Swing State Project

(Bumped! Last chance to get your predictions in! – promoted by James L.)

I just created a predictions pool for us over at Predict06.com. Predict06 is a neat site which automates the process of predicting the outcome in sixty-two competitive House and Senate races. The pool feature allows a group (such as Swing State readers) to engage in a bit of friendly competition amongst itself.

So click here to join. All you need to do is create a user account (take five seconds) and you can start making predictions right away. There won’t be any prizes for this pool (unlike our home-grown contest), but you can earn bragging rights. And among the hardcore junkies who hang out here, that’s saying something!

UPDATE (James L.): Predict06 has expanded their playing field by 15 House seats.  Get on over there and update your predictions accordingly!  Also, I’m really pleased to see that 68 people have joined in on the Swing State Project pool so far.  We’ve already cracked the top five pools and are closing in fast on the DailyKos and RedState prediction pages.  It’s no secret that Swing State Project readers are some of the sexiest, savviest electoral thinkers on the internet, so let’s prove the CW right by calling these races correctly!  Get your predictions in today, because tonight will be the last night that Predict06 will accept your submissions.

If you can pick one race that’s generally not seen as likely to flip from the Republicans to the Democrats (or vice versa) that could shock the “experts” on Tuesday, which would it be and why?  Which race are you calling to be November 7’s “upset special”?

A while back, I might have said Gary Trauner’s campaign against unpopular Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin for Wyoming’s sole House seat, but in the wake of Cubin’s physical threats against her wheelchair-bound Libertarian opponent, Thomas Rankin (who suffers from multiple sclerosis), a win here by Trauner may still be an upset, but it certainly would no longer be a “shocker”.

Therefore, my pick of the cycle goes out to my boy Bob Shamansky, a 79 year-old former one term wonder Congressman who represented this district from 1980-82.  Ohio is clearly going to be a brutal state for Republicans this year, with a national trend magnified by the dismal unpopularity of outgoing Republican Gov. Bob Taft and the stuck-in-reverse campaign of Kenneth Blackwell to succeed him.  With Strickland and Brown at the top of the ballot, Ohio Democrats are well poised for a revival, and if you believe the latest Columbus Dispatch polls (and I’d understand if you didn’t, given their dismal failure predicting the Reform Ohio Now ballot propositions last year), it could be a clean Democratic sweep of all statewide offices up for grabs this year.

So, why Bob?  While his opponent, Pat Tiberi, breezed through 2004 with 62% of the vote, 2006 is shaping up to be a very, very different year.  For one thing, Tiberi isn’t facing some underfunded gadfly: Shamansky has brought big money to the table–$1.64 million dollars, most of which came from his own bank account.  By contrast, Ed Brown, Tiberi’s challenger in 2004, spent barely over $3,000 on his campaign.  Secondly, intensive Democratic voter registration efforts and changing demographics in Franklin Country turned this seat a lot less red in 2004–Bush won it by the slimmest of margins (51-49), providing a good springboard for an opportunistic House Democratic challenger to make a serious run at Tiberi.  Thirdly, Shamansky’s ads have been very good, alternately using well-executed humor and national heroes on his behalf.

Obviously, I’m banking a lot on my assumption (and hope) that Ohio voters are looking for change this year and are willing to vote for a 79 year-old man to express such desires, as well as my own blatant pro-Shamansky bias, but not a lot of prognosticators are seriously putting this one up on the big board of possible flips.  The result on November 7 could surprise them.

(From the diaries, in the spirit of equal time for oldtimers – promoted by James L.)

I have seen a lot of discussion comparing  this mid-term election to the 1994 mid-term election, however I feel there is a more applicable point of comparison from the past, the 1966 mid-term election.
Let me open this by giving some background. In 1966 I was a Republican – I didn’t switch to the Democratic Party until 1973. So for me the 1966 Republican Midterm rout where the GOP picked up a net gain of 47 House seats, 3 Senate seats, 8 Gubenatorial Seats, 156 State Senate seats and 401 Lower Chamber legislative seats.
This was a memorable experience in my capacity as Treasurer of both my Township and County Teenage Republicans. The Vietnam War had escalated into a complete mess and the Civil Rights movement had scored major success. Caveat: I was a Republican but I was of the Clifford Case/Jacob Javits variety. As a pack-rat over the last 4 decades I managed to accumulate and save a lot of books and publications. (Now… more below the fold.)

From the start of the 1966 campaign, the Democrats realized that they faced formidable odds if they hoped to maintain their overwhelming margins of control, in the Congress, state governorships and legislatures. Yet, at the end of 1965, it looked as if the Republicans would be held to minimal gains. The 89th Congress had passed laws with benefits for almost every segment of the population; President Johnson still enjoyed the wide “consensus” support he had enjoyed in 1964, from every group from organized labor to big business and the minorties; and the economy was booming on virtually every front.

By the start of the 1966 campaign, however,it was apparent that the odds had shifted significantly to the benefit of the Republicans. Behind the change was the escalation of the Viet Nam War, with its heavy toll in both American lives and dollars. The Republicans did not pretend to have an easy solution for the Viet Nam War; indeed most Republicans tended to support the Johnson Administration’s Viet Nam policies, and the Republicans were sharply critical of Democratic critics of the war for failing to give solid support to the American war effort. But, unlike the Korean War, the conflict in Viet Nam, because of its limited nature, increased frustrations across the country and began to undermine public support of the Administration in power.

The Republicans were able to argue with some effectiveness that the Johnson Administration should be cutting down, rather than increasing , national expenditures for a wide variety of Great Society programs.

President Johnson’s own popularity plummeted during the year; wide splits appeared in the Democratic party in many key states; at the very same time a number of attractive Republican party candidates appeared to lead the Gop in critical states—in sharp contrast to the unpopularity of Goldwater, the party’s 1964 standard bearer.

Early in 1965 the Democrats had launched an ambitious “Operation Support” from within the Democratic National Committee, designed to support the 71 freshman Democratic Representatives who came into office in the 1964 Democratic sweep – 38 of them from formerly Republican districts.

The Republican effort, on the other hand, was bolstered by a massive fundraising campaign that made it possible to funnel thousands of dollars into every doubtful Congressional district in the country.

Former Vice-President Richard Nixon, who campaigned tirelessly for Republican candidates throughout the land and took the role in the public Republican debate with the President in the closing days of the campaign.

Shades of California:

Gov. Nelson Rockefeller counted a sure loser in 1966, campaigned skillfully and benefited from deep splits within the Democratic party to win a third four year term.

The GOP picked up 52 House seats and lost five for a net gain of 47 seats. This was the year that saw Edward Brooke (R-MA) elected to the Senate as CQ put it the “first Negro of the century to win election to the U.S. Senate”, Spiro Agnew (R) as Governor of Maryland, Claude Kirk (R) as first Republican Governor in Florida, in 90 years. However, in my Congressional District, James J. Howard (D NJ-03), who was swept-in in the 1964 landslide in a Republican District by a 53% to 47%, managed to hold on by a razor-thin margin in ’66. Well, by 1973 when I joined the Democratic Party, I was happy this had occurred. I supported him in his many subsequent re-election bids.

All above quoted information is courtesy of CQ’s Background Politics In America 1945-1966, Politics and Issues of the Postwar Years – Second Edition Copyright 1967 by Congressional Quarterly,Inc.

In 1967 the price was $2.50.

I believe there are numerous differences between 1966 and 2006 including the fact that we are not coming off a landslide GOP 2004 election and the GOP’s heavy hand in redistricting over the last 6 years, but, the issues of the War in Iraq comparable to the Viet Nam war, unpopularity of GWB and Gay Rights/Civil Rights issues comparable to feelings about those Civil Rights issues in the 60’s were just too much to ignore. So, therefore I am confident we may well be positioned towards a landslide mid-term win.

Mason-Dixon and the Richmond Times-Dispatch have a new poll out today confirming Jim Webb’s recent surge of momentum in the past week, showing Webb up 46-45–the first time that Webb has edged Allen in any Mason-Dixon poll. Take a look at the trend (likely voters, MoE: ±4):

	Webb (D)	Allen (R)	Parker (I)	Unsure
11/1-3/06	46	45	2	7
10/17-19/06	43	47	2	8
9/5-7/06	42	46	N/A	12
7/25-27/06	32	48	N/A	20

Does this give you a little bit of déjà vu? Hmm, I wonder what Mason-Dixon’s numbers from last year’s gubernatorial race looked like (likely voters, MoE: ±4):

	Kaine (D)	Kilgore (R)	Potts (I)	Unsure
11/2-3/05	45	44	4	7
10/18-20/05	42	44	5	9
9/13-15/05	40	41	6	13
7/19-21/05	38	37	9	16

Hmm… a Republican campaign caught dealing with the backlash of scurrilous, ridiculous attacks on their opponent (that is, you know, when they’re not beating people up)? The Democrat receiving a groundswell of support from the grassroots all the way up to former Governors Mark Warner and Doug Wilder? The Democrat surging in the vote-rich “suburban crescent” of Northern Viriginia?

It’s beginning to feel a bit like November 2005 to me. I am feeling it, yes indeed. And now for the requisite caution: but, like David says, nothing should be considered a lock at this point. Let’s out-hussle the Republicans everywhere and seal the deal. Bring it all home to me, people.

Six years ago I was a Democratic GOTV volunteer for the Gore/Lieberman campaign (six long years ago) who did not have an internet connection at home in my studio apartment.

I would go the Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Public library every other night and use their computers to print out whatever polling I could find from races around the country.  There was this guy, Zogby, who was consistently predicting a tighter finish to the Presidential race than what other polls had indicated.  (Everybody was saying Bush was going to win handily.)

When it came to getting information about elections online, I was hooked. In fact, given the strength of the Nader campaign, I was concerned that Gore might win an electoral college victory but lose the popular vote. It spurred me into further action: I called my college friends on the telephone.

We’ve come a long way, baby…

I’m sitting here in a comfortable chair typing this on a Mac laptop with Airport Wifi after a hard day’s GOTV in Tracy California with folks I met online through the blog Dailykos.com.  Two of the folks who joined me today had never been out canvassing before. The internet and a diary on dkos brought them to the party.

Now, I’m entering a diary on a website, Swing State Project, that made its name providing the kind of information in 2004 that I so hungrily ate up in 2000. Going forward, Swing State project will feature user-generated diaries and content, just like Dailykos.com.

This IS a new era.

I have no idea whether we will take the House or the Senate on Tuesday. I’m hopeful, but I know that none of us really knows.

But there is something I DO know already, and that is that we’ve passed through a portal and we aren’t turning back.

Blogging and doing politics on the internet have revolutionized political participation in this country.

Just like diaries on SSP, the internet has innovated how we participate. We are interactive. We do politics in an interaction-rich environment.

So, yes, today, in conversation with a Swing voter in Tracy California who was intending to vote for Richard Pombo…a fellow canvasser and I handed a flyer with the URL to Jerry McNerney’s website…a website designed by another colleague from dailykos (Malacandra)…and paid for in part with funds raised by soliciting netroots donations from all over the country, including this website.

The tag line for that online campaign?  “We all Live in Richard Pombo’s District”  A phrase I coined on my blog k/o one year ago.

Now perhaps we netroots canvassers swung that Tracy swing voter to our side.  Perhaps not.

But that is nowhere near where we were, or I was personally, just six short years ago in 2000. Nowhere close.

And we all know it.

Win or lose.  We’ve already won so much.  We’ve crossed a threshhold and we aren’t turning back.

Congratulations on innovating participation by featuring diaries on SSP! It means a great deal to be one of the early diaries here.

We’ve only just begun.

peace

k/o

“Bass has been the epitome of a congressman who represents his district, more than any other congressman in the history of New Hampshire. It’s not right that the wave of unhappiness with President Bush is affecting him.”

– GOP strategist & McCain advisor Mike Dennehy, Concord Monitor (11/4/2006)

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“No matter what Swett does, he can’t hide from his record and and his votes; Dick Swett has voted with Bill Clinton and the liberal Democrats over 90 percent of the time.”

– Gov. Steve Merrill (R-NH), Union Leader (11/4/1994)

Gregg said that liberal Democrats have controlled Congress for about 42 years and voters have a chance to end this rule. Gregg described Swett as a “classic liberal Democrat” who votes with Bill Clinton 90 percent of the time.

– Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), Union Leader (11/4/1994)

“[This election] is a referendum on Dick Swett’s record, which is a record of inconsistency, flip-flops and allegiance to President Clinton, the liberal leadership of the House and outside special interests.”

– Charlie Bass spokesman Lisa Stocklan, Union Leader (11/3/1994)

“This is a bellwether race, and your opponent is saying the same thing 256 other Democrats are saying. You know, they hardly know Clinton – even though Dick Swett has voted with the President 90 percent of the time.”

– Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS), Union Leader (11/1/1994)

In the Concord news conference Bass displayed a marionette with attached strings labled “AFL-CIO” “Bill Clinton” and “PACs,” and accused Swett of being the puppet of special interests.

– Union Leader (10/12/1994)

“Dick Swett cares about Bill Clinton and the liberal Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives more than he cares about the taxpayers of New Hampshire.”

– Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH), Union Leader (10/7/1994)

Also attacking [Rep. Dick] Swett is ex-state Sen. Charles Bass (R), whose TV ads show Swett standing behind Dem gov. candidate Wayne King (“Mr. Property Tax”) and “hugging Bill Clinton.”

– Nashua Telegraph (10/6/1994)

“He calls himself independent. But we in New Hamphsire know Dick Swett is really a rubber stamp for (House Speaker) Tom Foley, for Bill Clinton and for the rest of the Democrats.”

– Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH), Union Leader (10/4/1994)

“I don’t believe the people of the 2d District of New Hampshire believe that Bill Clinton is right 90 percent of the time.”

– Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH), Boston Globe (9/15/1994)

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Charles F. Bass, a former State Senator, defeated the Democratic incumbent, Representative Dick Swett, by a small margin, making much of his golden pedigree as the grandson of a former Governor and the son of a former Congressman from the state. Despite being outspent by his opponent, Mr. Bass ran a strong campaign, criticizing his opponent’s ties to President Clinton. (One advertisement showed Mr. Swett and the President embracing.)

– New York Times (11/10/1994)

(Hat-tip to Billmon.)

I left Washington, DC Friday and flew to Colorado to help out on the Angie Paccione congressional campaign, arriving at campaign HQ in Fort Collins around 9PM. The staff here is psyched and energetic and the field operation has gone full throttle with several hundred volunteers this weekend knocking on doors of both Democrats and Independents making sure that they get to the polls. Just today, Saturday, about 30,000 doors were knocked on by canvassers, with many people telling us they had already voted for Angie through absentee or early voting — they have a very good early voting system in Colorado. What is great about being in the field is that you can really get a feel for the energy and momentum of a campaign — and Angie’s team has it.

Three members of Congress were here to help rev up the troops — Diana DeGette (CO), Diane Watson (CA), and Barbara Lee (CA). At the meeting point for canvassers in Longmont, Diane Watson gave a stirring talk about why this election was so critically important just before everyone went to walk their assigned precincts.

A few points I’ve learned after the jump.

— Bush came to Greeley to rally the “faithful” for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave and Gubernatorial candidate Rep. Bob Beauprez.  The feeling in the Paccione Campaign is that the Bush appearance will do as much to rally Dems in the district as it would GOPers.

— Greeley is a battleground for both campaigns.  Stan Matsunaka, who ran as the Dem candidate last time, lost Greeley by 10,000 votes.  We expect to lose Greeley, but if we can cut the Greeley margin significantly, Angie should be fine.

— To counter the Bush rally in Greeley, the Democrats will have a counter-rally Sunday with Senator Ken Salazar, Dem Gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter, and Angie — followed by a major door-to-door canvassing event.  Ritter will win election easily, Ken Salazar is very popular, so this should be a great antidote to the Bush rally.

— Eric Eidsness, the Reform Party candidate, will have a major impact on the results.  Almost all of his votes are coming from GOPers, and we have seen polls that give him anywhere from 6% to 11%.  The more he gets, the better it is for Angie.  He is a former Republican and did a very good job in the one debate, focusing most of his criticism at Musgrave.

— The ads on TV are non-stop as most of the congressional candidates are using Denver media.  The negative ads are now focused on CO-04 as the GOP has basically pulled out of the open seat in CO-07, conceding it to Ed Perlmutter.  The DCCC now has a presence in CO-04, and is dropping six-figures in advertising money, as wel as providing field operatives.

Angie is a great candidate for anyone who has met her, and she has a nice, positive ad to end the campaign.

I will report more from CO-04 tomorrow.

We do not want to wake up on Nov. 8th and see this headline – or anything similar – splashed across any newspaper in the country:

Join Al Gore – do MoveOn’s Call for Change. It’s easy as pie. And it’ll help make sure we avoid seeing anything like the above.

(Via Yankee Doodler.)

The PBS program NOW, recently came to Central Texas looking for election stories where the war in Iraq might impact Congressional races. They interviewed John last week, as well as Democrat  Mary Beth Harrell.  Mary Beth is running in Congressional District 31, against Republican incumbent John Carter. That district includes Fort Hood, and the District 31 race was the focus of the PBS TV program that aired Friday Nov. 3rd, entitled “Sway the Course”.  

NOW program producers had so much good video they shot with John, but very little opportunity to air it all in one program. The producers decided to make John’s interview a web exclusive. 

From the PBS NOW web site:

About John Courage

John Courage is one of the so-called “fighting Dems,” one of over 60 veterans from around the country seeking higher office as a Democrat. Courage is running for Congress in the 21st district in Texas, which includes the city of San Antonio, a city known as ‘military town U.S.A.’ His opponent is Republican incumbent Lamar Smith.

Courage, who believes U.S. forces should withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible, hopes his military service will help him win. “Now is the time for Democrats, particularly veteran Democrats, to stand up and say, ‘You know we’re tired of being told we’re unpatriotic as a Democratic party,'” Courage told NOW.

You can go onto the PBS NOW website and view the web interview segment titled Vets for Congress

The video has very high quality production and is very focused on on the war issue.  There’s a nice segment where two Vietnam veterans, Emilio Serrano and “Dutch” Berkley, speak out against the war.  Their concern for our military is personal and well stated.  They’ve served their country before and they’ve been down this same road before.  They think it’s time to bring the troops home, and they’re stepping up to help John Courage get elected because John shares that military experience with them.  Veterans supporting veterans.  This is one of the most important issues in this race.

You can also read the transcript of the program on the PBS website.

HotlineTV had a fun 20 minute episode today featuring editors Chuck Todd and John Mercurio making predictions for all the districts that they deemed to be competitive. It was almost comprehensive, but they neglected to make calls on at least a few districts that are in some degree of play this year: IL-06, IL-08, IL-10, NE-01, NY-03, SC-05, TX-17, VT-AL, WA-05, and WY-AL, for instance.

I’ve reproduced their predictions in full below. Now, I’m not saying that either of these guys will be right, but we might as well use this as a conversation stimulator. How many seats will we win on Nov. 7 in the House and Senate? Which ones will they be, and why? Will the Republicans manage to snag at least one pickup in the House or Senate this year? How about the Governor’s mansions and state legislators or any other important election that you’re keeping an eye on? We had our prediction contest a few weeks ago, but now it’s time to broaden the playing field.

District	Todd	Mercurio
AZ-01	Renzi	Renzi
AZ-05	Mitchell	Mitchell
AZ-08	Giffords	Giffords
CA-04	Doolittle	Doolittle
CA-11	McNerney	Pombo
CA-50	Bilbray	Bilbray
CO-04	Paccione	Musgrave
CO-05	Lamborn	Lamborn
CO-07	Perlmutter	Perlmutter
CT-02	Simmons	Courtney
CT-04	Farrell	Farrell
CT-05	Murphy	Johnson
FL-08	Keller	Keller
FL-09	Bilirakis	Bilirakis
FL-13	Jennings	Jennings
FL-16	Mahoney	Mahoney
FL-22	Shaw	Klein
GA-08	Marshall	Marshall
GA-12	Barrow	Barrow
ID-01	Sali	Grant
IN-02	Donnelly	Donnelly
IN-08	Ellsworth	Ellsworth
IN-09	Hill	Hill
IA-01	Braley	Braley
IA-02	Leach	Leach
IA-03	Boswell	Boswell
IA-04	Latham	Latham
KS-02	Ryun	Ryun
KY-02	Lewis	Lewis
KY-03	Yarmuth	Northup
KY-04	Lucas	Lucas
MN-01	Walz	Walz
MN-06	Wetterling	Wetterling
NE-03	Smith	Smith
NV-02	Heller	Heller
MV-03	Hafen	Porter
NH-02	Hodes	Bass
NM-01	Madrid	Madrid
NY-19	Kelly	Kelly
NY-20	Sweeney	Sweeney
NY-24	Arcuri	Meier
NY-25	Walsh	Walsh
NY-26	Reynolds	Reynolds
NY-29	Kuhl	Kuhl
NC-08	Hayes	Hayes
NC-11	Shuler	Shuler
OH-01	Cranley	Cranley
OH-02	Wulsin	Schmidt
OH-12	Shamansky	Tiberi
OH-15	Kilroy	Kilroy
OH-18	Space	Space
PA-06	Gerlach	Murphy
PA-07	Sestak	Sestak
PA-08	Murphy	Murphy
PA-10	Carney	Carney
TX-22	Lampson	Lampson
TX-23	Runoff	No Runoff
VA-02	Kellam	Drake
WA-08	Burner	Burner
WI-08	Kagen	Kagen