I’ve noticed a sharp uptick in cynicism in the blogosphere. It is usually expressed in two ways. Readers make comments expressing the sentiment that there is no difference between the parties and they make predictions that the Democrats will lose an historic opportunity to pick up seats and win the White House. I’m not sure about the White House, but I can almost assure you that the Democrats are not going to blow the opportunity to pick up seats in Congress. The reason is fairly simple, although it takes a little effort to explain. It comes down to money and recruitment. To demonstrate this I am going to keep the focus on the House of Representatives. Let’s take a look back to the midterms.
In 2006…the DCCC spent $70 million on a TV and radio advertising campaign that hit only 47 districts total, only seven of which were held by Democrats.
The DCCC targeted 40 Republican seats in 2006 and they wound up winning 30, not all of which were on their target list. Their average contribution was $1.489 million.
Obviously, the Republican counterpart, the NRCC, spent a lot of money on races, as well. But the NRCC now has more debt than cash on hand.
Financially, the National Republican Congressional Committee is essentially bankrupt, with just $1.6 million in cash available at the end of the 3rd quarter and almost $4 million in leftover debt from the 2006 cycle. Meanwhile, Van Hollen’s DCCC is awash in cash, with more than $28 million available to spend as of Sept. 30.
The DCCC is looking to fund contests against forty Republican incumbents again in 2008.
With a huge cash advantage over the National Republican Congressional Committee, Van Hollen and Emanuel are cautioning their colleagues that the DCCC wants to have money to put into 40 challenger races next year…
The NRCC and the DCCC will obviously continue to raise money between now and the elections. But we can take the current situation as illustrative of the problem the Republicans face. After debts the DCCC has $25 million to spend on congressional races, and the Republicans have -$2.3 million. And the Democrats, realizing that the Republicans have NO MONEY to pour into ANY races, have made an announcement to vulnerable incumbents.
Top House Democrats, sensing an opportunity to pick up additional seats in 2008, are warning some of their more vulnerable incumbents that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee won’t spend money in their districts unless Republican leaders do.
Basically, the DCCC is saying that incumbents need to raise their own money because they intend to use their whole warchest on the offense, contesting 40 Republican seats. At the moment, the DCCC has enough money to give $1.6 million each to 40 separate challengers. The NRCC can’t give a dime to anyone in response without borrowing money.
And the Democratic incumbents are already awash in cash.
Only two of the Frontline Democrats — Reps. Michael Arcuri of New York and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana — reported having less than $500,000 on hand at the end of September, according to their most recent reports with the Federal Election Commission.
It should be obvious that the Republicans cannot hope to pick up many seats when they have no money. Traditionally, the GOP wins by vastly outspending their opponents. But recruitment is a second problem.
The DCCC has also done far better than its GOP counterpart in recruiting top-tier candidates to challenge incumbents, according to most independent political experts…
…The NRCC, on the other hand, has recruited top-flight challengers in about a third of the roughly 60 Democratic-held districts they are targeting.
An honest look at this political landscape should lead you to the conclusion that the House elections of 2008 are already over, and the Democrats have picked up many more seats in Congress.
There are other indicators: early polling, generic ballot preferences, issue preferences, differential party registration, this week’s elections…that bolster the case.
The Republicans must know what is coming. But they seem unwilling to do the only thing that could have much prospect of changing the results: tossing out their leaders.
Everything that you say is correct Boo. the only fly in the ointment is the simple fact that it does not take into consideration the psyche of the dem voter. As you well know, I have been an elderly contributor to your blog and an inveterate reader of your posts. I gotta tellya bo- the factor that you are overlooking is that the troops out here are really pissed. And, it ain’t just at the goopers. They are pissed at the dems that appear to be unwilling to seriously challenge the scum. They want to see the folks that they feel they had a big involvement in putting in to office to end the insanity and to address the national problems are getting nothing in return for their efforts. They see the wealthy get obscenely richer and they can’t afford health care. On and on – and i get the feeling that the incredible effort that they willingly out out in 06 ain’t gonna happen in 08!
And I can’t blame them any longer. I could give you a ton of examples in addition to the one above but It isn’t worth your time. I hope you are right but I don’t believe it!
the psyche of the Dem activist is taking a beating, but the psyche of the Dem voter is fine. All indications are that the Dem voter is motivated and enthusiastic, and perfectly happy (at the moment) with Hillary Clinton.
It’s frustrating, but it’s simply wrong to look at the angst of the blogosphere and see in it some great problem for the party.
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You know how I know it’ll be a realignment?
Follow the money.
Opensecrets.org is a fascinating website – I spent way too much time over there the last few days.
Every industry across the board seems to be giving more money to Dems than to the GOP. They know a storm is coming.
If you want to know when a ship is going to sink, follow the rats.
My only hope is that liberal activists don’t get frustrated when the conservatives continue to have the majority coalition (conservative Dems + Republicans).
Or, rather, I hope we DO get frustrated. Not enough to check out of politics altogether (as happened to many libs in the 80s) but just frustrated enough to gang up on conservative Dems and replace them with more progressive Dems.
We’re looking at a present where, despite Dems holding the majority, the “Conservative Party” still run the Congress – some of them just have a “D” by their names. This has to end – conservatism has failed as a governing ideology and we need a real change of course to get things back on track.
Making that change may be slow and hard – it may take a lot of effort to pry enough of the Bush Dogs and other conservative Dems out of office to have a real progressive governing coalition. But it’ll be worth it if I can leave a country I’m proud of for my children when it’s done.
I’m not so sure.
In the 2006 elections we won some seriously right wing seats (DeLay, Foley, Sherwood, Ney, Pombo) as well as rural seats in Indiana. The overall effect was to give a conservative majority.
But this time we are looking to win seats with a different mentality. Seats in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Philly (in So. NJ) and DC.
These seats are not being contested by Blue Dogs. And winning them will bolster the middle of the caucus, not the right.
Plus, they’ll all be pro-labor and all, or almost all, of them will be pro-choice.
How will they be on foreign policy? Probably right in the middle of the caucus.
the results of the Virginia election should remove any doubt that we are headed toward realignment.
that is why candidate recruitment and primaries are so crucial, what sort of Democratic party are we to have
that is also why so many corporations are throwing their support to HRC, they know there will be no nonsense of investigations and war crimes trials.
the internals of the Kentucky races are staggering.
Breathtaking realignment numbers.
I grew up in Kenton County. The perception of Fletcher as a corrupt crook was rampant, anecdotally among people who live there that I’m in touch with. It’s great that a democrat could do that well in what is usually a very red area, but I’d bet Fletcher had Nixonesque numbers after the hiring/pardon scandals.
Not that there aren’t other scenarios where the incumbent republican seems to be self-destructing, but not every race is going to be like this.
Fletcher was so damaged here in Kentucky that I (a Black man originally from Detroit) probably could have beat him Tuesday. Don’t read too much into Beshear’s win – it was completely Fletcher’s loss, not Beshear’s win. My hope is that Beshear will make the most of the next 4 years so that when he runs for re-election people will be voting for him in 2011 and not against the other guy.
My sense isn’t that people don’t think it will be a realignment, but rather that they think it will be a RINO (Realignment In Name Only).
I think there is a strong feeling after observing this Congress for the better part of a year that even if there are significantly more critters with a D after their name roaming the halls of the Capitol, there won’t be a correspondingly significant change in the direction of enacted policy.
The fact that the Democrats are outraising the Republicans points towards exactly this outcome, if you ask me. There are an awful lot of folks throwing around an awful lot of money who much more about continuing business as usual than they do the professed party affiliation of their beneficiaries.
“who care much more”
I agree with billjpa, to an extent. I do think it is true that the Democratic leadership, in their bubble as always, do not really have an inkling of the level of dissatisfaction among the activist and involved base(read: moneyraisers)of the party. I don’t think it is yet at a tipping point of them saying, “Screw it, I’m outta here”, but every day that passes with another capitulation, another blank check to the administration and the turning of a blind eye once again to the erosion of our Constitutional rights puts us one step closer to a potentially huge problem for the Democratic Party. The cash they have will get them a long way down the road in 08, but without the grassroots, activist involvement they might well not get the numbers they need to turn this into a true sea-change realignment. November 08 is a long way off and a there will be a lot of ebb and flow. But if the Democratic Party, through incompetence and neglect, continue in the same mode as they have since January 2007, a lot of people are going to be supremely unenthusiastic come prime time of the campaign season.
There is a palpable wave of discontent out here. You noted this, Boo, by the cynicism present in the blogosphere. It is reported that prior to the tsunami warnings being issued for Thailand in 2004 that animals could be seen heading to higher ground in the search for safe refuge. The wise and observant people among the populace took note of this and acted accordingly. Will the Democrats be able to see warning signs in time? Or will they be standing at the shore like so many in Thailand in 2004, watching the tidal wave approaching on the horizon that is coming to sweep them away? All the time wondering just what it was they were looking at.
Until it was too late.
Unfortunately (and, in a sense, fortunately) I don’t think the Democrats’ strategy is going to hurt them at all in any way.
They’ve built a trap, the Republicans have walked into it, and the Dems resolutely refuse to give them any avenue of escape.
This frustrates Democratic activists but it prevents the Republicans from snatching onto a limb and saving themselves. In a way, the damage is already done. It’s pretty much too late for the Republicans to recruit new candidates and the money ship already left the port.
No matter what happens in the mood of the electorate, the Republicans will have nothing to run on.
In fact, the Democrats can become a lot less risk averse at this point, if they want to, because they’ve absolutely won the battle already.
I’d also like to point out that Van Hollern’s recruitment has been a lot less DINO oriented than Emanuel’s recruitment.
I see your point and it might very well turn out as you describe. I’m almost 50 years old and I don’t think I have ever seen the Republicans in such a state of chaos and confusion as they are right now. I just had a discussion at lunch today with some Republican co-workers . They seem to be hanging their hats on another massive swiftboating campaign to help get Republicans over the top this next election cycle. I was quite amused and pointed out that I thought it was quite comical that after so many years as the sole governing party in this country that they had so little success to show that they have to depend on conjured lies and obfuscation in order to have even the potential to win anything. They were not amused.
Here in Ohio, the GOP was forced this week to resort to snark about Democrat’s victories this week. They have nothing, absolutely nothing of consequence to point to as a symbol of success here in Ohio.
And I hope you are right about getting away from running DINO candidates. This election needs to be about culling those type from the herd. If they want to be DINO’s, then they should change their party to “R”.
to be clear, there are plenty of DINOs running, but they don’t seem to be recruits, or well-funded, and they are running in long-shot districts.
In the Senate, with the possible exception of Tennessee (I don’t know) none of the recruits appear to be anti-choice. And this is in spite of the decidedly red-tilt of the senate seats that are up for reelection.
I’d also like to point out that Van Hollern’s recruitment has been a lot less DINO oriented than Emanuel’s recruitment.
how do you know? I am willing to believe you are right, but how do you know?
because I visit the issues page of every website of every democratic candidate that i can identify.
For example, if you want to see a potential DINO, check out Andrew Duck, who is running in the traditionally conservative sixth district of Maryland against Roscoe Bartlett.
Why do I say he is a potential DINO?
Well there’s this:
and this:
and this:
Is this guy likely to be my kind of Democrat? Probably not. But this race isn’t supposed to even by competitive, and yet it is.
From email.
The reason they may pick up seats is only due to the delay of reality perception in the general populace.
The realization that Dems are just as hot on right’s denial and the war on terra, as much as Bush is.
HR 1955 is just the latest example.
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And, looking back the Democrats picked up eight Senate seats and 21 House seats.