Campaign Blog: News & Updates

For the longest time (ok, maybe like 4.5 years), I've been meaning to dig up this exact quote by Charlie Peters, from his Tilting At Windmills column ...

I WAS TOUCHED BY THE MANY tributes to Paul Wellstone, especially by those from conservatives like David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, Fred Barnes, and Robert Novak. But there was one theme that ran through the praise that I found disturbing. It was that he was a "pure liberal" or "honest liberal," never a "New Democrat" or "moderate" My friend and former colleague Timothy Noah asks in Slate, "Can't a New Democrat or a neoliberal be just as true to his beliefs as Wellstone was to his?" True, some of us may be in the center out of cowardice or cynicism. But isn't it also possible that some of us are there because of our beliefs? Just because our principles may be a mixture of conservative, liberal, and middle-of-the-road, it doesn't mean that our convictions are any less strong or pure or honest.

December 2002 issue of Washington Monthly, to be precise.

Last Man Standing ... now available on DVD.

I caught the bulk of this on some odd-hour PBS viewing during the campaign season. I'm not sure how great a view it gives of the historical move of Texas from being a Democratic stronghold to being a Republican bastion. But it does give some excellent insight into two campaigns - one, micro: Patrick Rose's run for State Rep ... and the second, macro: Tony Sanchez's race for Governor. A great view on how not to run for Governor is encapsulated by the movie, as well as Rose's natural ease at such an ungodly young age at the fine art of campaigning in rural Texas. Definitely putting this one on my wish list.

The vote on Proposition 12 may yet be a silver lining for Democrats in Harris County. Pitted as a battle royale of the trial lawyers on the one hand against doctors and big insurance on the other, the Constitutional amendment lost statewide, yet won in Harris county. Although turnout was inarguably sparse, it's worth anticipating the final canvas report from the county clerk to see how much can be attributed to traditional voting alliances holding (which would indicate that Democratic areas turned out better), and how much can be attributed to swing voters having a little more swing in them, afterall.

It's worth looking back at two prior elections to show how some of the swing precincts have eroded further and further from Democratic candidates. In 1998, Paul Hobby won his home county, becoming the last statewide candidate to win Harris County for the Democrats. In 2002, John Sharp ran as the highest ranking established moderate candidate, with remnants of support from his own close loss in 1998. As has been stated before, Sharp lost ground on his 1998 showing. Within Harris County, it's critical to look closer at the map to see where ... and perhaps why.

This map shows West Harris County, with a shaded region revolving primarily around the Northwest Freeway, Memorial/River Oaks, Meyerland, Bellaire/West U., the Westpark/Westheimer corridor, and Southwest Houston. The red precincts went for Carol Rylander, the blue for Paul Hobby in the statewide race for Comptroller.

In searching for a region to serve as an example of a region that went for Hobby in 1998 and was conversely lost by Sharp in 2002, this one serves as illuminating in one regard in particular. Straddling the 610 Loop on the west side of town, it is where the City of Houston meets West Houston - the GOP stronghold within Harris County.

In 1998, Paul Hobby won 51.3% of the vote to Carol Keeton Rylander's 48.7.

Moving ahead four years, we have this result from the John Sharp-David Dewhurst race for Lieutenant Governor. Time permitted me to do this map with an intensity scale - darker shades of red and blue representing higher percentages of GOP and Democratic support respectively.

In 2002, John Sharp won only 46% of the vote in the shaded area, compared to Dewhurst's 54%.

It's important to remember anytime we look at election results this way, that what we are seeing is the symptom, not the causation of any loss or win. Occassionally, geographic areas of strength can be spotted easily, but it is still up to more anectdotal evidence to shed clues on the "why" behind what we see.

Both candidates represented the moderate wing of the party. In 1998, Paul Hobby was running at a time when his family name still may have held a fair amount of resonance with voters in many of these precincts. Sharp, by contrast, is less known to Houstonians, and it should be pointed out that he did not carry Harris County in his 1998 race for Lieutenant Governor. As a result, this is not an exercise in comparing two different campaigns, instead using the two campaigns as a snapshot of the best possible outcomes for Democratic candidates in these two election cycles.

A few particular areas show some noticable erosion of support for Sharp-02 compared to Hobby-98. The biggest is the Memorial Park area, north of Westheimer and fully contained within the 610 Loop. The 1998 tally for Hobby came to a competitive 48%, whereas the outcome for Sharp in 2002 came to a less than inspiring 39%.

For now, this is just a matter of observation. Its easy enough to see where votes were lost. The why is tougher to discern. Worth noting that much of the Memorial Park area was represented in 1998 by Debra Danburg, and yet in 2002 was won by Martha Wong. Much of that race centered on Danburg attempting to translate her support from the previously mapped district into support for the new one, which favored Wong, the Republican. Similarly, Scott Hochberg's new look 134th district is fully encompassed in this region. Its as much a swing district as any could be, with a 55% Dem tilt that is not insurmountable by a well funded GOP candidate. Given the amount of focus the campaign got by the TAB as part of its statewide effort to take control of the Texas Legislature, there was an intense amount of pressure brought to get GOP voters flushed out to the voting booths. In 2002, the GOP finally caught up (and even surpassed) the Democrats at GOTV. That provides a mechanical explanation of the loss of support.

It can certainly be argued that there are deeper reasons as well - Harris County, and Texas', trend towards the GOP for instance. These things, I would argue, don't happen in a vacuum. People don't just wake up and decide their Republican. It takes two to see this sort of evaporation of support: one side to lose it and one to gain it. When both seek to gain it, more and more competitive races should be found.

More on this for Sunday's blogburst, though. For now, this is the appetizer. Democrats have to make a principled statement about our beliefs and relate them to voters better. How we get to that point, I'll elaborate on Sunday. For now, I'm still in research mode. George Strong has been kind enough to give me a good lead or two that might land me some maps used for elections in 1981-90, so I can more fully dive into this. But one doesn't have to even visualize the loss of support from 1982 to the present in order to understand that something is wrong here. Merely standing opposite the other side, without offering a better set of core principles that let voters see where we stand as a party won't win. Establishing the Democratic Party on a firmer foundation of original thought must be a priority if swing districts such as this are to be won in the future.

But for now ... enjoy the pictures. I'm working on a 1998 map that shows intensity, as the 2002 map does above. I'll switch it out with the Red/Blue image above when its done. I'm also still waiting on the official canvas report for the last election to be put online by the County Clerk - I'm more than curious how Prop 12 did in Joe Nixon's district.

EXTRA CREDIT: The full county maps for the two races can be seen here:
2002 Lt. Gov.
1998 Comptroller

The large white gaps in the 1998 map were precincts that had no votes or tied. In my clumsiness, I did not adapt that practice when I did the 2002 map, instead opting to fill in the color of surrounding precincts where applicable.

ELABORATION: The scale of intensity is set so that shades of red are diminished starting from 0-25%, to 25-40, 40-45, 45-49, and then blue starts in at 50-55, 55-60, 60-75, and then 75-100. I'll fill in more details time permitting this weekend.

UPDATE 1.0: The Canvas reports are in. (PDF).

UPDATE 2.0: In Nixon's district, Prop 12 won:
For :: 5580 - 57.4%
Against :: 4146 - 42.6%

There's still a curiosity I've got to figure out about a few missing precincts in the final canvas. My hunch is that they are just mixed in with other precincts - mine was treated similarly and it does not show up on the canvas. Two things worth noting, though: the results are under Nixon's 2002 percentage of the vote (65%), and turnout was hideously low (9,726 votes cast to over 23,000 in his 2002 race against Amadi). Further analysis to come later ...

THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY RUN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Perhaps some of the finest reporting The New Republic has done in a long time. There's tons of wisdom in this one, so all I can start with is a recommendation to just read the whole thing in its entirety. Taking an inside look at the midterm meltdown by the Democratic party and what may be a leading cause, but no doubt a contributing cause if nothing else, Noam Schreiber takes a look at the influence (and occassional conflict of interest) that pollsters and consultants occassionally play in the campaign process.

I'm not sure how much validity to assign to the fact that Dem consultants tend to be based in DC while GOP consultants tend to be based in northern Virginia. That's about the only quibbling point I can find. The examples given where the DCCC dictates a few calls to local campaigns should be ingrained in people's memory for a long time to come, as should the predictability and ease of co-opting a message that has grown increasingly stale. 2000 showed this right up front with Bush looking over at Gore and claiming that he too was in favor of a Patient's Bill of Rights ... not the same one, mind you, but A Patient's Bill of Rights. The 2002 debates over Social Security reform, prescription drug benefits, and several more fall under the same umbrella. Democrat's can no longer assume that Republicans are just going to leave certain issues untouched in the Dem column ... so why are so many Dems leaving certain issues untouched in the GOP column?

I'm not sure the Bart Gordon example provided is the best model for how to succeed in the face of increasing pressure ... at least not as laid out. I'm not as familiar with Gordon as I am with several others, but while there is in fact, something to be said for being a savior to area projects deemed beneficial, there also has to be something said for being a candidate that starts off with a modicum of trust in that he represents and reflects the values of that district. Setting forth a scenario that leaves open the possibility that a David Bonior or Nancy Pelosi could very well represent the same region had they merely fought tooth and nail for a TVA project is, to be certain, a bit of a stretch. Likewise, ignoring that the Democratic party, if it is truly to be the party that represents the diversity seen across the nation, has to open itself up to some ideological diversity in order to appeal to a broader spectrum of voters, is to do a disservice to the party's chances of gaining electable majorities in the future.

N.H. GOP Director Quits Over Phone Flap

This one's for all you Josh Marshall haters out there. Follow this one ... the New Hampshire GOP employs a Virginia telemarketing company (GOP Marketplace) to do some GOTV work for them. Well, it turns out they decided to up the ante by doing a slew of drive-by call/hang ups on Dem campaign offices as well as the Manchester Firefighters Union, who was doing GOTV work for Jeanne Shaheen. The idea being to prevent their own efforts and hopefully gain a leg up on the final stretch. So will the National Review be devoting an entire issue to the illegitimate election of John Sununu now?

In any event, even Josh notes that the 4% margin Sununu won by probably isn't enough to overcome with even the best phone bank. But I kinda like the take that "... cheating isn't okay just because you probably would have won anyway." Yeah, just tell that to Richard Nixon (were it possible).

There's also this take:

Now, in the free-for-all world of political telemarketing, there's what you might call an evolving standard for what's just playing hardball and what's way out of bounds. (What sounds criminal to some, is just ... well, 'innovative' to more creative minds.) But I think this clearly qualifies as way, way out of bounds. Indeed, it may have broken New Hampshire state laws against phone harassment. And New Hampshire authorities, in addition to pursuing the matter themselves, have passed the case on to the Justice Department.

That one might prove a little more troublesome, but my gut tells me the end result is going to be a fine that doesn't really matter one bit. The next campaign that hires them gets a little heat, it qualifies as inside baseball, and that's pretty much it. Still, it warrants criticism and Josh is now on the prowl for who else used the same operatives as that campaign.

Stealing the idea from OpinionJournal.com ... Six pols I'll miss that exited the stage in 2002:

1. John Sharp - likely to be the last of the conservative Dems to hold a statewide presence. As it presently stands, the Dems are basically left to wait for something truly scandalous or catastrophic to hit the state to see their fortunes reverse. Till then ... its time to play the waiting game.

2. Tim Penny - 16% in the last election as the successor to Jesse Ventura in Minnesota. That's a pain that's gonna linger. Its also a damn shame for one of the truly independent voices out there in the world. Minnesota may have set the third party movement back farther than it realizes.

3. Paul Colbert - Republican gerrymandering in Texas does away with one of the brightest minds on education law Texas has seen in a while. He'll be missed, but Scott Hochberg may be up to the task of picking up the slack.

4. Tony Hall - Dayton congressman was truly one of the good guys and now he's gone on to bigger and better things, working to end hunger around the globe as best as any one person can do. One of these days, someone's going to write one hell of a bio on this guy.

5. Roy Barnes - the one person shared from John Funds list, and for precisely the same reason.

6. Paul Wellstone - one of the few people in the world you can gain respect for even while disagreeing with him. No point on the ideological map will ever find a more passionate and articulate clarion for their cause than Wellstone was for his.

And just for good measure ... 6 I won't miss (this one if FAR easier):

1. Phil Gramm
2. Jesse Helms
3. Strom Thurmond
4. Bob Barr
5. David Bonior
6. Cynthia McKinney

Next House Democrat Whip Criticizes Past Leadership

Ya know, I read this thinking I'll make some arcane praise of one guy I tend to like in the House: Steny Hoyer. But then I get to this quote:

"Democrats did talk about the economy," Mr. Smith (spokesperson for Gephardt) said. "Mr. Gephardt outlined ambitious plans for promoting economic growth, but the problem was one of coordination with other Democrats. It's hard enough to unite our party behind a single idea when we have the White House; it's acutely difficult when we don't."

So right now, I have this to say: F*CK Gephardt. The guy hit the hustings saying the 2002 elections were a referendum on Social Security. And on top of that, he managed to lose elderly voters, young voters, soon-to-be-retiring voters. And I'm pretty sure we even lost with the "sloth" voters of the world. The son of a bitch still doesn't get it. About the only good he's done me is prevented me from needing to read the second half of this Times article.

Houston Press | houstonpress.com | News : The Insider

Pretty accurate assessment by Tim Fleck in this article. Nothing newsworthy, but a pretty nice summary of the Harris County Dems' dilemna.

HoustonChronicle.com - A closer look at Harris County's vote

The Chron has done their annual number crunching on the election:

Senate
Gov
Lt. Gov

HoustonChronicle.com - Harris County Democrat chief chairwoman quits

Not as big a move as if Terry McAuliffe stepped down, but still, a move worth noting. I thought Sue did a great job in recruiting candidates and would have liked to have seen her take another stab at it in 2004. I only hope that whoever follows her does as good a job at candidate recruitment.