Author: Crisitunity

Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. (6/17-22, registered voters):

Frank Lautenberg (D-inc): 45

Dick Zimmer (R-inc): 28

(MoE: ±4%)

This is local pollster Fairleigh Dickinson’s first shot at the New Jersey Senate race, and this is the biggest lead Lautenberg has seen in any poll since ex-Rep. Dick Zimmer became the GOP nominee. As much as we’d like to see the NRSC get bamboozled into pouring big money into New Jersey in the hopes of getting their one pickup here, these numbers indicate they may not bother with that.

45% can’t be a good sign for Lautenberg, although [insert moldy cliche about how all New Jersey residents hate all their politicians here]. The biggest news here may be that hardly anyone has any idea who Dick Zimmer is, which is surprising considering that he used to represent Congress from NJ-12 from 1990 to 1996, where he was the prime mover for Megan’s Law, and ran for the Senate in 1996. (I suppose 12 years is several lifetimes in politics.) Zimmer’s name recognition numbers are down near Bob Roggio territory: 16% favorable, 10% unfavorable. 44% have never heard of him, while 29% have heard of him but have no opinion.

Who’s the most powerful member of the House? If I told you it was Tim Mahoney, you’d probably laugh in my face; after all, he’s a freshman, and a bit of a flake. Well, if you order all members of the House from most liberal to most conservative (using DW-Nominate scores for the 110th Congress), Tim Mahoney is #218 out of 435. He’s smack in the middle of the House, and the whole thing pivots around him, in the same way that Anthony Kennedy holds all the cards on the Supreme Court because he’s #5 out of 9.

There are several things wrong with my proposition, though: first, 435 is a lot larger than 9, and there are a lot of transitory coalitions that form around various topics, so the spectrum isn’t always very clear. You aren’t even going to get aggregators to agree on who goes in what slot (ask National Journal, they’ll tell you that #218 is Mike McIntyre; ask Progressive Punch and they’ll tell it’s Charlie Melancon).

More importantly, just as Matt Stoller mentioned yesterday in regards to 60 as the ‘magic number’ in the Senate, there aren’t very many votes where it actually comes down to the bare minimum. Even controversial things tend to pass by a sizable margin once the initial haggling shakes out (the most recent Iraq Supplemental passed 268-155, and the FISA Amendments passed 293-129); actual 218-217 votes are almost unheard of. As he sagely pointed out, the key is to build the coalitions and implement the infrastructure that allow progressives to control the discursive arena in Congress regardless of actual numbers so that the progressive POV becomes more of an institutional inevitability.

Nevertheless, some of that sense of the ‘possible’ within that discursive arena is directly influenced by the seat count. Think back to the backstory behind the FISA vote last week: a lot of Dems voted with leadership, but leadership’s hand wasn’t forced by a widespread popular uprising, just by the 21 Blue Dogs who signed the January letter of intent to jump on board the Republicans’ discharge petition. We’ll probably never know who those 21 signatories were (although, given the spectrum in the House, one can assume it included Mahoney, McIntyre, and Melancon), but it’s clear they turned the tide on the FISA amendments. Looking at the pivot point, Pelosi could have safely ignored 12 Blue Dogs (233 – 12 = 221), but she couldn’t safely ignore 21 (233 – 21 = 212).

What if, on the other hand, there weren’t fewer Blue Dogs, but rather more Progressives in seats that are currently occupied by moderate (or, in a few possibilities, extreme) Republicans? If there were only 7 more Democrats, all Progressive or New Dem, then Pelosi also could have ignored the 21 Blue Dogs (240 – 21 = 219). Now, of course, this is pure speculation that only 21 Dems would have signed the discharge petition, but my point stands that it would take only a few more net Progressives to move the core Blue Dogs past the pivot point and thus out of the House’s driver’s seat (or at least out of reach of the steering wheel). In shorter words, the goal for the 111th Congress needs to be: Progressives + New Dems > Blue Dogs + Republicans.

More over the flip (including many tables)…

So the question is: how many progressives (they don’t have to be card-carrying members of the Progressive Caucus; non-capitulating New Dems and unaffiliated types work fine too) do we need to add above the pivot point in order to push all of the Blue Dogs down the spectrum, to below the pivot point? Here’s where we get to break out the tables, starting with where we are right now in the current 110th Congress:

Rank	District	110th Rep.	110th Score	Caucus	Bad Votes
215.5	FL-02	Boyd	-0.198	BDC	Iraq, FISA
215.5	TX-28	Cuellar	-0.198	NDC, CHC	Iraq, FISA
217	MO-04	Skelton	-0.193	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
218	FL-16	Mahoney	-0.186	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
219.5	MN-07	C. Peterson	-0.177	BDC	Iraq, FISA
219.5	TN-04	L. Davis	-0.177	BDC	Iraq, FISA
221	TN-06	Gordon	-0.165	BDC	Iraq, FISA
222	UT-02	Matheson	-0.163	BDC	Iraq, FISA
223	TX-22	Lampson	-0.158	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
224	AZ-05	Mitchell	-0.148	NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
225	PA-10	Carney	-0.144	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
226	GA-08	Marshall	-0.135	BDC	Iraq, FISA
227	PA-04	Altmire	-0.12	NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
228	OK-02	Boren	-0.119	BDC	Iraq, FISA
229	IN-08	Ellsworth	-0.118	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
230	AL-05	Cramer	-0.112	BDC	Iraq, FISA
231.5	IN-02	Donnelly	-0.107	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
231.5	NC-11	Shuler	-0.107	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
233	GA-12	Barrow	-0.080	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
234.5	CT-04	Shays	0.241	MSP	Iraq, FISA
234.5	NJ-02	LoBiondo	0.241	MSP	Iraq, FISA

As you can see from this table, Pelosi is able to consider legislation without needing to rely on the worst 15 Blue Dogs on the final vote. (Again, though, she’s still affected by what happens in committee and other back-room wrangling.) However, there are a lot more Blue Dogs than that, if you continue on up the totem pole.

One thing worth noting is that 7 of those 15 Blue Dogs below the pivot point are freshmen, indicating that maybe we didn’t come as far in the 2006 elections as we thought we did (many of our pickups were in red districts inhabited by corrupt or incompetent Republicans… 2008 looks to be somewhat different, as a lot of the GOP fruit that outright spoiled has been picked and now the lowest-hanging fruit is mostly in moderate suburban districts, which is what this year’s Red to Blue targeting reflects). Although the pivot point is much better than where it was in the 109th Congress (where #218 was Jim Gerlach, not only giving the Rs control of the House but giving Dennis Hastert license to ignore the 14 Republicans to the left of Gerlach), we swelled the ranks of the Blue Dogs in 2006, so much so that the pivot point is right in the middle of the Blue Dog caucus.

Now let’s look at where we might be after the 2008 elections. I’m going to look at three different scenarios: a pessimistic scenario (where we only pick up 13 seats: the Lean D and Toss-up seats according to Swing State Project), an average scenario (where we also pick up the Lean R seats, giving us 26 seats), and a wildly optimistic scenario (where we also pick up the Likely R seats, giving us 56 new seats). I’m plugging in the new freshmen according to the scores I predicted for them last week. (I also need to fit the three new mid-term guys in there: based on their records so far, I’m assigning Childers and Cazayoux a score of – 0.200 and Foster a score of – 0.300. I also need to give a score to the three new Cuban-American reps, who didn’t fit in my formula; for an easy solution, I’ll just give them each – 0.400.) Let’s start with the pessimistic scenario:

Rank	District	110th Rep.	110th Score	Caucus	Bad Votes
216.5	TN-08	Tanner	-0.230	BDC	Iraq, FISA
216.5	TX-27	Ortiz	-0.230	CHC	Iraq, FISA
218	PA-17	Holden	-0.227	BDC	Iraq, FISA
219	CA-11	McNerney	-0.226	Unaff., Fr.	FISA
220	GA-02	S. Bishop	-0.22	BDC, CBC	Iraq, FISA
221	LA-03	Melancon	-0.218	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
222	AZ-08	Giffords	-0.215	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
223	PA-12	Murtha	-0.21	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
224	IL-08	Bean	-0.209	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
225	TN-05	Cooper	-0.208	BDC	Iraq, FISA
226	MS-04	Taylor	-0.207	BDC	Iraq, FISA
227	IN-09	Hill	-0.204	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq
229	LA-06	Cazayoux	-0.200	Unaff., Fr.	Iraq, FISA
229	MS-01	Childers	-0.200	Unaff., Fr.	Iraq, FISA
229	OH-18	Space	-0.200	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
231.5	FL-02	Boyd	-0.198	BDC	Iraq, FISA
231.5	TX-28	Cuellar	-0.198	NDC, CHC	Iraq, FISA

Under this scenario, Tim Holden becomes the new pivot point. Although we’re past the point where 21 holdouts can provoke a mutiny, we’re still in the Land of the Blue Dog. We’ve added 13 new Democrats, and the good news is that all of them fall above the pivot point, pushing the list down so that the pivot point is one of the less objectionable Blue Dogs.

Now let’s look at the average scenario (26 pickups, including all of the Lean Rs):

Rank	District	110th Rep.	110th Score	Caucus	Bad Votes
216	WV-01	Mollohan	-0.269	Unaff.	Iraq
217	KY-06	Chandler	-0.264	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
218	CA-20	Costa	-0.259	BDC, CHC	Iraq, FISA
219	GA-13	D. Scott	-0.257	BDC, NDC,  CBC	Iraq, FISA
220	SD-AL	Herseth	-0.253	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
221	ND-AL	Pomeroy	-0.247	BDC	Iraq, FISA
222	TX-17	C. Edwards	-0.246	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
223	KS-02	Boyda	-0.239	Unaff., Fr.	Iraq, FISA
224	AR-04	Ross	-0.235	BDC	Iraq, FISA
225	NC-07	McIntyre	-0.234	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
226	PA-08	P. Murphy	-0.233	BDC, NDC, Fr.	FISA
227	VA-09	Boucher	-0.231	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
228.5	TN-08	Tanner	-0.230	BDC	Iraq, FISA
228.5	TX-27	Ortiz	-0.230	CHC	Iraq, FISA

Now we’re getting a little closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. Under this scenario, Jim Costa becomes the pivot point. He’s a Blue Dog, and there are still a few Blue Dogs above him, but we’re starting to reach the bottom of New Dem terrain. Of the 26 Dems we’ve added under this scenario, only one of them is projected to slot in below the pivot point: Paul Carmouche in LA-04 (-0.200).

Now let’s look at the extremely optimistic scenario (56 pickups, including all Likely Rs):

Rank	District	110th Rep.	110th Score	Caucus	Bad Votes
215	WA-09	A. Smith	-0.308	NDC	FISA
216	TX-15	Hinojosa	-0.304	CHC	Iraq, FISA
222	AK-AL	Berkowitz	-0.300	—	—
222	AZ-01	Kirkpatrick	-0.300	—	—
222	FL-13	Jennings	-0.300	—	—
222	IL-14	Foster	-0.300	Unaff.	Iraq
222	IL-18	Callahan	-0.300	—	—
222	MN-06	Tinklenburg	-0.300	—	—
222	MO-06	Barnes	-0.300	—	—
222	MO-09	Baker	-0.300	—	—
222	NC-08	Kissell	-0.300	—	—
222	OH-16	Boccieri	-0.300	—	—
222	WV-02	Barth	-0.300	—	—
228	MD-02	Ruppersburger	-0.292	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
229	TX-16	Reyes	-0.291	CHC	Iraq, FISA
230	OH-06	C. Wilson	-0.289	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
231.5	IA-03	Boswell	-0.288	BDC	FISA
231.5	PA-07	Sestak	-0.288	NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
233	AL-07	A. Davis	-0.286	NDC, CBC	Iraq, FISA
234	FL-22	Klein	-0.278	NDC, Fr.	FISA
235	CO-03	Salazar	-0.275	BDC, CHC	Iraq, FISA
236	NY-20	Gillibrand	-0.272	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
237.5	AR-02	Snyder	-0.271	NDC	Iraq, FISA
237.5	CA-18	Cardoza	-0.271	BDC, CHC	FISA
239	WV-01	Mollohan	-0.269	Unaff.	Iraq
240	KY-06	Chandler	-0.264	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA

We’re finally starting to make some progress. Under this scenario, #218 is part of an 11-way tie, but #216 is Ruben Hinojosa. We’re pretty much out of Blue Dog territory here, and the pivot point has started to move into the realm of the New Dems. Unfortunately, we’re also starting to reach a point of diminishing returns here: to bring about a 56-seat pickup, this requires sweeping not only all the moderate suburban seats but also a lot of seats that are more rural and conservative, meaning that we’ve added to the ranks of Dems who fall below the pivot point (18 of the new 56 fall at or below the pivot point).

And unfortunately, you can see we’re still at a pivot point where most of the veterans have voted the wrong way on the most recent Iraq Supplemental and FISA bills. For instance, we’re still a little short of pushing down Lipinski, Kanjorski, Etheridge, Dicks, or Dennis Moore.  However, the important thing to remember is that it will be a different playing field: one where, most likely, they’ll be working with President Obama rather than fretting over how best to oppose President Bush. Congress won’t need to act as a brake on out-of-control Iraq policy, and FISA… well… FISA remains a big question mark, but it’s unlikely that Congress would need act as a brake on further attempts to expand the President’s unchecked powers.

Instead, we’ll be needing to worry about whether we have enough votes to overcome any Blue Dog defections from Obama’s agenda. No doubt there will be enough votes to overcome any defections on the relatively uncontroversial stuff (there was only one Dem defection on the SCHIP veto override [Jim Marshall], and only two defections on the Employee Free Choice Act [Boren and Taylor]). But we need enough Progressive votes in the House to push Blue Dog objections to, say, universal health care and more progressive tax brackets, down below the pivot point.

One last Stupid Excel Trick before wrapping it up. This left me thinking of the last time the Democrats had a Congressional majority: the first two years of the Clinton administration, which were a legislative disaster by most anyone’s standards, where conservative Democrats (I suppose they were still ‘Boll Weevils’ back then; the term ‘Blue Dog’ hadn’t really been invented yet) scuttled most attempts to implement anything other than the most incremental change. Let’s take a quick look at where the pivot point was back then:

Rank	District	103rd Rep.	103rd Score
216	WI-01	Barca	-0.169
217	TX-02	C. Wilson	-0.166
218	AR-01	Lincoln	-0.161
219	TX-25	Andrews	-0.154
220	CA-19	Lehman	-0.152
Very very long break…
260	LA-03	Tauzin	0.083
261	NY-23	Boehlert (R)	0.088
262	FL-01	Hutto	0.090
263	ME-02	Snowe (R)	0.098

(This table doesn’t include 3 Republicans who fall in the gap: Morella at 250, Fish at 256, and Gilman at 258, and 1 Democrat who’s off the chart: Ralph Hall at 272).

If there’s any wonder why Clinton got hosed during his first term, this is it. Even though he started office with a gaping 258-176-1 edge in the House (right where we’d be under the average scenario from above, with 26 pickups), look at the DW-Nominate score for his pivot point: Blanche Lincoln (who now has graduated to the Senate): – 0.161. (And yes, right above her is Charlie Wilson, of Charlie Wilson’s War fame.) That’s a significantly lower score than the current pivot point we’re saddled with (Tim Mahoney, at – 0.186). Remember that these are DW-Nominate scores, which are designed for comparing one Congress against another and measure only left-to-right movement, not the distortions caused by the size of the caucus.

Clinton had fully 41 Democratic representatives below the pivot point, and most of them were more conservative than your average Blue Dog today. In fact, 20 of them were more conservative than today’s most conservative Dem (John Barrow)! (Only 3 of those 20 remain today, and only one as a Dem [Gene Taylor], with two party-switchers [Ralph Hall and Nathan Deal]; other delightful rogues from that gallery include Jim Traficant and Gary Condit.) So, by that measure, consider that we may well have a more progressive House right now than Clinton had to work with, despite the showy seat count in the 103rd (thanks to fewer, but more cohesive, Dems). Adding more progressives in the next Congress, on top of what he have now, will only help us more.

I’m not kidding here: Doug Lamborn, freshman incumbent, is facing off against Jeff Crank, whom he defeated in the 2006 primary in this safe R district to replace retiring Joel Hefley. He’s also facing off against 2006 primary candidate ex-AF Maj. Gen. Bentley Rayburn. (Lamborn won in 2006 by consolidating the wingnut vote, helped along by the Club for Growth.) An internal poll gives the lay of the land in this race:

David Hill Research (R)/Wilson Research Stragies (R) (5/27-29, likely voters):

Doug Lamborn (R-inc.): 51

Jeff Crank (R): 27

Bentley Rayburn (R): 13

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Now I know what you’re thinking: boy, if those two ‘mainstream’ candidates could somehow combine their votes, they’d be pretty competitive with Lamborn. Turns out that Crank and Rayburn were thinking that, too. The poll was commissioned by both camps as part of their rather unusual gentleman’s agreement on who would get to go the distance against Lamborn:

Republican 5th Congressional District candidates retired Maj. Gen. Bentley Rayburn and Jeff Crank signed a do-or-die agreement last month setting the conditions under which the weaker of the two candidates would drop out of the primary race against Congressman Doug Lamborn….

They agreed to stand by the results of a poll of 400 respondents scheduled to start May 27.

They’ve run into a minor hitch, though: Rayburn is refusing to abide by the poll’s results, as the two campaigns have devolved into a battle royale over methodological minutia and paying for the poll. Even if Rayburn does fall by the wayside, this can’t be helping Crank’s chances.

The Colorado primary is Aug. 12.

The Texas Lyceum (6/12-20, likely voters):

Rick Noriega(D): 36

John Cornyn (R): 38

Undecided: 24

(MoE: ±3.1%)

Big John is in a big world of hurt, if this is to be believed. 38% for an incumbent, with 24% undecided, spells trouble. (I haven’t heard of Texas Lyceum before, but this is an independent, not internal, poll. One caveat is that their partisan split is 32% Republican and 44% Democrat, which seems high for Texas even factoring in switches caused by the Dem primary.)

As a bonus, this poll shows McCain leading Obama in Texas by only 5, 43-38, with Barr and Nader each drawing 1.

H/t WoodyNYC.

The Staten Island GOP is scrambling to find a replacement to run in NY-13, following the untimely death of ex-Wall Street exec Francis Powers, who had been slotted in by the local party as Vito Fossella’s replacement. Previous top-tier Republicans under consideration (city councilor James Oddo, state senator Andrew Lanza, district attorney Daniel Donovan, and perplexingly, Fossella himself) all politely declined.

Out of relatively nowhere, former Assemblyman Matthew Mirones has suddenly taken the conventional wisdom by storm. Mirones has two advantages: he’s a well-off businessman who can self-finance, and he used to represent the Island’s East Shore and parts of Brooklyn from 2002 to 2006.

Mirones also has one disadvantage: he and the local GOP don’t like each other much.

But another Republican said Mirones might have some fences to mend with the borough GOP.

“He completely disappeared after he retired,” he said, “and he had some negative stuff to say about people in the party.”

Mirones was believed to be irked that he was passed over by the GOP for a shot at Republican John Marchi’s state Senate seat.

Mirones also clashed with party leaders on other political matters.

“I’m not saying anyone’s closing anything out,” the Republican continued. “But Matthew would have to rebuild things to a comfort level that does not exist right now.”

The Staten Island Advance also reports that NY-1 reporter Lisa Giovinazzo, who was considered the front-runner for a period of about 12 hours before the baffling decision to give the endorsement to Powers several weeks ago, has also moved back to the head of the list. Under consideration, also, was cross-endorsing Paul Atanasio, who is the nominee of Brooklyn’s Conservative Party.

In another indication of how far Republican fortunes have fallen in this district, a bizarre scenario has apparently at least been floated:

While some observers have mentioned the possibility of a GOP cross-endorsement of [Democratic endorsee Michael] McMahon, borough Democratic chair John Gulino said that no one on the Republican side had approached him about it….

The very thought of a McMahon cross-endorsement chilled some Republicans.

“They can’t do that,” said one. “They might as well dissolve the party. It’s the biggest seat in the county. It would be like cross-endorsing Obama.”

I’m not pulling your leg (much) with that title. Thanks to a series of complicated legal battles that went all the way to the Supreme Court, Washington is finally resuming its historical “top two” primary method, where all candidates are listed together in the primary and the two top vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. (This may actually make Washington’s general elections more competitive, both in the thoroughly Democratic-dominated Seattle area and the Republican-dominated east.)

Between this, and Washington’s no-party-registration system (no one registers as a member of any party, and for the last few years, Washington used a pick-a-party primary), candidates in Washington now have the opportunity to identify themselves as members of whatever party they want.

That hasn’t stopped Rob McKenna (incumbent AG), the three Republican congresscritters, or most other major office seekers from signing up as “prefers Republican Party…” with one major exception: Dino Rossi, the Republican candidate for governor. He’s running as the standard-bearer of the “G.O.P. Party,” and that’s what will actually appear on the ballot next to his name.

There’s one other Republican Party-pooper who’s running for statewide office: Curtis Fackler, the Spokane County Republican chair, is running for Insurance Commissioner with “No party preference,” concerned that there are 30 percent of voters in Washington who will vote against a Republican “no matter what:”

And we want to get around that. We want them to read our statements and see where we’re coming from.

This escaped national notice until just recently, when Fox News, of all places, called out Rossi for his abandonment of the Republican brand. But why shouldn’t he? Rossi’s pre-politics career was real estate salesperson; he knows how to sell, and he knows that when your brand of dog food has been found to be poisonous, you stop selling it under that name.

Sudden bombshell out of Albany, New York: Joe Bruno, the longtime leader of the Republican delegation in the state senate, won’t stand for re-election. According to the New York Daily News:

It’s confirmed. A high-ranking Senate staffer said: “He will not run for re-election. It’s still open as to whether he will serve out the term until Dec. 31 or leave. early.”

For those not following state legislature races, control of the New York State Senate is the big enchilada this year. Each year we’ve chipped at it, edging closer to control (we’re currently down 32-30), and prognosticators have increasingly felt like this was the year it would flip, removing the main obstacle to implementing progressive policy in New York and placing 2010 redistricting control entirely in Democratic hands.

Apparently Bruno saw the handwriting on the wall (i.e. the remainder of his career spent in the minority) and decided this was a fine time to leave (although there’s also the small matter of his outside business interests being under FBI investigation). This may be the hole in the dam that bursts wide open; a number of other aging Republicans in Democratic-leaning areas (who are in their 70s or 80s, have been serving in the state senate since the 1970s, and have provided the margin for control) have stuck around largely because Bruno has corralled them, trying to maintain the majority. With him gone, look for a stampede for exits from other dinosaurs facing extinction like Frank Padavan and Caesar Trunzo.

Our candidate in SD-43 (in the Albany suburbs) is Brian Premo, although stronger challengers may emerge with Bruno out of the picture.

H/t RandySF.

By popular demand (meaning questions from at least two different commenters), I need to do a follow-up to The Class of 2008: Who’s Going to Be Progressive? from last Friday that sees it through to the next step. I had previously investigated The House Seats Where We Made the Most Progress in 2006, comparing the DW-Nominate scores of new Democrats elected in 2006 against the Republicans who occupied the seats until 2006. The question arose: which seats will potentially have the biggest similar right-to-left shifts in 2008?

There’s a big problem there. The demographic prediction method I was using in the Class of 2008 diary was, at best, a blunt instrument, and I feel a little embarrassed using it even to estimate broad categories like “Progressive” or “Blue Dog,” let alone using it to extrapolate specific legislators’ future DW-Nominate scores to three significant digits. However, I quickly realized the importance of making some educated guesses about this topic, pushed along by Mimikatz‘s diary over at Open Left. It’s important information for deciding what races to give our relatively-tiny netroots dollars to, where we can have the most leverage in moving the needle to the left.

As an added bonus, most of the races that topped the list are lower on prognosticators’ watch lists. Many are on the DCCC’s “Emerging Races” list and on Swing State Project‘s “Likely R” or “Races to Watch” lists. Again, that stretches the effect of our dollars, and it means our targeted giving can help clue the DCCC in for what deserves “Red to Blue” status instead. Here are the top 20 races for maximum right-to-left impact:

District	110th Rep.	110th Score	111th Rep.	111th Score	Difference
CA-46	Rohrabacher (R)	0.836	Cook (D)	-0.600	-1.436
NJ-05	Garrett (R)	0.771	Shulman (D)	-0.600	-1.371
AZ-03	Shadegg (R)	0.923	Lord (D)	-0.400	-1.323
CA-50	Bilbray (R)	0.715	Leibham (D)	-0.600	-1.315
FL-24	Feeney (R)	0.768	Kosmas? (D)	-0.350	-1.118
CO-04	Musgrave (R)	0.684	Markey (D)	-0.400	-1.084
ID-01	Sali (R)	0.852	Minnick (D)	-0.200	-1.052
TX-07	Culberson (R)	0.637	Skelly (D)	-0.400	-1.037
MI-07	Walberg (R)	0.623	Schauer (D)	-0.400	-1.023
MN-02	Kline (R)	0.615	Sarvi (D)	-0.400	-1.015
OH-01	Chabot (R)	0.665	Dreihaus (D)	-0.350	-1.015
IL-13	Biggert (R)	0.508	Harper (D)	-0.500	-1.008
MN-06	Bachmann (R)	0.703	Tinklenburg (D)	-0.300	-1.003
CA-26	Dreier (R)	0.495	Warner (D)	-0.500	-0.995
FL-15	Weldon (R – open)	0.590	Blythe? (D)	-0.400	-0.990
IL-06	Roskam (R)	0.538	Morganthaler (D)	-0.450	-0.988
NY-13	Fosella (R – open)	0.518	McMahon? (D)	-0.450	-0.968
NV-02	Heller (R)	0.561	Derby (D)	-0.400	-0.961
NE-02	Terry (R)	0.545	Esch (D)	-0.400	-0.945
NC-10	McHenry (R)	0.745	Johnson (D)	-0.200	-0.945

More over the flip…

Now let’s look at the rest of the Toss-ups and Lean races, that didn’t fit into the previous table. These tend not to have as big a right-to-left impact, as these tend to be races where a Main Street (i.e. ‘moderate’) Republican currently occupies the seat. (Although in some cases, the moderate Republican is retiring and a probably-more-conservative Republican is running to replace him or her.) As you can probably tell, this is where the “Red to Blue” races cluster.

District	110th Rep.	110th Score	111th Rep.	111th Score	Difference
MI-09	Knollenberg (R)	0.428	Peters (D)	-0.500	-0.928
WA-08	Reichert (R)	0.324	Burner (D)	-0.600	-0.924
IL-10	Kirk (R)	0.323	Seals (D)	-0.600	-0.923
OH-02	Schmidt (R)	0.535	Wulsin (D)	-0.350	-0.885
MN-03	Ramstad (R – open)	0.433	Madia (D)	-0.450	-0.883
NY-26	Reynolds (R – open)	0.462	Powers? (D)	-0.400	-0.862
CT-04	Shays (R)	0.241	Himes (D)	-0.600	-0.841
VA-11	Davis (R – open)	0.419	Connolly (D)	-0.400	-0.819
OH-15	Pryce (R – open)	0.413	Kilroy (D)	-0.400	-0.813
NY-29	Kuhl (R)	0.358	Massa (D)	-0.450	-0.808
MO-06	Graves (R)	0.499	Barnes (D)	-0.300	-0.799
NJ-03	Saxton (R – open)	0.288	Adler (D)	-0.500	-0.788
NJ-07	Ferguson (R – open)	0.280	Stender (D)	-0.500	-0.780
NM-01	Wilson (R – open)	0.317	Heinrich (D)	-0.450	-0.767
NY-25	Walsh (R – open)	0.312	Maffei (D)	-0.450	-0.762
NC-08	Hayes (R)	0.457	Kissell (D)	-0.300	-0.757
IL-11	Weller (R – open)	0.386	Halvorson (D)	-0.350	-0.736
NV-03	Porter (R)	0.324	Titus (D)	-0.400	-0.724
AK-AL	Young (R)	0.401	Berkowitz? (D)	-0.300	-0.701
LA-04	McCrery (R – open)	0.482	Carmouche (D)	-0.200	-0.682
AZ-01	Renzi (R – open)	0.337	Kirkpatrick? D)	-0.300	-0.637
OH-16	Regula (R – open)	0.325	Boccieri (D)	-0.300	-0.625

Finally, some of you may be wondering where the smallest right-to-left impact would be felt. That would be MD-01, where Wayne Gilchrest is one of the most moderate Republicans in the House (0.257), and district demographics predict Frank Kratovil as Likely New Dem, Possible Blue Dog (- 0.350), for a difference of – 0.607. (Bear in mind that the Republican candidate this year, though, is Andy Harris, who’s well to the right of Gilchrest, so this race gains some importance.) IL-18 is runner-up, and a similar case (Aaron Schock is likely to be well to the right of retiring Ray LaHood). This leaves IA-04 as the race with a GOP incumbent and the smallest impact (Tom Latham at 0.412 versus Becky Greenwald, predicted at – 0.200, difference of – 0.612).

If you’re wondering where the likely DW-Nominate scores came from, the short answer is: my butt. The longer answer is, I assigned a relatively round number to each category from my Class of 2008 diary, based on where Progressives, sorta-Progressives, New Dems, and so on, tended to cluster. The assigned value, however doesn’t seem as important in providing the right-to-left shift as just how wingnutty the current Republican is; see how much correlation there is between my first list and the list of vulnerable Republicans as predicted by my PVI/Vote Index.

Here are the assigned values (along with the Dem representatives who have scores in the 110th closest to those scores, so you have a point of comparison):

Likely Progressives: – 0.600 (Diane Watson, Mike Honda, Alcee Hastings)

Likely Progressives, Possible New Dems: – 0.500 (Zoe Lofgren, E.B. Johnson, Charlie Rangel)

Likely New Dems, Possible Progressives: – 0.450 (Al Green, Tom Allen, Loretta Sanchez)

Likely New Dems: – 0.400 (Albio Sires, John Yarmuth, Sander Levin)

Likely New Dems, Possible Blue Dogs: – 0.350 (Mel Carnahan, Shelly Berkley, Brian Higgins)

Likely Blue Dogs, Possible New Dems: – 0.300 (Ruben Hinojosa, Dutch Ruppersburger, Silvestre Reyes)

Likely Blue Dogs: – 0.200 (Baron Hill, Zack Space, Allen Boyd)

Based on people’s comments from the Class of 2008 diary where they gave some anecdotal evidence that so-and-so scored too low, I gave a +0.100 bonus to Schauer, Kissell, Baker (in MO-09), and Barth, lifting them out of Blue Dog terrain. Please keep the comments coming, in case there are any other cases you see where someone’s ranking doesn’t pass the smell test.

You all knew it was inevitable: at some point, Democratic donors, exhausted by the finally-concluded presidential primary and looking into their empty wallets, would take a little breather from giving, allowing the GOP to play catch-up.

Fear not, though, fellow downballot enthusiasts: most of the damage occurred at the DNC vs. RNC level. The DSCC and DCCC had still slightly better months of May than their Republican counterparts, and they maintain towering edges in cash-on-hand.

Committee	May Receipts	May Disbursements	May Cash-on-Hand	May Debts & Obligations
DSCC (est.)	$5,920,000.00	$4,950,000.00	$38,530,000.00	$0.00
NRSC (est.)	$4,890,000.00	$2,700,000.00	$21,560,000.00	$0.00
DCCC	$6,091,737.14	$4,192,275.05	$47,174,105.00	$0.00
NRCC	$5,017,140.54	$5,096,869.15	$6,654,801.50	$0.00
DNC	$4,795,890.97	$5,263,698.72	$3,965,886.11	$6,306.93
RNC	$24,377,740.11	$11,513,030.77	$53,508,001.57	$0.00
Total Democrats	$16,807,628.11	$14,405,973.77	$89,669,991.11	$6,306.93
Total Republicans	$34,284,880.65	$19,309,899.92	$81,722,803.07	$0.00

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t worry too much about the DNC/RNC chasm: the DNC has consistently lagged the RNC lately. That points to one of the most remarkable things about the Obama campaign: for most people, the Obama website has become top-of-mind for direct giving, leading to a bypass of the DNC.

One potential warning sign I see on the horizon, though, is the RNC turning around and allocating a lot of its money to Congressional races, as it realizes that its last best shot at preventing Democratic hegemony is in the Senate by holding GOP losses to 3 or 4 there. If polling continues to go south for McCain along the same trajectory as the last couple weeks, it’s not out of the question that the RNC will consider writing down the McCain campaign as a casualty loss, in order to bolster the likes of Gordon Smith and Roger Wicker.

Within one day of each other, we suddenly have votes that take us right back to where we were a year ago, with repeat capitulations on the Iraq Supplemental and FISA. While I’m not happy about these votes, I don’t have any ranting to add to this matter, as that’s not really Swing State Project style; I’ll leave that to Glenn Greenwald and the good folks over at Open Left and Daily Kos. (In fact, I feel a little uncomfortable using ‘capitulation,’ since it’s always more complex than that, but what the hell… this is the blogosphere, where nuance goes to die.)

What interested me is that now we have a series of bookends, where we can measure how far we’ve come on changing the debate on funding the Iraq War and on FISA. Short answer, judging by the raw vote totals, is: not very far on the Iraq War, and we’ve gone way backwards on FISA. (Although comparing today’s FISA vote against the “Protect America Act” from last August is kind of apples and oranges, as today seemed to turn more on the narrow issue of retroactive immunity for telecoms rather than the overarching issue of spying on American citizens. I’d guess that fewer Congresspeople were bothered by the idea of letting the telecoms skate than by the much larger issues that were at stake last August.)

What I’m using for comparison purposes is, on the issue of the Iraq Supplemental, HR 2206 Roll Call 425 from May 24, 2007 (when the blogosphere first seemed to realize that, hey, wait a minute, maybe we aren’t going to be able to extract ourselves from Iraq with Bush still in office), versus HR 2642 Roll Call 431 from yesterday. On the issue of FISA, I’m comparing S 1927 Roll Call 836 from Aug. 4, 2007 (which was last year’s other big blogospheric freak-out, and the impetus for the “Bush Dog” project at Open Left), versus HR 6034 Roll Call 437 from earlier today.

Iraq Supplemental:

2007 total: 280 aye – 142 no – 11 NV

Dems in 2007: 86 aye – 140 no – 6 NV

GOP in 2007: 194 aye – 2 no – 5 NV

2008 total: 268 aye – 155 no – 12 NV

Dems in 2008: 80 aye – 151 no – 5 NV

GOP in 2008: 188 aye – 4 no – 7 NV

13 who flipped from aye to no (i.e. bad to good): Rob Andrews, Joe Baca, Leonard Boswell, GK Butterfield, Dennis Cardoza, John Dingell, Steve Kagen, Kendrick Meek (FL), Nick Rahall, Bart Stupak, Bennie Thompson (MS), Debbie Wasserman Schulz… and Jeff Flake (R)

3 who flipped from no to aye (i.e. good to bad): Corrine Brown, Artur Davis, and Tim Ryan

10 Dems and 1 Republicans went from no vote to no: the Republican was John Campbell (R). 4 Dems went from no to no vote. 7 Republicans and 4 Dems went from no vote to yes: the Dems were our three new guys, Bill Foster, Don Cazayoux, and Travis Childers, plus Howard Berman. 7 Republicans and 1 Dem went from yes to no vote: Pete Visclosky was the lone Dem.

Let’s take a look at who flipped the right way. The list includes recipients of some serious netroots pressure: Leonard Boswell (via his primary with Ed Fallon) and Debbie Wasserman Schulz (via the kerfuffle over the Cuban-American districts). It also includes Rob Andrews, who seems to have been burnishing his liberal credentials as he seeks statewide office in a blue state (he got skunked on NJ-Sen, but now rumor has it he’s angling for the newly created Lt. Governor position in 2009). Also, there are two Republicans who flipped, and it’s two of the most conservative: Flake and Campbell. I have to wonder whether they’ve truly turned on the war, or are engaged in a fit of libertarian pique over having to actually pay for it.

I’m still scratching my head over the ones who flipped the other way. The common thread I can think of is that Davis (who already votes the wrong way on FISA) and Ryan are both eyeing statewide office in red states.

FISA

2007 total: 227 aye – 183 no – 23 NV

Dems in 2007: 41 aye – 181 no – 9 NV

GOP in 2007: 186 aye – 2 no – 14 NV

2008 total: 293 aye – 129 no – 13 NV

Dems in 2008: 105 aye – 128 no – 3 NV

GOP in 2008: 188 aye – 1 no – 10 NV

2 who flipped from aye to no (i.e. bad to good): Baron Hill and Tim Walz

58 who flipped from no to aye (i.e. good to bad): Gary Ackerman, Mike Arcuri, Joe Baca, Brian Baird, Shelly Berkley, Howard Berman, Marion Berry, Sanford Bishop, Tim Bishop, Rick Boucher, Nancy Boyda, Corrine Brown, GK Butterfield, Dennis Cardoza, Kathy Castor, Emanuel Cleaver, Jim Clyburn, Joe Crowley, Norm Dicks, Rahm Emanuel, Eliot Engel, Gabby Giffords, Kirsten Gillibrand, Al Green, Gene Green, Luis Gutierrez, Jane Harman, Tim Holden, Paul Kanjorski, Dale Kildee, Ron Kind, Jim Langevin, Nita Lowey, Tim Mahoney, Carolyn McCarthy, Jerry McNerney, Greg Meeks, Dennis Moore, John Murtha, Solomon Ortiz, Nancy Pelosi, Ed Perlmutter, Nick Rahall, Silvestre Reyes, Dutch Ruppersberger, Adam Schiff, David Scott, Joe Sestak, Brad Sherman, Albio Sires, Adam Smith, John Spratt, Bart Stupak, Ellen Tauscher, Bennie Thompson, Mark Udall, John Yarmuth

9 Dems went from no vote to no; this includes some of our newest: Bill Foster, and Donna Edwards, on her second day on the job. 3 Dems and 1 Republican went from no to no vote; the Republican was Walter Jones. 12 Republicans and 6 Dems went from no vote to yes: the Dems were Don Cazayoux, Travis Childers, Ruben Hinojosa, Ron Klein, Laura Richardson, and Ike Skelton. 8 Republicans went from yes to no vote.

That’s a long list of Democratic defections (although it’s hard to call it a defection when it includes all the leadership). As for the two guys who turned the right way, Baron Hill and Tim Walz, they get big ups; I think in both cases they’re freshmen feeling more confident of their abilities to survive in their Republican-leaning districts.

The one Republican who voted no both times on FISA may surprise you: Tim Johnson, of IL-15, not generally known as a rebellious spirit. As for Ron Paul, the great defender of our liberties? Seems like he’s been taking some liberties of his own, as he managed to miss both FISA votes.