Author: Crisitunity

The Great Orange Satan, in their efforts to move beyond merely reporting polls to actually driving them, polls Oklahoma:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (6/9-11, likely voters, no trendlines)

Jim Inhofe (R): 53

Andrew Rice (D): 31

(MoE: ±4%)

A 22-point gap: at first glance, not that hopeful for Rice. However, digging deeper into the poll, most of that gap seems attributable to the fact that no one knows who Rice is: 52% of respondents said they were “Unsure” when asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him.

Inhofe’s low re-elect numbers show the desire for change is there. It’s up to Rice (and the DSCC) to break through the clutter and let voters know he’s an option:

If the election for US Senate were held today, would you to reelect Jim Inhofe, would you consider voting for another candidate or would you vote to replace Inhofe?

Reelect 39

Consider someone else 23

Replace 28

Unfortunately, it looks like the vaunted match-up of Francis H. Powers (pere) vs. Francis M. Powers (fils) isn’t going to happen. Those pesky Libertarians nominated Susan Overeem last night as their candidate in NY-13 in the general election.

Jim Lesczynski, a spokesman for the Manhattan chapter of the Libertarian Party, said that the selection of Ms. Overeem had nothing to do with the prospect of a highly unusual campaign pitting son against father…. “But the general feeling was that Susan has the better grasp of what it meant to be a Libertarian.”

It remains to be seen whether Powers the Younger, and his large hair, will still seek the Anarchist Party line. (It’s unclear whether the fact that the Anarchist Party does not yet exist will stop him.)

Mike McMahon remains the expected Democratic candidate, although that is subject to an August primary. SSP rates this race as a Toss-Up.

One of the jobs of the head of the NRSC, the GOP’s campaign committee in the Senate, is to constantly wear a brave face and reassure the troops that everything is going OK on the electoral battlefield.

In a jaw-dropping interview with the Savannah Morning News, NRSC chair John Ensign defined the new ‘OK:’ not losing so many seats that the Democrats obtain a filibuster-proof majority.

The chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee predicts U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss will be part of the firewall the party wants to build against Democratic control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., set a minimum on the number of seats the party must control, 41. “The number that we get to is really, really important in the U.S. Senate,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons Saxby absolutely must hold his seat.”

In other words: the goal is to lose no more than eight seats (as they currently hold 49). And the GOP firewall contains Saxby Chambliss: a senator whose seat is universally defined as ‘safe’ by all major prognosticators.

In a move further calculated to disspirit Republican senators, Ensign also confessed the NRSC’s huge financial disadvantage:

“The Democratic Senatorial (Campaign) Committee will be able to take more risks. They’ll be able to take more shots in more places,” he said. “So we’ll have to target our money very carefully. What we won’t do is we won’t spend money in races that are going to win on their own, and we won’t spend money on races that can’t win.”

Hold on a second, Jim Gilmore and Steve Pearce… you don’t have to dig your own grave (and save!) yet, though. Ensign has some more helpful up-by-the-bootstraps advice:

He noted that he won his own Senate seat with less money than the incumbent he upset.

Now just because some of you might be saying, “Wait… the 2000 Senate race in Nevada was an open seat…” that doesn’t mean that imaginary lightning can’t strike twice. After all:

“It’s kind of like a sporting event. You play the game because the outcome is not assured,” he said.

There’s going to be a healthy amount of turnover in the Senate; even if the Democrats don’t pick up any seats in 2008 (OK, OK, you can stop laughing now), there will still be at least five new faces because of the retirements of Warner, Allard, Domenici, Hagel, and Craig. However, there’s also going to be at least a sixth new face in the Senate, because, barring something really weird happening, either Barack Obama or John McCain is going to be the next President in January, opening up one more seat to be filled by appointment until 2010 (the next general election, but also when Obama and McCain’s terms would end anyway). Unlike the rest of the Senate races, that’s one race we can’t handicap, because we have no idea who the candidates are, and there’s going to be only one voter: either Rod Blagojevich or Janet Napolitano.

This is in the news today because Robert Novak is alleging that Nancy Pelosi has been talking up Rahm Emanuel as the replacement senator. (This being Novak, the safe response might be to assume the exact opposite of what he’s saying. Just consider it a conversation starter.) He described Pelosi as “enthusiastic about Emanuel’s elevation to the Senate.” (Although she might be most enthusiastic about getting one-half of the Hoyer/Emanuel tag-team off her back.)

It seems unlikely to me that Blagojevich would pick Emanuel, though, because Emanuel doesn’t help Blagojevich with either of his competing needs: the pressure to appoint another African-American so that number of black senators doesn’t drop back down to 0, and the desire to move his strongest intra-party competition to Washington and out of his hair. (It also might seem a demotion for Emanuel, who is at the #4 slot in the House as Conference chair, and given his age, a likely candidate for Speaker in the 2020s.)

Probably the most frequently mentioned African-American contender for the position is Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Jackson is young (41), he’s progressive (near the top of the House, with a Progressive Punch score of about 99), he’s been an effective Obama surrogate, he’d leave behind as safely-Democratic a House seat as can be imagined, and he has name recognition.

Other mentioned African-American contenders include Rep. Bobby Rush (who’s been in IL-01 for many years and is 62), Sec. of State Jesse White (a well-liked longtime fixture in Illinois politics, but 76 years old), State Senate President Emil Jones (who’s a key Blagojevich ally in the legislature, but who’s 72), and State Senator James Claybourne (who’s only 44, but unlike these other contenders, not a Chicagoan (he’s from Belleville, next to E. St. Louis) – and with Dick Durbin already senator, a second Downstate senator is unlikely). One other possibility I saw mentioned was giving Carol Mosely-Braun her old seat back, although given her inability to hold the seat in the first place, that doesn’t seem likely.

The other camp consists of people Blagojevich might like to deport from Illinois by promoting them: Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Comptroller Dan Hynes. It’s unclear whether Blagojevich intends to run for a third term in 2010 (he’s eligible to do so, although given his ethical problems and low approval ratings, it seems he’s likely to head for the exits at that point), but if he does, he’s likely to face primary opposition from one or both of them. And even if he doesn’t run, these two have oversight of his activities and have been constant thorns in his side (and, with one of them in Washington, could then be replaced with one of his own appointees).

Whether or not Blagojevich is an obstacle, either Madigan or Hynes is likely to be the next governor of Illinois. Madigan is 41; Hynes is 39. They’re both well-connected to Illinois machine politics (Madigan’s dad is state house speaker Michael Madigan; Hynes’s dad is former Cook County assessor Thomas Hynes.) One consideration is that Hynes has shown more desire to go to Washington rather than aiming for governor; Hynes ran for the Democratic Senate nomination in 2004, finishing second to Obama in the primary.

Finally, there are several other names who get mentioned but don’t fit into either category: Rep. Jan Schakowsky from IL-09 (she’s also one of the most progressive members of the House and wields a fair amount of leadership clout there, but she’s 64 and has some ethical baggage associated with fraud charges against her husband Robert Creamer), and Illinois Veterans Affairs Dept. Director Tammy Duckworth of IL-06 fame (she brings diversity and Iraq War vet status to the table, but has never actually won an election before). And it can’t be discounted entirely that Blagojevich might appoint himself, since a Senate seat would give him a new career without term limits… although he’d face the same electoral liabilities in 2010 facing Senate re-election as if he were running again for governor.

Turning to Arizona, some of you might be licking your chops, anticipating another Democratic senator, appointed by Janet Napolitano, as the consolation prize in the event of a McCain victory, but that’s not the case. Arizona is one of several states (along with Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, and Wyoming) where the appointed interim senator must be of the same party as the departing senator.

This becomes an interesting strategic decision for Napolitano, though: does she take the easy way out and appoint the Republican who’s at the top of the queue? That would most likely be Jan Brewer, who is Secretary of State and, since Arizona has no Lt. Governor, the state’s #2 person. However, it could be one of the current representatives, most likely John Shadegg, who has more seniority and a higher profile than Trent Franks or Jeff Flake.

Does she appoint the Republican who, ideologically, is likely to suck the least (moderate ex-Rep. Jim Kolbe, who was in AZ-08 for many years, comes to mind), who would be vulnerable to a right-wing primary effort but difficult in a general election?

Or does she try to game the system by appointing the Republican who would provide two years of dislikable right-wing insanity and then an easy opponent in the 2010 general election (when, not coincidentally, Napolitano herself would be term-limited and looking for a new job)? That could be ex-Rep. and professional loudmouth J.D. Hayworth, or, for maximum comedic effect, former State Rep. Randy Graf. (It still probably wouldn’t include current Rep. Rick Renzi, who’s likely to consider 2009 a good year if it involves staying out of prison.)

Related posts:

Whom Might Blagojevich Appoint? (from August 2007)

Everybody’s favorite group of Republican purity trolls, the Club for Growth, has weighed in in the primary for the Alaska at-large house race, and they’re supporting the challenger, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.

Club President Pat Rooney made the case in a Wall Street Journal commentary today entitled simply “Don Young Embodies What’s Wrong With the GOP:”

Mr. Parnell is a solid conservative who led the fight for lower taxes and spending in the state legislature, and joined Gov. Sarah Palin in pushing for reform in the state. The man he is hoping to replace isn’t economically conservative in the least. Mr. Young is actually a poster child for what has gone wrong with the Republican Party in Washington.

Toomey’s commentary, interestingly, steers clear of the fact that Young is under Justice Dept. investigation for ties to Veco, and is armpit-deep in legal fees. Instead, it just focuses on the great right-wing walkback of 2008: that the GOP brand has failed because Republicans haven’t been conservative enough. They’re addicted to earmarks and subsidies (like the “Bridge to Nowhere” and the Coconut Road interchange in Young’s case), and if we just remove those, the clouds will lift and St. Reagan will return to walk the earth again.

But instead of using his power to steer Republicans down a principled, conservative track, he helped derail the GOP train in 2006. Mr. Young spends taxpayer money so wastefully he could make a liberal Democrat blush.

It’s worth noting this is a convenient way for Club for Growth to claim the scalp of one of the less conservative GOP representatives (for all his bluster and corruption, Young was in fact a vote for minimum wage increase, for SCHIP, and for stem cell research)… even though Young’s impending loss has little to do with bedrock conservatism and more to do with Alaska finally being ready to turn the page on its tradition of corruption.

Unfortunately, a Parnell victory in the primary might make our pickup of AK-AL more difficult in the fall, as Parnell is perceived as ‘clean,’ and an ally of popular GOP governor Sarah Palin. Here’s hoping Don Young can survive CfG intervention in the Aug. 26 primary and forestall his demise until November!

SSP currently rates this race as a Tossup.

Roll Call (subscription required) is reporting that Vern Buchanan has been hit with a lawsuit alleging consumer fraud at the auto dealerships that he owns. In and of itself, this might not be huge news; this isn’t a criminal indictment, so when you’re in the same party as the Doolittles, Renzis, and Fossellas of the world, a little civil action isn’t even going to get you noticed, right? (The Sarasota Herald Tribune has a story here about the basics of the case.)

There are some eye-raising details to the case that Roll Call raises, though, suggesting that campaign finance violations in his 2006 run for Congress may be intertwined with the fraud allegations. FLA Politics has some excerpts:

Joseph Kezer, a former finance director at Buchanan’s Sarasota Ford dealership … Kezer also alleged in an interview with Roll Call that he observed campaign finance violations ahead of Buchanan’s narrow 2006 victory against bank executive Christine Jennings (D)…

Some of the Buchanan campaign’s record $8 million outlay in the 2006 campaign, according to Kezer, likely was laundered corporate cash funneled through higher-ups at Buchanan’s numerous dealerships.

Buchanan faces a rematch against 2006 opponent Christine Jennings, against whom he won by 369 votes against a backdrop of malfunctioning electronic voting machines… well, assuming he’s still a free man in November.

You might remember that in the summer of 2006, Democracy Corps (Stan Greenberg, James Carville, and friends) released a poll that was a real “holy crap” moment for the blogosphere, the first time many of us realized “Wow, we could actually win 20 or 30 seats in the fall!” It wasn’t a poll of one seat, but rather, a poll with a huge sample size drawn from dozens of potentially competitive House districts… and it indicated that we had a good shot at winning many of those districts, which, lo and behold, we did.

Democracy Corps is back with a sequel, and it predicts similarly big results in 2008. It’s particularly impressive compared with just how far we’ve come since they did a similar poll in January 2008 (of 40 of the 45 Republican-held districts surveyed in the most recent poll; they added five more because of the expanding battleground). (Not coincidentally, January 2008 was the start of the hotly contested presidential primary… y’know, the one that was supposed to have torn us apart into a bunch of warring factions and killed our chances in November.)

We’ll start with the most basic component: the congressional named vote (where the name of the incumbent Republican is used, while a generic Democrat was referenced), for all 45 districts taken together.

Democracy Corps (5/19-26, likely voters):

Democratic candidate: 50 (45)

Republican candidate: 43 (46)

That’s a move from a one-point loss to a seven-point lead over half a year… and bear in mind, this isn’t a national poll that encompasses Democratic-held seats, only the most threatened Republican-held seats. But they then take the additional step of breaking the races down into Tier I and Tier II races (see here for the precise list of districts, but for the most part they pretty closely track SSP’s list of toss-ups and of lean/likely Rs). We’ve moved from a +6 to +9 advantage in Tier I races, and from a -6 to +3 advantage in Tier II races.

Tier I

Democratic candidate: 51 (48)

Republican candidate: 42 (42)

Tier II

Democratic candidate: 48 (43)

Republican candidate: 45 (49)

The poll also asks for job approval of the Republican incumbents, mentioned by name. Their approval rating has appreciably and ominously declined, down into the thirties (even though the gap between ‘approve’ and ‘disapprove’ hasn’t dropped as much; they’re at +5 approval rather than a +6 approval).

Approve: 38 (43)

Disapprove: 33 (37)

Participants were read one of two statements: “In November, I really want to be able to vote for a Democrat for Congress because at least he or she will fight for change,” and “In November I will vote for [incumbent Republican] because the new Democratic congress is just business as usual and getting no more done than the last one.” They were then asked which statement they agreed with, and whether they did so strongly or not so strongly. The results show a large gap in favor of the Democrats, and significant growth since January. (There’s a whiff of push-polliness about this one, so take it with a grain of salt.)

Vote for a Democrat, agree strongly: 44 (36)

Vote for a Democrat, agree not so strongly: 11 (13)

Vote for a Democrat, combined: 55 (49)

Vote to reelect, agree strongly: 28 (26)

Vote to reelect, agree not so strongly: 9 (15)

Vote to reelect, combined: 37 (41)

I don’t want to get too deep into the individual issues on this one (there’s a ton of interesting material here; click on the links for more detail), but there’s one particular highlight for me that I wanted to share, which indicates just how much the dialogue has shifted since 2004, when gay marriage hysteria helped decide the election. (I didn’t see anything about this being asked in January, so no comparison numbers.) If these numbers are coming exclusively from Republican-held battleground districts, basically, gay hysteria is dead as a wedge issue. It’s over and done.

Participants were read paragraphs that contain “But I oppose a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage because decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they always have been,” and “We need a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and preserve the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.” Again, they were asked whether they agreed with the Democratic or Republican statement, and whether they did so strongly or not so strongly.

Democratic statement, agree strongly: 35

Democratic statement, agree not so strongly: 17

Democratic statement, combined: 52

Republican statement, agree strongly: 33

Republican statement, agree not so strongly: 10

Republican statement, combined: 43

In general, this can’t be seen as a promise of winning 45 seats. And with a sample of 1,600 divided by 45, that’s only a sample of 36 per seat, so it doesn’t have any particular value for any one particular seat. But this poll has to be seen as suggesting that we have the upper hand in the 21 Tier 1 seats, and are likely to win a number of the 24 Tier 2 seats as well.

(H/t to RandySF and Andy Dufresne.)

Now that the open thread about what Congressional districts the Swing State Project readership hails from has died down, I thought I’d pull together some data to try and make some generalizations about what type of places we inhabit and who represents us.

This is a question that has always nagged me in the past when reading blogosphere calls to action. In other words, when all of us in the blogosphere get off our butts and call our representatives and complain, are we preaching to the choir? It’s been documented that the liberal blogosphere is more metropolitan, more affluent, more educated, whiter, and maler than the population at large. Does that mean that we are concentrated in urban, heavily Democratic districts, to the extent that most of us are represented by progressive reps who are already voting the way we want to, regardless of our demands? Or, based on the fact that many of the most educated and affluent districts are suburban swing districts, where our input might actually have some impact on a representative facing competing demands and potentially competitive elections?

One more Daily Kos demographic post by DrSteveB from May 2007 (so reflecting Congress’ current composition) sheds a little light on this: “Is Your Congressperson a Dem or Rep?” 63% of the respondents (sample of 2,610) said that they are represented by a Democrat, and 47% indicated that they would not support a primary challenge to their representative (most likely indicating satisfaction with the progressiveness of their representative, although it may also indicate resignation to their representative’s conservativeness as being acceptable given the district’s lean). 37% of the respondents were represented by a Republican. Compare this with the overall composition of the House, which is 54% Democrat and 46% Republican. Daily Kos is disproportionately represented by Democratic representatives.

To my surprise, this almost exactly matched the results from the much smaller sample here at Swing State Project. I found a sample of 81, using comments but not the Frappr map (not many Frappr participants actually cited their district, and those that did were often the same people who participated in the comments). Where commenters (usually college students) mentioned living in multiple districts without saying where they were registered, I assigned them to their ‘home’ (i.e. parents’) districts.

Here’s how we at SSP break down:

Democrat-held districts	50	62%
Republican-held districts	31	38%

But by knowing specifically which districts each respondent lives in, we can go a lot further than the Daily Kos survey did. For instance, we can check out what ideological caucuses our representatives are members of. Look at the first line: 16 of the 81 SSPers are represented by members of the Progressive Caucus, or 20% of us. In reality, Progressives are 68 of the 435 in the House, or 16% of the House members.

Caucus	SSPers	%	Actual percentage of House
Progressive Caucus	16	20%	16%
New Democrats	15	19%	14%
Blue Dogs	7	9%	11%
Cong. Black Caucus	7	9%	9%
Cong. Hispanic Caucus	3	4%	5%
Unaffiliated Dems	12	15%	14%
Main Street Partnership	9	11%	9%
Republican Study Comm.	15	19%	25%
Unaffiliated GOP	8	10%	12%

We’re disproportionately represented not just by Progressives but even more so by New Dems. Interestingly, we’re also disproportionately represented by Main Street Partnership members (maybe not surprising, since they tend to be concentrated in affluent and educated suburban districts). We’re under-represented among Blue Dog and RSC constituencies (again not surprising, since these tend to be the rural and less-educated districts). (Don’t look for these numbers to add up to 100, as many members belong to more than one caucus.)

We can also take a look at the ranked liberalness or conservativeness of our representatives. For this, I’ll use National Journal composite scores from 2007 (since they’re already an attempt to scale reps on their liberalness from 0 to 100). On average, our reps are more liberal than average, but, oddly, we’re under-represented by representatives who are in the top decile for liberalness. That may have something to do with the fact that we’re particularly over-represented by New Dems, while not being over-represented by CBC members, many of whom are among the House’s most liberal members.

Liberalness

Our median NJ score: 63.65 (Overall median is 50.75)

Our range: 95 (Al “Ooops, I’d better veer left because of my primary” Wynn in MD-04) to 7.7 (Virginia Foxx in NC-05)

6 of 81 (7.4%) are in top decile for liberalness (score of 87.3 or more)

29 of 81 (35.8%) are in top quartile for liberalness (76.8 or more)

14 of 81 (17.3%) are in bottom quartile for liberalness (21.3 or less)

5 of 81 (6.1%) are in bottom decile for liberalness (14.5 or less)

SSPers also tend to inhabit districts with a lean that is predisposed toward the Democrats at the presidential level. Only 29 out of the 81 of us live in districts with a Cook PVI rating that is Republican-leaning, and only 15 out of 81 live in districts with a rating of R+6 or more (which is where I’d start to say “that’s pretty red”).

PVI

Our median PVI: D+5 (Overall median is R+1)

Our range: D+43 (NY-15) to R+16 (TX-07)

12 of 81 (14.8%) are in top decile for PVI (D+22 or more)

29 of 81 (35.8%) are in top quartile for PVI (D+10 or more)

10 of 81 (12.3%) are in bottom quartile for PVI (R+10 or more)

5 of 81 (6.2%) are in bottom decile for PVI (R+15 or more)

Let’s look at a few other demographic indicators. Overall, SSPers are an extremely metropolitan bunch (it’s hard to break down ‘urban’ vs. ‘suburban’ because a lot of districts contain elements of both, and the census bureau uses a binary system where someone is either ‘urban’ or ‘rural,’ although I’ve observed that many districts that are 5-10% ‘rural’ tend to be what you’d think of as stereotypical suburban districts). The number, for each district, represents the census bureau’s count of people living in a ‘rural’ environment.

Ruralness

Our median ruralness: 5% (Overall median is 15.7%)

Our range: 64% (VA-05) to 0% (12-way tie)

5 of 81 (6.2%) are in top decile for ruralness (50.6% or more)

10 of 81 (12.3%) are in top quartile for ruralness (35.8% or more)

33 of 81 (40.7%) are in bottom quartile for ruralness (1.5% or less)

12 of 81 (14.8%) are in bottom decile for ruralness (0%)

SSPers tend to come from affluent districts. That, of course, doesn’t mean that they themselves are affluent, just that they live among people with high per capita incomes. (Especially considering that we seem to have a large number of college students and post-collegiate activists here.) These are using 2000 census numbers for each district’s per capita income, so bear in mind that these numbers have gone up even more (at least in some parts of the country).

Per capita income

Our median PCI: $23,208 (Overall median is $20,529)

Our range: $47,498 (CA-30) to $14,021 (CA-38)

21 of 81 (25.9%) are in top decile for PCI ($28,560 or more)

36 of 81 (44.4%) are in top quartile for PCI ($24,527 or more)

7 of 81 (8.6%) are in bottom quartile for PCI ($17,820 or less)

2 of 81 (2.5%) are in bottom decile for PCI ($15,277 or less)

And the area where SSPers seem most out of whack with the nation, even more so than per capita income, is education. Look at the numbers, which are each districts’ percentage of persons 25 or older with at least 4-year college degrees.

Education

Our median education: 30.5% (Overall median is 22.6%)

Our range: 53.8% (VA-08) to 12.5% (CA-38)

22 of 81 (27.2%) are in top decile for education (36.5% or more)

45 of 81 (55.6%) are in top quartile for education (28.9% or more)

6 of 81 (7.4%) are in bottom quartile for education (17.5% or less)

1 of 81 (1.2%) are in bottom decile for education (14.1% or less)

Taken as a whole, we can see that Swing State Project members (or at least the ones who responded to the question) are disproportionately represented by Democrats, and by Progressives or New Dems in particular. We’re coming from districts that are disproportionately urban, affluent, and educated. And when we get in touch with our representatives, many of us are getting in touch with someone who already shares our values.

(I’m probably as good a case in point as anyone. I’m in WA-07, which is Seattle. We’re represented by Jim McDermott, who’s in the Progressive Caucus and in the top quartile for liberalness. The district is in the top decile for PVI, educational attainment, and per capita income, and the bottom quartile for ruralness.)

For those who are interested in the full data set (and I know you’re out there), go to Google Docs for the database.

With the ongoing meltdown in NY-13 in spectacular display, it’s easy to forget that there are at least three other GOP-held House seats in New York that are on the chopping block this year. In NY-26 (the seat being vacated by ex-NRCC chair/Mark Foley enabler Tom Reynolds), however, we have a crowded primary to get through before focusing our fire on the Republican, and that primary just got more crowded.

Erie County Legislator (a position equivalent to county council or county commission in most states) Kathy Konst has announced her intention to officially announce her campaign for this seat later this week. Designating petitions to get on the ballot begin circulating this week, so she’s a little late to the game, but she’s committed to spending at least $100,000 of her own funds on the primary.

“I’m beyond the exploration stage of this,” she said. “I’ll be making the decision shortly.”

There are already three candidates on the Democratic side of this primary. Jon Powers is a substitute teacher and Iraq War veteran who has already secured the endorsement of the local Democratic committees in all of NY-26’s counties and enjoys netroots backing (although I noted Matt Stoller voicing some misgivings about Powers last week).

Jack Davis was the 2006 candidate, and was basically responsible for wresting defeat from the jaws of victory against the scandal-plagued Reynolds with a tepid campaign that focused almost exclusively on trade issues and those damn kids who are always on his lawn. (Davis is in the news these days for his legal quest to overturn the “millionaire’s amendment,” in order to bring his plan to spend $3 million of his own money to win the primary to fruition.) No word on whether he plans to seek cross-endorsement from the Crazy Old Man Party this cycle. The other candidate, Alice Kryzan, is an environmental lawyer, which sounds good until you realize that she was an environmental lawyer on the side of the polluters in the Love Canal disaster.

I don’t know of anything to suggest where Konst falls in the liberal/conservative spectrum; the Buffalo News says she’s “proud of her independent reputation,” but, geez, everyone from Bernie Sanders to David Duke is proud of his independent reputation. Another question might be from whom she’ll draw votes: she’s the only elected official in the race, so she has that base of support to draw on, but the other three candidates are all also from nearby towns in the Buffalo suburbs portion of the district (she’s from Lancaster, Powers and Davis are from Clarence, and Kryzan is from Amherst), even though this district encompasses a lot of rural terrain and Rochester suburbs as well. She and Kryzan might well split the “women’s” vote, but I’m more worried about Powers and Konst splitting the “party establishment” and/or “sane” vote, allowing one of the other ones to slip through. Hopefully some polls soon will provide some clarity to this situation.

On the Republican side, Rothenberg is reporting that Iraq war vet David Bellavia will be dropping out of the race soon. This allows a clear path to the nomination for businessman Chris Lee.

Well, I’m Crisitunity. David and James were kind enough to ask me to write for the front page when I see fit, so you’ll be seeing more of my contributions. I have no paid connection to the world of politics, and in fact I haven’t since the summer of 1990, which I spent trudging around OR-05 canvassing for Mike Kopetski’s campaign (which, if you do the math, means I’m officially getting to be middle-aged).

As for the “What am I doing here?” part of the question, I’ll mostly be doing more of the big-picture quantitiatve stuff that I’ve been diarying about lately, although I’ll pick up any breaking polls or Republican sex scandals that otherwise fall through the cracks. I’m obsessed with all things demographic, and as we gradually get closer to 2010 and census time, I’ll be focusing more on issues of redistricting and something we need to start worrying about now: state legislature control.

Also, I’d like to keep tinkering with the PVI/Vote Index that many of you are fond of; I’ve been really blown away by the work Poblano (aka Nate Silver) has been doing lately, and would really like to start developing a more comprehensive sabermetric approach to predicting what kind of representative a district can elect and how they might vote once they’re elected. (Unfortunately, I might need something more sophisticated than Excel to make any headway on that! I’m not a professional statistician or demographer or anything close to that, just a dabbler.)

Anyway, SSP has one of the most informed and focused readerships of any blog out there, and I really look forward to hashing things out with you guys. As always, I welcome questions and comments about whatever it is I’m doing.

By the way, if you’re wondering about my handle, it’s a Simpsons reference:

Lisa: Look on the bright side, Dad. Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for ‘crisis’ as they do for ‘opportunity’?

Homer: Yes! Crisitunity.