There are currently two competing, and demonstrably false, claims about the 2010 midterm elections:
The Republican claim that they would win the House if the election were held today is not true.
The counter-claim, or at least implied counter-claim, by some pro-Democratic bloggers that Republicans have made no gains is also not true.
The truth is, instead, in the middle. Republicans have made gains, but Democrats still lead.
This can be easily demonstrated through a look at congressional generic ballot polling over the last four months of both 2005 and 2007, as well as a look at polling over the last two months of 2009 (that is, August 15th forward). Using archived data from Polling Report (for 2006), Real Clear Politics (for 2008), and a combination of Pollster.com and Polling Report for 2010 (Pollster.com for most polls, but Polling report for Daily Kos, CBS, and NBC polls), we can quickly see that Republicans are in a better position than they were in either 2006 or 2008, but that they are still clearly behind Democrats:
Democratic Lead, Generic Congressional Ballot, Autumn 2009, 2007 and 2005
Methodology
2010
2008
2006
All Polls
3.8
11.2
9.3
1 Poll per Pollster
5.3
10.6
9.9
All Polls, no Rasmussen
6.0
10.0
9.3
1 Poll per pollster, No Rasmussen
6.0
9.5
9.9
"All Polls" means every poll from every pollster, including multiple polls from pollsters with multiple polls.
"1 Poll per Pollster" means the most recent poll from every pollster that conducted one in the given time frame
the next two lines simply repeat #1 and #2, eliminating all Rasmussen polls
According to every measurement, even when Rasmussen polls are removed from the equation, Republicans are in a better position than they were in either the autumn of 2005 or the autumn of 2007. Even when it comes to the minimum gain of 3.5% gain for Republicans--represented in the fourth metric--there is still a greater than 90% chance that it is a real gain and not a statistical fluke.
At the same time, in every measurement, Democrats still hold a significant advantage well beyond the normal margin of error for polling averages of this sort. Even when all polls from every polling firm are included in the average--a method that currently shows Democrats only ahead by 3.8%--there is still a greater than 90% chance that Democrats would win the national House popular vote if the election were held today.
The data used in these calculations can be viewed here: comparing generic congressional ballot polls, one year out, 2010, 2008 and 2006. Simple polling averages were used. However, as I will argue in a few days, if enough polls are used in the averages, such simple means can actually produce 20-30% most accurate results than other poll-based forecasting / snapshot methods.
The bottom line is that it is very, very likely that Republicans are in a better position now than there were in 2006 and 2008, and that it is equally likely they are still losing. This may not be a breakthrough conclusion, as most political observers probably intuitively sense this to be state of the current political environment. Still, I find that providing numbers to ground such discussions is always a useful exercise.
Reps. Michael Arcuri (D-NY); Pete DeFazio (D-OR); Betty Sutton (D-OH); Leonard Boswell (D-IA); Steve Cohen (D-TN); Joe Courtney (D-CT); Keith Ellison (D-MN); Bob Filner (D-CA); Phil Hare (D-IL); Mazie Hirono (D-HI); Hank Johnson (D-GA); Steve Kagan (D-WI); David Loebsack (D-IA); Eric Massa (D-NY); Linda Sanchez (D-CA); Jan Schakowsky (D-IL); Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH); Peter Welch (D-VT); and John Yarmuth (D-KY).
While it is something of a mixed bag, take a look at Populist caucus membership in the other Democratic ideological caucuses:
Blue Dogs and New Democrats (1): Arcuri (what joiner Arcuri is!)
Blue Dogs only (1): Boswell
New Democrats only (2): Braley, Courtney
Progressives only (11): Cohen, DeFazio, Ellison, Filner, Hare, Hirono, Johnson, Loebsack, Sanchez, Schakowsky, Welch
No previous alignment: (5): Kagen, Massa, Shea-Porter, Sutton, Yarmouth
Clearly, there is a strong tendency toward the Progressive caucus among the Populists, even though they were organized by a New Democrat. Further, Progressive punch puts the median lifetime score on "crucial votes" for this group at 55.5 of 256 (between Courtney at 54 and Loebsack at 57) in the Democratic caucus, placing it decidedly in the left-wing of the party.
No matter what the polls show at any given moment, as long as you frequents progressive circles, it is inevitable that you will hear some variation on the following statements: it shouldn't be this close or Obama should be ahead by a lot more. Part of this is comes from some progressives never being able to understand why anyone would vote for Republicans, a sort of "everyone I know voted for McGovern" provincialism. Mostly, however, it comes from understandable frustration that, after the 2006 victory, with equally large House and Senate gains on tap for 2008, after Bush approval rating dropped to 29%, with over 70% of Americans saying that they don't like the direction of the country, and after a Democratic primary that seemed to turn the entire country into Democrats, people wonder why we aren't cruising to a big victory. We seem to be winning everywhere else, and the country seems to agree with us on just about everything, so why is the Presidential election in any doubt at all?
In the extended entry, I provide perspective on this question.
Let me first say that I'm not actually one of those Democrats who thinks that third party challenges need to be squashed, or that the people who vote for leftist third party candidates are somehow actually supporting Republicans. My feelings on the matter are as follows:
A vote for a third party candidate is not the same as voting for a Republican. Instead, it is effectively the same as not voting at all. While no analogy is perfect (the truth is that voting for a third party candidate is the same as voting for a third party candidate), this one holds up much better to logical scrutiny. Other than the extremely rare situations where third-party candidates have a shot at winning, voting for a third party candidate ultimately impacts the outcome of the election in the same manner as not voting at all.
No one is entitled to votes. If progressives or Independents or whoever end up voting for third-party candidates, then the Democratic nominee just didn't do a good enough job winning those votes. Period. It isn't the fault of the voters--it is the fault of the candidate.
We shouldn't expect, or even desire, consensus. We would indeed live in a disturbing version of a republic if no one voted for third parties, if everyone voted, and if everyone was enthusiastic about one of the two major party nominees. Dissent via third parties, via not voting, and via "holding one's nose" is healthy for any republic. While third parties and not voting tend to be just about the least effective forms of dissent available, it would still be a shame if the 1-3% of the country that voted third party every two years went away.
Now, with all of that said, as I explain in the extended entry, I still don't want anything to do with third-parties. While they should not be existentially scorned, for anyone who actually wants to change the American political system, the ineptitude of third-parties is indeed worthy of scorn.
Now that Congress has a record low approval rating, it is important to remember how we were all told this time last year that the 2006 midterm elections were a victory for conservatives, and a defeat for progressives. Prominent conservatives, Republicans and other media figures all declared last year's election as a great victory for conservatives. Here are just some relevant quotes to demonstrate this, starting with Laura Ingraham, October 30, 2006:
[A]ll these Democrats are running fairly conservative campaigns…. Ronald Reagan is up there smiling down on us right now saying that, all things considered, conservatism isn't doing so bad.
William Bennett echoed Ingraham, asserting that "Democrats have an advantage" because they have recruited candidates in competitive districts "who, except for the 'D,' you would think are conservative Republicans."
Look at blue dog conservative Dem victories, and look at Northeast liberal GOP defeats. The changeover in the House may well be a conservative victory, not a liberal one.
But despite the new House leaders, White House officials are not writing off the chamber as a bastion of liberalism, Snow said, adding that Bush believes the chamber will actually mirror his thinking on issues -- and perhaps even reject Pelosi's on occasion.
"Three dozen blue dogs have voted against her on various issues," Snow said, using a nickname for conservative Democrats. "And it's the conservative Democrats who made real gains."
"[L]iberalism didn't win anything yesterday; Republicanism lost. Conservatism was nowhere to be found other than on the Democrat [sic] side of the aisle."
CARLSON: [S]he [Pelosi] was one of the architects of this midterm election strategy, in which you saw a lot of genuinely -- or some genuinely conservative Democrats. Heath Shuler -- I mean, that guy's more conservative than most Republicans in the House.
****
Never forget that we were told after last year's elections that the actual victory was for conservatives and conservatism. I remember fighting against that narrative at the time, but it is growing more and more difficult to not see that narrative as accurate. A working conservative majority in firmly in place where filibusters and vetoes and be used indefinitely by the Republican minority and Bush until enough conservative Democrats break ranks and pass conservative legislation on virtually everything. Republicans were broadly defeated by progressive messaging on Iraq withdrawal, economic inequality and corruption, but a combination of Bush staying in office, a sizable Republican congressional majority after the 2004 elections, and intentionally conservative recruiting by Rahm Emanuel in several House districts allowed conservatives to stay in power nonetheless.
Conservatives and Republicans claimed this Congress was conservative, and the working conservative majority bears them out. I say we let them have it. If Republicans and conservatives make any complaints about the way Congress is operating, let's just point out that they claimed in was a conservative Congress last year. Record low approval ratings demonstrate that America doesn't like this conservative majority anymore than they liked the previous conservative majority, after all. This is especially since the same liberal leadership that conservatives and Republicans keep complaining about actually appear to be proposing things that the majority of the country would like to see passed into law:
"Do you think the policies being proposed by the Democratic leaders in the U.S. House and Senate would move the country in the right direction or the wrong direction?"
Right direction 50%--39% Wrong Direction
America is tired of conservatives being in charge. They want progressives for a change.
The first general election poll out of MA-05 shows a surprisingly competitive race in this extremely pro-Democratic district (PVI D +10.7). From Survey USA, 9/7-9/9, 411 LVs, MoE 4.9:
The worrying part about this poll is that Tsongas is losing independents, 46-39, and that Ogonowski holds Republicans better than Tsongas holds Democrats. That is the old formula we saw working against Democrats before the wave started to build in mid-2005. Most worrying of all, Ogonowski is nearly even with Tsongas among those who disapprove of Bush, 46%-47%. If Democrats no longer hold the edge in partisan coherency, are behind among independents, and local Republicans have successfully distanced themselves from Bush and national Republicans, then the two-year plus run where Democrats held a decisive electoral advantage nationwide might be over.
To see if this really was a warning sign, or simply to be expected in an open seat campaign, I went back to 2006 and compared this result to a pre-election poll in a very similar district in 2006: Vermont At-Large. Back then VT-AL was also an open seat. It has a PVI of D +9.1, and is also situated in New England. It was somewhat of a relief to see that the final pre-election poll in that district was identical to this poll in MA-05:
MA-05 poll, 9/7/07-9/9/07: Tsongas (D) 51%--41% Ogonowski (R)
VT-AL poll, 10/23-10/24/06: Welch (D) 51%--41% Rainville (R). Welch went on to win 53-45. The poll was taken by Research 2000, and can be found in the subscriber section of polling report.
Now, that isn't to say that we are entirely out of the woods. There were other heavily Democratic open seats in 2006, which ended up as more comfortable Democratic victories than VT-AL. Here are a few:
HI-02, PVI D +9,7: Hirono (D) 61%--39% Houge (R)
IL-17, PVI D +4.6: Hare (D) 57%--43% Zinga (R)
IA-01: PVI D +4.8: Braley (D) 55%--43% Whalen (R) (Final polls showed Democratic leads of 56-35 and 49-42)
TN-09:PVI D +15.7: Cohen (D) 60%, two others split 40%
So, in these comparable districts, the Democrats all won by more than 10%, all better than Welch's performance in Vermont. They also pushed the party to the left, as all four joined the Congressional progressive caucus, including two in leadership positions in the caucus (Hirono and Hare). They also replaced to Blue Dogs (Case in HI-02, Ford in TN-09) and one Republican (IA-01). Peter Welch also joined the CPC.
So, there are at lest two reasons to be disappointed in the MA-05 election so far. First, it is doubtful that Tsongas will be the strong progressive that we tended to score in blue open seats in 2006 (although it is also unlikely that she will be a Bush Dog). Second, the campaign seems to be closer than blueish open seats were in 2006. Now, the latter could simply be the flukey results of one poll, which would make this over-analyzing a single result. However, I have to wonder if there is a connection between the two disappointments. Perhaps it is closer than it should be in MA-05 because there isn't as much local, grassroots, progressive activist energy behind Tsongas compared to what we saw in comparable campaigns in 2006. I can't prove that, but I do have to wonder. Reduced activist enthusiasm for electing just any Democrat, rather than preferred, progressive Democrats, could be a factor for Democrats in 2008. Finding a way to get that activism back will be a key to a larger Democratic majority in 2008.
We have heard for some time that Democrats won the popular vote for the US House 52%--46%. However, the final, official House results from every seat are now available from the FEC, and they show an even larger victory for Democrats than commonly thought:
Total US House Vote
Democrats: 42,255,280 (52.52%)
Republicans: 35,657,353 (44.32%)
Others: 2,542,040 (3.16%)
The official numbers show Democrats winning by 8.2%, which is noticeably more than the 6% figure that has floated around for sometime. Even if one removes D.C., Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa from the vote totals, Democrats still won 52.48%--44.35%, or more than 8%.
Why do I point this out? This larger Democratic victory margin means that the 2006 elections were decided by a larger margin than the 1994 midterm elections (6.0% victory for Republicans), or the 1988 Presidential election (7.72% victory for Bush I). This means both that our mandate was larger, and that we should have more than 233 seats. Republican gerrymandered maps and poor performance in close elections are the culprit for the latter.
Anyway, for the real political junkie, this new release from the FEC is a goldmine, as it contains the official results for every 2006 federal election, broken down and organized in many different ways. I'll spend more time looking through it later today. I'd love to see further analysis of this data from fellow junkies in the comments.
Here is a four-pack for another fine, rainy evening:
Hastert To Retire Early; Special Election for IL-14 Likely This is big news, and suddenly makes all of the attention the IL-14 Democratic primary has been receiving worth it:
An Illinois Republican source tells us former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) plans to resign November 6 this year instead of finishing out his term. This would create a vacancy and trigger a special election in the 14th District.
Under Illinois statute, the governor, Rod Blagojevich (D), would get to pick the date of both of the special general election and the special primary election (with separate ballots for each party). The general election would have to be within 120 days of the vacancy (meaning by early March, if the November 6 resignation date holds). February 5 is the date for Illinois's presidential and congressional primaries, and slating the special election -- either the primaries or the general -- on that date would save state money.
If the special election, or at least the primary for the special election, is held on February 5th, it will coincide with Super Tuesday. This would be dangerous for Democrats, because it means that campaign would be largely overshadowed by the Presidential contest online, thus removing an important element of national support. Then again, with Obama running for President, it should also mean very high Democratic turnout in the district. Overall, it is hard to say if this will be a net benefit or not. Prairie State Blue has more on the IL-14 campaign.
Democrats on Tuesday proposed putting on a 2008 ballot an initiative aimed at having California join the movement to elect presidents by popular vote. The initiative, if successful, also would head off a Republican effort to get some of California's electoral votes.
GOP consultants have proposed a separate initiative to change California's winner-take-all system of awarding its 55 electoral votes. Under this measure, electoral votes would be awarded by how congressional districts vote, which could benefit the Republican nominee in this state with more registered Democrats.(…)
A team of Democrats filed two virtually identical initiatives with the California attorney general's office Tuesday, a first step to begin gathering the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to place either measure on the June or November ballot. (One version contains a clause stating that if both the Democratic- and Republican-backed initiatives make it onto the ballot, the one with the most votes would take precedence.)(…)
The national drive toward a popular vote would not scrap the electoral college system, but would require states to award their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the most actual votes nationally. It would take effect only if states representing a majority of the electoral votes agree to the change.
Not only would this prevent Republicans from stealing 19-20 electoral votes outright, making it much more difficult for Democrats to win the presidency in 2008 and beyond, but this is a great step forward for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a plan which I have endorsed in the past even as North Carolina Dems successful took four, and possibly seven, electoral votes from Republicans.
Clinton Way Ahead In New Gallup National Poll
To no one's surprise, Clinton stays well ahead of Obama and Edwards in the latest Gallup national poll 468 Dems and Dem leaners, 8/13-16., MoE 5, 8/3-5 numbers in parenthesis:
Clinton: 48 (48)
Obama: 25 (26)
Edwards: 12 (13)
No on else above 2%
Time For Teacher Accountability
Given my background as a teacher and union organizer, I find concepts like merit pay for teacher's an appalling means of destroying teacher recruitment, especially in inner cities, not to mention punishing many people who work in one of the most difficult professions nationwide. However, there is one circumstance where I wouldn't mind a little merit pay for teachers. Bush Dog Melissa Bean is apparently the new role model for Democratic candidates:
Bean, a self-styled pro-business Democrat from a slice of Chicago's north and northwest suburbs long dominated by the GOP, has become an archetype for many of the congressional rookies whose victories delivered control of the House to Democrats last fall -- and whose fortunes in 2008 will determine whether the new majority lasts another two years.(…)
"She's a real role model for someone like myself, running in a Republican-leaning district," said Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), a freshman who holds a top spot on the National Republican Congressional Committee's target list for 2008.(…)
Other Democrats followed suit across the country, winning seats long held by Republicans in areas where Bush cruised in his presidential victories. Bean mentored some of them, including Giffords, during the campaign.
'If she can do it, I can too'
"There's no question," Bean said in a recent interview, "that some of the candidates who ran in the last cycle said, 'If she can do it, I can too.'"
Holding up Giffords as a model isn't exactly compelling since, the NRCC abandoned the district to her on September 13, 2006. Would some of the other candidates Bean consulted include Diane Farrell, Lois Murphy, Linda Stender, Patricia Madrid, Mary Jo Kilroy, Victoria Wulsin, Christine Jennings, Teresa Hafen, and many of the other droves of Democratic women who lost close House elections in 2006? I mean, is there a way to take this as something other than an admission that Melissa Bean's instructions are at least partially responsible for the horrid performance of Democratic women in US House elections in 2006? It would certainly make a lot of sense, since moving to the right was not exactly the same winning strategy in 2006 that it might have been in 2004.
By now, we have all heard about how the great Independent swing toward Democrats from 2004 to 2006 was the key to Democratic victory. This is something many of us saw coming for quite some time, and we even dubbed it the "Indycrat" phenomenon. The first article I saw on this was a June 2005 post by Jerome Armstrong. During the rest of that year, it was a topic that was discussed other places like Donkey Rising, Survey USA and many other election focused outlets.
However, at Yearly Kos I briefly chatted with Simon Rosenberg who asked me to look into whether, from 2004 to 2006, Democrats received a greater vote swing from self-identified Democrats or from self-identified Independents. The reason he asked me to do that is because he believed Democrats actually received more of a boost from self-identifying Dems than they did from self-identifying Independents. While I was skeptical of this at first, I just looked into it now, at it appears Simon was right. Comparing 2004 and 2006 exit polls, here is the estimated swing Democrats received according to partisan self-identification:
Overall Dem vote increase: 5.15%
Growth from Dem's: 2.41%
Growth from Ind's: 2.08%
Growth from Rep's: 0.66%
This is rather surprising, but it does seem to be the case that Democrats won 2006 just as much by exciting the rank and file as anything else. I am actually kicking myself right now for not realizing this sooner, as it is the sort of statistic I pride myself on digging up. This would have been extremely useful to combat the post-election narrative that Democrats won in 2006 by being centrist, conservative, or in anyway breaking from their own party. The independent swing was important, but the swing they managed to pull off through an excited base was just as important, if not more so. Democrats stuck with their own party more often than Republicans, and then turned out at higher rates. Without this swing from their own base, Republicans would certainly still be in the majority in the Senate, and probably still be in the majority in the House.
The role of the Democratic base in winning the 2006 election has been extremely under-reported. This is disturbing, because the power centers one uses to win an election almost inevitably end being the power centers to whom ones caters after the election. If Democrats are unaware that there own base was largely responsible for their victory then, well, that might actually explain the way we have governed to date. There are quite a few Democrats, such as these congresscritters listed by Howie, who don't think they owe their own base anything, and they are voting accordingly. I think it would be useful to find a way to remind them who helped put them in office / the majority.
(Bumped to further add to the discussion on this topic. Also, I have posted a lengthy comment in this diary instead of making another front-page post directly in response. The more viewpoints we hear on this subject, the closer I think we will be to an answer and the better off I think we will be. - promoted by Chris Bowers)
Chris Bowers is raising the right concern - that we need more women in elected office - but he's asking the wrong question ("Why Did Democratic Women Do So Poorly in 2006 Elections" July 10). In pointing to losses by women in several close races, Bowers assumes the problem lies in the candidates who ran last year or the way their campaigns were managed. But the root of the gender gap in politics rests with the women who did NOT run last year.
The 2006 results for women House candidates were disappointing, but were an aberration based more on the toss-up dynamic of some of the closest House races in history rather than a deficiency attributable to women candidates.
Women are more than half the population, but currently hold less than a quarter of all elected offices in the United States. We know these women are much more likely to run for office if someone asks them, and if they have access to support and resources to get started. So the real challenge is getting more of the right women on the ballot. If we can accomplish that, we'll see more women in office.
Fortunately, the Women's Campaign Forum is targeting the gender gap at its root: where the pipeline begins. WCF's She Should Run campaign, launched in June, is an initiative to recruit 1,000 pro-choice women to run for office up and down the ballot. It's about finding qualified women across the country who should seriously consider running for office -- your mom who is a community leader with experience effecting change, your sister who has stood up for what she believes in and has results to prove it, your boss who isn't afraid of risk, your best friend who has both the experience and the intellect to make a difference -- and encouraging them to make the jump to school board, city council, or legislature.
See what Congresswomen Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kirsten Gillibrand and Washington D.C. City Councilmember Carol Schwartz have to say about the importance of encouraging more women to run:
These are the types of projects that our country needs to get women on the road to successful political careers. If we want more qualified women to hold elected office, we need to make sure they get the critical "ask" -- the tipping point -- that gets them to run.
We hope you'll visit She Should Run and nominate one of our great American women.
In many ways 2006 was an extraordinary year for pro-choice Democratic women and for EMILY's List. We helped elect two new women to the United States Senate, all of our incumbent Senators and Representatives were re-elected, and all three of our Democratic women governors won re-election. Additionally, eight new Democratic women were elected to the House.
We take very seriously our responsibility to level the playing field for women candidates, and seek to continually do better. After every election for the past 22 years, EMILY's List closely examines the election results to better inform and educate Democratic women candidates as they run for office in the future; this election was no exception. In fact, we use outside analysts to do this, so that the examination can be as fair and balanced as possible. As we continue our research we will make sure our candidates are fully briefed because our ultimate goal is to win.
So far our analysis of the 2006 election has shown no single unifying explanation for why women candidates lost in these extremely close House races. Indeed, in many districts there were factors specific to that race that made a difference.
Keep in mind that if only 11,411 votes had gone the other way seven more pro-choice Democratic women would have won. These races were that close.
If there is a factor worth noting it's that these close races engaged early, and Republicans therefore were prepared to go on the attack early and did. Some of the races involved rematches from '04, many others were targets very early on.
Over the past two decades, no one has done more than EMILY's List to create a greater voice for Democratic Women at all levels of government. We have proudly helped elect 67 U.S. House members, 13 Senators, and eight Governors as well as hundreds of women at the state and local level over the years and look forward to helping elect many, many more in 2008 and into the future.
In 2006, of the thirty Republican-held House seats most heavily targeted by Democratic Party committees and allied progressive organizations, twenty-one of the Democratic nominees challenging for those seats were male, and nine of the Democratic nominees challenging for those seats were female. With the elections over, twenty of the twenty-one men in that group are now serving in Congress. However, Kirsten Gillibrand in NY-20 is the only woman in that group who is now serving in Congress. For some reason, of the top thirty Democratic House targets in 2006, Democratic men won 95% of the time, while Democratic women won only 11% of the time. (Updated: Gabrielle Giffords in AZ-08 might be an exception, but it should be noted that once the primary was over, Republicans didn't spend a dime to defend that seat. Instead, they conceded, at least on a national level. Either way, the statistical improbability holds...)
Simple randomness cannot explain this statistic away, as the odds of this happening purely by chance are, at least according to my calculations, about 1 in 33,000,000. (Updated: Commenter sdedeo estimates the odds at 1 in 75,000. Still, highly, highly unlikely to just be chance.) Also, I find it untenable to conclude that the average female Democratic candidate in the top thirty targeted races was weaker than the average top male Democratic candidate. For one thing, two of the biggest surprise Democratic victories on election night came in KS-02 with Nancy Boyda, and especially in NH-01 with Carol Shea-Porter. In other words, some of the longer shot Democratic women candidates did just fine. In fact, more, or at least as many (updated qualifier), Democratic women pulled off shocking wins on election night than they did top-tier victories. When one starts thinking of the close, frustrating House defeats in 2006, it is overwhelmingly populated by women: Francine Busby in the CA-50 special election; Blue Majority candidates Linda Stender (NJ-07) and Darcy Burner (WA-08); local Philadelphia favorite Lois Murphy in PA-06; Rahm Emanuel’s favorite, Tammy Duckworth, in IL-06; not to mention Heather Wilson Patricia Madrid in NM-01, Mary Jo Kilroy in OH-15, Tessa Hafen in NV-03, Angie Paccione in CO-04, Diane Farrell in CT-04; and of course Christine Jennings in the stolen FL-13 election. Further, there were the frustrating primary losses of Donna Edwards in MD-04 and Christine Cegelis in IL-06 (Update: Vic Wulsin in OH-02 was another, extremely close loss in a district that the netroots supported big-time, even if Wulsin herself didn't receive that support directly.).
This is not a chance occurrence. Instead, it can only point to a fundamental, structural problem in the way virtually the entire progressive ecosystem promotes top Democratic women candidates. Since the election, I have heard numerous possible explanations for these defeats. Here are just some of them:
The election turned on Iraq, and the “fighting Dem” narrative relied heavily upon veteran Democrats, who skew male. This also connects to inherently sexist views in the national electorate about gender roles and national security.
Democratic women candidates in suburban districts intrinsically seem soft on immigration, and thus needed to outflank Republicans from the right on the issue. (Unfortunately, I’m not kidding about this one. Multiple inside sources have confirmed to me that Rahm Emanuel himself promotes this idea.)
As the nation’s largest PAC, EMILY’s List offers a second layer of outside control—at least the level of control instituted by the DCCC—over the campaigns of Democratic women running for heavily targeted Republican seats. Women candidates are thus even less able to tailor their message to their district—and to themselves—then male Democratic candidates.
The second idea is just so utterly unsupportable, not to mention potentially destructive to the development of the Democratic coalition into a long-term governing majority, that I won’t dignify it with any further comment. However, while I doubt that any one explanation will provide the answer, I think both #1 and #3 offer promising avenues of investigation. Is the Democratic narrative on Iraq not helpful for Democratic women candidates? Is EMILY’s List as controlling as the DCCC when it comes to forcing campaigns to accept certain messages and staffers, or else lose both the funding and the credibility that comes with being endorsed by EMILY’s List? Is there some other explanation that I haven’t mentioned here?
I would like to know what you think, because this question needs an answer before the 2008 cycle for House elections heats up any further. We simply cannot allow our top women candidates suffer the same fate in 2008 that they suffered in 2006. Something is very wrong in the way we are promoting women candidates, and it needs to be fixed ASAP.
