Tag: Congress

Last October, Representative Michele “Crazy as Steve King” Bachmann (MN-06) disgraced herself on “Hardball” and sparked a ridiculously successful fundraising drive for her Democratic opponent, El Tinklenberg. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and kicked in a few bucks for Tinklenberg myself, but I was dismayed to see bloggers continue to help him raise money even after he’d raised more than $750,000 and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had promised to spend an additional $1 million in his district. Within a few days of Bachmann’s notorious comments, Tinklenberg had more money than he needed to run a solid media and GOTV campaign during the final two weeks before the election.

Since most Congressional races against incumbents are longshots, I wanted to see the netroots expand the field by raising $50,000 or more for a large number of unheralded challengers.

Instead, the fundraising frenzy for Tinklenberg continued.

Yesterday Markos linked to this piece from CQ Politics about how Tinklenberg’s campaign committee was the largest donor to the DCCC in March, giving a total of $250,000:

You may recall that his Republican opponent was Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose mid-October comment that Obama “may have anti-American views” angered Democrats nationwide and spawned an avalanche of contributions to Tinklenberg in the waning days of a campaign that Bachmann won by 46 percent to 43 percent, with a third-party candidate taking 10 percent.

Apparently the money was coming in too fast for Tinklenberg to spend completely: he raised $3 million for his campaign, of which $1.9 million came in after October 15, and had $453,000 in leftover campaign funds at the end of 2008 and $184,000 at the end of March.

I’m not saying it wasn’t worth getting behind Tinklenberg. Bachmann is among the worst Republicans in Congress, and this district rightly seemed winnable. However, the netroots clearly funneled way more money to Tinklenberg than he could spend effectively. We got carried away by emotions and were not thinking strategically.

What if a million of the dollars we sent to the MN-06 race had been spread around 10 or 20 other districts? A bunch of the candidates I wanted to support as part of an expanded field got blown out by large margins, but an extra $50,000 could have made the difference for Josh Segall in AL-03, or for several candidates who weren’t on my radar, such as Bill Hedrick in CA-44.

The netroots rally for Tinklenberg started out as a good cause but took on a momentum of its own. It didn’t help that Tinklenberg sent fundraising e-mails to his new donors every day or two during the home stretch, even after he had more than enough money to close out the campaign.

Maybe the majority of blog readers who gave $10 or $20 or $50 to Tinklenberg wouldn’t have given to some other longshot Congressional challenger. Maybe people need an emotional trigger before they are willing to open their wallets. But in future election cycles, we need to be smarter about how we focus our energy and our fundraising efforts during the final weeks of a campaign. There’s no shortage of wingnuts worth targeting. Also, a fair number of good incumbent Democrats will probably need our help in 2010, depending on how the economy looks 18 months from now.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to raise money effectively during the next cycle would be welcome in this thread.

Angry social conservatives are speculating that Senator Chuck Grassley could face a primary challenge in 2010. The religious right has been dissatisfied with Grassley for a long time (see here and here).

After the Iowa Supreme Court struck down the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, Grassley issued a statement saying he supported “traditional marriage” and had backed federal legislation and a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. But when hundreds of marriage equality opponents rallied at the state capitol last Thursday, and Republicans tried to bring a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the Iowa House floor, Grassley refused to say whether he supported their efforts to change Iowa’s constitution:

“You better ask me in a month, after I’ve had a chance to think,” Grassley, the state’s senior Republican official, said after a health care forum in Mason City.

Wingnut Bill Salier, who almost won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2002, says conservatives are becoming “more and more incensed [the] more they start to pay attention to how far [Grassley] has drifted.”

Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn denies that party activists are unhappy with Grassley. I hope Salier is right and Grassley gets a primary challenge, for reasons I’ll explain after the jump.  

Before anyone gets too excited, I want to make clear that I don’t consider Grassley vulnerable. His approval rating is around 71 percent (if you believe Survey USA) or 66 percent (if you believe Selzer and Associates). Either way, he is outside the danger zone for an incumbent.

That doesn’t mean Democrats should leave Grassley unchallenged. Having a credible candidate at the top of the ballot in 2010 will increase the number of straight-ticket Democratic voters. So far Bob Krause is planning to jump in this race. More power to him or any other Democrat who is willing to make the case against Grassley. We should be realistic, though, and understand that unless something extraordinary happens, we are not going to defeat this five-term incumbent.

So why am I hoping a right-winger will take on Grassley in the Republican primary? Here’s what I think would happen.

1. A conservative taking potshots at Grassley would intensify the struggle between GOP moderates and “goofballs” just when Iowa Republicans are trying to present a united front against Democratic governance. GOP chairman Strawn claimed this weekend that Democratic tax reform proposals had unified his party, but if Grassley faces a challenger, expect social issues to dominate next spring’s media coverage of Republicans.

2. Although some delusional folks seem to think Grassley could lose a low-turnout primary, Grassley would crush any challenger from the right. That has the potential to demoralize religious GOP activists and their cheerleaders, such as the popular talk radio personality Steve Deace. (Deace already has plenty of grievances against Grassley.)

3. Every prominent Iowa Republican will have to take a position on the Senate primary, if there is one. I assume almost everyone will back Grassley, which would offend part of the GOP base. But if, say, Strawn or Congressman Steve King surprised me by staying neutral in the primary, that would demonstrate how much power extremists have within the Republican Party. Most people intuitively understand that you don’t try to replace a U.S. senator from your own party who has a lot of seniority.

A Senate primary could become a distracting sideshow for Republican gubernatorial candidates. It’s not clear yet how many Republicans will run against Governor Chet Culver, but almost all of the likely candidates would endorse Grassley over a right-winger. I would expect even Bob Vander Plaats to support Grassley, although he could surprise me. Vander Plaats believes Iowa Republican have been losing elections because they’ve become too moderate.

Watching the Republican establishment line up behind Grassley will remind social conservative activists that the party likes to use their support but doesn’t take their concerns seriously. These people will hold their noses and vote Republican next November, but they may not donate their time and money when Strawn and the gubernatorial nominee need their help to improve the GOP’s early voting operation.

My hunch is that no challenger to Grassley will emerge, because even the angriest conservatives must understand that they have little to gain from this course. Then again, we’re talking about people who believe the little-known, inexperienced Salier would have done better against Tom Harkin in 2002 than four-term Congressman Greg Ganske. Maybe some Republican is just crazy enough to run against Grassley next year.

Ohio is, in reality, a knife edge “purple” state. Voters here (as opposed to bloggers) are kitchen table Democrats (econ issues) but drift rightward on social issues and are extremely susceptible to crafty framing on wedge issues.

The world had to endure the last four years of hell because 118,000 Ohio voters put The Shrub back in office for two reasons. One was Tom Noe’s ill gotten booty (and it WAS MUCH more than what has been revealed) that he pumped into the GOP here and because they came out to vote for The Hate Amendment.

Recently, we have seen press speculation about Rep. Tim Ryan already working on running for Lt. Gov. with Ted Strickland and eventually becoming Gov.

Of course, there’s a back story. Let’s call it “Ted’s Grand Plan.”

Class, let’s review…

The Ohio House in the General Assembly is barely in Dem control but the Senate is an absolute disaster on every level and completely hopeless. We currently control the STATE redistricting board by one vote. If we lose either AG or SoS, (or the Ohio House) control would flip.

Richard Cordray would have been my choice for the US Senate but he agreed to Ted’s request to move into the state AG spot to replace the disgraced Marc Dann. (Thus eliminating one strong contender for the US Senate) Good move in terms of better government. He’ll do a great job.

You’ve gotta remember that Gov. Ted is all in for Lee Fisher as Senator, so with Cordray settled in at AG, that’s one less obstacle for Fisher.

Ryan was the other obstacle. So, Ted offers him the title of governor heir apparent. (Which is, in fact. all this discussion really means.) Ryan (and Ted) are taking the very long view.

Ryan’s current US House is District is one of four obscenely gerrymandered Dem “quarantine” districts that the GOP created at nearly 70% (or more!) Democratic turnout. This was to confine Dem voters to as few districts as possible in order to create as many GOP majority Districts as they could.

The strongly Dem districts are held by Marcy Kaptur, Dennis the Menace, Ryan and Marcia Fudge (formerly held by the late Tubbs-Jones) The latter district is the only one that will survive as such an overwhelmingly Dem district –on the grounds of minority representation.

Ohio will lose two House seats after the current census. Marcy, Dennis and Ryan’s districts will all have to lose some measure of Democratic majority in order to create more Dem majority districts, which cannot be done with these three districts running far too Democratic.

Which is what makes the specter of a Cafaro candidacy so nauseating. If that District becomes even vaguely competitive, she’ll blow it.

[Ed. Note: I would mention that that OH-14 is one of the most closely divided US House Districts to be represented by a GOPer. I say: “blow that sucker right off of the map!” Just eliminate it altogether.]

So here’s the plan: We control the Ohio redistricting process and threaten the GOP with… well… exactly what they did to us. And THAT is our leverage when, during US reapportionment, the Ohio House produces a Dem majority map and the Ohio Senate produces another one of their obscenities.

So had it not been for Judge Brunner’s decision to run for the US Senate, Ted had his plan all worked out. But now, if we lose control of Ohio SoS, the wheels completely come off. That’s why there is already a big hubub over who will run for SoS. Now the buzz is for Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown. (Judge Brunner is supporting her, but I bet Ted was consulted.)

But if you look at the big picture, you can see why people are making these kinds of announcements which seem so far removed from when anything will actually happen.

OK, I’m going back to the real world now..

We have added the MN-06 Democratic nominee funds to the list of candidates we will be supporting in 2010. I chose this for several reasons and the most encouraging being the latest Michele Bachmann comments that we posted yesterday. Bachmann is perhaps the most divisive politician on the National scene.

Help us now as we do all we can to level the playing field for the eventual nominee who will run against her in 2010. A number of $5, $10 and $20 contributions to whoever she will face will provide an early assist to take her down.

As soon as we find out if there is a leading contender to take on Bachmann whether it be the 2008 nominee Tinklenberg or someone else we will gladly support them.

DavidNYC’s great post about House election winners from 2008 who underperformed their district’s presidential numbers got me thinking. It left me wondering: what about the incumbents who outright lost? Were there a lot of incumbents who overperformed their district and still lost?

It turns out, yes, there were quite a few. (In fact, it’s not a difficult question at all; you can just reverse-engineer the previous diary to find the overperformers. For instance, if Jim Himes underperformed by 16 points, Chris Shays necessarily overperformed by 16.) So, while doing this, what turned out to be interesting was who the truly pathetic figures were… the ones on both sides of the aisle who underperformed their districts’ leans on their way down to their own ignominious defeats. By doing this, we can separate out the representatives who simply got swamped by a wave from those who lost purely on their own merits.

Let’s start with our five Democratic casualties:

Now that we have complete presidential results by CD for the entire nation, we can take a look at how members of Congress fared compared to the top of the ticket in each district. The vast majority of Congressmen and women typically perform better than their party’s presidential candidates. The reasons for this are plain: Most members don’t face serious challenges, and individual Congresscritters can tailor their politics to suit their CDs far better than any presidential office-seeker, who (in theory, at least) has to appeal nation-wide.

Some Congressmembers, however, invariably run behind the ticket. First up are the laggard Republicans:

Most of the folks on this list are freshmen who are almost all certain to do much better in 2010. A handful of others are in extremely red districts to begin with, making any difference between their performance and McCain’s mostly a matter of minor noise.

Some, however, stand out for reasons all their own, and their underperformance signals a weakness which could potentially be exploited (again). They include the ethically plagued Don Young, the hapless Patrick McHenry, the well-hated Jean Schmidt, the befuddled Henry Brown, the batshit Virginia Foxx, the caught-napping Mike Rogers, and the loose-lipped Michele Bachmann. While all sit in red districts of varying difficulty, each could be vulnerable (particularly Brown and Rogers, I feel).

Now for the Democratic list:

Once again, the vast majority here are freshmen. There are also quite a few more folks in absurdly blue districts (much bluer than the most Republican districts are red). A few stand out as potentially more than just noise, though. Nancy Pelosi puts in a token appearance here – obviously you’re going to take a few dings if you’re the party leader, but not quite enough for us to be welcoming Congresswoman Sheehan as our new overlord.

Anyhow, I wouldn’t be surprised if Artur Davis’s long-manifest desire to run for higher office hurt him with the folks at home. (UPDATE: It was Danny Davis in IL-07, not Artur Davis in AL-07.) Meanwhile, Lynn Woolsey’s outspoken, er, leadership of the Progressive Caucus might be chafing at her favorability ratings. Charlie Rangel, of course, endured tons of bad press thanks to his tax problems. And David Scott had to face down all kinds of bullshit from Deborah “The Defrauder” Honeycutt. None of these seats, of course, could ever turn red (is Anh Cao laughing at me as I say this?) – it’s just that their current inhabitants had (and in some cases still have) varying “issues” in front of them.

As for more serious situations, it’s no surprise to see Paul Kanjorski on this list. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick also has a featured spot, thanks undoubtedly to the serious primary challenge she got last year and her bellicose defense of her disgraced son Kwame (the ex-mayor of Detroit). I wouldn’t be surprised if she got primaried again. Otherwise, I don’t see too many vulnerable Dem veterans on this list – but Kanjorski and Kilpatrick seriously need to consider retirement.

UPDATE: Himes’s margin of victory was actually four points, not one – I had failed to include the votes he got on the Working Families Party line.

So we are still about a year and a half away from the 2010 primary election and you must be thinking I’m insane. However, I indicated about a week ago that I was going to make an announcement early in my 2010 endorsement for the Alabama 7th Congressional District seat. Not only am I making an endorsement, but I am announcing to going to be working with  Shelia Smoot who  just formed a committee to be a candidate for the seat to be vacated by Artur Davis.

I’m telling everyone now so that they will know where I am coming from when I talk about this race or my candidate. I have found that I like it when bloggers are candid in their affiliations with candidates. So I am practicing what I preach.   Below the thread is more info on my candidate.  

Why Smoot?

I have known Shelia since 2001 and believe that she would be an excellent representative for the constituents of the 7th Congressional District. I find her to be concerned about all people and always willing to lend a helping hand. I’ve talked to people throughout the country that have stories about how Shelia helped them in some capacity.

She also will surround herself with competent people who understand the issues important to those in her community. She knows that transportation and infrastructure, health care, senior housing and creation of jobs are the most pressing of those issues in the 7th Congressional District.

I know several other candidates will likely announce and I welcome all of those to enter the race. I believe that it will be a spirited campaign that will be about how to improve the quality of life in the 7th Congressional District.

I know some of the other potential candidates and I genuinely like them. I think this will be an election with good options. I also have friends who will be working with some of the other candidates.

While not a factor in my choice, I also think it is time that we send the first African American Female to Congress. Alabama needs a female representative in Congress and Shelia Smoot has been a trailblazer throughout her career as a journalist and as a politician.

Our website is under construction, so please let me know if you have any questions or comments.  

Here’s the full write up on each race. 

OK, I know we just came off of 2008, and there were a lot of competitive races nationally, as well as in Florida. But, 10 is just a big number. I mean we’ve only got 25 seats in the House, so 10 of them being competitive is a huge deal. Don’t get too excited though, they aren’t all possible D pickups.

2nd (Tallahassee, etc.): Congressman Allen Boyd, a Blue Dog, is being primary challenged by Al Lawson, term-out state Senate leader. Lawson, no true progressive, will run to the Left of Boyd. My prediction: the challenge never really materializes, and Boyd keeps his seat.



8th (Orlando, etc.): Grayson beat Keller here in 2008. Since winning, Grayson has shown his true colors as an ‘aggressive’ progressive. Nothing wrong with that in my book, but will his voters find him out of sync with them? I think it’s less of a question about Grayson but more about who the Rs can put up against him.



10th (St. Petersburg, etc.) Will Bill Young ever retire?



12th  (Lakeland, etc.) Adam Putnam is vacating to run for Ag Commissioner. Dennis Ross, former state Senator, is the defacto Republican nominee; Lori Edwards, Polk county Supervisor of Elections, is the prominent D in the race. Definitely will be a race to watch.



13th (Sarasota, etc.) What is Vern Buchanan doing? He’s talking about a Senate race; perhaps because the Ds will never let him just have the district. If he vacates, watch for a strong race in a tight district.



16th (Palm Beach County, etc.) Southern Political Report ranks this one. I’m not so sure it’s competitive. Tom Rooney will win again, but he will be challenged by a strong D. Just not sure the D will ever be able to take off.



17th (Miami, etc.) Who will replace K-Meek? Whoever wins this primary will be the new Rep.



22nd (Fort Lauderdale, etc.) This is another, ‘What will person X do?’ race. Ron Klein may get into the Senate race. Even if he doesn’t, he will never go unchallenged in this swingy district. But, if he runs for reelection, Klein should sail to victory again.



24th (Orlando, etc.) Kosmas, who just took her seat in January, will face a strong, but yet to be determined, Republican. Feeney had questionable morals, which inevitably led to his downfall. The national Rs will look to the 24th to run a strong campaign and reclaim the district.



25th (Miami, etc.): The 3 Miami area Ds who ran in 2008 never took off in their races like the national party expected. But, expect to see strong races again down in the Miami area. In the 25th, Joe Garcia will likely again challenge Mario Diaz Balart, but just ask Christine Jennings what happens to second time candidates.

So those are my thoughts. What are yours?  

(More phenomenal work from jeffmd – promoted by James L.)

If I lived a few miles south, I’d live smack in the middle of Illinois’ 5th Congressional District.

Given that 12 candidates were running in the election on Tuesday – and that Quigley won with no more than 25% of the vote, I wanted to take a detailed look at the results by precinct.

A few Saturdays ago, I was running errands in Ravenswood. As I rode the Brown Line south towards the Loop, I noticed a distinct pattern in yard (or perhaps more accurately, window) signs – each neighborhood had the majority of signs supporting one candidate. North-South, they roughly went O’Connor, then Fritchey, then Quigley, then Feigenholtz.

So using the results available from the Chicago BoE, I tried to see if these yard signs were actually reflective. I also look at if each candidate did better in the district (whether State House, County Commissioner, or City Ward) that they represented.

I only got around to analyzing results within the city of Chicago though. Illinois (go figure) establishes separate election authorities for the City of Chicago and Suburban Cook County, and the Cook Suburbs didn’t give me the requisite shapefiles to play with.

So, here’s the goody that I think we’re all waiting for: the winner by precinct (within the City of Chicago).

More maps and results below the flip.

Of course, this map doesn’t show what the magnitude of the win in each precinct was, so this is a map that does. The legend might be unclear, so a color in the first column of the box indicates a precinct won by a candidate with 0-20%. In the second column, 20-30%, etc.

Grey indicates a tie in both maps. Just some quick qualitative comments: Wheelan’s 7 precincts all came in Lincoln Park – the most affluent neighborhood of Chicago. Feigenholtz’s strength was in Lakeview, especially in Chicago’s LGBT center along North Halsted. Fritchey did well in Rahm’s homebase of North Center, as well as some outlying precincts here and there. Forys did best in Portage Park – a predominantly Polish neighborhood, and O’Connor did well in his base in Lincoln Square. Quigley’s strongholds are harder to point out – some precincts in Albany Park and Irving Park in the center of the district, but also the sliver of Edgewater that isn’t in the 9th CD, and much of Wrigleyville and Lakeview beyond Belmont.

Just to recap, here were the results from the city of Chicago:

Overall, there are 486 precincts in the Chicago part of the district. Quigley won 153, Fritchey 98, Forys 90, Feigenholtz and O’Connor 57 each, and Wheelan 7. Additionally, 23 precincts were tied.

So sure, the maps are pretty and all, but what do they actually indicate? Well, let’s break it down by the various districts involved.

For those of you keeping score:

-Fritchey represents the 11th Legislative District; Feigenholtz represents the 12th.

-Quigley represents the 10th Cook County Commissioner District.

-O’Connor represents the 40th Ward of the City of Chicago.

So by LD first:

As you can see, Feigenholtz clearly had the ‘in-district’ effect – earning 40% within the 12th LD compared to 13% outside. She dominated here, winning 42 of 63 precincts, including half with 45%+.

The effect for Fritchey is less clear, he earned 22% within the 11th LD compared to 17% outside. He carried 26 of 91 precincts, compared to Quigley’s 48.

For Cook County Commission Districts:

The effect for Quigley is of questionable magnitude as well. He got 27% inside the 10th Commis, compared to 21% outside. Precinct-wise, his numbers weren’t amazing either, winning 37 of 121 – compared to Fritchey’s 48. For those of you with fast math skills, that means Quigley won 30.5% of precincts within his district and 32% of those not. Go figure.

Incidentally, yes, the 10th Commissioner district is contiguous – it simply runs outside the 5th, so I did not display it here.



Lastly, by city ward:

The ‘home district’ effect is clearest for 40th Ward Alderman O’Connor. He earned a stunning 53% within his ward, compared to 10% throughout the rest of the city. He swept 22 of 27 precincts as well. 12 of these 22 yielded 60%+ for him. Remnants of the machine? I’ll leave you to decide.

So was there a home district effect? Maybe. I think Quigley was able to win simply because he wasn’t limited to it. He was able to perform consistently both within and outside the 10th Commissioner district – enough to squeeze out a win.

I read Nathaniel90’s material concerning redistricting in Nevada.  Our growth has slowed way down during the the last four years, and as a result it is unlikely that we (Nevada) will get a fourth congressperson.  But if we do get a fourth congressperson, those CD boundaries have already been decided.  Well, I shouldn’t say that, but nearly everyone who counts has signed off on the new boundaries.  If you are interested I will e-mail you these new boundary lines.  Also, per the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Abrams v. Johnson, 177 S.Ct. 1925 (1997) we will need to redistrict, even if we continue with three CDs.  These new boundaries have also been decided upon.  Forrest.Darby@cox.net