Tag: FL-10

In the 2006 election cycle, the DCCC employed a two-pronged approach against long time Republican incumbents in an effort to hasten their retirements: a relentless barrage of press releases and paid advertising early in the cycle highlighting their Bush-supporting votes in the House, combined with the recruitment of strong challengers.  Against Nancy Johnson in Connecticut, the DCCC recruited rising star state Senator Chris Murphy.  Against veteran Clay Shaw of Florida, the Democrats turned to popular state Senator Ron Klein.  Both targets, feeling secure in their long-standing incumbency, fundraising prowess, and Majority status, ultimately chose to stick it out, and both ultimately found themselves losing to superior campaigns.

Under the stewardship of chairman Chris Van Hollen, the strategy has not changed.  This week, the committee announced a series of radio ads hitting four incumbents for their recent (and characteristically despicable) votes against children’s health insurance and expanded health benefits for seniors: Tom Feeney (FL-24), Vern Buchanan (FL-13), Bill Young (FL-10) and Jim Saxton (NJ-03).

As CQ notes, the strategy behind targeting Young and Saxton is to free up their bluish districts to revert to the Democratic fold with the help of top-tier challengers.  Saxton’s district, in particular, would be a compelling pick-up opportunity.  While the south Jersey district supported Bush in 2004 by a 51%-49% margin, it delivered its votes for Al Gore by a whopping 11 point (54%-43%) margin four years earlier.  Kerry’s poor performance here (and in several other Democratic-leaning New Jersey districts), I believe, can be attributed to the 9/11 security advantage that Bush still enjoyed in 2004, and resonated fairly strongly in a state strongly in the orbit of New York City.  But today, that advantage has evaporated for obvious reasons.

So who could emerge to be the Ron Klein-like hero to stir some fear into Saxton, a 12-term incumbent?  A few weeks ago, PoliticsNJ reported that state Senator John Adler had recently met with DCCC officials about the possibility of taking on Saxton next year, for the second time in his career:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman John Adler met with staff at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington last month to discuss a possible run for Congress next year against incumbent James Saxton, according to Democrats close to the five-term State Senator.

Despite his ambition and talent, Adler is a politician with limited political options — something that his friends say he finds exceptionally frustrating.  There was a time when he was viewed as a rising star — he was elected to the Cherry Hill Township Council at age 29, ran for Congress at age 31 (he lost to Saxon by a 58%-39% margin), and at age 32, he won an upset victory for State Senator against a veteran Republican incumbent in a GOP-leaning district in 1991 — the year Democrats lost ten Senate seats and 21 Assembly seats.

After sixteen years in the Senate, Adler seems to have no place to go.  He has nearly $200,000 is a federal campaign account he opened in 2003, when he said he would consider an `08 bid for U.S. Senate if Frank Lautenberg did not seek re-election.  But now, Adler knows that won’t happen — if Lautenberg doesn’t run, another Camden County Democrat, Congressman Rob Andrews, will.

Expect Saxton and the NRCC to gloat about that 58%-39% result if Adler enters the race, but they know perfectly well that Adler has built a fine political career for himself since his first ambitious run at Saxton as a 31 year-old in 1990.  Additionally, you’ve got to bet that Adler would like to put that $200K in his Senate campaign account to good use, and if he were to enter the race, he could easily transfer those funds to a House campaign account.  (And he would need every penny, as Saxton is currently sitting on a very fat $1.33 million cash-on-hand.)

While the DCCC’s saber-rattling didn’t produce many retirements in 2006, perhaps with life in the minority and surprise announcements like Deborah Pryce’s, we can expect such campaigns to yield better results.

Considering that it’s a state that Gore won (in my book), and that John “The Haunted Tree” Kerry lost by 5 points, Florida’s lopsided congressional delegation of 16 Republicans and 9 Democrats sticks out like a sore thumb on the U.S. electoral map.  (Of course, it was even worse before the victories of Tim Mahoney in FL-16 and Ron Klein in FL-22 last year, at a brutal margin of 18R-7D.)  Chalk it up to tenaciously shrewd gerrymandering by the Florida state legislature.  Five of Florida’s House Democrats are packed in districts that delivered over 65% of their votes to Kerry in 2004, one (FL-11) gave Kerry 58%, one is in marginally Democratic turf (Klein), and two Blue Doggies hold districts that lean GOP on the Presidential level as of late (Allen Boyd and Mahoney, whose districts both delivered 54% their vote to Bush in 2004).  Florida’s Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, have set up shop in a plethora of districts specially created for them–areas that Bush won by margins between 10 and 20 points (of which there are 11).

But as Democrats have proven themselves more adept at holding red turf than Republicans have been at retaining seats in blue districts (Democrats currently hold 62 House districts that Bush won in 2004, while Republicans hold a scant eight that voted for Kerry), so too has their zeal for stepping up the pressure against incumbents in Republican-leading districts.  According to the AP,  DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen has lined up five Republican seats for aggressive challenges in 2008:

For Democrats, the targets are Reps. Vern Buchanan, Ric Keller, Dave Weldon, Tom Feeney and C.W. “Bill” Young.

Here’s the rationale for each:

– Buchanan barely won his District 13 seat in the Sarasota area after spending more than $5 million of his own money on the race. He won by 369 votes. His opponent, Christine Jennings, believes touch-screen voting machines lost thousands of ballots and that she would have won if all votes had been counted.

– Keller promised to leave office after eight years, then decided after the last election to break his vow. He’ll have to use resources in a primary before facing a Democratic opponent. Democrats see signs the District 8 seat that includes the Orlando area could favor one of their candidates, and they’ll make a case that Keller’s voting record doesn’t reflect the interests of his constituents.

– Weldon underperformed at the polls last year when he was re-elected in District 15, which represents the Atlantic coast from Vero Beach north to Cape Canaveral. He was re-elected with 56 percent of the vote, but against a weak Democratic candidate who spent far less money. A stronger, better financed candidate could be a challenge.

– Feeney’s District 24, which stretches from the area north and east of Orlando to Brevard and Volusia counties’ coastline, would normally be considered safely his. But Feeney’s golf trip to Scotland with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff could taint the congressman as Democrats continue to make ethics an issue in 2008.

– Young’s District 10 seat, which represents Pinellas County, is slightly Republican, but trends show the large independent voting bloc favors Democratic candidates. Young also hasn’t been seriously tested in years.

Democrats have already lined up a few ambitious challengers for these districts.  Keller, who won re-election by an underwhelming 53-46 margin against Democrat Charlie Stuart (a DCCC pick whose ability to compete monetarily in the general election was hampered by a competitive primary), will square off either with prosecutor Mike Smith or Sierra Club activist Corbett Kroehler.  But first Keller (who’s breaking his term limit pledge by running again), will have to get through a primary with conservative radio host and attorney Todd Long.  Long caught Keller somewhat off-guard during the first quarter, where he outraised the incumbent by a $40k to $27k margin.

In FL-15, Democrats have recruited Paul Rancatore, a Lt. Col. in the Air Force Reserves and the current “Director for Commercialization of Human Space Flight in the National Security and Space Office” at the Pentagon (that’s a mouthful).  In FL-13, Christine Jennings never ended her campaign against Vern Buchanan, of course, and she’s been raising money at a fast clip to pay for her legal expenses.  Despite her narrow “loss” last year, her race will be as tough to win as the rest of these, given some of Buchanan’s cautious votes in the House.

But it’s perhaps Florida’s 10th district that could be the most exciting of the five.  Unlike the rest of Florida’s Republican delegation, Bill Young holds a true toss-up seat, with a PVI of D+1.1.  Gore won this area by two points, and Kerry lost it by the same margin.  On paper, Young would appear formidable: he’s a 36-year incumbent, and he hasn’t won a re-election with less than 65% of the vote in ages.  But on the other hand: Democrats haven’t really tested his hand.  And given his totally irresponsible handling of the Walter Reed scandal, there’s clearly some rust to be punctured here.  Democrats have yet to line up a strong challenger to either him or the Abramoff-loving Tom Feeney (FL-24), and these will be major tests of Van Hollen’s recruiting prowess.

One final note about the article:

Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, expressed confidence that the party wouldn’t repeat its showing in 2006. He said Mahoney never would have won if it hadn’t been for Foley’s scandal and that Republicans perform better in Florida during presidential elections.

“All these districts will perform more like they normally do in ’08 than they did in ’06. That’s what presidential elections do. The Democrats had their best shot at a lot of these folks in 2006 and either didn’t make it or didn’t pull the trigger. I don’t think they’ll get a second opportunity,” Cole said. “We’re back to normal politics.”

With Iraq spiraling out of control, it’ll never be “normal politics”, Tom.  You should be ashamed of yourself.

Originally posted at FLAPolitics

Congresswoman Karen Thurman, Chair of the Florida Democratic Party (FDP), titled a recent email “The Road to the Presidency Runs Through Central Florida”. Like most missives from a political party it was soliciting funds (which is to be expected). This one was for the Democratic challenger in the special election for a central Florida State House seat. 

But, the email’s title spoke to me, because I’ve been thinking along the same lines recently. Let me explain.

Way back in December of 2006 James Carville and Mark Penn did an op-ed piece in the Washington Post that made the case for how Hillary could win the presidency:

Certainly she could win the states John Kerry did. But with the pathbreaking possibility of this country’s first female president, we could see an explosion of women voting — and voting Democratic. States that were close in the past, from Arkansas to Colorado to Florida to Ohio, could well move to the Democratic column. It takes only one more state to win.

And then in an interview with Tom Schaller, Carville added which state was the most likely to go Hillary’s way:

Carville puts Arkansas, Florida, and Virginia in Tier 1, with Louisiana and Tennessee in Tier 2. That makes sense in terms of ranking, but I pressed him to pick the one state he thought Hillary was most likely to flip, if she were to win only one. He picked Florida.

Now, I’m not exactly a fan of Hillary‘s, but if she does get the nomination, I still want her to win. Also, I think there would be a silver lining for Florida if she does get the nomination. Before I proceed, let me post a map of Florida showing the counties.

In a comment to a diary I wrote right after the election, GatorDem made the point that the key to winning a state-wide election in Florida for a Democrat was for the candidate to hold his or her own in the part of central Florida known as the I-4 corridor. I looked at this phenomenon in depth in my diary called What Can We Learn From the Florida State-Wide Races of 2006?

The only state-wide race in Florida for 2008 will be the presidency. That means that if Hillary wants to win Florida’s 27 electoral votes, she has to do okay in central Florida.

In 2006, the Democrat running for Chief Financial Officer, Alex Sink, did all right there. If we look at her totals for the central Florida counties (Brevard, Citrus, Hardee, Hernando, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lake, Manatee, Marion, Orange, Osceola, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Sarasota, Seminole, St. Lucie, Sumter, and Volusia) we see that she bested her opponent Tom Lee 1,122,770 to 1,059,063 (51.5%-48.5%).

For comparison, the 2006 Democratic candidate for governor, Jim Davis, lost to Charlie Crist in those same counties by 954,960 to 1,221,558 (43.9%-56.1%) and Democratic candidate for attorney general, Skip Campbell, lost to Bill McCollum 973,653 to 1,220,365 (44.4%-55.6%).

In 2004 John Kerry lost the central Florida counties 45.8%-54.2%. In 2000 Al Gore also lost, but was closer, 48.6%-51.4%. Again, the point to be made is that if you’re a Democrat and you break even in this area, then you’ve won the state wide race.

But, in the last six years, the only two Democrats to do that are Senator Bill Nelson and CFO Sink. We know Nelson‘s situation is special, being a celebrity ex-astronaut (he won the area 60.8%-39.1%). And it’s possible that Alex Sink‘s case was also unique. She was perfectly qualified for the position, having been a bank executive, she has a lot of personal charisma, and the CFO position avoids the usual liberal-conservative issues that other races get mired in.

So, this is not exactly going to be a cakewalk for Hillary.

If Sen. Clinton wants to do well in the same area she needs to have a strong message and be ready to spend some money. Is there anything else she can do to help her chances?

Republicans control most of the US House seats through the area. Kathy Castor has the safe Democratic seat in FL-11 and Corrine Brown has the majority minority FL-03, but Ginny Brown-Waite is in FL-05, Cliff Stearns in FL-06, Ric Keller in FL-08, Gus Bilirakis is in FL-09, Bill Young is in FL-10, Adam Putnam in FL-12, Dave Weldon in FL-15, Tom Feeney in FL-24, and everyone knows what happened in FL-13.

The lop-sided result is due to the masterful gerrymandering (pdf map of districts) that the Republican legislature accomplished in 2002 and the sorry state of the FDP before Congresswoman Thurman took over.

Now the DCCC has said it is going to target FL-10, probably because they feel Young is going to retire (he’s 76 and has been in congress since 1971). And I’m sure FL-13 is going to get some attention. But what about the rest of them?

One way that Hillary can insure that she does well in central Florida, and thereby win all of the 27 electoral votes, and the presidency, is to make sure that the FDP and the DCCC find serious Democratic challengers for these seats. She can then help them along by funneling some of her megabucks into the races thru the DCCC.

The big advantage is that any challenger to these Republican US House members can still run against George Bush, since this bunch will be part of his rubber stamp congress. If a coordinated campaign against them can be mounted that nationalizes these elections in the same way that Ron Klein successfully did in beating 12 term congressman Clay Shaw in FL-22, then the Democratic vote thru the area will be highly energized.

Since the major media markets in the area overlap several districts, a Friends of Hillary PAC can hammer all the Republican incumbents at once for being stooges for George Bush and Tom DeLay. Why wasn’t proper oversight performed by congress while Bush was running the country into the ground during the six years they were in exclusive power?

You know as well as I do that everyone wants another chance to vote against our incompetent president. Hillary can give it to central Florida Democratic voters by following this strategy.

Another advantage to having Hillary as the candidate would be that she could get Bill to come down to fund raise and campaign with these Democratic challengers. Who would people in Hillsborough County rather see, Gus Bilirakis or Bill Clinton? If the former president shuttled back and forth across the center of the state a couple of times during the election, it would have a dramatic effect.

And when Hillary comes, she could make the trip with Alex Sink. This would allow Hillary to gain the immediate advantage of Sink‘s charisma and strong, fiscally conservative message, and also provide the added effect that having two women politicians appearing together would accomplish by energizing Democratic women to come out and vote.

Now, it’s not critical to Hillary‘s prospects for any of the Democratic candidates to win any of these seats, only that enough Democrats turn out and also vote for her so that she does well enough to win the state.

But, if some good candidates (like Rod Smith) can be recruited, and the FDP and DCCC can coordinate the campaigns so that they’re effective, and Hillary can divert enough money to them to get the message out, then it’s possible some of the Republican congressmen can be defeated as well.

Hey, a win-win. So, what’s Carville‘s email address?

What happens if Congressman Bill Young determines all the hoopla over the Walter Reed Hospital scandal is too much and he decides to retire at the end of this term. Can a Democrat win the 10th Congressional District in Florida?

Answer below.

In the comments to my diary on Congressman Young, Progressive America made the statement:

It’s a Dem District
If Young retires, this is a Dem pickup guys. I hope the DCCC will air some ads in this district. It would be very smart to start putting pressure on Young right now.

He then added:

Cook has it at D+1. It would be a very close race, but should go to the Democrats.

PA was referring to the Partisan Voting Index from the Cook Political Report. A D+1 rating means that the district voted at a one percent greater Democratic amount then the nation as a whole based on the 2000 and 2004 elections. I don’t know if the methodology used takes into account that the district was gerrymandered more Republican during the 2002 redistricting.

In a later comment GatorDem points this out:

Unfortunately, FL-10 is a swing district 
at best without Young running. Most of the African Americans in South Pinellas were put into FL-11 (Kathy Castor) in the 2002 redistricting.  That has left the district with about 20,000 more Rs than Ds.

This district could be won when Young retires (or dies), but it would take a very strong, well financed candidate to pull it off.

I was interested in determining what the possibilities were for a well-financed, popular Democratic candidate in an open race, i.e., not against Young (or his wife).

I used the method mentioned in my diary on the 2006 Florida elections. I looked at how well Democrat Alex Sink did against Tom Lee for the Chief Financial Officer race in the District.

The two raised comparable amounts of money, but Sink is a politically astute campaigner who did well throughout the state, not just in predominately Democratic areas. Her results from the 2006 race are a good indicator of what a competent Democratic candidate can achieve.

The results:

Sink  107,711  54.3%
Lee  90,525  45.7%

That definitely looks doable to me.

Cross posted from Daily Kos

Originally published at FLAPolitics

And Derek Newton from FLAPolitics was out front on this issue by a year