I favor Democrats working to field the best possible candidate in every Congressional district and to mount the strongest possible campaign in each. Hand-in-glove with that effort, Democrats also need to think ahead to and visualize success next election day and in future elections and to plan backwards in time from those successes to assure that all that needs to happen to assure those successes does happen.
So I am thinking about less than a handful of Congressional districts where Democrats should make exceptional efforts to take out Republican incumbents in 2010, both because a challenger could imaginably win and because the districts consist of territory that is important to a Democratic future. These are the Iowa Fourth, the Nebraska Second, and the Ohio Twelfth. These districts are respectively represented by Republicans Tom Latham of Ames, Lee Terry of Omaha, and Pat Tiberi of Columbus. Barack Obama carried all three districts, and each district played a constructive role in his Electoral College margin.
And Latham, Terry, and Tiberi need to go.
Today I looked at how interest groups evaluated the three, and (while, because of my haste in checking, I acknowledge certain limitations vis a vis timeliness as well as some potential for mistake) I believe I have identified several broad themes that tie the three men to each other.
Abortion.
On abortion Latham, Terry, and Tiberi support Planned Parenthood (http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/) zero percent of the time and the National Right to Life Committee (http://www.nrlc.org/) one hundred percent of the time.
Czars of Financial Institutions.
On financial institutions Latham, Terry, and Tiberi have been one hundred percent for Financial Executives International (http://www.financialexecutives.org/eweb/startpage.aspx?site=_fei).
Energy and the Environment.
Latham, Terry, and Tiberi have at best very spotty records on energy and the environment. Those records are perhaps best illustrated by zero percent scores on energy legislation supported by the Campaign for America’s Future (http://www.ourfuture.org/) and for supporting continuing dependence on fossil fuels as evidenced by 100 percent scores from the American Coalition for Ethanol (http://www.ethanol.org/).
Families and Children.
On family and children’s issues Latham, Terry, and Tiberi scored 100 percent with the American Family Association (http://www.afa.net/), but zero percent with American Family Voices (http://www.americanfamilyvoices.org/).
Guns.
On gun issues Latham, Terry, and Tiberi are rated “A” by the National Rifle Association (http://www.nrapvf.org/), but all get zeros from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (http://www.csgv.org/site/c.pmL5JnO7KzE/b.3509205/k.BDBC/Home.htm).
Health Care.
On health care Latham, Terry, and Tiberi get zeros from organizations like the American Public Health Association (http://www.apha.org/), the AIDS Action Council (http://www.aidsaction.org/), the American Nurses Association (http://www.nursingworld.org/), and the National Rural Health Association (http://www.ruralhealthweb.org/).
Justice.
On justice and the entire question of what kind of country we want to be, Latham, Terry, and Tiberi have scored zero with the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/) and the Human Rights Campaign (http://www.hrc.org/), although I acknowledge that Latham recently moved up and delivered (for him) a very good year for peoples’ rights with eighteen percent from the ACLU and five percent from the Human Rights Campaign.
People Who Work for a Living.
As to labor, Latham, Terry, and Tiberi have received scores of one hundred percent from the Business-Industry Political Action Committee (http://www.bipac.org/page.asp?g=bipac_new&content=startpage) and of zero percent from organizations like the Communications Workers of America (http://www.cwa-union.org/), the United Food and Commercial Workers (http://www.ufcw.org/), and Workplace Fairness (http://www.workplacefairness.org/).
Us v. Them.
On matters of us v. them Latham, Terry, and Tiberi scored zero with Citizens for Tax Justice (http://www.ctj.org/).
Conclusion.
I nominate the Iowa Fourth, the Nebraska Second, and the Ohio Twelfth for very early consideration by bloggers and internet activists thinking about 2010.
If we keep focusing on taking out red-district Republicans, we’re just going to end up with more Blue Dogs (like Bobby Bright, who captured a district McCain won 63-36).
IA-04, NE-02, and OH-12 are very capable of producing progressive Democrats. So are PA-06, PA-15, FL-10, IL-10, NJ-02, VA-10, and WA-08. Now, we hit a couple of them hard last time and came up short, but the others we practically ignored.
We blew our chance there in 2008. No excuse for Obama winning that district but not our congressional candidate.
Tiberi has been a target of bloggers, and especially of folks doing the kind of analysis that you’re doing here, for years. Nobody in the netroots has worked harder than I have to show this guy the door, with absolutely zero success. He is a popular incumbent who is legendary for his constituent services. Local media loves him, and repeatedly refer to him as ‘bi-partisan’ and ‘moderate,’ despite his role as Boehner’s lieutenant and actual, um, voting record.
He goes sharply negative in the last ten days of campaigns.
His victories have come over a popular local Dem when both were after Kasich’s open seat, twice against a nobody whose total campaign expenditures between the two campaigns were in the 4 figures, once against a former congressman who put more than a million dollars of his own money into the race, and once against a local businessman with a Ph.D and ties to the Al Gore Climate Initiative. Tiberi’s margin of victory has been remarkably stable across all 5 campaigns. None have been close. The demographic trendlines are not favorable, with the 12th being the only Ohio CD with significant population growth this decade, and most of that increase coming in the uber-Republican exurbia of Delaware County.
It is true that the district went for Kerry and Obama, and Dems up and down the ticket have done well here, except for Tiberi’s opponents. If you want to change that, you’re going to have to actually change the relationship Tiberi has with voters in the district, which will be tough if you’re A) not in the district, and B)using tools that don’t reach senior citizens or religious African-Americans (two likely sources of Obama-Tiberi votes).
It’s possible that the recession and ensuing stimulus/budget debates will trip him up here, and I’ll be keeping my eyes open (how do you think I found this post?), but defeating Tiberi is going to take a lot more than simply leveraging the demographics and PVI of the 12th- It’s been tried more than once, in very different ways, with very similar results. I must admit I’m putting my mental energy into redistricting, at this point.