteran of the health care wars, about the danger Democrats face using reconciliation to pass health care reform, and he thinks the tactic would be a gamble for Democrats.

“Process issues usually don’t matter,” acknowledged McInturff, before noting that this time things could be different.

“People have a stunning amount of information about the fight over health care reform and Democratic efforts to pass a bill. There is the perception that there have been backroom deals — with Senators from Louisiana and Nebraska, and with labor unions — to get support for a bill that isn’t to the public’s advantage.”

“People have come to the conclusion that it must be a bad bill, since if it were a good one, Democratic leaders wouldn’t have had to do what they did to get the votes to pass it,” McInturff continued.

“Using reconciliation could reinforce the view that Democrats are trying to pass a flawed bill, so they are having to use an unusual procedure to pass it.”

McInturff is quick to point out that Republicans would have to put reconciliation into “the broader narrative,” arguing that it is because the bill is “deeply flawed” that Democrats can’t use “ordinary means” to pass it through Congress.

In fact, the GOP pollster notes, the White House’s decision to jettison the special deals that Democratic Senate leaders used to round up 60 votes to pass the Senate’s version of health care reform demonstrates that the White House understands just how “toxic” the special deals with Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) were.

Finally, McInturff adds that the “tone and tenor” of Republican opposition is important and that showing respect for the president is absolutely crucial. And he warns that GOP Senators shouldn’t get drawn into an argument about the process of reconciliation — which has been used by Republican presidents — but should stress the flaws of the Democratic bill and Democrats’ need to use an unusual process to pass it.

If McInturff is correct, and I believe he is, Democrats would face an uncomfortable trade-off. They could try to pass a bill they desperately want and one that would please base voters. But in doing so, they would give Republicans more ammunition to use against them, possibly solidifying the GOP’s hold on independents and swing voters.

Failure to pass a health care bill is the single worst outcome possible for Democrats. Unfortunately for party leaders, passing a bill using reconciliation looks like a very close second.

This column first appeared in Roll Call and CQPolitics.com on February 25, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved.

Public Anger Continues to Hammer Incumbents

Stu was on the Newshour tonight with the Hotline's Amy Walter talking about the public dissatisfaction with Washington and how it's affecting incumbents. You can click on the video here or watch the video below.

It All Depends on the Meaning of Party Identification

By Stuart Rothenberg

I’ll admit it. I like numbers.

Whether the number is a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) when evaluating a baseball pitcher, a price-to-earnings ratio when evaluating a stock or a job approval when considering an incumbent’s re-election prospects, I rely on numbers to allow me to make comparisons and, often, projections for the future.

But some numbers don’t tell the whole story, even when they come from one of the most prestigious and widely cited public opinion organizations in the world, Gallup.

About a week ago, Gallup released a report on party identification in the states. Nationally, the respected polling firm found Democrats with an 8-point advantage, 49 percent to 41 percent, down from a 12-point advantage in 2008.

The change in attitudes from 2008 to 2009 isn’t surprising, since the GOP probably bottomed out with President Barack Obama’s election. Still, Gallup’s aggregate data are useful, especially when examining changes in party identification over a long period of time.

The troubling part of the report, “Party ID: Despite GOP Gains, Most States Remain Blue,” came for me when Gallup characterized the strength of the two major political parties in each of the 50 states, too often leading readers to some misleading conclusions.

Gallup assigned states to one of five categories — Strong Democrat, Lean Democrat, Competitive, Lean Republican, Strong Republican — based on the self-identified partisanship of more than 350,000 adults nationwide.

The states that have become partisan bastions — for example, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maryland on the Democratic side, and Wyoming, Utah and Idaho for the GOP — aren’t surprising. Other characterizations are, well, bizarre.

Gallup found self-identification in South Carolina at 42.8 percent Democratic and 42.3 percent Republican, for a Democratic advantage of one-half of 1 point. That makes the Palmetto State “competitive” according to Gallup’s system of classification.

That may indeed be the way people in South Carolina identify themselves by party, but it isn’t the way they vote. The state has two GOP Senators, a Republican governor and four Republican Congressmen, compared with two Democrats. The last Democratic nominee for president to carry the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976 (before most of the South had realigned), and in 2008, Republicans won large majorities in both chambers of the South Carolina Legislature.

Classifying South Carolina as “competitive” on the basis of respondents’ party self- identification suggests that party identification is meaningless.

Of course, South Carolina could be a fluke in the Gallup study. But it isn’t.

According to Gallup, Democrats have an 8-point advantage in Ohio, 48 percent Democrat to 39.7 percent Republican, making the state “Solid Democrat” according to the organization’s criteria.

Any system that classifies the Buckeye State as “solidly Democratic” has some internal problems.

Ohio went for Democrat Barack Obama 52 percent to 47 percent last time, and its governor, Ted Strickland, is a Democrat. But each party has one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats, and the U.S. House delegation is an almost even 8 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Democrats hold a narrow edge in the state House (53 to 46), while Republicans hold a more comfortable 21-12 advantage in the state Senate.

Given the difficulty that Republicans have had both nationally and in the state over the past couple of election cycles, it seems pretty clear that the state is extremely competitive.

Gallup categorizes Missouri as “Solid Democrat” because 46.8 percent of Missouri adults identify with the Democratic Party while only 37.3 percent identify with the GOP.

Like Ohio, Missouri has one U.S. Senator from each party and a Democratic governor. But five of its nine U.S. House seats are occupied by Republicans, and the GOP won more than two-thirds of the seats in the state Senate. Republicans also control the Missouri House, 89-74.

Missouri, of course, was a squeaker in the 2008 presidential contest, with Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) nipping Democrat Obama. Does that sound like the profile of a solidly Democratic state?

I won’t go in detail through the other states mischaracterized — Florida and Kentucky do not lean Democratic, while Georgia and the two Dakotas are more Republican behaviorally than the “competitive” category to which Gallup assigns them — but you get the picture.

Gallup wasn’t helped with the timing of its report. With recent national and state polls showing Democrats losing ground, including on the Congressional ballot for 2010, Gallup’s report concluded, “Despite the modest shift toward a decreased affiliation with the Democratic party ... the United States remained a Democratically oriented nation last year.”

I’m certainly not questioning Gallup’s methodology, since unlike some who call themselves pollsters, Gallup knows what it is doing.

Still, the Gallup report reminds us of the limits of measuring partisan self-identification and the limits of polling itself. What matters isn’t what people tell pollsters; it’s what they actually think and do.

This column first appeared in Roll Call and on CQPolitics.com on February 8, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Can the GOP Afford a Wave?

By Nathan L. Gonzales

After big gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey last year and the possibility of picking up the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) seat in today's special election, there’s no question that Republican spirits are high at the moment.

But the bank accounts at the GOP campaign committees are disproportionately low, and there is some nervousness among party operatives that they won’t have enough money to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity at the ballot box this fall.

Still, while Democrats may be banking on having their large cash advantage help insulate them from heavy House seat losses, there are some political climates that you can’t spend your way out of — a lesson that Republicans learned in 2006.

That cycle, when Republicans were in the majority, the National Republican Congressional Committee spent more than $83.5 million on independent expenditures compared with $64.1 million in spending by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The spending discrepancy didn’t stop Democrats from winning 30 seats and taking control of the House in what became a national wave election. In 11 of the seats that flipped, the Republican incumbent outspent the Democratic challenger and the NRCC outspent the DCCC, but the Republicans still lost. And in two more GOP open seats, both the Republican nominee and the NRCC had the spending edge, but the Democrats still won.

But even when Republicans had the financial edge, they weren’t outspending Democrats by 2-to-1 or even 3-to-1, a prospect that the GOP could face this year.

This cycle, the NRCC had $4.3 million in the bank (and $2 million in debt) on Nov. 30, compared with the DCCC’s $15.3 million (and $2.7 million in debt). Year-end reports are due later this month.

Republicans are having a difficult time turning grass-roots conservative anger into campaign dollars. Multiple House GOP strategists expressed concern that the Republican National Committee — headed by headline-grabbing Chairman Michael Steele — won’t have the money that it normally invests in Congressional races in midterm elections.

“It is not lost on anyone that accomplishing our goal of retiring Nancy Pelosi as Speaker will require more assistance from House Republicans, as well as all of our donors and friends,” NRCC spokesman Paul Lindsay said. “With that support, we’re confident that we will close the gap in the coming months in order to keep Democrats accountable for their reckless agenda.”

At a briefing with reporters last month, DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) pointed out that Republicans hardly have enough money to fully fund one top-tier House race, let alone their full slate of targets.

If the NRCC can’t raise enough money to fund targeted races, the RNC has traditionally been the place to look for a financial bailout in a midterm election. In 2006, the RNC spent about $25 million on Congressional races.

Only a portion of that money was transferred directly to the campaign committees and turned into television ads. More importantly, according to multiple GOP strategists, the RNC usually shoulders the burden for the “ground game” in competitive states, including funding absentee voter programs.

Even during the past three years that the GOP has spent in the Congressional minority, the RNC has maintained a cash advantage over the Democratic National Committee. But after spending more than $90 million last year, including heavy investments in the Virginia ($9 million) and New Jersey ($4 million) wins, the RNC showed a cash balance of just $8.7 million at the end of November. The DNC spent $71.6 million and had $13 million in the bank.

Even with an expected uptick in GOP fundraising, there is little doubt Democrats will have the financial edge this year.

But the question remains: How much will it matter?

In 2008, the DCCC spent a total of $75 million on IEs in 64 districts. The NRCC spent more than $21 million in 35 districts. Taking a closer look, the DCCC spent $1 million unanswered (the NRCC spent nothing) in 19 districts. Democrats won 15 of those races.

But that spending advantage was coupled with a favorable political climate. It’s unclear how much money it will take when Democratic candidates are running into a headwind, if not a wave.

“If I had to choose money or climate, it’s not even close,” according to one veteran Democratic strategist, who would choose a positive climate hands down.

Past election results show that challengers don’t have to equal incumbent spending, but multiple GOP House strategists don’t believe many of their candidates can withstand a 2-1 or 3-1 disadvantage. Money allows a candidate and party to define their opponent and the narrative of the race. But it doesn’t always work when a national story line overshadows the contest.

“If the climate stays the way it is now, the money will come in late,” the Democratic source added. “[Republicans] won’t need as much as what people think.”

Even with a financial advantage, the DCCC will likely face some tough spending decisions. Democrats may have to learn to cut their losses in some seats early on because, in the end, it’s not necessarily about how much money you have, it’s about how you spend it.

In 2006, the NRCC kept pumping money into Ohio’s open 18th district ($3.2 million), the open seat in Texas’ 22nd district ($1.8 million) and the re-election race of then-Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.) ($1.5 million), even though it became clear well before Election Day that each race was unwinnable.

But conversely, heavy NRCC spending in some races was a big factor in the GOP holding as many as a dozen seats.

With an expanding playing field that increasingly puts Democrats on the defensive, Democratic offensive opportunities appear to be shrinking. And with more vulnerable incumbents looking to the committee for help, Member races have to take priority over open-seat and challenger contests when it comes to funding priorities.


This story first appeared in Roll Call on January 14, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Are Democrats Trying to Follow Past GOP Leaders Off the Cliff?

By Stuart Rothenberg

When the GOP controlled Congress and the White House, many Democrats and their allies in the media complained that Republicans were more interested in pursuing a narrow ideological agenda intended to transform government and society rather than in solving the nation’s problems.

Whether you agreed with that assessment, the charge wasn’t completely unreasonable. Tax cuts to strangle government, deregulation for the sake of deregulation and social policy to advance the conservative agenda at any cost (e.g., Terri Schiavo) seemed among the rules of the day, no matter what the problem or the public’s desire.

During 2007 and 2008, Capitol Hill Democrats were careful not to emulate the approach of GOP Congressional leaders in 1995 and 1996. But since President Barack Obama’s election, those same Democrats seem to have forgotten what happened when Republicans pushed too far, too fast for change.

Increasingly, party leaders on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue seem more interested in pushing an ideological agenda to transform the nation and the federal government rather than in dealing with the nation’s problems.

Until a handful of Senate Democrats negotiated a new health care reform deal that does not include a public option, that seemed more important to Democratic leaders than portability of insurance, ending denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions and a variety of proposals to lower costs and expand coverage.

Some have argued that only something as dramatic as a public option will truly deal with the nation’s health care “crisis,” but that’s hard to swallow considering the sizable Democratic opposition to the idea in the House and the newly crafted Senate package.

Yes, we have seen this before. After the 1994 elections, GOP leaders interpreted the results as an invitation — even a demand by most Americans — to change the country fundamentally by cutting government.

Of course, that wasn’t the case any more than last year’s presidential and Congressional elections were a mandate for a public insurance option in health care reform or a cap-and-trade bill or the enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Normal people don’t think that way, but politically active ideologues do, and after a sweeping election victory those elites try to impose their collective will on the American people, couching their proposals as the public’s.

Then-Texas Republican Reps. Tom DeLay and Dick Armey’s arrogance allowed President Bill Clinton to “triangulate,” and he was re-elected two years after the Republican tsunami that was supposed to change how Washington worked. Even Clinton’s re-election victory didn’t convince the GOP’s leaders that their constant pedal-to-the-metal strategy was the wrong approach, and DeLay, in particular, continued to look for ways to move his revolution forward on Capitol Hill until he left Congress.

During the DeLay years, Republican Congressional leaders spent much of their time talking to their contributors, media allies (such as Rush Limbaugh) and public policy soulmates at the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Tax Reform. No wonder they got a distorted view of what they needed to do on Capitol Hill.

Now, the players are different. It’s the Center for American Progress, big labor unions, Planned Parenthood and liberal bloggers — but the result is the same: a Democratic agenda that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.); Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.), Ed Markey (Mass.) and George Miller (Calif.); and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) want.

It’s fair, of course, to observe that Democratic leaders are in a bind. They are being pulled by party moderates on Capitol Hill toward the center and to the left by the party’s base. But let’s not be naive. The Waxmans and Millers of the world aren’t being pulled toward the party’s base despite their own political judgment. That’s where they want to go.

Putting all of the blame on the Democratic base for the party’s ideological agenda in 2009 would have been like asserting that DeLay and Armey merely were pawns of the party’s ideologues in 1995. Congressional leaders then, and now, are part of that base.

If Congress really wanted to take important steps to reforming health care, broadening coverage and bending the cost curve, they could have started to make real progress before Wednesday.

The strategic political argument that Democrats had to stake out a position far to the left so that they could negotiate the best deal possible was reasonable up until Labor Day. But now, with the end of the year fast approaching, Congressional Democrats should be celebrating passage rather than scrambling to find new ideas that would be acceptable to moderates and liberals in both the House and the Senate.

Coming up with a new idea three weeks before Christmas and jamming it through the Senate may well be what party leaders do best. But it’s no way to write important legislation.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on December 10, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved.

Landscape Shift Means More Trouble for House Democrats

By Stuart Rothenberg

Already prepared to deal with challenging midterm turnout dynamics that favor the GOP, national Democratic strategists now find themselves looking at higher unemployment numbers, potentially divisive foreign policy decisions and a president who lacks the luster that he had immediately after his inauguration.

This new political reality has a significant effect on the election prospects of dozens of Democratic candidates for the House, whether incumbents, challengers or open-seat hopefuls.

More than a dozen Democratic Members who were already headed for competitive contests now find themselves in even more serious danger in next year’s midterm elections. Before the election cycle ends, most of them are likely to be underdogs for re-election.

Those at greatest risk represent Republican-leaning or conservative districts, as well as districts where a big turnout for Barack Obama by African-American and younger voters helped Democratic candidates for Congress.

The list of Democratic freshmen most affected by the national shift includes Reps. Bobby Bright (Ala.), Walt Minnick (Idaho), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Travis Childers (Miss.), Harry Teague (N.M.), Steve Driehaus (Ohio), Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio) and Tom Perriello (Va.).

Three of those freshmen — Kratovil, Driehaus and Kilroy — face rematches, while Teague is being challenged by former Rep. Steve Pearce (R), who gave up his seat to run for the Senate.

Given midterm issues and the current political environment, Democrats seem certain to lose at least two of those four seats, with a loss of three quite probable and a Republican sweep of all four certainly possible.

Though the next tier of at-risk Democrats initially appeared slightly less vulnerable, Reps. Betsy Markey (Colo.), Suzanne Kosmas (Fla.), Bill Foster (Ill.), Eric Massa (N.Y.) and Mark Schauer (Mich.) also find themselves in significantly more trouble.

Alan Grayson (Fla.), who started off in this group of freshmen, now looks worse off after his self-inflicted wound on the House floor, even though Republicans do not yet have a top-tier challenger.

One way to look at Democratic problems is to focus on open seats. With Republican Reps. Mark Kirk (Ill.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.) and Mike Castle (Del.) running statewide, Democrats might look like a lock to make important open-seat gains. But they aren’t, at least not yet.

Democrats could well win all three, but Republicans have recruited potentially strong candidates in the Illinois and Pennsylvania districts, and they have good pickup opportunities of their own in the open seats being vacated by Democratic Reps. Charlie Melancon (La.) and Joe Sestak (Pa.).

At the moment, Democrats are likely to pick up two GOP-held seats: Castle’s and that of freshman Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (La.).

Of course, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has made a significant recruiting effort to put additional Republican-held seats into play by recruiting challengers to Reps. Charlie Dent (Pa.), Patrick Tiberi (Ohio), Mary Bono Mack (Calif.), Lee Terry (Neb.) and, yet again, Michele Bachmann (Minn.). But the overall direction of the cycle makes it much more difficult for those Democratic challengers than it would have been in 2006 or 2008.

If House losses in the 2010 elections are limited to the districts already mentioned, some Democratic insiders will breathe a huge sigh of relief, since net Democratic losses would be only in the eight- to 15-seat range. That would mean the political environment didn’t drown plenty of Democrats in potentially dangerous districts.

A gain of 12 to 15 seats would be a good showing for the GOP, but it would be a disappointment to overly optimistic Republicans who expect gains of at least three dozen seats.

Over the past two cycles, Democrats were able to defeat popular Republican incumbents because voters were so dissatisfied with President George W. Bush and his party. GOP incumbents who hadn’t been in trouble for years suddenly found themselves in tough races.

This cycle, Democratic strategists hope to avoid the same fate for long-term incumbents such as Reps. Loretta Sanchez (Calif.), Ike Skelton (Mo.), Bart Gordon (Tenn.), Vic Snyder (Ark.), Rick Boucher (Va.) and Chet Edwards (Texas), as well as for more recently elected Members who don’t yet look highly vulnerable, including Reps. Christopher Carney (Pa.), Larry Kissell (N.C.), Glenn Nye (Va.) and John Adler (N.J.).

The shift in national mood has boosted GOP fundraising, and Democratic strategists must hope that core constituencies aren’t disappointed by how Congress ultimately deals with health care reform or how the president handles Afghanistan and Iran.

But November 2010 is still a long way off. Democrats could win another House special election next month, and we don’t yet know how Congress will ultimately deal with health care, what will develop in Afghanistan and Iran, or where the economy will be. But even if the news is more upbeat for Democrats a year from now, the new political landscape is bad news for the dozen or so House Democrats at greatest risk.

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

Vote for Us — We Aren’t Nearly as Bad as the Other Guys!

By Stuart Rothenberg

Next year’s elections are starting to look like a choice between bad and worse, if we are to believe the most recent batch of polling data, including the consistently reliable NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The Sept. 17-20 survey, conducted by Democratic pollster Peter Hart of Hart Research Associates and Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, shows President Barack Obama’s job approval at 51 percent, down 10 points from April.

Congress’ job approval, in contrast, has fallen by only 6 points over the same time. But of course, Members of Congress shouldn’t take anything positive from that. With an approval rating of 22 percent in the most recent survey, they don’t have much further to fall.

The two worst bits of news for Democrats are the narrowing of the Democratic advantage on respondents’ preferences for next year’s elections and the dip in the Democratic Party’s ratings.

In October of last year, 49 percent of registered voters polled said they wanted a Democratic-controlled Congress, while only 36 percent said they preferred a Republican-controlled Congress. That’s a hefty 13-point Democratic advantage.

The September poll, however, has the Democratic edge down to 3 points — 43 percent to 40 percent over the GOP.

It’s worth noting that the wording of the question used by the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll to measure voters’ partisan preferences in the next election differs from that used in many (probably most) other surveys.

Most pollsters (including recent surveys by Bloomberg, Franklin & Marshall and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps) use a variation of the Gallup generic question — “If the elections for Congress were being held today, which party’s candidate would you vote for in your Congressional district — the Democratic Party’s candidate or the Republican Party’s candidate?”

That’s not an unreasonable wording, but Peter Hart prefers the question as posed in his NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll to measure generic preference: “What is your preference for the outcome of next year’s Congressional elections — a Congress controlled by Republicans or a Congress controlled by Democrats?”

“We had two different questions [to measure generic sentiment] in our 1994 September and October surveys,” Hart, whose extensive work in political polling undoubtedly makes him one of the nation’s most accomplished and respected pollsters, told me in a recent interview. “We found out that the [traditional] generic ballot question didn’t help us see what was coming. [The question we now use] gave us better insight into what happened.”

Hart speculates that since some respondents know the name and party of their incumbent Member of Congress, they insert that name mentally into the question being asked, thereby altering the intended purely “generic” nature of the question.

The decline in the percentage of voters who want Democrats controlling Congress is worrisome for Democratic strategists because the public’s image of the party has also eroded.

In February, 49 percent of respondents had very or somewhat positive feelings toward the Democratic Party, while 31 percent had somewhat or very negative feelings toward it.

In September, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found only 41 percent with very or somewhat positive feelings and an almost equal 39 percent with very or somewhat negative feelings.

You might assume that the GOP has benefited from this Democratic decline. Don’t. The Republican Party’s image has improved so little since February that it might as well as have not improved at all.

In February, 26 percent of respondents had a very or somewhat favorable view of the Republican Party, and in September, that number had inched up to 28 percent. Meanwhile, the party’s combined negatives fell from 47 percent to a still far-too-high 43 percent.

Republicans argue that the midterm elections will be a referendum on Obama and on Democratic control of Congress, so the public’s attitude toward the Democrats is far more important than how they feel about the GOP.

While I certainly agree with the direction of that assessment, it’s unwise to dismiss the low GOP numbers cavalierly.

Negative ratings as high as the Republican Party is now carrying give Democratic candidates and campaign committees an opportunity to demonize GOP candidates, possibly limiting the damage to Democrats in the midterms.

In October 2006, NBC News/Wall Street Journal polling showed the Democratic Party with only a net +4 in image (39 percent positive/35 percent negative) among registered voters, while the GOP’s was -13 (35 percent positive/48 percent negative). Democrats gained 30 House seats.

Two years later, in October 2008, the net Democratic advantage among registered voters was a mere single point (39 percent positive/38 percent negative), while the Republican Party’s image was far worse, a net of -17 (31 percent positive/48 percent negative). Democrats gained 20 more seats.

Of course, it’s certainly important to note that both elections were “about” George W. Bush and the Republican Party, and that even if the GOP’s image remains upside down (higher negatives than positives), the party is likely to gain House seats next year.

It is difficult for the Republican Party to improve its image right now, but the party surely will need a far more favorably inclined public before it crawls entirely out of the deep hole that it now is in. Some new spokesmen might be a start.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 5, 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.

South Carolina 2: Forget Health Care and Afghanistan: Let’s All Talk About Joe Wilson

By Stuart Rothenberg

The idea that South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (R) created a firestorm about anything is amusing. Who, other than his buddies in the House and his constituents in the Palmetto State, has ever heard of the guy?

But the 2nd district Congressman’s ill-advised, improper and inappropriate shout during President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress got Wilson more bad publicity than he ever could have imagined. Learn to control yourself, Congressman.

Having said that, most of the attention to and outrage about Wilson’s behavior is pretty silly. The guy acted like a jerk. He apologized. Fine, let’s move on. Personally, I think he should have quickly apologized from the House floor, since that’s where he made his blunder. But it’s not that big a deal.

Still, we live in an era when much of politics is about tactics, not ideas, so, confronted by a conundrum about health care, uncertainty about what to do about climate change and energy, and unappealing alternatives regarding Afghanistan, Democrats and many in the media decided that the No. 1 topic of the day was Wilson’s “You lie!” rebuke of Obama.

The Connecticut Democratic Party, for example, quickly issued a press release demanding that Republican Senate candidate Rob Simmons, a former House Member, “return” the $8,000 that Wilson had donated to Simmons years ago (before Wilson acted like a jerk last week). This is a standard tactic — both parties do it — even if it’s nonsense.

Less than 24 hours after Wilson’s screw-up, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was out with a fundraising e-mail about the South Carolina Republican’s behavior. Democratic fundraisers are no fools, and they wasted no time in trying to get angry Democratic contributors to dig deep.

Given how public opinion has changed regarding the president — and Congress — over the past six weeks, it’s hard to blame Congressional Democrats and their allies on MSNBC for trying to change the subject.

But let’s get real: Wilson doesn’t even rise to the importance of a footnote in history.

Wilson is getting credit for reviving a Democratic Party that seemed very much down in the dumps. Contributions to Wilson’s likely 2010 Democratic opponent, Rob Miller, skyrocketed. The DCCC reported on Thursday afternoon that Miller had taken in “more than $200,000 since Wilson’s outburst” from “5,000 new contributors.” By Friday afternoon, the fundraising total was over $800,000.

Influential Washington Post writer Chris Cillizza concluded that Wilson re-energized the Democratic base and helped “remind liberals that when compared to the alternative, the plan being put forward by Obama is far better.”

My friends at the Cook Political Report quickly changed their rating of Wilson’s re-election prospects, from safe Republican to likely Republican, though they didn’t change their fundamental evaluation of the seat.

“This conservative seat remains relatively secure,” they wrote, adding that the controversy looks like little more than “a distraction for the GOP.”

Still, that didn’t stop the DCCC from sending around the ratings change. Nor did it stop some at the liberal Daily Kos blog from encouraging like-minded combatants to support Miller, who lost to Wilson by 8 points in 2008 and is running again.

Is the “Joe Wilson controversy” likely to alter the health care debate, the future of the Obama presidency, the outcome of the midterm elections or the fate of Wilson, himself?

We won’t know the answer to any of these questions for months, but count me as skeptical that it will have much long-term impact at all.

The Wilson brouhaha is reminiscent of the Van Jones brouhaha, which percolated for a few days as conservatives, Fox News Channel and some mainstream reporters drove themselves into a tizzy over the administration official’s vulgar words and strange views about 9/11 (which he disavowed). But in the grand scheme of things, that, too, was a mere bump in the road.

When we all get back to discussing and fighting over health care reform — about the cost, the extent of coverage, the role of the bureaucracy and the inclusion (or not) of a public insurance option — the Wilson stuff will be quickly forgotten.

Two weeks from now, MoveOn.org will still be angry at Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) will still be so worried about her re-election that she opposes a public option, and Republicans will still score points with seniors and conservatives worried about a “government takeover of health care.”

As for Wilson, who has also seen a fundraising windfall from the controversy, he remains, at least at this point, a solid favorite for re-election.

Miller, who drew 46 percent against Wilson last year, will have a bigger war chest next time, but he will also face greater hurdles.

Miller spent a considerable $624,000 in 2008, meaning he ran a real campaign. The combination of that cash, plus Obama’s appeal and the worst political environment for Republicans since at least 1982 (if not 1976), helped Miller add about 9 points to the showing of Wilson’s 2006 Democratic opponent, Michael Ray Ellisor, who did not raise enough money that year to file a federal fundraising report.

Given that Obama drew 45 percent of the vote in Wilson’s district in 2008, Miller’s percentage looks somewhat less than remarkable.

Wilson did energize liberals, but that was bound to happen anyway. The bloggers and cable TV talkers would have made sure of that. Tactics, after all, is what it’s all about these days.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on September 14 , 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New GOP Poll Shows Changing Political Reality

By Stuart Rothenberg

A newly released Republican survey of 1,200 likely voters conducted Aug. 25-26 by OnMessage Inc. suggests that the national political landscape has changed noticeably over the past two months, with Republicans benefiting.

The survey, which was released Thursday, shows Democrats and Republicans tied at 36 percent in the Congressional generic ballot, a dramatic improvement for Republicans, who trailed Democrats by 5 points, 38 percent to 33 percent, in the firm’s mid-June poll.

The survey also showed considerable movement in the public’s attitude toward the two parties. In June, OnMessage found 41 percent of those polled with a favorable view of Democrats in Congress, while 42 percent had an unfavorable view. The new survey found that 40 percent of respondents now have a favorable view of Democrats in Congress, while 46 percent have an unfavorable view, a worrisome rise in the Democrats’ negative rating.

Congressional Republicans, however, are still “upside down” in the new survey, with only 38 percent of those surveyed having a favorable view of Congressional Republicans, while 44 percent have an unfavorable view. Still, that’s an improvement for Republicans from June, when they had a 33 percent favorable/47 percent unfavorable rating.

President Barack Obama’s job rating came in at 55 percent approve/43 percent disapprove in the new GOP survey, down from 61 percent approve/34 percent disapprove in June. Among independents, the president’s August ratings were down to 46 percent approve/50 percent disapprove.

The new survey also found Republicans closing ground on a number of issues.

While more respondents said they trusted Democrats to cut taxes for the middle class, the party’s 45 percent to 31 percent advantage over the GOP in June narrowed to 39 percent to 35 percent in August.

On health care, voters still trusted Democrats very narrowly on health care, 41 percent to 39 percent, but that was a dramatic narrowing after Democrats’ 48 percent to 29 percent advantage over the GOP in June.


This story first appeared on RollCall.com on September 10, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

All Signs Point to Another Top-Notch Election Cycle in 2010

By Stuart Rothenberg

I began this year doubtful that we’d see much excitement in the 2010 elections. I’m quickly changing my tune.

After two big elections, Democrats didn’t have many opportunities left in the House. GOP Senate retirements seemed to open the door to more Democratic gains, but with the Democrats controlling 59 (then 60) seats, additional party gains, quite frankly, wouldn’t be regarded as significant.

But growing public concern about spending, taxes and the size of government has started to shift the national landscape away from the Democrats to a more neutral position, and quite possibly toward the GOP. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has even found that Republicans have regained their historic advantage as the party better suited to deal with spending and taxes.

The change in the political landscape has encouraged Republican candidates and prospects. But Democratic recruiting remains on track, with a list of strong candidates.

Even now, a number of top-shelf contests are developing, making for a surprisingly interesting 2010 election.

Open Senate seats in competitive states seem to guarantee feisty contests in Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois, while vulnerable (or potentially vulnerable) incumbents in Connecticut, Louisiana and North Carolina create uncertainty. And of course, there is Pennsylvania, where one of the nastiest, meanest and bloodiest primaries in recent history seems inevitable, and where too many people are underestimating the chances of a competitive general election.

Indeed, the large number of competitive Senate primaries can only make the cycle more volatile.

Over in the House, recent Democratic recruiting against Republican Reps. Jean Schmidt (Ohio state Rep. Todd Book), Michele Bachmann (Minnesota state Sen. Tarryl Clark) and Charlie Dent (Bethlehem, Pa., Mayor John Callahan) gives Democrats some interesting opportunities even as the overall national political environment is moving away from them.

Democratic insiders are also enthusiastic about Nebraska state Sen. Tom White against Rep. Lee Terry (R) and Palm Springs, Calif., Mayor Steve Pougnet, who is taking on Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R). Other challengers could emerge, as well. It’s still early.

The big question, of course, is whether these seemingly strong Democratic challengers waited one cycle too long to take the plunge into a Congressional race. Mediocre challengers sometimes do better in a great year than strong challengers do in a difficult one.

Republican open seats in swing or Democratic-leaning districts (currently represented by Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk and Pennsylvania Rep. Jim Gerlach) give Democrats better opportunities, as does an expected open seat in Delaware, where former Lt. Gov. John Carney (D) looks to be a formidable candidate. But could the midterm trend that works against the president’s party allow Republicans to hold Kirk’s suburban Chicago district and Gerlach’s suburban Philadelphia seat?

Republican House prospects looked good technically — that is, many Republican districts are now held by Democrats who should theoretically have re-election problems — but the GOP’s damaged brand and minority status didn’t seem like a great argument for recruiting.

And the special election in New York’s 20th district earlier this year suggested the political environment hadn’t changed much from 2008.

But the National Republican Congressional Committee has already recruited some intriguing challengers, and a noticeable shift in the national mood will almost certainly put more Democratic seats into play over the next six to 12 months.

Repeat GOP candidates such as Steve Stivers (Ohio), Andy Harris (Md.) and former Rep. Steve Chabot (Ohio) have to be regarded as strong challengers given their narrow defeats last time. Former Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), who is running to regain a seat he gave up to run for the Senate, is another strong contender.

Republicans are also high on California Assemblyman Van Tran, Manchester, N.H., Mayor Frank Guinta, Colorado state Rep. Cory Gardner, Honolulu Councilman Charles Djou and Montgomery, Ala., City Councilmember Martha Roby, who give the GOP an unusual mix of challengers with considerable appeal. And former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan is about to enter the open-seat race in Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak’s Pennsylvania district, giving the GOP a chance to win the seat.

House retirements have been relatively few, and as the last election in this redistricting cycle, total House retirements may be down. But we still should see some additional retirements over the next few months, possibly adding to the list of competitive contests.

Finally, there are plenty of races for governor.

Again, I thought that many of the gubernatorial outcomes were easily predicted, but the combination of a weak economy and some interesting candidates have shaken up a number of races. It’s early, but contests (in some cases both primaries and general elections) in a number of large states, including Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even California, look potentially fascinating.

The tide clearly has turned nationally, with the president’s popularity down and Democrats fighting against a growing mood of dissatisfaction. That’s a huge problem for Democrats in the two states that will have gubernatorial elections this year.

But while Republican strategists are showing greater optimism about the midterms, they also say that they wish those elections were taking place this November, not more than a year from now. And that’s another reason why the next 14 months should be so exciting.


This column first appeared in Roll Call on September 8, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

On FOX: Political Bogeymen

Stu talks about the use of political bogeymen on FOX. You can watch below or click on the video here.