Rothenberg Takes Another Swipe at Bloggers

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.