Kuff's World: August 2006 Archives (via Mowser)

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August 31, 2006

Another write-in story

It's nice to know that the weirdness of this campaign season isn't limited to Texas. Via Swing State Project comes the story of how a Congressman from Colorado who had announced his retirement was contemplating a write-in campaign to keep it from going to a successor he deemed unacceptable.

Rep. Joel Hefley is seriously considering running as a writein candidate to retain his seat rather than risk handing it over to Republican nominee Doug Lamborn.

In meetings with national political consultants, Hefley and his supporters have come up with yard-sign designs and the key messages of a possible campaign, Republican Party activist Peggy Littleton said.

[...]

Shortly after announcing he would not seek an 11th term, Hefley endorsed [former aide Jeff] Crank. Crank and Lamborn engaged in a bloody political battle that included third-party mailings accusing Crank of being a tax hiker and an advocate for the "radical homosexual lobby," charges Lamborn either leveled or refused to renounce.

Lamborn, a state senator, won the primary by 892 votes and is set to face Democrat Jay Fawcett in a district that leans heavily Republican. Thirteen Republicans have publicly announced their support for Fawcett, and others have complained behind the scenes about Lamborn's primary campaign.

Radio stations pulled two ads by an organization that backed Lamborn because their truth was questioned, and the Federal Election Commission is investigating a complaint Lamborn illegally collaborated with outside groups.

Lamborn maintains that he campaigned on his record during 12 years in the Legislature and that he simply highlighted unflattering parts of opponents' records. He has said also that he had nothing to do with mailers from outside groups.

Hefley would have apparently had the support of a fair number of elected officials had he chosen this path. Alas, we'll never know if this particular experiment in democracy would have turned out, as Hefley decided shortly thereafter to stay retired.

Congressman Joel Hefley said Tuesday that he will stick to his plan to retire at the end of the year, despite an effort to have him seek re-election as a write-in candidate.

The 20-year Republican congressman said, however, that he will not back GOP nominee Doug Lamborn for the seat, explaining that he can not condone the way the state senator campaigned in a six-way primary.

"I feel that he ran the most sleazy, dishonest campaign I've seen in a long, long time, and I can not support it," Hefley said in a telephone interview. He is in Oklahoma for a cousin's funeral.

[...]

Hefley said Tuesday that despite listening to a number of people, he had not seriously considered the race. His February decision to retire had been a tough one, but he is looking forward to opportunities in the private sector rather than running another race, he said.

The former chairman of the House ethics committee, who had endorsed his former aide and eventual primary runner-up Jeff Crank, said, though, that he was "stunned by the dissatisfaction with Doug Lamborn as a candidate." He then added his name to the list of dissatisfied.

[...]

Though he will not endorse Lamborn, Hefley said it would be "very difficult" as well to support Democrat Jay Fawcett because he wants Republicans to keep control of the House. But he added: "I don't know what I'm going to do at this point about that."

That's too bad, and not just because it would have helped Jay Fawcett, who's a well-regarded candidate, and the national Democratic effort to retake the House. It would have been fun just to watch two high-profile write-in campaigns, each with a different dynamic and backstory. I'd have given Hefley better odds than Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, but not by much. Ah, well. Maybe next time.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2006

August 28, 2006

Libertarians for Smither

The title of this blog post shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but being a small-l libertarian and being a member of the big-L Libertarian Party are two different things. As noted before, the Libertarians have recognized that the current CD22 race is a unique opportunity for them and their candidate, Bob Smither. Now the national netroots, for which there's a sizeable libertarian presence, is starting to weigh in on the race as well. Inactivist and Q and O are at the front of the charge.

This may wind up being little more than a faint noise in the background. Neither of these blogs is based in Texas, let alone CD22. Where progressive bloggers have succeeded in raising the profile of, and money for, Democratic candidates, they have done so with local sites run by people in the district, providing regular updates and opponent's outrages as well as calls for cash to a national audience. Maybe this will happen for Smither, and maybe it won't. If it does, then he'd have a similar dynamic that netroots-adopted Democrats in special elections (such as Stephanie Herseth and Ben Chandler) have had, which is that he'd be basically the only game in town for anyone looking for a race to adopt to focus on. If that translates into fifty or even a hundred thousand dollars, a very reachable sum for the time remaining before November, Smither could at least do some mail and maybe radio to get his name out there a little more. If not, well, he was never supposed to get more than about fifteen percent anyway. At least we'd know if this is a viable thing for Libertarians to build on for the future.

Thanks to Jim Henley (no, not that Jim Henley) for the links. On a side note, I see that some prominent libertarians of the nominal-Republican persuasion are not very happy with the GOP's adoption of CT Sen. Joe Lieberman as its de facto candidate in that contentious race. Anything that drives a wedge between that bloc of voters and the party it's usually called home for the past dozen years or more is fine by me.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 12:19 PM | Comments (2)

August 25, 2006

Some questions going forward in CD22

Question: So when is Shelley Sekula-Gibbs going to get those millions of dollars she was promised as the consensus write-in candidate in CD22?

Answer: Who knows?

Now the closest thing the Republican Party has to an official candidate for Congressional District 22, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is gaining endorsements and hopes to capitalize on millions of dollars in campaign funding from the national party.

Lots of candidates "hope to capitalize" on campaign funding from the national party. Sekula-Gibbs has a pretty limited amount of time to fundraise herself, so if she's going to have any hope of matching Nick Lampson's warchest, she's going to need an infusion of cash. I've discussed this before and won't recapitulate that here, so I'll just say that until we see a report of money actually flowing into her account, I will remain skeptical about it.

If Sekula-Gibbs does get national money, the next question is what to do with it. She has to raise her name ID (more on this later), educate voters about how to cast a ballot for her, and counter Lampson's advertising to keep him under 50% of the eventual vote total. Even if she gets the hoped-for $3 million, I'm not sure how I'd allocate resources to each task if I were her.

Question: How hard will it really be to write in Sekula-Gibbs' name and have it count as a vote for her?

Answer: Not as hard as you might think, but not trivial, either.

Most voters in CD-22 now do their voting on electronic machines, such as Fort Bend County's Hart InterCivic's eSlate system.

Pitfalls in trying to cast a vote for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs include the fact that the machine has no function for selecting a hyphen, said Fort Bend County Elections Administrator J.R. Perez.

Instead, voters for Sekula-Gibbs will need to enter a "space" in place of that hyphen.

However, common misspellings and any possible "aliases" voters might use in casting a vote for Sekula-Gibbs will already be programmed into the machine and automatically counted, Perez said. How many aliases will be determined based on whether there are any other write-in candidates as of Sept. 6.

If Sekula-Gibbs is the only registered write-in candidate, then a voter writing in "Shelley" for the CD-22 race will be counted for Sekula-Gibbs, Perez said, as "Shelley" will be one of the pre-programmed aliases.

However, Lampson campaign manager Mike Malaise disagreed with that assessment.

"This is fair warning that anyone wanting to vote for a write-in candidate should try to fully write in that candidate's name on Election Day," Malaise said. "Misspellings are perfectly understandable, but there are many 'Shelleys' registered to vote in district 22, and they are all eligible to write their own name in for this seat. Simply writing 'Shelley', random letters, or a series of Morse Code dots and dashes will not cut it.

"Those votes will be challenged and ultimately will not count," Malaise said. "We did not fight Tom DeLay's unethical political maneuvering just to stand aside and watch his hand-picked successor game the system in the 11th hour."

Any write-in votes for the CD-22 race that do not match a pre-programmed alias will be looked at by a resolution board, whose function is to determine who the voter intended to vote for, Perez said.

Spelling Sekula-Gibbs' name shouldn't be that difficult; Perez said her name and that of other registered write-in candidates will appear on a piece of paper, separated by election race, at each voting machine.

In my opinion, if the question of voter intent for the various permutations of "Shelley Sekula-Gibbs" is of anything but academic interest, then her campaign will have been far more successful than I think it will. If you want to get a head start on studying relevant case law, Rick Hasen cites Guerra v. Garza, 865 S.W.2d 573 (Tex. App.-Corpus Christi 1993, writ dism'd w.o.j.) to give you a taste of the issues involved.

We hold that ballots which have "Gus," "Garza," or "Gus Garza" either completely written or partly written on the County Attorney's line were properly counted for appellee because the voter's intent to vote for him is clearly ascertainable. See Tex.Elec.Code Ann. Â§ 64.005 & 65.009(a), (c) (Vernon 1986); see also Fuentes, 423 S.W.2d at 426; Wright, 255 S.W. at 639. We also hold that ballots which have the surname "Garza" written anywhere else on the ballot (other than the County Attorney's line) were not properly counted for appellee because the voter's intent to vote for him is not clearly ascertainable. [FN8] We further hold that the ballots which have "Gues," "Gue," the initials "G.G.," "Gus Garcia," or "Mickey Mouse," even if written on the County Attorney's line, were not properly counted for appellee because the voter's intent to vote for him is not clearly ascertainable.

Got all that? There's going to be a quiz later. My read on this is that "Shelley" would be acceptable, but "SSG" may not be. Again, I don't think that will matter in any material sense, but better to know than not know.

By the way, Sekula-Gibbs has apparently complained publicly about the presence of HD129 candidate Sherrie Matula on the ballot, as this may cause some confusion for her. Given that Matula, who's actually on the ballot for a different office in Clear Lake, has been running for this seat since 2005, back when Sekula-Gibbs was still a candidate for Houston City Council, I don't think she'll get much traction out of this.

Question: How big a threat to Sekula-Gibbs is Libertarian candidate Bob Smither?

Answer: Still a threat, since he's on the ballot and she's not, but not as big a threat as he once was, back before consensus was acheived and David Wallace stepped aside. From where I sit, it looks like Sekula-Gibbs was acceptable enough to the various factions that were involved in trying to push a consensus candidate that the likelihood of protest defections to Smither has decreased. Smither's presence on the ballot is still problematic for Sekula-Gibbs, and if he gets the 10-15% that a Libertarian normally gets in a two-way race against a major party candidate then she genuinely has no chance of catching Lampson regardless of how many millions the RNC/NRCC/K Street pour into this race, but I no longer think he's a favorite to set a high water mark for Libertarians.

To my mind, a bigger threat to Sekula-Gibbs at this point is the end of CD22 stories in the daily news cycle, since there's no longer anything truly new or suspenseful to cover. Now that this is just another campaign, especially one that's not expected to be particularly close, I expect it to largely disappear from the papers and nightly TV news. The Chronicle is notoriously stingy about covering local non-Mayoral campaigns (go search the 2004 archives for "Richard Morrison" to see what I mean). Today's editorial is the first mention of Sekula-Gibbs in a CD22 context since Tuesday. (There was an AP wire story yesterday about DeLay complaining (again) about the court rulings in this case, which mentioned Sekula-Gibbs in passing, but I don't recall seeing this in the print edition; if it was there, it wasn't prominent.) Check back in a week and see how many stories there have been in the interim. My guess is no more than one, but I could be wrong.

There was, of course, a lot of coverage of everything that's happened in CD22 from DeLay's resignation up through the write-in machinations, but Sekula-Gibbs was a bit player in most of this up through the last week or so. It's true that she starts out with higher name recognition than your average write-in candidate, but that's not the same as saying that she's well-known in the district. I've not seen any polls, but I'd guess that her name ID is in the 20-30% range, maybe as high as 40%. If she were on the ballot with an "R" next to her name, that would make her a contender. As it is now, she needs people to know that she exists before she can try to convince them to vote for her. I do not expect that she will get a lot of free media from this point forward to help her in this cause.

Question: Will there be any other write-in candidates in this race?

Answer: Maybe, but who cares if there are? Unless one or more of them comes pre-equipped with a David Wallace-esque level of built-in support, and has the ability to reach and convince voters to write in his or her name instead of Sekula-Gibbs', it won't make any difference. A vote for "Don Richardson" (a perennial candidate who had filed to be a write-in but who may have withdrawn by now) will have the same effect as a vote for "Mickey Mouse" in that it's one less vote for Sekula-Gibbs. Only a candidate who can and will do some actual, active campaigning can have an effect, and at this point I'm not aware of any such person.

Question: Do you still think this race is less competitive than all those "toss-up" and "lean Democratic" ratings that it's been given by national prognosticators?

Answer: Yes. Maybe $3 million of national GOP money can change my mind on this, but for now, I don't see it.

UPDATE: I may devote a full post to this later, but for now check out this Reason story about how the national Libertarian Party is hoping to capitalize on the unique conditions of CD22. I knew Smither had some Republican support, but this surprises me:

No official polling has been done on the Lampson v. Smither dustup, but the national LP office has been making informal calls to Republican primary voters testing awareness of Smither, and say they've found up to 64 percent expressing at least a willingness to consider a Smither vote.

"Willing to consider" is a low hurdle to clear, but that 64% number among GOP primary voters is still higher than I'd have thought. If the LP can put some bucks into this race, I may retract my statement about Smither not being a favorite to set a new high water mark for Lib candidates.

Oh, and I'm quoted in the article, too. Ah, fame.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 09:29 AM | Comments (11)

August 23, 2006

"Partisanized Moderate"-ism: It's not just for liberals any more

Joe Scarborough is a former Republican Congressman from Florida, who was elected in the 1994 GOP tidal wave. He's now a talk show host on MSNBC, and he recently generated some controversy by running a segment called "Is Bush An Idiot?" (You can see video and a transcript here, and you can see video of a followup segment here.) I'm not here to discuss that question, but I found Scarborough's response to an interview question on Salon about the fallout from that show to be fascinating:

[S]ince 2004, I have been attacked by Republicans, by conservatives, well, actually, more by Republican loyalists than conservatives, by basically the Republican establishment in Washington, for saying the exact same thing that we were all saying in 1995, '96, '97, '98, '99. We were always attacking Bill Clinton's spending levels. Dick Armey called him a Marxist, called Hillary Clinton a Marxist. As I point out in speeches these days, government spending grew by 3.4 percent annually under Bill Clinton the Marxist. Spending has grown by 10.5 percent under George Bush the fiscal conservative. I always say: Give me that choice, I'll take the Marxist at 3.4 percent any day of the week. And so I started in 2004, and when you talk about NSA wiretapping, when you talk about the bank records, my criticisms -- I'm saying the exact same thing now that Bob Barr and David Vitter and myself were saying on the Judiciary Committee in 1999 and in 2000, when Janet Reno was trying to get roving wiretaps without coming to Congress first.

Somebody sent me an e-mail yesterday saying they couldn't believe how much I've changed. That's laughable. I'm saying the exact same thing now that I was saying in 1999, when I was on the Judiciary Committee, that I was saying in 1995 during the Contract with America, that I was saying in 1994 when I was campaigning to be a part of a fiscally conservative Congress. The libertarian strain of Republicanism that was on the rise in the 1990s has been snuffed out by the Bush administration and by Republicans who suddenly adore big government, whether big government in the Justice Department or big government in the Oval Office when they put budgets together. I'm not the one whose convictions have changed. It's the Bush administration and Republican leaders on the Hill whose positions have changed radically since 2001.

Emphasis mine. I can't say that Joe Scarborough is someone with whom I normally agree, but on this point at least I know exactly how he feels. Funny how many other people seem to feel that way nowadays too, isn't it?

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 09:43 AM | Comments (3)

August 22, 2006

The hurdle that the Republicans face in CD22

Now that Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace has officially withdrawn his bid to be a write-in candidate in CD22, it all comes down to Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and whatever money the state and national GOP will throw at her. Her task is not going to be easy. She's going to have to convince an awful lot of people to break their regular voting habit to have any chance at winning.

Let's crunch a few numbers to see what I mean. I did a little of this at my blog over the weekend:

[2004 CD22 Democratic candidate Richard] Morrison got 112,034 votes in 2004, compared to DeLay's 150,386, according to the Secretary of State. [...] If you assume turnout is about 2/3 in a non-Presidential year as it is in a Presidential, then there will be about 170,000 to 180,000 ballots cast this year (in 2002 in the old CD22 there were 159,000 votes, with DeLay getting 100,000 and Dem Tim Riley collecting almost 56,000), and if you assume Lampson gets the same share as Morrison did, he'd be in the 70,000-75,000 vote range. I think it's a pretty safe bet that Lampson, with five times Morrison's cash and operating in a more favorable environment overall, beats that pretty easily. I'd also expect Bob Smither to get at least 20,000 votes. That means Sekula-Gibbs has to get at least 80%, maybe 90% of the at most 100,000 remaining voters to write her name in, and that's assuming that Lampson hasn't already claimed a majority share of the electorate.

I'm taking a wild guess about Smither, but not a completely wild one. Normally, in a race between a major party candidate and a Libertarian, the Lib gets ten to fifteen percent of the vote. These are usually races where the unopposed party is dominant, though, which is the reverse of what we have here. On the one hand, Smither has gotten a lot more exposure than your average Libertarian, and some public expressions of support for him from Republicans. On the other hand, a lot of that was predicated on a lack of consensus for One True Write-In, so he may well fade into the background again. I still think he'll perform more like a Lib in a two-way race than in a three-way, so my 20K guess will stand for now.

That brings us to Sekula-Gibbs. As I see it, she has two big problems, beyond Lampson and his $3 million campaign fund. One is Smither, who just by being on the ballot will siphon off votes that she otherwise might have gotten. And two is straight-ticket voting - since she isn't on the ballot, she won't receive any straight-party votes, no matter how many Republicans endorse her.

I've looked at straight-ticket voting before, and it bears revisiting. An awful lot of votes that major party candidates get come from people who push one button on the eSlate machines. In 2004 in the CD22 portion of Harris County, 46,005 of the 64,590 votes that Tom DeLay received came from straight-ticket voters. That's over 71% of his total. I don't have precinct data for Fort Bend, but about 55% of the countywide vote for George Bush was striaght ticket; given the lower turnout in downballot races and the fact that DeLay underperformed Bush by seven points in the CD22 part of Fort Bend, I'd say the ratio was about the same there.

So let's put it all together, and let's be generous to Sekula-Gibbs. Let's say turnout is 180,000 as above, and Lampson gets 75,000 votes, which at 41.7% is less than one percentage point better than Morrison. In a three-party race, Smither would have gotten about 5000 votes regardless, so let's credit him with that. That leaves 100,000 potential voters for Sekula-Gibbs. The straight-ticket ratio is somewhat lower in non-Presidential years - let's say it's 55% of the total for Republicans, not 70%. So there's 55,000 straight-party Republicans, and 45,000 nominal Republicans who go through each race. I believe Smither will get about 15,000 of those nominal Republicans, but let's dial that back to 10,000 and give the remaining 35,000 to Sekula-Gibbs. That means that to catch Lampson, she needs about 73% of those straight-ticket voters to also cast a ballot in CD22, with her name on it.

You can see why the experts don't think much of her chances. Lampson may very well do better than 75,000 votes - frankly, I think he has an excellent chance of getting a majority of the turnout. I only gave Smither 15,000 votes in the projection above - he may do better than that. And who's to say that the nominal Republicans will be so faithful for Shelley?

She does have some advantages over your usual write-in candidate: Money, assuming the promised millions are real; higher than average name ID, given all the coverage of this race; being in the majority party; and having to educate and convince people who should already be inclined to want to help her. There's no historical comparison to make here - this race is unique, just as the four-headed Governor's race is. We're all guessing, but at least we now have some numbers to play with when we make those guesses. It's still just a guess, though.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 05:04 AM | Comments (4)

August 21, 2006

Politics in the YouTube era

By now you've probably heard about Senator George Allen (R, VA) being caught on video calling a volunteer for his opponent's campaign a derogatory word. The ubiquity of video cameras and the ease by which their contents can be shared on the Internet has caused some consternation among the professional politicos.

YouTube may be changing the political process in more profound ways, for good and perhaps not for the better, according to strategists in both parties. If campaigns resemble reality television, where any moment of a candidate's life can be captured on film and posted on the Web, will the last shreds of authenticity be stripped from our public officials? Will candidates be pushed further into a scripted bubble? In short, will YouTube democratize politics, or destroy it?

YouTube didn't even exist until 2005, but it now attracts some 20 million different visitors a month. In statements to the press, the company has been quick to take credit for radically altering the political ecosystem by opening up elections, allowing lesser known candidates to have a platform.

Some political analysts say that YouTube could force candidates to stop being so artificial, since they know their true personalities will come out anyway. "It will favor a kind of authenticity and directness and honesty that is frankly going to be good," said Carter Eskew, a media consultant who worked for Senator Lieberman's primary campaign. "People will say what they really think rather than what they think people want to hear."

But others see a future where politicians are more vapid and risk averse than ever. Matthew Dowd, a longtime strategist for President Bush who is now a partner in a social networking Internet venture, Hot Soup, looks at the YouTube-ization of politics, and sees the death of spontaneity.

"Politicians can't experiment with messages," Mr. Dowd said. "They can't get voter response. Seventy or 80 years ago, a politician could go give a speech in Des Moines and road-test some ideas and then refine it and then test it again in Milwaukee."

He sees a future where candidates must be camera-ready before they hit the road, rather than be a work in progress. "What's happened is that politicians now have to be perfect from Day 1," he said. "It's taken some richness out of the political discourse."

Howard Wolfson, a senior adviser to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is not known for her spontaneity, agrees.

"It is a continuation of a trend in which politicians have to assume they are on live TV all the time," Mr. Wolfson said. "You can't get away with making an offensive or dumb remark and assume it won't get out."

I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone when I say that the YouTubing of politics is a good thing. Jonathan Singer and Nic Beaudrot have already covered a lot of the main points, so I'll just add that in a world where people's TV viewing and news consumption habits have changed, putting more coverage of politics and government where the eyeballs have gone and will continue to go makes all kinds of sense. Having more eyes and ears out there keeping watch on campaigns and capitals, especially in times of newsroom layoffs, means that at least someone will still be paying attention to what gets said, so it may someday be compared to what gets done.

I specifically dispute the claim that more exposure on YouTube will "take some richness out of the political discourse". I say it'll bring a little more honesty into the system. Here's the candidate in his own words, unedited and unfiltered. Make up your own mind.

I tend to think that the effect of YouTube will be overblown. It'll be the major screwups that turn into stories, and there's only so many of those that happen in a given campaign season. Some of those screwups, like this one from a Maryland primary fight, will remain local news. And it's not like rival campaigns haven't shadowed each other before. That's the whole reason Allen got caught on tape - not an expression of citizen journalism but a standard know-thy-enemy technique. Any candidate who isn't already vigilant about his or her behavior in a public forum is just asking for trouble, cameras or no.

The bottom line, as I see it, is that just as open government is a good thing, so I believe would be more openness in campaigns. Candidates out on the stump should welcome more attention, not try to shun it. If the end result of YouTube is to make it harder for candidates to hide from the public they're supposed to want to serve, I'll chalk it up in the win column.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2006

Are there no more bounces left?

Paul Burka, on Sunday:

The terrorist plot to blow up airplanes will completely change the midterm elections, and the big beneficiaries are the Republicans and George W. Bush. I saw Dick Morris on O'Reilly last night, and while most of the interview was a bunch of softballs pitched by O'Reilly so that Morris could bash Democrats and liberals, he made one very telling point: When crises occur, the public remembers why they need a particular president. In Bush's case, the one thing he has done well is keep this country safe from terrorism since 9/11. A major event has occurred that is going to remind the public that the danger of terrorism continues to exist. That is going to change the dynamic of the election. And there is nothing the Democrats can do about it.

CBS News (PDF), on Monday:

The threat of an attack - and the Administration's response to the threat - has not resulted in any improvement in assessments of President George W. Bush, either on the specific matter of terrorism, or on his overall job approval. His approval rating now stands at 36%, just where it was a month ago.

Zogby International, on Wednesday:

President Bush's job approval rating dipped two points in the last three weeks, despite the foiling of an airline terror plot and the adoption of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

The survey was conducted Aug. 11-15, 2006, included 1,018 respondents, and carries a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

[...]

Democrats continue to carry a lead into the fall campaign season on the generic congressional election question. Likely voters in the poll, asked whether they planned to vote for the Democrat or the Republican in their local congressional election, 39% favored Democrats, while 31% said they would be voting for the Republican candidate. Democrats also are winning the battle among independents, who favor the out-of-power party by a 32% to 20% margin, with 41% of independents yet undecided.

Asked if the war in Iraq has been worth the loss of American lives, 38% said "yes," while 56% said "no," a ratio that has held steady over the past year or so.

Pew Reseach Center, on Thursday:

The public is paying a great deal of attention to major overseas events - the reported terrorist plot against U.S. trans-Atlantic jet liners, the war in Lebanon, as well as the ongoing violence in Iraq. However, there is little indication that these dramatic stories have materially changed public attitudes. Worries about another terrorist attack have not surged.

[...]

The strong focus on news from abroad is having little impact on the public's political opinions. President Bush's job approval rating stands at 37%, virtually unchanged from July. His personal image continues to be far less positive than it was about a year ago -Â about half the public says he is not a strong leader, not trustworthy, and unable to get things done. Moreover, the renewed emphasis on terrorism has done little to boost the president's standing on that issue. The survey, which was largely conducted after the Aug. 10 revelations of the terror plot against airliners, shows that 50% approve of the president's handling of terrorist threats, little changed from June (47%).

[...]

Attitudes toward the midterm congressional campaign also remain fairly stable, with strong anti-incumbent sentiment persisting and the Democrats retaining a sizable advantage in voting intentions. There is no evidence that terrorism is weighing heavily on voters Â just 2% cite that as the issue they most want to hear candidates discuss, far fewer than the number mentioning education, gas prices, or health care. And while roughly a third of Americans (35%) say they are very concerned that, if Democrats gain control of Congress, they will weaken terrorist defenses, even more (46%) express great concern that Republicans will involve the U.S. in too many overseas military missions if the GOP keeps its congressional majorities.

And finally, just for variety, a non-poll indicator from yesterday's Washington Post:

Washington lobbying firms, trade associations and corporate offices are moving to hire more well-connected Democrats in response to rising prospects that the opposition party will wrest control of at least one chamber of Congress from Republicans in the November elections.

In what lobbyists are calling a harbinger of possible upheaval on Capitol Hill, many who make a living influencing government have gone from mostly shunning Democrats to aggressively recruiting them as lobbyists over the past six months or so.

"We've seen a noticeable shift," said Beth Solomon, director of the Washington office of Christian & Timbers, an executive search firm that helps to place senior lobbyists and trade association heads.

So. Is Burka just ahead of the curve, or has Bush run out of bounces? Discuss.

UPDATE: The Carpetbagger Report cites more poll evidence of a non-bounce (even a decline) for Bush since the London plot was foiled.

UPDATE: Burka responds to all of the poll news. I think he's dodging the point he originally raised by going back to the old "the Dems have no response" line, but at least he's aware that the empirical evidence (so far) does not support his assertion.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 09:13 AM | Comments (3)

August 16, 2006

On becoming a "partisanized moderate"

I want to take a moment and link to this Josh Marshall piece because I'm very much one of those center-left types who he thought might identify with it. I do, very strongly.

For my part, I don't feel my politics have changed much over the past half dozen years, if by that we mean my basic political orientation, policies I believe in and don't, basic understanding of how the world works and so forth. Many people who read my site are much more to the left politically than I am. And occasionally, some issue will come up where that fact suddenly becomes evident, often to people's surprise and sometimes anger.

I was going to start by saying that what's changed for me is that the country I know and value is under attack. But that's not quite it.

I live in Manhattan and have a certain perspective on the country. Folks in Oklahoma or evangelicals in South Carolina have a different one. And that's fine. It's their country too. What I think is that a certain political movement has taken over the country -- call it movement conservatism in its late, degraded form -- and wants to govern it by all or nothing rules.

The Bush presidency is in so many respects an example or embodiment of this. The president twice took the presidency with a divided electorate -- first a minority president, then a 51% president. And he proceeded to govern as though he had a mandate to completely remake it, often in what appeared to be profoundly destructive ways geared to short-term political benefit and intended to consolidate power. The folks who've made efforts toward bipartisan compromise have again and again, in this era, been played for chumps. And that's one of the reasons President Bush has had a much harder time in his second term (one among many): he made it too clear too many times that he'll take anyone who'll give him an inch or lend him a hand and use them up and toss them when he's done.

[...]

In any case, this is all a way of saying that in this all-or-nothing crisis the country has been passing through, I think it's made sense to line up with those who say, No. I guess I'm one of those partisanized moderates Kevin Drum has spoken of (not sure that's precisely the phrase he used.) That leads to a certain loss of nuance sometimes in commentary and a loss in the variegation of our politics generally. As a writer, often it's less satisfying.

But I cannot see looking back on all this, the threat the country is under, and saying, I stood aloof.

I definitely feel that way. I know that when I started blogging I was a lot less partisan, a lot more into reaching out and finding the good in everyone and trying to meet people halfway. Part of the reason I'm more partisan now is because I'm more active in politics now. It's more of a passion now, where before it was a duty. I care more and I do more, and I think that's a good thing.

But a big part of it is because of what Josh says. I sincerely hope that someday there will be people in charge of the Republican Party who care about ideas and solutions and good government and all those trivial things they disdain today. I know there are people in the GOP who are like that, but frankly they're not the ones running it, and they haven't done enough to change that. Until that happens, I can't see any other rational or justifiable way for someone who sees the world as I do to react to what's going on in it. I wish it were different, but wishing won't make it so. Acting like the genuine opposition party that Democrats need to be in these times is the only way.

The aforementioned Kevin Drum adds on:

I've been thinking about what a genuinely profound story this is, one that the mainstream media ought to be more interested in. Instead of writing incessantly about "angry bloggers," they ought to be asking why so many mild-mannered moderate liberals have become so radicalized during George Bush's tenure. It deserves attention beyond the level of cliches and slogans.

Needless to say, one reason why is because the mainstream media has been so out to lunch about way too many aspects of the Bush presidency. I'll say this - the effects of this so-called radicalization of the moderate mild-mannered types will last well beyond the Bush years. I expect it'll be less noticeable once a more favorable president enters office, but it'll still be there. I don't think anyone is going to forget about what went on during these years, and thanks to Google and its everlasting cache (and love of blogs), any needed reminders will be close at hand.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 08:30 PM | Comments (1)

August 15, 2006

Fifty state update

Back in May, I wrote about the Democrats' Fifty State Strategy on the occasion of their tying the record with 419 filings for Congressional seats. Yesterday, the same blogger who reported that event gave us the final tally: There are 425 Democratic candidates running for Congress, which not only shatters the old mark (set in 1994, for those of you who like foreshadowing) but also far outpaces the Republicans' total of 390. I find that very satisfying, both from a philosophical viewpoint as well as a practical one. At the very least, such a disparity in the number of candidates means the Democrats should be decently positioned to play more offense than defense, which in this environment is a good thing.

Of course, even good news like this can be tempered by the realization that there were still some missed opportunities.

When U.S. Rep. Gary Miller (R-Diamond Bar) sold 165 acres to the city of Monrovia in 2002, he made a profit of more than $10 million, according to a financial disclosure form he filed in Congress. Ordinarily, he would have had to pay state and federal taxes of up to 31% on that profit.

Instead, Miller told the Internal Revenue Service and the state that Monrovia had forced him to sell the property under threat of eminent domain. That allowed him to shelter the profits from capital gains taxes for more than two years before he had to reinvest the money.

But there is a problem with Miller's claim: Monrovia officials say that Miller sold the land willingly and that they didn't threaten to force him to sell.

Miller, whose 42nd Congressional District includes chunks of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties, claimed the same exemption in two subsequent Fontana property transactions, allowing him to continue sheltering his profits from the Monrovia sale. And in each of those cases, the purchasers say eminent domain, which allows a government agency to force a sale if it's in the public interest, was neither used nor threatened.

You guessed it - Miller's CD42 is one of the ten districts where no Democrat filed. I don't know what the partisan makeup of this district is, but I do know that you can't make a campaign issue out of a story like this if you don't have a campaign. Better luck next time, I guess.

Another way of looking at this is that the Democrats need to win 51.3% of their races to become the majority party, while Republicans need to capture 55.9% of theirs. No matter how you slice it, they've got more wiggle room.

And as Election Day draws nearer and there's more aggregate polling data to sample, we can begin to get a picture of how things might shake out in November. Chris Bowers combines the various national polls with the actual results of each parties' Congressional races from 1998 through 2004 and finds that even under worst-case assumptions about third-parties and how undecideds break, the Dems are in a position right now to outdo the Republicans' performance from 1994. Yes, the districts may be better drawn for incumbent protection these days, but at some point even strong walls crumble.

All the usual caveats about how far off the election is and how unpredictable events can be apply - Paul Burka thinks the London airplane bombing scheme that was foiled will give the Republicans a bounce, though the first polls subsequent to that don't show it - but only to a point. All of the main factors - money, enthusiasm, candidate quality, polling - have been in the Dems' favor and trending in their direction for some time now. I think it's increasingly unlikely that any one single event will change this dynamic, and as time slips away I think the probability of a parlay of events that work against the Dems shrinks away. If the Dems would wake up and take the opportunity that's been handed to them in CD23 a bit more seriously, I'd feel like I was running out of things to worry over. I try not to get too confident, but it's harder to do that every day.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, the Dems have lost a candidate in Ohio. Buckeye State Blog goes over the possible replacements - apparently, there's still time by that state's laws to find one there.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 05:58 AM | Comments (2)

August 13, 2006

What the Democrats should do in CDs 22 and 23

Unlike the Republicans, who are stuck with a set of bad choices in CD22, the Democrats are in a far better position today in that district than anyone could have imagined at the start of this year. They're also now in a position to compete in CD23 thanks to the new map drawn by the three-judge panel. Let's take a look and see where they should go from here.

I've already written that pretty much whoever does or does not wind up as a write-in against him, Nick Lampson's main opponent is public perception.

It's not a question of if he wins, since by now any objective person thinks he'll win, but by how much. What he wants to do is to project the idea that he'd have won even if there had been an opponent on the ballot against him. The bigger his final vote total and vote percentage, the less anyone can claim that he won by default and the stronger he looks going into 2008. [...] He wants to persuade all those voters who might have gone either way had this been a true two-person race to go with him now. As I and others have said before, voting is a habit. If he gets those people now, he'll keep most of them in his column two years from now.

The truly beautiful thing for Lampson about the way the CD22 campaign has developed is that from here on forward all he has to do is talk about himself, which is basically the race he wanted to run from the beginning. Over a year ago, I did an email interview with Lampson, in which I asked him about how he'd handle a contest with Tom DeLay:

Obviously, Tom DeLay and his ethical woes have been very much in the news lately. How will that affect your strategy and your message in this race? How do you plan to convince suburban/exurban conservative voters that you are not just another Democrat?

My answer here might surprise you. I actually don't plan to make Tom Delay the focus of this race. Let's face it, his name is in the paper an awful lot these days - folks can make up their own minds there. My plan is to concentrate on introducing myself - my common sense values, my history of consensus-building - to the people of District 22. I've gotten a lot of independent and crossover Republican support in the past, and I believe I can do it again. I think people are tired of controversy and bitter partisanship. I think they feel left out of the discussion when they hear about all this stuff going on in Washington. They're going about their daily lives - working hard, raising their kids - and I believe they want their representatives in government who roll up their sleeves and go to work for them every day, just like they do. I've done that in all my previous public service, and will do it again for District 22.

Lampson is now in the perfect position to do exactly this. He may still have to contend with attack ads, presumably being run by outside interests, but without an obvious opponent to promote, the potential effect of any such ads would be to depress his vote total. That plays into the 2008 narrative, but I can't see it having any real influence on the outcome of this election.

The other thing Lampson can do to help his future cause is to build some coattails. There are numerous contested county office races in Fort Bend this year, for which the Democrats there have fielded a diverse and aggressive slate of candidates. Anything Lampson can do to help any or all of them get elected means that much more already-existing infrastructure in place for his next election.

(I know, I know, Fort Bend has a reputation for being a GOP stronghold. The truth, though, is that it's been trending blue. Consider that in 2000, George Bush got 59.56% of the vote in Fort Bend, compared to 59.29% overall in Texas. Four years later, when Bush had improved his statewide percentage to 61.08, his tally in Fort Bend fell to 57.37%. No one is going to believe this until Democrats actually win a countywide election in Fort Bend, but I'm here to tell you that day is closer than you might think.)

One last thing about Lampson and CD22 is that there should no longer be any need for groups like the DCCC or MoveOn to spend any money on that race. They've certainly got bigger fish to fry now. Which brings me to CD23, as I believe that should be one of those fish.

I sometimes feel like the reaction of a lot of Dems in Texas to the news that Tom DeLay has essentially ceded the CD22 race to Nick Lampson has been a sigh of relief. To me, the right answer is to rub your hands together, cackle with glee, and look around for other opportunities. And guess what? By judicial providence, another such opportunity presented itself at almost the same time.

We already know that CD23 is a lot more Democratic than it once was. We also know that pundits are speaking in terms of it becoming a pickup possibility, if not now then in the next election cycle or two. I say that while it's good and wise for Dems and Nick Lampson to look to 2008 in CD22, it's vital for everyone to look at this November for CD23.

Almost all of what used to be CD28 in Bexar County is now CD23. The main Democratic contender in CD23 right now is Ciro Rodriguez, who used to represent that area and thus should have plenty of name recognition there. He also just ran a race there, in his unsuccessful attempt to win that seat back from Henry Cuellar. He's already got campaign infrastructure in place to challenge Henry Bonilla. All he needs is money.

Which, conveniently enough, the DCCC and MoveOn should already have in place for a Texas election. It just won't be for the one they had originally envisioned. I say those organizations should redeploy whatever assets thet had pooled for CD22 westward to get Ciro's campaign off the ground.

This would also be an excellent chance for Ciro and Cuellar, who will most likely never run against each other again, to kiss and make up for those two nasty primary fights they waged. Ciro, of course, could use all the help he can get. Cuellar, who may yet find himself in another intraparty battle, would benefit from a little fence-mending and having his progressive credentials shored up. This one's a no-brainer, as it's a win-win all around.

A more vigorous Democratic campaign in CD23 can only help in the downballot races there as well, primarily in the open HD118, where former incumbent Carlos Uresti knocked off State Senator Frank Madla this March. That's not of much interest to the national folks, but any Dem in Texas ought to be concerned about holding this seat.

While the Democrats' chances to retake Congress continue to look good, there's no reason not to act as though every reasonably available seat isn't important. Here's a wild little scenario to contemplate, which is theoretically possible now that CD23 will require a majority vote to win. Imagine it's the morning of November 8. The Democrats have picked up 14 seats, leaving them one short of gaining a majority in Congress. Now imagine that the multi-candidate CD23 race finished without anyone getting to 50%+1, and a runoff is declared. That means that both Democrats and Republicans have 217 seats in Congress, and the winner of that runoff determines who gets to be Speaker. I think the over/under on how much money gets spent in that runoff starts at $10 million.

Farfetched? Maybe, but not impossible. Who's to say which seat might turn into the magical #218? Democrats have been handed an advantage. It's foolish not to try to do something with that advantage.

Finally, if you insist on looking forward to 2008 in this district, remember Bonilla's $2.2 million campaign warchest, and ask yourself if it would be better to make him spend it now, or save it for later. I've no doubt that Bonilla will be able to build up a nice little kitty for 2008 if he wins re-election this year, but it would be nice to make him start from scratch.

That's how I see it. What do you think?

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 02:59 PM | Comments (3)

August 09, 2006

What the Republicans should do in CD22

Now that Tom DeLay has finally made his withdrawal from the ballot official, I'd like to spend a little time mulling over what the GOP's options are in CD22. They don't have many of them, and the ones they have aren't too enticing, but I think this is a useful exercise.

Right now, the local GOP is kicking the tires on the write-in option.

Of the dozen or so candidates who were seeking the nomination, that leaves Houston City Council member Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace as possibly the most viable write-in candidates, Republicans said.

Neither has decided what to do.

"People are giving me their input. I will make a decision in the near future," Sekula-Gibbs said. "The opportunity is very interesting. I am keenly interested in this seat and have been open about my desire. This is a different situation."

A write-in candidacy is not "insurmountable," Sekula-Gibbs said. "The demographics of the district suggest a Republican can win. Voters would not only have to be convinced I was the right candidate, but familiar with the process."

Sekula-Gibbs, who has the backing of prodigious campaign contributors such as homebuilder Bob Perry, stated a willingness to commit personal money as well.

Wallace backers also were mulling.

"Mayor Wallace has received many calls from grass-roots leaders encouraging him to take the fight to Nick Lampson," Republican political consultant Ted Delisi said on Wallace's behalf. "He's talking it over with his friends and families and will issue a statement on his intentions in the next two days."

Running a winning write-in campaign is so hard it's almost inconceivable, Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said.

"While that's about the only route left open to Republicans, they'll find it daunting to pull that off," he said.

Although the district leans Republican, voters in the district are going to be depressed, Jillson said, and one of their responses may be to stay home as a protest.

Jillson's comments echo those of GOP consultants Bill Miller and Royal Masset as expressed in this Time article where the write-in possibility was first floated. To get a feel for how high the hurdles really are, let's look at the last serious write-in candidacy for Congress. In 2004, after no Democratic candidate stepped forward to run in the newly drawn CD10, University of Texas math professor Lorenzo Sadun stepped up to mount a write-in campaign. How did he do?

Sadun garnered less than 6 percent, or 13,509 of the votes in his district - much less than even his Libertarian opponent, Robert Fritsche, who was lucky enough to be on the ballot and got 15 percent of the vote.

As Sadun's past eight months on the campaign trail show, it's a hard and long road to reach people when you are not even on the ballot.

Now of course, Sadun ran his campaign on a shoestring, and he was in a district where Democrats are in a distinct minority. But he also had a lot more time to campaign. The question the GOP has to answer is how much time and money would it take, even in a friendly district like the 22nd, to educate enough voters about this name that doesn't appear on the ballot to have a chance?

A few days before the election, Sadun spoke at a fund-raiser for Greg Hamilton, a fellow Democrat who ran and won the Travis County sheriff's race. Sadun spoke of his support, saying that people he didn't even know came up to him and gave him hugs and thanks for what he was doing.

Hamilton joked about the difficulties of his friend's race.

"[Sadun] always says 'vote straight party Democrat,'" Hamilton said. "But this one is harder. You have to write him in. I just did it today, and I could barely figure it out."

The crowd roared with laughter, but Sadun seemed to realize that the difficulty of getting votes as a write-in candidate is not a joking matter.

[...]

A rainbow of Sadun campaign signs streaked Interstate Highway 290, and they said they tried to get their word out in every small town that ran through the district: Brenham, Sealy and Katy.

Sadun and Edelman believed they'd reached out to voters in those small towns, but the results proved otherwise.

I remember seeing some of those signs on 290. For such a low profile campaign, Sadun got a decent amount of press. It just didn't make a difference. One problem was what Greg Hamilton pointed out, that in order for people to vote for Sadun they couldn't just push the "straight Democratic" button. Whether they voted a straight ticket or not, they had to go to that race, click the Write-In choice, then spell his name out on the voting machine. It's a lot to ask of people who just aren't used to doing that sort of thing. As I said before, for a party to get away from a simple "vote straight ticket" message puts them at risk of losing votes elsewhere. Is it worth whatever money and effort the GOP would have to expend for this quixotic pursuit?

A second problem was noted earlier in the piece, which is that there's a simple alternative for anyone who wants to vote for someone other than Nick Lampson: There's a Libertarian Party candidate on the ballot. It'll be much easier to just pick Bob Smither than to use the eSlate trackwheel to type in "David Wallace" or "Shelley Sekula-Gibbs". Smither will likely be philosophically acceptable to many Republican voters, and he doesn't carry any taint from the replacement search process. He's clearly already got some support among the faithful. I'd go so far as to say that Smither's candidacy is a greater threat to the putative GOP write-in than any of the other obstacles.

Smither's mere presence on the ballot highlights one last critical issue with a write-in candidacy. This sort of thing can only hope to work when it's the one only alternative choice. As Paul Burka puts it:

Unity is critical; the Republican Party, including the congressional delegation from the four counties, needs to band together behind one candidate. But if more than one candidate qualifies as a write-in, the vote will be split, perhaps several times over. Never underestimate regional rivalries; Houston may not want a congressman from Fort Bend County, and Fort Bend County may not want a congressman from Houston, and Galveston and Brazoria may not want either.

The Republicans are aware of that, of course, but they still have to settle on one standard bearer.

Local party officials said Texas GOP Chairman Tina Benkiser has called a meeting of local party leaders - presumably State Republican Executive Committee members - at an undisclosed area location at 11 a.m.

Late Tuesday afternoon Benkiser issued a statement saying "Republicans are working together with grassroots leadership in the district to get behind and vigorously support one candidate, whether he or she is on the ballot or not."

"We need to have a meeting of the leadership and get people together and come out with who we're willing to support," Kathy Haigler, a Harris County GOP precinct chair and SREC member. "You keep the door locked until you come out with one name."

Local GOP sources say the choice probably boils down to Sekula-Gibbs or Wallace. Sekula-Gibbs hasn't said so publicly, but Haigler believes she is "seriously considering" a write-in campaign. Wallace's campaign said Tuesday he is considering the same thing, and will announce his intention by Thursday.

[...]

Haigler said party leaders may discuss potential write-in candidates this morning, then quickly call a meeting of precinct chairs within CD-22 - which encompasses portions of Fort Bend, Harris, Galveston and Brazoria counties.

It's possible the precinct chairs would be asked to vote for one candidate, "and you tell anyone else if they run" as a write-in, "they'll be blackballed forever" in future races by the Republican Party, Haigler said. "They're only going to hurt the party by spitting in the wind."

Sheryl Berg, Harris County GOP Senate District 11 chair, said she believes the choice for a potential write-in candidate is between Wallace and Sekula-Gibbs.

However, she added, GOP Chairman Benkiser may not "advocate for either one of them" because neither was likely to have been chosen by the four-person District Executive Committee that would have selected DeLay's replacement had the courts allowed it. That committee's members were to have been chosen by CD-22 precinct chairs in each of the four counties.

"At the end of the day," Berg said of the Republican leadership, "I think they're going to choose not to come up with one person."

I don't know if they can do it. And to get back to my original thesis here, I'm not sure it's worth more than a nominal try.

I'm a believer in the Fifty State Strategy, also known as Run Everywhere. As such, I'm not going to claim that there's anything good about abandoning a race, winnable or not. But while every race is worth running, not every race is worth a large expenditure of resources. You still have to get the most out of what you have. If I were in Tina Benkiser's closed door meeting today, I'd argue that there are better uses of volunteer energy and campaign cash than an extreme longshot bid at CD22. There's two high-profile State Rep races in Harris County, and the Fort Bend folks have to worry about holding onto a Treasurer's office that was last won by a convicted thief and a County Clerk's office where the long-term incumbent is ineligible to run due to filing problems. At the very least, any write-in candidates need to get in line behind those folks. I'd advocate for helping actual on-the-ballot candidates like Eric Story and Ahmad Hassan ahead of the write-in. Those two, running in Democratic stronghold CDs 29 and 18, are fulfilling the main purpose of Run Everywhere, which is party building and voter outreach in otherwise neglected areas. I wouldn't argue against anyone wanting to make a go for it as a write-in, nor would I quarrel with anyone who wanted to lend a hand to such an effort. Directing resources away from the campaigns where the potential payoff is much more attainable is where I'd draw the line.

Now, of course, I'm a Democrat. I know full well that the Dems need to pick up 15 seats in Congress to take over the chamber. There's nothing more that I'd like to do right now than be able to say "One down, fourteen to go". I feel about 99.9% confident of that anyway, but reducing doubt is never a bad thing. As such, those of you who actually are Republicans should take my advice with a grain of salt. But for what it's worth, if I were in your shoes, this is what I'd want.

Coming up tomorrow: I tell the Democrats what to do.

UPDATE: So much for that.

Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace will be a write-in candidate for the the seat House Majority Leader Tom DeLay abandoned, according to a member of Wallace's campaign team.

Wallace made the decision after DeLay announced Tuesday that he would withdraw his name from the November ballot, leaving the Republican slot blank and opening up the race to a GOP write-in candidate.

Will Sekula-Gibbs follow? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: KTRH is reporting that Shelley is in, too.

Houston City Council Member Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace are both expected to file with the Texas Secretary of State's office for a write-in candidacy, which means their names would appear at polling locations for congressional district 22, but not on the electronic ballot screen. Voters supporting those two candidates on November 7 will have to highlight "write-in" on the E-Slate ballot, then spell out the letters of their selected candidate's name.

"Write-in campaigns are tough, there's no question about it," said Sekula-Gibbs, "But I have the committment and passion to make it work."

Party unity. You gotta love it.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 12:07 PM | Comments (5)

August 08, 2006

Everything you ever wanted to know about write-in candidates

By now you've surely heard that Tom DeLay will officially withdraw from the race for CD22, meaning that Democrat Nick Lampson will face only Libertarian candidate Bob Smither on the ballot.

Dani DeLay Ferro sent the Chronicle an e-mail confirming her father's intentions to support a write-in candidate.

"I will take the actions necessary to remove my name from the Texas ballot," DeLay said in his statement. "To do anything else would be hypocrisy."

"I strongly encourage the Republican Party to take any and all actions necessary to give Texas voters an up-or-down choice this fall between two major party candidates," DeLay said.

That's not quite the end of it, though. As I noted here, there seems to be a plan afoot to get a write-in candidate on the ballot in DeLay's place.

We'll put aside the question of the wisdom of this strategy for a moment - I addressed it at my other blog - and focus instead on the nuts and bolts of write-in candidacy. Here's the relevant subchapter of state electoral law on write-in candidacy. First, how does one become a write-in candidate?

Â§ 146.022. CANDIDATE'S NAME REQUIRED TO APPEAR ON LIST.

A write-in vote may not be counted unless the name written in appears on the list of write-in candidates required by Section 146.031.

Â§ 146.023. DECLARATION OF WRITE-IN CANDIDACY REQUIRED.

(a) To be entitled to a place on the list of write-in candidates, a candidate must make a declaration of write-in candidacy.
(b) A declaration of write-in candidacy must, in addition to satisfying the requirements prescribed by Section 141.031 for an application for a place on the ballot, be accompanied by the appropriate filing fee or, instead of the filing fee, a petition that satisfies the requirements prescribed by Subchapter C, Chapter
141.
(c) A candidate may not file a declaration of write-in candidacy for more than one office. If a person files more than one declaration of write-in candidacy in violation of this subsection, each declaration filed subsequent to the first one filed is invalid.
(d) A declaration of write-in candidacy is public information immediately on its filing.

So, first and foremost, anyone can be a write-in candidate, but in order to have your votes as a write-in candidate counted by the Secretary of State, you have to either pay the same filing fee that you would have paid to be in the primary for that race, or turn in a petition with the same number of signatures as you would have needed for this position. According to Â§ 146.025, the deadline for all this is 70 days before the election, which this year is August 29, three weeks from today.

You can see then what the first problem will be for Republicans with this strategy: They may want to anoint one designated write-in, but anyone with the filing fee in hand can play. What happens then?

"It doesn't make much sense to me," Kathy Haigler, a Harris County GOP precinct chair and Senate District 11 representative on the Texas Republican Party Executive Committee, said of a write-in campaign. She said she could see a scenario where several of the candidates who'd campaigned to replace DeLay on the ballot would become write-in candidates.

"If you've got seven Republican write-ins, Lampson would win," she said. The only way it might work, she added, would be if DeLay promoted a particular write-in candidate.

As this is a general election, a plurality of the vote is all that's needed to win, so even if a multitude of Republican write-ins kept Lampson from getting 50% of the vote, as long as he got the most votes he'd be headed back to Washington.

Another issue, at least as far as my reading of the law goes, is that the candidate who was generally considered to have been the frontrunner in the now-obsolete replacement process would be highly unlikely to run under these conditions. I refer to the section on Candidacy for Public Office Generally:

Â§ 141.033. FILING APPLICATIONS FOR MORE THAN ONE OFFICE PROHIBITED.

(a) A candidate may not file applications for a place on the ballot for two or more offices that:
(1) are not permitted by law to be held by the same person; and
(2) are to be voted on at one or more elections held on the same day.

(b) If a person files more than one application for a place on a ballot in violation of this section, each application filed subsequent to the first one filed is invalid.

(c) This section does not apply to candidacy for the office of president or vice-president of the United States and another office.

As the Lloyd Bentsen Exception does not apply here, any sitting State Rep or State Senator, and presumably any county-level official, would have to step down and withdraw from that race in order to take on Lampson as a write-in. I can't quite see State Rep. Robert Talton, or any of his brethren, choose to throw away a likely re-election bid for these odds.

On the other hand, former Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace and current Houston City Council Member Shelley Sekula-Gibbs could still go for it, with Sekula-Gibbs not needing to quit unless she won. We may finally have a situation where Wallace is truly the frontrunner to replace DeLay on the ballot, after all this time.

Clearing the election law hurdles is one thing. There's still the matter of winning as a write-in. I imagine most people haven't had the experience of using the eSlate machines for this purpose. It's not very user friendly, especially for a cumbersome name like "Sekula-Gibbs". And pushing a write-in candidate means either telling people not to vote a straight ticket, or telling them to vote straight and then remember to go to this one race to add in your write-in vote, since those candidates won't carry a party label. Good luck with that.

I don't know if the Republicans will ultimately choose to follow this strategy, though we'll have an answer to that within the next three weeks. I do know it will be fun to watch them if they do. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: One point I missed was raised by Paul Burka, which is that anyone who ran and lost in a March primary cannot run again as a write-in. That eliminates Tom Campbell, Mike Fjetland, and Patricia Baig.

UPDATE: Burka and I also disagree about whether or not FB County Commissioner Andy Meyers would need to resign to run as a write-in in CD22. This is the be-all and end-all on resign-to-run. My eyes are glazing over, so I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader. My thanks to Vince for the pointer.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 05:14 PM | Comments (3)

August 07, 2006

The court cases: Where we stand now

Now that I'm back from vacation, let's take a look at the two big court decisions that were handed down last week. First is the new Congressional map that was drawn by the three-judge panel to resolve (at least for now) the redistricting battle. The Lone Star Project gives a concise summary of the new map and its consequences:

The court changed the boundaries of 5 Congressional Districts

CD 15 - Hinojosa
CD 21 - L. Smith
CD 23 - Bonilla
CD 25 - Doggett
CD 28 - Cuellar

All Democratic incumbents and Republican Lamar Smith can expect to be easily reelected.
The Hispanic population of the 23rd District, currently represented by Henry Bonilla, was increased significantly, but not to the level of the previously Constitutional map from 2002. Under today's court ordered plan, Bonilla would be favored for reelection, but would not be considered safe. In light of Bonilla's consistent failure to win the support of Hispanic voters, it is certainly possible for Democrats to claim the seat sometime this decade.

Election details from Court Order

March Primaries in effected districts are vacated.
New filing deadline is August 25th for new candidates.
Ballot will be certified September 6th.
Primaries and General Election run concurrently on November 7th.
In districts where no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election will be conducted between the top 2 vote getters.
Secretary of State will set runoff election date

Paul Burka fills in some more details for each of the five affected districts. The bottom line is that as I had predicted, the judges did not pair up any incumbents, and also as I expected, the new map will be in effect for this November.

A few thoughts on what it all means going forward:

While much has been written about how this is a great opportunity for the Democrats to take a shot at knocking off Henry Bonilla, I wonder if the Republicans will take advantage of the opportunity they've been given to go after Henry Cuellar and Ruben Hinojosa, maybe even Lloyd Doggett if they're feeling frisky. Only Hinojosa in CD15 had drawn a GOP challenger for November prior to this, and his opponent is an Anglo former State Rep from the 60s who has not yet filed an FEC report. Given that CD15 was nearly a 50-50 district in 2004 (it's more Democratic now, but not much more so than CD23 is now Republican), and that Hinojosa has a relatively modest $286K cash on hand, I can't understand the rationale for leaving it so lightly contested. CDs 25 and 28 are fairly purple as well judging by 2004 results. That may not mean much this year, but still. You can't win if you don't try.

I'm sure Cuellar is happy to have the district he now represents - Burka wrote that the court may have made him "Congressman for life" - I expect Lamar Smith is smiling as well. Smith's old district, which contained a fair piece of Travis County, was reasonably safe, but Smith didn't exactly overwhelm his no-name perennial candidate opponent in 2004. I believe John Courage, who has sent out word saying that he will run in the new district, would have given him a tough race there. Courage had a lot of support in Travis County, which went from having 277,000 people in CD21 to having 126,000 residents there, so his task is much tougher now.

There's plenty of rumors flying around regarding who will take on Henry Bonilla in the new CD23, pretty much all of them coming from San Antonio. Ciro Rodriguez, who represented much of the new Bexar County territory that Bonilla inherited from CD28, is almost a sure thing to run. Former CIty Council member and Mayoral candidate Julian Castro is likely to hop in. Many other names are floating around, though some will probably wither away if one or more serious contenders makes it official. I'm not very optimistic about beating Bonilla in this cycle, even with a generally favorable climate for Democrats nationally. His campaign war chest is huge - over $2 million - and he's got plenty of name recognition. I think he can be softened up for 2008, however. Perhaps new State Senator-to-be Carlos Uresti, whose district covers much of the new CD23, will seek the job in the future.

As for the other big case last week, as the Tom DeLay Versus The World blog put it after reading the Fifth Circuit Court's opinion, it's almost impossible to imagine at this point that anyone other than DeLay will be on the ballot for the Republicans in November. There's just nothing for the GOP to cling to in their appeal, which is going to the Supreme Court nonetheless. If it's DeLay on the ballot, I just don't see how he wins. Yes, this is a Republican district, but my impression, in contrast to Burka's, is that there's quite a bit of DeLay fatigue at this point. I think most people understand at this point that we are where we are right now because DeLay just didn't want to run any more, but couldn't just withdraw because that would have handed the seat to Nick Lampson. So he ginned up a bogus "ineligibility" excuse, which the courts have refused to accept. If I'm Lampson, I'm not sure which approach I'd take in running against DeLay - emphasizing all of the reasons why DeLay resigned from Congress in the first place, or simply playing some of the statements he's made since then being a Virginian and wanting to get on with his life. Who would want to vote for that?

Bottom line, as I see it, is that I think the Dems will pick up CD22 but short of lightning in a bottle will not capture CD23. In 2008, these same two seats will be very much in play, as the Republicans will have their chance to nominate a real candidate, and the Dems will have a longer campaign period in which to raise money for the race against Bonilla. Don't be surprised if the 2008 campaign for those two offices starts shortly after the 2006 one finishes up.

UPDATE: The Republican Party of Texas has now officially asked the US Supreme Court to get involved.

Texas Republicans today asked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to issue a stay that would allow the GOP to replace former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the general election ballot.

The 41-page motion argues that there is a good chance the full court will want to hear the constitutional issues that the case raises. The motion also says it will be in the best interest of voters to allow the Republicans to pick a new candidate for DeLay's 22nd District seat.

"The Fifth Circuit's decision restricts the voters' range of choices because it requires the (Republican Party of Texas) to keep an ineligible candidate on the ballot," said the motion by Republican lawyer James Bopp Jr. "It limits their choice because the opportunity to vote for an ineligible candidate is no choice at all."

[...]

Scalia could stay the injunction pending a review of the case by the full court, which would allow the Republicans to move forward to replace DeLay on the ballot. Or, he could effectively end the fight by rejecting Bopp's motion.

Chad Dunn, a lawyer for the Texas Democratic Party, said he feels confident that Sparks' injunction will remain in place.

"We have felt confident that we've been correct on the facts and the law in this case," Dunn said.

An earlier version of this story noted that Scalia is the judge that handles such reviews from the Fifth Circuit, which is why he's been petitioned. Stay tuned.

On a side note, Bob Dunn suggests the reason that the RPT is pursuing this to the bitter end: They know, or at least they believe, that DeLay will not run if he is forced to stay on the ballot.

UPDATE: Holy Original Intent, Batman! That didn't take long.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday rejected a request by Texas Republicans to block an appeals court ruling that says former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's name must appear on the November ballot.

[...]

"Wow! That was quick," said Cris Feldman, attorney for Texas Democrats who had not yet heard about the stay.

"That was a lightning-quick response. We're very pleased by the court's decision to deny the stay and it's now time to move toward the general election and put this matter behind us," said Feldman.

No kidding. Doing a Google News search on "Scalia" and sorting by date, the first stories about the GOP request hit the papers two hours ago. That's as fast as I may ever see the judicial system working.

According to the story, Tina Benkiser may ask another judge for a second review. I can't imagine that will work, but until that happens or the RPT officially raises the white flag, it ain't over till it's over. Thanks to Jeff N. for the tip.

UPDATE: I just heard on KHOU that the Republicans will not appeal to the full Supreme Court. Say good night, Gracie.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 01:49 PM | Comments (1)

August 03, 2006

The redistricting myth

Given all the recent attention to redistricting and its effects on competitiveness in Congressional races, now seems like a good time to link to this Democratic Strategist article by Jeffrey Krasno, which claims that the extreme gerrymandering of districts isn't quite as powerful a force in determining electoral outcomes as you may think.

Politicians have always wanted safe seats, and in the last decade mapping software has made it easier to draw those sorts of districts. Mapmakers' handiwork is supposedly reflected in the 2004 House results: just 22 House races were decided by 10 points or less (of the two-party vote), the lowest number of close elections in more than 50 years.

The problem with that evidence is that districts are not the only reason why elections may be lopsided. For example, two thirds of House candidates in 2004 outspent their opponents by more than 5 to 1. It is no surprise when those candidates run up huge margins over their outgunned rivals.

That is one reason why academics often use presidential elections to measure the underlying partisan balance in a region. Sure enough, the presidential results from 2004 reveal a much different picture: President Bush or Senator Kerry prevailed by 10 points or less in 102 districts. That is actually a small number for such a close election, but it still suggests that there are far more potentially competitive districts than the House results reveal.

I could incorporate more elections or use fancier statistics, but I would still find a fair number of closely-drawn districts. It is worth remembering that this standard of "closeness" is entirely arbitrary; plenty of Democrats and Republicans have shown that they can win in areas where their party is a distinct minority.

Chet Edwards would be a good example of this, as President Bush got nearly 70% of the vote in the new CD17. Edwards has the distinction of being the Democrat in the most Republican district in America. There's no guarantees that he'll be able to win again in 2006, of course, but he'll have a lot going for him this time - incumbency, likely a less hostile overall environment for Dems, and a decent lead in campaign cash. For sure, he knows how to win in tough environments, having done so for several campaigns before that one. No one will be counting him out.

So what does Krasno say is the real issue?

The best explanation is deceivingly simple: lack of effort. That is not to say that the main actors in congressional elections - candidates, parties, interest groups, and the media - do not work hard. Rather, these players have increasingly come to focus their attention on the group of races they find most competitive, essentially ignoring a growing number of campaigns.

For example, consider the actions of the political parties. Parties are an important source of funds for many congressional campaigns, and their decisions influence other donors. In 1992, parties invested half of the money they spent in congressional elections in 84 districts; in 2004 they spent half in just 11.

It is tempting to conclude that parties are merely responding to political reality. That is certainly true, but it is also true that parties and other big players help create that reality. Where good candidates run - with financial support from their party and the resulting media coverage - elections are cliffhangers. Where they do not, or they receive little funding or coverage, the results are foregone conclusions, no matter how evenly balanced a district may be.

There is a certain self-fulfilling aspect to this. Districts are uncompetitive because no one tries to run a strong campaign in them, and no one tries to run a strong campaign in them because everyone knows those districts are uncompetitive. It all makes perfect sense when you stop to think about it.

Now of course nothing is ever that simple, and Kevin Drum lays out some objections to the Krasno thesis. It seems to me, though, that this year's election will provide a decent test of the hypothesis, as the Democrats are making some serious and well-funded challenges to incumbent Republicans around the country. Some of these are in the close districts Krasno talks about, and some of them are challenging perpetually endangered officeholders, but many are going against people who are not used to this kind of contest. If they're successful, we may see a change in philosophy for Congressional campaigning.

It should be noted that at least in terms of fundraising, some of the better showings by challengers are in districts that are not considered top tier pickup opportunities, such as in Nebraska and Wyoming. The latter is a reminder that it's not always necessary to think in terms of multimillions when mounting this kind of race.

[Wyoming Democratic Congressional candidate Gary]Trauner got an audience with [Howard] Dean and stressed why the DNC chairman should support him with a business-based argument.

"This is essentially a cheap seat; this is not a $10 million race or even a $5 million race and so the return on the investment could be huge, because, let's face it, a seat is a seat," Trauner says."I wanted their financial support, but I also wanted them to know that I am not going to agree with Howard Dean or a someone from Massachusetts on everything. I am a pro-business, pro-gun Democrat.

How cheap are we talking? Here's Trauner's news release about his second quarter results

Trauner's fundraising total for the quarter ending June 30th is $170,648.02 and cash on hand as of June 30th was $234,785.95. The incumbent, Barbara Cubin, raised $146,115.46 and had $217,871.48 cash on hand for the same period.

Two hundred grand is peanuts compared to what some contenders have raised, but the point here is that all districts are not created equal. Seems to me a smart strategy for the national parties would be to look for situations like this where a relatively minimal investment in a strong candidate could reap an unexpected reward. It can't hurt to also be aware of which incumbents are not all that highly regarded, as is the case with Wyoming's Cubin.

Here in Texas, there are a number of Republican-held districts that went unchallenged or not seriously challenged in 2004 but are getting more attention this year. They include CDs 06 (David Harris), 07 (Jim Henley), 10 (Ted Ankrum), 14 (Shane Sklar), 21 (John Courage), and 31 (Mary Beth Harrell). None of these seats are considered likely to flip, and all of the contenders trail their opponents, most by a significant margin, in the campaign cash department, but a within-ten-points showing in any of these races would surely put them on the list of places to watch for 2008. Call it a proof of concept, if you will.

Finally, some of you may be thinking that while Krasno raises a good point about how one defines competitiveness in Congressional districts, his broader version of the concept still only brings 102 seats, or less than 25% of the total, into play. A point that Kevin brought up and which was explored in great detail back in 2004 by Bill Bishop of the Austin American-Statesman in a series of articles called The Great Divide is that likeminded people tend to cluster together, which makes some parts of the country much more inclined to a particular partisan preference. This is no great surprise, but even then many places change preference over time, and sometimes it happens faster than anyone expects. You never know until you try.

I should note that Bishop's methodology generated some dissent from a poli sci professor named Philip Klinkner. I did a lot of blogging about this when it all happened. You can follow the debate here, here, here, here, and here.

Finally, for even more reading on the subject, the Democratic Strategist site is now hosting a roundtable discussion on Krasno's article. It's definitely worth your time to check out.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

August 01, 2006

What's the matter with Idaho?

Which state do you think is the most Republican in the country? There are a few good choices for that, but I think Idaho would make any reasonable short list for the distinction. So you have to wonder what's going on when you see a story like this, which is about the Republican Party's Retain Our Majority Program (ROMP) to raise money for candidates who really need the help.

The final ROMP fundraiser is used for candidates in the most desperate need of campaign money. Three of the recipients trail their challengers in terms of cash on hand. Most of those who are ahead in funds have only modest leads.

The ROMP list included five incumbents, four open-seat candidates and one challenger. The other beneficiaries were Minnesota open-seat candidate Michele Bachmann; Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.); Jeff Lamberti, who is challenging Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa); Idaho open-seat candidate Bill Sali; Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.); and Iowa open-seat candidate Mike Whalen.

[...]

Sali is competing for the seat being vacated by gubernatorial candidate Rep. Butch Otter (R-Idaho), which is normally a very safe Republican district; President Bush won it 69-30 in 2004. But Sali survived a heated primary with just 26 percent of the vote, and there have been rumors of Republican supporters defecting to Democratic candidate Larry Grant.

Link via MyDD, which notes that Sali isn't exactly a pauper, having raised over $500K so far. As Swing State Project noted awhile ago, Sali is not the most popular guy in Idaho, including and especially in his own party, so it's not surprising that he may need outside help.

But let's be clear here. If the national GOP needs to spend time and effort raising money for a guy in a deep red state and a 70-30 district, then they've got deep trouble in the many other seats they need to defend. Remember that the NRCC spent $5 million defending a traditionally Republican seat in California in June, a sum that represented over 20% of their cash on hand at the time. Now note that its Democratic counterpart the DCCC has more money than they do, and that as a group the 2006 Democratic challengers are in a much better financial position right now relative to the incumbents they're challenging than their 1994 Republican counterparts were, which among other things means the D-Trip can spread its cash around more. Finally, to put it charitably, this is not a seat that the Democrats need to win in their effort to take back the House, but it's for sure one the Republicans can't afford to lose.

All in all, not a bad development for the Democrats. It also points out another factor in the redistricting myth equation, which is that candidates matter. A good candidate can overcome a bad district, and a bad candidate can lose anywhere. As always, there are no guarantees - for one thing, I have no idea how good a candidate Sali's Democratic opponent Larry Grant is. He got a nice endorsement from the local paper for the primary and would seem to be the favorite to get the nod in the general, for what that's worth. He still has to persuade a lot of people to vote for the candidate and not the party, and in a year where control of Congress is an issue, who knows how that might affect people's choices. We'll see what happens.

Posted by Charles Kuffner at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)

Kuff's World

A reader blog about politics and current events with Charles Kuffner

August 31, 2006

Another write-in story

August 29, 2006

More successful write-in stories

August 28, 2006

Libertarians for Smither

August 25, 2006

Some questions going forward in CD22

August 23, 2006

"Partisanized Moderate"-ism: It's not just for liberals any more

August 22, 2006

The hurdle that the Republicans face in CD22

August 21, 2006

Politics in the YouTube era

August 18, 2006

Are there no more bounces left?

August 16, 2006

On becoming a "partisanized moderate"

August 15, 2006

Fifty state update

August 13, 2006

What the Democrats should do in CDs 22 and 23

August 09, 2006

What the Republicans should do in CD22

August 08, 2006

Everything you ever wanted to know about write-in candidates

August 07, 2006

The court cases: Where we stand now

August 03, 2006

The redistricting myth

August 01, 2006

What's the matter with Idaho?