Rothenberg Admonishes Van Hollen For… Doing His Job

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?

31 thoughts on “Rothenberg Admonishes Van Hollen For… Doing His Job”

  1.   I think we all remember Rothenberg mocking Chris Bowers for his advocacy of the 50-strategy strategy.  By Rothenberg’s logic, Cole is embarrassing himself because he is promoting losing candidates: Republicans.

  3. In a wave election, there are always some unexpected pickups. It would be ridiculous for the DCCC not to be putting money behind some longshots.

    In 2006 they ignored Carol Shea-Porter in NH-01 as well as Dave Loebsack in IA-02, but we won both of those.

    There are bound to be a few big surprises in November. Rob Hubler is doing a great job in IA-05, a district no Democrat had seriously contested in a while. It’s appropriate for him to get some recognition from the DCCC for that. Anyway, his race is not hopeless. The district is similar to Nancy Boyda’s  in terms of demographics and partisan lean, and we saw how that went in 2006.

  4. This isn’t September of 2007.  This is September of 2008.  Many states will begin early voting in less than a month.  And yet somehow Van Hollen should be afraid of expanding the field because at some point in the future the GOP could raise some money…..????

    This guy is an absolute idiot.  Being on the Red to Blue doesn’t guarantee you a single dime.  Yet somehow Rothenberg seems to think that Van Hollen is gonna spend a million bucks in all of these districts.  Its absurd.

  6. The Rethugs let two longshots (David Cappiello in CT-05 & Charlie Summers in ME-01, both of whom like many “Emerging Races” and “Races to Watch” candidates face a small but reasonable chance of an upset) speak at their freaking convention.  Can you imagine what a huff Rothenberg would be in if that had been, say, Jim Esch and Josh Segall and the DNC instead?

  7. the dumbest pundit in Washington. And that is saying a LOT.

    Let me mock him for a little bit.

    1. His source on Dent being popular and in good shape for re-election? A “knowledgeable GOP insider.” Does Stu even know that there are real people who live in congressional districts or is there only DC insiders in his world.

    2. Stu attacks Bennett for not showing any good poll numbers and then in the next paragraph dismisses Boswell (who has lead in every poll of the race). He also ignores the fact that Boswell had a much harder primary and focused on his job in the state senate not raising money during the session.

    3. He attacks Judy Feder by saying Wolf has a big lead, but doesn’t show any poll proving that.

    4. Does the same thing. Apparently Capito already is winning 2-1 and McCain is winning big as well. I didn’t know the election had started!

    5. Harlan is on the FREAKING EMERGING RACES list. That means they ARE NOT YET top tier. How hard is that to understand?

    6. More citing of non existent polls to prove his point. These are Races to Watch. The DCCC is putting NOTHING into them. When you don’t risk anything there ain’t a risk.

    Sometimes I read something and I just want to scream at whoever wrote it beacuse it is so wildly wrong. This is one of those times.

    Good god Stu Rothenberg is a idiot.

  9. IN CURIOUS COINCIDENCE OV TIMIN, TEH DEMOCRATIC CONGRESHUNAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE HAS ADDD NUMBR OV CONGRESHUNAL DISTRICTS 2 ITZ VARIOUS LISTS OV COMPETITIV CONTESTS AT EGSAKTLY TEH SAME TIEM DAT REPUBLICANZ R SEEIN AN UPTICK IN THEIR POLL AN FUNDRAISIN NUMBERS AN AN IMPROOVD POLITICAL LANDSCAPE.

    GOP STRATEGISTS R QUICK 2 POINT OUT DAT THEY DON’T KNOE WHETHR THEIR BRIGHTEND PROSPECTS WILL LAST, BUT WAN NOTD DAT RESENTLY RECEIVD SURVEY DATA “WUZ TEH MOST ENCOURAGIN DAT I’VE SEEN IN 2 YEERS.” NUMBR OV DIFFERENT SURVEYS HAS SHOWN CLOSR CONGRESHUNAL GENERIC BALLOT AN BETTR GOP IMAGE RESENTLY.

    “WE R SEEIN REAL CHANGE UP AN DOWN TEH BALLOT, FRUM STATE LEGISLATIV RACEZ 2 CONGRESHUNAL 2 TEH PRESIDENTIAL,” SED WAN ENTHUSIASTIC REPUBLICAN OPERATIV.

    GIVEN DAT, IT CERTAINLY APPEARS DAT TEH DCCC IZ RUNNIN RISK BY PROMOTIN SUM CANDIDATEZ HOO HAS LIL OR NO CHANCE 2 WIN IN DA FALL, AN BY LUMPIN TOGETHR VRY STRONG CONTENDERS WIF SECOND-TIR CAMPAIGNS.

    If I did much more in this comment I think James would kill me. If you want to see the full LolCat version of Stu’s rantings you can go here

    http://docs.google.com/View?do…

  11. … or someone who works at the Rothenberg Report, at least.  He vigorously defended the column, and claimed that he criticized Cole either for something similar or when it was justified to do so earlier in the cycle.  He was insistent that the column wasn’t a rant so much as a “criticism” of Van Hollen.  He also left open the possibilty that the changing conditions that he said have been verified through independent polling and other litmus tests ( often not made available to the public), might be more of a blip than a trend, and claimed that the column reflected this, as well.

    I told him that although I still don’t agree with him, I appreciated his attempt to defend it and actually discuss things with his critics (which is more than you can get from someone like Sarah “In what respect, Charlie” Palin.  He says he’s going to send me an example of a column where he criticized Tom Cole from months ago.  Still waiting for it to arrive in my inbox, but I expect I’ll get it soon.

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