Tag: Rothenball

September 25, 2008:

Unfair, you say? Voters shouldn’t judge a candidate by his skin color. Maybe, but is it any more unfair than, for example, saying that because McCain and President Bush are both Republicans that a McCain administration would produce a third Bush term? No, it isn’t.

There he goes again. Fresh off from trashing liberal bloggers (like us) for pushing “long shot” House candidates, Stuart Rothenberg is taking aim at DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen himself for the crime of, um, promoting Democratic House candidates. But let’s walk through Rothenberg’s latest opus one step at a time before we get to that.

After a long hangover spent lying face-first in the gutter, the GOP is on the upswing, Rothenberg says:

Given that, it certainly appears that the DCCC is running a risk by promoting some candidates who have little or no chance to win in the fall, and by lumping together very strong contenders with second-tier campaigns.

Running the risk of what, exactly? Losing the undeniably uphill races and having blowhards like Stu Rothenberg say “I told you so!” in their beltway-brained columns? I think that’s a risk that the DCCC would gladly take with a yawn.

Rothenberg singles out the campaigns of Sam Bennett (PA-15), David Boswell (KY-02), Judy Feder (VA-10) and Anne Barth (WV-02) as dubious choices for the committee’s “Red to Blue” program based on either the redness of their districts, the popularity of the incumbents, or their financial disadvantages. That’s all well and good, but who says the DCCC shouldn’t fight against the odds? After all, as well-timed expenditures by the DCCC in districts like CA-11, KS-02, KY-03, NY-20, and PA-04 showed in 2006, it’s worth keeping your options open and having as many strong campaigns in place around the country as possible. Instead, Rothenberg would rather see the DCCC wave the white flag like “sensible realists”.

Rothenberg seems to subscribe to a very particular view about politics: if a campaign is not in the obvious top tier of pickup opportunities, they are not worth your attention or even your respect.

Take his sniping against the candidates listed in the DCCC’s “Emerging Races” and “Races to Watch” slates, which he lambastes for including some “truly odd” and “bizarre” choices like Jim Harlan (LA-01), Linda Ketner (SC-01), Josh Zeitz (NJ-04) and Ron Hubler (IA-05). Rothenberg admits that Democrats are not expecting upsets by this bunch, and that their inclusion on these lists does not mean that the D-Trip is committed to funding them, but he can’t seem to wrap his mind around the fact that the committee wants to give these hard-working candidates a friendly pat on the back. I guess he would prefer Chris Van Hollen to give each candidate a personal kick in the ass instead.

Rothenberg goes even further:

But if the DCCC is going to go out of its way to promote certain races, it ought to be responsible for those selections.

Responsible how, exactly? Should the DCCC be tried before a jury of Stuart Rothenberg, David Broder and Brendan Nyhan on charges of slight exuberance in the service of politics? Should we be demanding that MAD Magazine devote an issue to mocking the D-Trip? Should we get out there and tar-and-feather Chris Van Hollen?

Somehow, I have a feeling that CVH’s reputation will do just fine after this election. Not that Stu Rothenberg would agree:

But if the national landscape continues to move even slightly more back toward the Republicans, eroding (but certainly not eliminating) the Democrats’ huge early advantages, DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) might find himself promoting dozens of candidates with no chance of winning. And that would be embarrassing and self-defeating.

It’s sort of funny. This is at least the second time this year (by my count), that Rothenberg has implied that Van Hollen should be ashamed of himself. (Back in May, he claimed that CVH should be embarrassed for putting GOP incumbents on notice after Travis Childers’ win.) But does he deliver this kind of special scorn to NRCC Chair Tom Cole? No, he bends over backwards to call Cole “not the real problem”. Of course, the fact that Cole lost three special elections in deeply red seats is nothing to be embarrassed about. Not at all.

But hey, since we’re talking about people who ought to feel embarrassed, how about Stu Rothenberg himself for writing all this?

Stuart Rothenberg on Rabbi Dennis Shulman, running for Congress against GOP Rep. Scott Garrett in New Jersey:

Finally, at times, the rabbi seems very un-rabbi-like. He is quoted as using the “s” word very matter-of-factly in Toobin’s piece and using the “b.s.” word in Time. I expect a lot of folks in the district may wonder about that.

And Shulman’s rhetoric seems more like a Democratic insider than a man of the cloth, such as his comment that Garrett is “in the pocket of Big Oil” and that the runup in energy prices “is the direct result of Big Oil and their cronies like Scott Garrett blocking sound energy policy for years.”

This is as ugly as it is wrong. In his column, Rothenberg criticizes a New Yorker profile of Shulman by Jeff Toobin, saying that the author’s “forte is simply not politics.” Yet when did Rothenberg appoint himself an expert on religion?

Indeed, reform Judaism – the sort practiced by Shulman – embraces a diverse body of beliefs, styles and personal choices. It is Shulman’s congregants – not Beltway blowhards – who determine what standards their clergymen ought to meet, and whether they meet them. As a practicing Jew myself, the thought of a smug DC pundit who isn’t even a member of my synagogue proclaiming my rabbi spiritually unfit offends me to no end – especially when the “sin” in question is a violation of some ossified standard of bipartisan gentility that never actually existed in the first place.

In fact, in pluralistic America, I’d expect all those who respect the rights of others to observe their religion as they see fit to be displeased about remarks like this. They have no place in our politics or our houses of worship. And as I say, this kind of statement isn’t just offensive, it doesn’t even pass muster as good political analysis. Case in point: While I’m sure some Catholics didn’t think Fr. Robert Drinan – who beat a 28-year incumbent on an anti-Vietnam War platform and supported abortion rights throughout his career – “acted like a priest,” that didn’t stop him from winning five terms as a Congressman in Massachusetts. He only stepped down because the Pope – not his constituents – forced him to.

If Rothenberg wants to critique Shulman on the merits, fine. But leave religion out of it. Period.

In his latest column for Roll Call, Stuart Rothenberg takes a look at a broad swath of lower-tier Democratic candidates that “some consultants and bloggers are pushing”: Michael Skelly (TX-07), Nick Leibham (CA-50), Tom Perriello (VA-05), Mike Montagano (IN-03), Steve Sarvi (MN-02), Dennis Shulman (NJ-05), Glenn Nye (VA-02), Frank Kratovil (MD-01), Larry Joe Doherty (TX-10), and Sharen Neuhardt (OH-07).

Rothenberg’s conclusion? When it comes to talk of another “30-plus seat Democratic year”, don’t believe the hype.

I’m not even sure where to begin when it comes to a piece like this. Rothenberg is a sharp guy, and he makes some fair points in his column. However, his arguments would be far more effective if he didn’t display a willful ignorance of key facts time and time again.

Let’s go through his column piece by piece, starting with his musings on Texas’ 7th CD:

What about Michael Skelly? He is smart and would be an engaging dinner companion. If Skelly were running in a competitive district, I’d think he’d have a good shot. But he isn’t. Texas’ 7th gave George W. Bush 64 percent in 2004 and regularly delivers big numbers for Republicans, making it a nightmare for any Democrat.

If you really think Skelly has much of a chance, ask yourself this: Do you really think that Republicans could beat Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.) or Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) even in a bad political year for Democrats? Of course not. Yet their districts went for Kerry in 2004 by roughly as much as Culberson’s Texas district went for Bush four years ago.

What’s missing in this pocket analysis? A number of things, including the district’s Democratic trend: Gore won a mere 31% of this district’s vote in 2000, while Kerry improved that number to 36% four years later. I won’t get into the fact that home state candidate Bush won’t be on the ticket this year.

The more egregious offense here is Rothenberg’s comparison of Dem chances in TX-07, an R+15.6 district, to the GOP’s chances in MA-04, CA-38, or NY-05 — a trio of districts that hover just under or on the D+20 mark. Yes, Rothenberg qualifies the comparison by tagging on the “bad political year for Democrats” line at the end, but we all know that Democrats are far, far more successful in winning elections on red turf than the GOP is on blue turf when it comes to House races.

The numbers really don’t lie: Democrats hold 51 districts that Bush won in both 2000 and 2004, while Republicans only hold eight districts that John Kerry won in 2004. The most Democratic seat that Republicans hold, Mike Castle’s at-large seat in Delaware, is a far cry at D+6.5 from the polarization of seats like TX-17 or UT-02, where Chet Edwards and Jim Matheson have managed to survive (and thrive) in R+18 and R+17 districts, respectively. The point is this: Democrats are far better at winning races in tough terrain than Republicans are. You know this. I know this. Stuart Rothenberg is no fool, so I’m sure that he knows this, too, but felt compelled to disregard that general truth in order to score some cheap pundit points.

At other points in his column, Rothenberg singles out the low cash-on-hand numbers for several challengers — specifically, Doherty’s $260K, Neuhardt’s $108K, Shulman’s $258K and Sarvi’s $98K — as reasons to write off the chances of their candidacies barring a late cash surge. Using CoH in order to gauge the strength of campaigns is a totally fair measure (which is why we developed the SSP Cash Power Index), but it might be helpful to pull up the CoH numbers of a few select candidates after the second quarter of 2006:

Jerry McNerney: $152K on-hand

Nancy Boyda: $164K on-hand

Jason Altmire: $136K on-hand

John Hall: $223K on-hand

Chris Carney: $293K on-hand

Dave Loebsack: $60K on-hand

Tim Walz: $251K on-hand

Carol Shea-Porter: $19K on-hand

I’m sure that Stu was scoffing at these numbers back in the summer of 2006. Now, I’m not trying to argue that all of 2008’s long shot campaigns will crank into gear between now and election day and knock off an incumbent, but there’s a lot of time left on the clock for candidates to prove themselves.

Rothenberg has his own opinions, of course. Check out his totally gratuitous swipe against Mike Montagano:

[…] Montagano, 27, who has raised an impressive amount (probably with some family help), seems more like an overly enthusiastic undergraduate running for class president than a Member of Congress.

It’s sort of surprising that a guy like Rothenberg would hold Montagano’s youthfulness against him when you consider that only a few months ago, Stu was gushing profusely about Aaron Schock, the 27 year-old Republican nominee to succeed retiring Rep. Ray LaHood in Illinois’ 18th CD. After interviewing Schock, Rothenberg wrote that the young Republican “sounded well-versed on most matters”, directly ignoring the biggest policy-based gaffe of any major House candidate this cycle: Schock’s aborted plan to sell Pershing nuclear missiles to Taiwan in order to influence China’s policy on Iran. That’s the sort of thing you’d expect from the president of your local college GOP chapter, but you won’t hear Rothenberg mentioning that one as a sign that Schock isn’t ready for prime time. But, I digress.

So what’s the bottom line? Rothenberg cites unnamed “consultants and bloggers” who are “pushing” lower-tier races as competitive contests, and advises readers to be wary of such talk. Here’s the rub: I’d like to know exactly which bloggers and consultants he’s talking about, because I don’t know anybody who talks about any of the long shot races that he mentions as races that are likely to flip. In fact, I’d say that most bloggers on this side of the ‘sphere are treating these races for exactly what they are: long shots that could develop into sleeper races come fall, with some races (VA-02 and MD-01 in particular), being more competitive than others.

The Swing State Project is one of the only blogs (and maybe the only progressive blog) that has weighed in on all of the long shot races that Rothenberg is chirping about, so I think it’s fair to look at our ratings of these races. And guess what? We’ve slotted all of them in the appropriate category of “Likely Republican”, with the exception of VA-02 (a race that Stu singles out as a better shot) at “Leans Republican”, and MN-02, which we have on our watch list. (And, according to DemConWatch’s House Forecast, our ratings are about as conservative as anyone else’s – except for Rothenberg’s.) It almost seems to me that Stu has forgotten what a “Likely Republican” rating means, which is especially surprising, considering that just two weeks ago, he wrote a column explaining the concept in detail as a way to downplay the recent buzz that came with Charlie Cook moving many races into that column.

Considering that a lot of the macro factors in this election favor Democrats (something that Rothenberg does not deny), it makes a lot of sense to keep a close eye on emerging races like TX-10, IN-03, or NJ-05 in case this year is a big one. Rothenberg seems to feel obligated to represent the opposite view: The chance of a big wave is slim, so it’s not even worth discussing the long shots alongside the top tier affairs. Because really, that’s all we’re doing here — talking about intriguing races that could catch fire under the right conditions, not trying to build the false hype of a 60-seat mega-wave.

So why is Rothenberg talking smack against bloggers (such as, presumably, us) for writing about long-odds races? Sure, we’d like to increase the chances of Democrats running for those seats; there’s no question about that. But could Rothenberg actually have a vested interest in keeping the playing field as narrow as possible?

If you compare Rothenberg’s ratings to Charlie Cook’s and ours, one thing is striking: the discrepancy between the sizes of the Likely R column. Cook has 35 races in that column, while we have 29. Rothenberg has a paltry 11. He will have to eat a bunch of crow if it does turn out that a wave is building, which would mean adding a lot of races to his list. In fact, he only has 64 total races on his list, while we have 93 (plus 21 Races to Watch) and Cook has 101. Is Stu praying that such a day won’t come? Even if a wave doesn’t materialize, it’s no skin off our backs, because, after all, Likely R races are, by and large, supposed to remain Republican – they are just an acknowledgment that something might be brewing.

Ultimately, I’m reminded of this column that Rothenberg wrote in early 2005, taking a swipe at bloggers who advocated that the DCCC should move aggressively to expand the playing field. This passage, in particular, is worth highlighting:

Blogging is getting more attention in the mainstream media and from the political parties. As vehicles for fundraising, blogs can’t be ignored. And some bloggers have interesting things to say. But when it comes to campaign savvy or understanding how the campaign committees operate, two of the most high-profile liberal bloggers have an exaggerated sense of their own importance and insights.

It’s funny, because it seems to me that when it comes to analyzing long shot House races, the person with the most “exaggerated sense of their own importance and insights” is Stuart Rothenberg.

Stuart Rothenberg, May 21, 2008:

Nor does the Mississippi 1st district result mean that “there is no district that is safe for Republican candidates,” as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen said recently. That’s just silly hyperbole and something the Maryland Democrat undoubtedly will be embarrassed to have said.

NRCC Communications Director Karen Hanretty, June 25, 2008:

“This is a challenging environment,” she said. “Any Republican running for office has to run basically on an independent platform, localize the race and not take anything for granted. There are no safe Republican seats in this election.”

Stuart Rothenberg, May 19, 2008:

According to a post-primary survey by Anzalone-Liszt Research, which polled for Childers (and Democrat Don Cazayoux, who won the special election recently in Louisiana’s 6th district), Davis came out of the GOP primary runoff with a 65 percent favorable and 10 percent unfavorable rating among self-identified Republicans, and leading Childers 73 percent to 13 percent among Republicans.

In the last Democratic survey before Tuesday’s special election, Davis had a 71 percent favorable and 13 percent unfavorable rating among Republicans and held a 71 percent to 17 percent lead among GOP voters.

Stuart Rothenberg, May 21, 2008:

And in Mississippi, Republican Greg Davis’ high personal negatives, combined with Childers’ ideology and personal appeal made the Democrat a safe choice for swing voters.

I suppose we could engage in some hair-splitting and say that Rothenberg was only talking about Republicans in that first excerpt. But really, in that piece, Rothenberg went out of his way to say that the GOP lost because “Republicans nominated a candidate from the wrong part of the district.” He also argued that “[p]olling in the district showed Bush’s ‘favorables’ well above 50 percent….”

If, three days ago, Davis had high favorables with Republicans, if Bush had high overall favorables in the district, and if Davis lost because he was from South Memphis rather than the “right” part of the district, how are we to believe that now, Davis lost because of his “high personal negatives”?

The contradictions don’t end there, though. From the first piece:

Democratic pollster Anzalone minced no words when he told me, Louisiana’s 6th and Mississippi’s 1st “are not referenda on Bush and Republicans in Congress.”

From the second piece:

Special elections often produce odd results when an unpopular president sits in the White House. They offer voters an opportunity to send a message. And swing voters and conservative Democrats surely did.

It’s like Rothenberg is trying to simultaneously argue and debunk every claim made about this election all at once. This bit, though, made me laugh:

Nor does the Mississippi 1st district result mean that “there is no district that is safe for Republican candidates,” as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen said recently. That’s just silly hyperbole and something the Maryland Democrat undoubtedly will be embarrassed to have said.

Stuart Rothenberg seems to be forgetting that campaign committee chairs engage in a little thing called “pr” every day of the week that ends in “y.” I predict Van Hollen will be no more embarrassed about those remarks than Rothenberg will ever be about writing these two highly contradictory columns.

In a recent column in Roll Call, Stuart Rothenberg takes a moment to lament the diminished spotlight for a talented crop of young men and women running for Congress across America.  Now, that’s all well and good, except when you don’t know what you’re talking about.  

Here’s Rothenberg’s “assessment” of IL-18 GOP candidate Aaron Schock, who is running for the open seat of retiring Rep. Ray LaHood:

If you like your candidates young, you’ll find Illinois state Rep. Aaron Schock (R), 26, more than interesting. He was elected to the Peoria school board in 2001, even before he graduated from Bradley University.

In 2004, Schock knocked off an incumbent Democratic state legislator in a Democratic district, and he turned back a major challenge two years later. A conservative who says he focuses on constituent services, Schock is the GOP nominee for retiring Rep. Ray LaHood’s (R) open seat.

The clean-cut hopeful looks like the president of a College Republicans chapter (and acts far older than his years), and he sounded well-versed on most matters. If you can be a seasoned political pro at 26, Schock is. It’s a bit scary, actually.

“Well-versed on most matters”?  Stu, were you lost in his dreamy eyes or did you flat-out forget to ask him about his downright scary foreign policy musings on selling “Pershing nuclear missiles” to Taiwan?  You may have read about this thoroughly whacked-out and amateurish suggestion in the press as something that Ray LaHood himself blasted as “outrageous”:

In his announcement address in late October, Schock said that if China didn’t work to persuade Iran away from development of nuclear weapons, “we will sell Pershing nuclear missiles to Taiwan for their defense. Non-proliferation will either be enforced universally or not at all – it is their choice. The Chinese will come around, I have no doubt.”

“My advice on that is that he should have done his homework, and I think it’s an outrageous statement to be making,” LaHood said, “particularly when you have as your No. 1 employer in the Peoria area Caterpillar (Inc.), that has developed many, many relationships with the Chinese, including establishing facilities in China.

“To make a statement that you’re going to arm one country with nuclear weapons to attack China I think shows a fairly high level of not doing your homework, and… immaturity and not using good political sense.”

Sure, Schock eventually backed off from the plan, but not before his campaign manager dismissed his skeptics as ivory tower eggheads.  Schock claimed that the idea was “more in jest” than anything else, but that didn’t quite jibe with his campaign manager’s depiction:

In a phone interview with the Journal-Register’s political writer, Bernard Schoenburg, the day Schock retracted the statement, his campaign manager, Steve Shearer, said Schock’s proposal was “not just something that he pulled out of his pocket. … It’s a deeply thought-out policy.”

So, the GOP’s golden boy in IL-18 is a nutter on foreign policy?  It’s a bit scary, actually.