There are rumors Jim Ogonowski, who narrowly lost to Niki Tsongas in MA-05 in 2007, is going to challenge John Kerry. Kerry doesn't have terrific approvals in Massachusetts, but I don't see how Ogonowski comes close. If he does it, John Kerry will have to spend more time in his home state. But that's about it. The Republicans have been murmuring about starting their own 50 state strategy, but recruiting on their side has just been dismal. Ogonowski really is the best they have, which does not speak well of their chances in 2008.
For all the talk that Hillary Clinton is running a strong campaign, I think she's quite vulnerable in a general election. The MA-05 election results, while you could chalk them up to a weak Democratic general election candidate and localized conditions, suggests that the strategy of running as a nonpartisan get things done Republican against corrupt DC Democratic insider could work. And let's not forget, that the local dynamics notwithstanding, Ogonowski was outspent 4:1.
Giuliani is a potentially strong Republican nominee in Ogonowksi's mold, given that the right-wing noise machine, combined with Democratic ineptitude on communications, will give him the opportunity to systematically lie about his entire record and that of his opponent. He is crazy on the Middle East, and will destroy America, but it's not clear enough that Clinton takes a different posture on Iran to have that matter. There's actually a good but depressing case to be made that there is much less room between any of the top candidates on Iran, that the 2008 election doesn't actually matter, and that all that does matter is the gobs of money being printed by the Fed and shipped to our enemies to pay for the war in Iraq.
But let's talk politics and what the MA-05 race means for the 2008 election. Clinton is running a reasonable primary campaign, but in a general election campaign, though, it's going to be very difficult for her to get around perceived slippery answers on Iraq, Iran, and even torture. She will have to make news to drown out the lies, something her current campaign isn't doing.
While I've thought for some time that the public has learned to hate Republicans over the past seven years, I'm not so sure anymore. Ogonowski wouldn't commit to voting for children's health care, and he came within 6 of beating Tsongas. More than that, I think his basic argument is correct. This Congress is broken. Nancy Pelosi promised to 'drain the swamp' and change directions in Iraq. That hasn't happened. Jim Webb in his state of the Union response said that if Bush did not shift strategies 'Democrats would show him the way'. That hasn't happened.
Ultimately, Ogonowski's argument is that there is no difference between the parties, that both are full of people who break faith to the voters. And given that the Democratic Congress lied to the American public, promising but not delivering change in Iraq, it's actually true. Tsongas ran a campaign playing into that, saying that her vote would end the war, which of course it won't.
When Clinton says she'll end the war, while keeping troops in Iraq, the Republicans will be sure to point out that this is double-speak. My crystal ball is blurry as always, and I have no idea how the Republican candidate will handle President Bush being a militaristic asshole (he can't help it) while the candidate tries to run around convincing everyone that Republicans stand for not Bush. I can see a weird scenario where the Republican says that the Bush-Clinton war was a mistake, pointing out that Bush executed the war while Clinton authorized it, but that we have to get it right now or we'll have to go back later. This was Ogonowski's line, and it seemed to work well enough.
Clinton might go all Kerry-esque with the 'I voted for the authorization not the war', since that's what she genuinely thinks, and I'm now going to vomit a little in my mouth. I can see now how all the people who think Clinton's campaign is great instead of a vicious back biting swamp that all campaigns turn out to be will turn on her, as they did Kerry's campaign. And really a campaign isn't that complicated, but is always 'garbage moving in the right direction'. There are a few key decisions that matter, and that's it. Clinton made the decision to run as John Kerry 2.0, since he nearly won. And Democratic primary voters don't really have a choice, since Clinton's the only candidate who actually understands how crazy the right-wing really is. But anyway, Clinton could be saddled with her war vote, and Iraq may no longer be Bush's war in 2008. She'll promise to end the war, but then again, so did the Democratic Congressional leaders. And they didn't.
There are a lot of variables here, so one question how do we think through testing the blurring model that Ogonowski semi-successfully used. I'm having trouble at this point advocating for a Democratic President, except that I think another Republican administration is a threat to the well-being of everyone I care about. If I were Lee Atwater, I'd know how I'd run the Republican campaign. It would be dirty, it would be nasty, it would be full of lies, and it would hit the Democrat from all sides, but above all, on the notion of trust. And it's hard to argue that you should trust these Democrats.
49% reporting: Ogonoski 51%--46% Tsongas. That's pretty bad
3% Reporting: Tsongas 59%--38% Ogonoski
Looks like a 6% final margin--exactly what I thought. I may not be good at much, but I have gotten pretty good at calling election results after my 2004 failures.
A 6% victory in a D +10.7 district is pretty bad. It isn't quite as bad for us as a 3% victory for Republicans in the R +13.1 OH-02 in August of 2005, but it is close. The difference in swings is about 23 points compared to 16 points. As with the OH-02, much of the problem rests in the ossified local machine of the favored party nominating a weak candidate. Tsongas isn't as bad on the trial as Jean Schimdt, but she is close.
Well, the MA-05 special election is finally taking place tomorrow. The most recent poll on the campaign in this D +10.7 district shows a fairly close result looming:
A couple of notes on this poll. First, IVR polls like Survey USA tend to capture more young votes than other survey methodologies, which would mean that this poll is inflating Ogonowski's numbers since he leads 2-1 among younger voters. However, this poll only projects 10% of the electorate under 35 years of age, which is either low or probably about right. So, it is possible that Ogonowski is closer than this. Second, there are basically no undecideds, but one can usually expect about half of voters who say they are going small third party to break with one of the two major parties. Normally, they would break for the "challenger" party, in this case Republicans, but with over 80% of current third-party supporters identifying as either moderate or liberal, and with Tsongas leading both categories, those voters do not seem fruitful ground for Ogonowski. Add it all up, and my best guess is Tsongas by six. That would make this campaign close, but not quite, the equivalent of Paul Hackett's 3% loss in the Republican +13 OH-02 back in 2005.
Now, let me ask what on earth is happening with younger voters in this district? No matter the small sample size, a 54-27 advantage for Ogonowski among voters under 35 is eye-popping. Let me venture a guess that a Democratic candidate over 60 years old, who appears to have won the nomination because her late husband was a Senator who ran a presidential campaign to the right of Bill Clinton, in an environment where Democrats in Congress are unpopular among their base, isn't exactly the best candidate to appeal to younger voters. In fact, it should be clear by now that Niki Tsongas wasn't a very good candidate to appeal to pretty much any voters. She almost blew a 25 point lead in the primary despite a million dollar fundraising advantage and, yeah, she is only in this position because of her late husband. The whole thing reeks of an ineffective, local Democratic machine that operates based on loyalty rather than merit or ideas, and which hasn't been tested by any serious opposition in a long time. For example, when we targeted the former member of Congress in this district in the Use It Or Lose It campaign last year, the four million dollar cash on hand Marty Meehan, a local editorial board called the campaign a "a nasty shakedown by rotten political scoundrels." This seems to be a very insular environment that is producing some mediocre candidates.
Throughout the country, most of the Democratic Party is run by ossifying, New Deal era local machines of this sort. It is reflected in Washington, D.C., where the party is actually run somewhat like a local machine (seniority, dues, loyalty, insularity, etc). The struggles that Tsongas is facing in what should be a very, very easy election is just one example of the ineffectiveness of these machines as electoral vehicles. Republicans are collapsing nationwide, and it would appear that only the ineffectiveness of the Democrats can save them right now.
That's the mailer that Jim Ogonowski sent out that should be hitting the district in the next few days. It's the cover he's using for opposing SCHIP expansion, so expect to see this all over Republican messaging in the next year. The Republicans are testing out messaging with the Ogonowski campaign.
The flyer is not true - the Lowell Sun didn't make those arguments. Still, I am curious if the MA-05 electorate is receptive to this messaging. It's a conservative Democratic district that has not been targeted by Republicans for some time on a national level, though the vicious race-baiting happened on a gubernatorial level in 2006 against Deval Patrick.
The combination of blurring on Iraq, calling for bipartisanship, and nativism is an expected formula for Republicans who have to run against their party without losing their base. Tsongas is becoming more progressive and partisan, and she's not that well-liked by the Lowell Democratic insiders. If you're in the area, consider helping her out. It's going to be a low turnout election, so volunteering will have an outsized impact.
You can always find more at Blue Mass Group. And if you know the district, give us your thoughts in the comments.
I'm hearing rumors that Ogonowski is closer than 10 points to Tsongas in the MA-05 special election set for 10/16, and there's some worry in the commonwealth among Democrats. Bill Clinton was in town for Tsongas, drawing huge crowds, which suggests this isn't the gimme contest it should be. Tsongas's opponent, Ogonowski, is very effectively going after her with a message that the problem with government is excessive partisanship while rhetorically tacking to the left of her on Iraq, health care, and Social Security.
Jim Ogonowski said, "Niki Tsongas is another Washington insider who will say anything to get elected. With the polls saying she is losing with seniors, Niki Tsongas now says she opposes increasing the retirement age. This is very different than what she said in June. I will never vote to raise the retirement age for social security."
When polling shows that voters don't agree with Niki Tsongas on a position, she does what all Washington politicians do - she changes her position. This is just politics Washington style, another political trick designed to hide the fact that Niki Tsongas doesn't hold any real convictions. She thinks that Washington values are a winning play in the 5th Congressional District. Her pandering coupled with her partisan rhetoric make it crystal clear who Niki Tsongas really is: yet another Washington D.C. insider who will put Washington values and special interests over the people's interests.
While Niki Tsongas calls her friends in Washington for more partisan attacks, Jim Ogonowski will continue to look for bi-partisan solutions to the problems America faces. Government is too big, too corrupt, and too partisan. The people of the 5th Congressional District looking for leaders who are hardworking, down-to-earth, and willing to work across the aisle to find bi-partisan solutions for America. They don't want another career politician who thinks a broken Washington works. Niki Tsongas is part of the problem. Jim Ogonowski is the solution for fundamentally changing the way Washington does business.
If Democrats continue to make arguments, as Mark Warner, Steny Hoyer, and Jeanne Shaheen do on excessive partisanship in Washington, they will continue to empower people like Ogonowksi. The guy would vote against SCHIP, and he's closing in the district.
Tsongas will be a capable Democrat in Congress. She's going to be a reliable vote for mainstream Democratic values, though she is not particularly great on TV. Her centrist credentials (inherited from her husband) are hurting her in this race, allowing Ogonowski to paint her as an elitist insider even as she is much more populist than he would be in policy terms.
It's something to watch out for, and if you live in MA-05, go to Niki's website and sign up to volunteer.
UPDATE: I've done some calling around. There is real concern here.
Last night, Deval Patrick and Hillary Bill Clinton held a rally for Niki Tsongas. Patrick had some choice words on the blurring strategy, which you can watch in this video:
Here are the passages that really caught my attention (emphasis mine):
But the change, the change has got to come from us, because we, regularly political people of every political background, keep falling for what Republicans say, and not holding them accountable for what they do.
There is a great deal at stake in this election, but if you listen closely to the two candidates, to the substance, they will sometimes sound a lot alike. And that's because if you are a Republican today in Washington, or rather if you are a Republican running to go to Washington, you run as fast as possible from away from the administration in Washington, and you try to blur the difference between that administration and Democratic principles and ideals.(…)
They both say, I've heard them both say, that they want an end to the war in Iraq, but one candidate wants to keep the troops there indefinitely. Does that sound like an end to the war in Iraq to you? And the other candidate, our candidate, is ready to make that hard call now.
In a funny way, both candidates sound like Democrats, but only one candidate is one. Only one is one, and that candidate is Niki Tsongas.
This is a great speech for Tsongas by Patrick, and it shows he really gets what is going on in terms of Iraq and electoral politics. Given that Hillary Bill Clinton was also at the event, I hope he has a chance to repeat the emphasized passage to Bill, and ask him to give the message to his wife. Hillary Clinton has still not said when she will pull all of the non-embassy troops out, and 2013 is apparently too early. To paraphrase what Deval Parick said, keeping troops in Iraq indefinitely does not sound like an end of the war to me.
I just got a press release from Republican Jim Ogonowski that validates two of Chris's concerns. One is his post on 'Warning Signs' in MA-05, and the other is his post on the Republican blurring strategy on Iraq. Ogonowski is running against Bush, on a Petraeus withdrawal, and is criticizng Tsongas for wanting to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely. The argument, that Tsongas's desire for an irresponsible withdrawal will necessitate returning troops to the region, is crazy, but Republican grassroots are pretty psyched about it and it makes sense as a pitch to independents, with whom Ogonowski is competitive.
Tsongas just got through with a nasty primary, with vicious negative attacks coming from a Lowell machine that will probably support Ogonowski. She didn't have the pull of the progressive base in the primary, because they got behind Eldridge. I hope that changes, which it seems to be as it becomes clear that Ogonowski will vote badly on things like SCHIP. If you want to know why I got so up in arms about Warner's messaging against partisanship, it's because that's exactly the message Ogonowksi is running on. It's also, incidentally, exactly what hyperpartisans like Mitch McConnell are running on as well.
Here's the press release.
OGONOWSKI TO BUSH: DEMAND IRAQI GOVERNMENT ASSUME MORE CONTROL
Tsongas wants to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely, Ogonowski calls to bring all the troops home safely and responsibly
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.
Emily's List had a success of sorts last week, when Niki Tsongas beat former Lowell Mayor Eileen Donoghue in Massachusetts 5th district primary. I say 'of sorts' because the mission of Emily's List is to elect pro-choice Democratic women, and both Donoghue and Tsongas fit that bill. The rationale from Emily's List for endorsing Tsongas was that she was 'the stronger candidate'. Tsongas won, despite an overwhelming fundraising advantage, some of which was provided by Emily's List, by around 4 points. I'm not sure how Tsongas was determined to be the stronger candidate, but if she was a better candidate than Donoghue, it wasn't by much. I should say that I'm glad Tsongas won, because Donoghue represents the Lowell machine and they are kind of awful; I'm just looking at the selection criteria for Emily's List.
This behavior fits a pattern. Look who is on Emily's List's group of featured candidates.
Christine Jennings, FL-13: Jennings is a strongly establishment former Republican and former bank CEO candidate who in 2006 used her support from Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, and Barbara Boxer to beat a liberal in the primary in 2006 before losing to a Republican in the general.
Kay Barnes, MO-06: Claire McCaskill took this district in 2006, though it went strongly for Bush in 2004. Barnes is the former Mayor of Kansas City and a top DCCC recruit.
Joan Fitz-Gerald, CO-02: The former Colorado state Senate head is in a three way primary with two other candidates over who will represent this liberal seat formerly held by Mark Udall. The candidates are pretty much indistinguishable.
Chellie Pingree, ME-01: Pingree is the former head of Common Cause and the former Senate Majority leader in Maine. She ran against Susan Collins in 2002 and was against the war during that race. There's a six way primary, with another female candidate in the race. [UPDATE: The other female candidate has said she will not run.]
Melissa Bean, IL-08: This is a Bush Dog who is being challenged in the primary by a longshot female progressive, and faces a tough reelection every year. She has a good record on choice.
Hillary Clinton: Clinton is probably the most conservative candidate in the Presidential race, and the only woman.
And who is not on the list of featured candidates?
Darcy Burner, WA-08: Burner is a strong progressive who just raised $125,000 from the netroots, and her male primary opponent with a questionable background on choice just dropped out. Burner was endorsed by Emily's List in 2006, and is now a top DCCC prospect.
Donna Edwards: Edwards is an extremely well-respected progressive lawyer and activist in the foundation community challenging a reactionary male Democrat in the primary. Though she nearly beat Wynn in 2006, she did not receive an Emily's List endorsement in 2006. She still has not.
Emily's List's mission statement, as it was explained to me by a reprsentative of the organization, is to 'elect pro-choice women candidates'. The group had a miserable record in a banner Democratic year in 2006, losing most of its House races though putting two conservative female Democrats in the Senate. In the recent MA-05 race, Emily's List actually caused its endorsed candidate damage, opening up an effective negative attack on Tsongas late in the race.
What all of the above featured candidates have in common is that they are 'establishment' acceptable choices in DC. That's not always a bad thing. I mean, I like Chellie Pingree, for instance, and I think she will be a good Democrat. Tsongas will probably be a good vote as well. But Pingree is replacing Tom Allen and that district will probably be a pickup, as will the MA-05 for Tsongas. Both Tsongas and Pingree are top-shelf IBM picks, as are Kay Barnes, a top DCCC pick, or Jennings or Bean. No one will get fired if they put resources into these races, even if they lose. Certainly no one was fired in 2006.
But it's not clear at all that Emily's List is supporting pro-choice female candidates that actually need the help, like Donna Edwards, who in her life has moved incredibly important feminist legislation in Congress against domestic violence. And it's weird that candidates with remarkable success on the internet, like Burner, are ignored. The concept 'early money is like yeast' came from Emily's List, and it means that validating organizations can help candidates early on in a way that later money does not. What's strange is that Emily's List does not validate you unless you are already 'in the club', and that lack of validation means that other donors might consider you 'fringe'. This was the case with Edwards, who few would support until she managed to almost take the district from Wynn despite having almost no money. If Emily's List had taken the bet on Edwards, there would be one more Democratic pro-choice candidate in the House today.
This has two consequences. One, progressive populist women tend not to get Emily's List endorsements, but insiders who fit their districts according to the current DC conventional wisdom do. Two, this creates a perverse incentive where female candidates who may want to run for office, like Edwards, are actually held back by a group that is ostensibly set up to elect more women. Running for office, especially if you are not already in politics, means taking a big risk in your personal and professional life. Organizations like Emily's List ought to be focused on mitigating that risk so that more women will take the plunge. But as we are seeing, they don't do that. The group withholds its validation from all but the most establishment candidates, even withholding it from those with demonstrated political success. It's ironic that Niki Tsongas, whose credibility comes from her position as the wife of a successful politician, got the nod from Emily's List to narrowly defeat another pro-choice Democratic woman, when a self-made politician like Donna Edwards, who has made substantive political achievements on behalf of women and is facing a reactionary Al Wynn, has not.
I'm not sure that Emily's List has even noticed this pattern of disenfranchising outsiders, but I would hope that Emily's List is willing to add a little more risk to their candidate selection process.
Turnout looks to be under 50,000, Donoghue is peaking, and voters are deciding based on advice from friends and family without any overriding ideological interests. This thread on Blue Mass Group is kind of interesting, though the race itself has been mostly boring. No candidate has really solidly captured a progressive block of voters; the Deval Patrick reformer types are somewhat behind Niki, while the identity progressives are somewhat behind Eldridge. Mostly this is a regional friends and family affair.
We'll see who wins in a few hours. It's probably Tsongas, though local Lowell favorite Donoghue could surprise with an upset. She's been running TV ads recently, she got a bunch of newspaper endorsements, and her negative framing of Tsongas has been successful. If anyone has momentum, it's Donoghue.
UPDATE: Here's Dick Howe, who has followed this race closely, discussing coverage from the Eagle Tribune.
Andover, Haverhill Lawrence and Methuen expect only 10%-15% of registered voters to show up and cast ballots in the 5th congressional district primary.
The latest polling on the Massachusetts fifth primary is out (via Blue Mass Group), and it shows that Niki Tsongas is still in the lead, but Lowell City Councilor Eileen Donoghue is surging.
Undecided voters are breaking decisively to Donoghue, Finegold is dying, Eldridge is static, and Tsongas is static.
The race has shifted because of Donoghue's aggressive strategy, and the Lowell machine kicking into gear. Both the The Lowell Sun and the Eagle Tribune endorsed Donoghue, and Lowell machine people are engaged in some vicious negative attacks on Tsongas, putting up the site NotNiki.com. The attacks have clearly been successful, and though Niki's base isn't going down, late breakers are going for Donoghue. These are nasty people going after Niki; if you'll recall, it was the Lowell Sun that called the 'Use it or Lose it' campaign to get Marty Meehan to transfer some part of $5M from his PAC in a safe seat to the DCCC "a nasty shakedown by rotten political scoundrels."
This is going to be a turnout game on Tuesday. Lowell is going turn their people out for Donoghue, so Tsongas's organization needs to be solid. It's too bad she didn't operate as a progressive, otherwise that 15% Eldridge has would be hers and the race would be over. When I first looked at this election, I had thought this would be a standard progressive versus establishment race. But it's not quite that, it's more about a local machine (Donoghue) fighting against state elite liberal reformers and DC groups like Emily's List (Tsongas).
Once again, this race is up to the hard core support, since the special election is right after labor day and the fight is not generating big press. I'm not sure who wins in that scenario, though it is the only thing Eldridge has working for him.
Over the course of this race, I've become less interested in Jamie Eldridge and less hostile to Niki Tsongas. There are competing Democratic factions in Massachusetts politics, and while Eldridge is 'the progressive' brand-wise, he's also young, setting himself up for future office, and is drawing almost no support from conservative Democrats. Tsongas has a name that suggests a strong Massachusetts political reform legacy, and is polling well across all groups because that legacy fits with recent quiet Deval Patrick liberalism. She also has strong ties to DC, and is the perfect pro-choice 'don't rock the boat' Emily's List candidate.
It's really Donoghue who is drawing in the local Lowell machine, with Finegold running as a quirky moderate. Overall, Tsongas is pulling in roughly 38%, with 43% split among the three other major candidates roughly evenly. With support stable among the three, I don't see how any of them makes up ground. Surprisingly, there's only a small gender gap, with Tsongas drawing in 5 points more among women than men.
It's going to come down to turnout, but right now, I don't see how Niki Tsongas loses this one.
The next election for a Congressional change is the primary on September 4th to fill the seat vacated by Marty Meehan in Massachusetts fifth district. It's an intra-party primary for a safe seat, and should give us a nod as to voter trends. While useful to track, it's also excruciatingly boring. Every candidate is a very nice person, from progressive Jamie Eldridge to Niki Tsongas the milquetoast, cautious and establishment front-runner. Everyone's just so nice. Bleh.
The Lowell machine is at the core of the race. After having been smacked around during the Deval Patrick primary campaign against Tom Reilly, it's clear that insiders aren't in complete control of the state's politics anymore. The seat is being vacated by Marty Meehan, who despite his denials is trying to pass it off to his friend and political ally Niki Tsongas. Tsongas is the wife of the late neoliberal Senator Paul Tsongas. Tsongas is the very model of a cautious Democrat, an EMILY's list darling running as a dynastic legacy, on the board of the Robert Rubinite Concord Coalition until resigning to run for Congress.
To recap a bit of political history, Meehan's was the Congressman who wouldn't help during the use-it-or-lose it campaign of 2006. Because of his stubbornness, $5 million in his reelection account sat on the sidelines during the 2006 election, which cost Democrats at least two or three seats. And then he retired, ensuring that $5 million would be wasted. Thanks, Marty!
Tsongas is facing four opponents who are splitting the vote among them. There is a bit of polling dat, though nothing reliable. In a July 23 poll done by the Tsongas campaign, here's how they lined up among likely primary voters. Tsongas 36% Donoghue 13% Eldridge 12% Finegold 10% Meceli 4%
25% of the field was undecided at the time, so the race is not only boring, it's fluid. Tsongas-rival Eileen Donoghue shortly thereafter put out a poll showing Tsongas dropping in support from 35% to 26%. The large number of undecideds seems right, but I'm not sure if Tsongas is slipping in the polls. My guess is that she is, but it's a very low information primary.
Tsongas is crushing the rest of the field in money, with over a million dollars raised. She's lined up the entire Massachusetts establishment, including Kerry and Obama bundler Alan Solomont and Dean campaign Chair and former DNC Chair Steve Grossman. She's also pulled in a huge contingent of female elites, including EMILY's List, which endorsed her over the more experienced female candidate and former mayor of Lowell Eileen Donoghue. Tsongas has also received the endorsement of the Communications Workers of America, adding to her 'inevitability' sheen.
Eldridge is running as an ideological progressive, arguing for single payer health care, withdrawal from Iraq, and impeachment. He's not a very good fundraiser, though he has pulled in a quarter million or so. He is knocking on a lot of doors and has some part of the activist base. Finegold is running a race against DC, and Donoghue is well-respected former mayor of Lowell. She's probably the best candidate on TV and has high name recognition in the largest city in the district, but her fundraising has been starved by Tsongas.
This is a good wind-up for the 2008 primaries. In New Hampshire, establishment EMILY's lister Jeanne Shaheen is facing 33 year old French-Canadian duel citizen Steve Marchand and astronaut Jay Buckey (and LieberDem Katrina Swett, but I have a hard time taking her seriously). And of course there's the Presidential race itself, where tribalism is going to be the single most important factor. Massachusetts fifth is on the border of New Hampshire, so we'll get some indication of how voters will react based on watching it.
All candidates know it's going to be a grassroots driven campaign, since the election is right after labor day. It's pretty much a ground game with little polling, which makes it unpredictable.
Any MA people care to chime in?
UPDATE: I just got new polling numbers from the Tsongas campaign.
15% are undecided. The person who gave me the numbers also said that they don't really matter, as it's a turnout game. Tsongas has also picked up the Laborer's and Firefighter's endorsements. I also got a strong denial that the Lowell machine is backing Tsongas, but that the big city machine people are behind Donoghue out of disdain for Paul Tsongas' reformist career.
This is also the most conservative district in Massachusetts, and the Republican is pretty well-liked. Ah, local politics.
The special election in Massachusetts' fifth is continuing apace, and it seems to be taking a very anti-Washington tone. The closing statements from all five candidates from the latest debate are here, and it's interesting how often 'Washington special interests' comes up. Barry Finegold even ran an ad against DC, saying that Congress isn't listening to constituents who want to 'stop the war'.
Part of this is because Niki Tsongas is the perceived incumbent, with her even claiming to have represented the district in Washington. Jamie Eldridge has the most blog-support, but multiple candidates are local officials and there's no clear anti-Tsongas frontrunner. A lot of this is going to boil down to organization, which would seem to favor Jamie except that his base is not in the district center of gravity Lowell.
I was on the Hill for meetings all day on Tuesday, speaking to three separate members of Congress. While they are all good people and incredibly hard-working, there's very little awareness of how much anger there is in the rest of the country. As always, stay tuned to BlueMassGroup.
I've done some blogging on the Massachusetts fifth contest, where five candidates are running to fill Marty Meehan's seat in a special primary to be held on September 4. The frontrunner is Niki Tsongas, a moderate Democrat who is the widow of Paul Tsongas and a somewhat milquetoast Emily's List candidate (check out this ad to see what I mean). She came in with a spectacular fundraising quarter, with $563,418.92 cash on hand after just cracking the million dollar mark. She's running TV ads and her campaign is going very aggressively. When I called her campaign, they got right back to me even though I haven't been particularly supportive. Roger Lau, Niki's campaign manager, is an old friend (though it's kind of funny that we always end up on different sides of races). The Tsongas campaign is unafraid and confident in their strategy. Of the other candidates, Barry Finegold has $450,074.27 on hand, Republican Jim Ogonowski has $111,706.98, Eileen Donoghue has $279,141.43, and Jamie Eldridge has $140,748.41.
Check out this video endorsement - Jamie Eldridge has a whole wall of them. That's what primaries bring us, this kind of political innovation.
Ok, so we all know that one place where liberals can have a big impact on our party is in primary contests. Obviously, as backer of Donna Edwards, OL knows that taking on an incumbent is one model for this kind of work. Last cycle, it wasn't just Edwards, but Lamont who illustrated the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach. But another approach that is perhaps less clear cut in terms of heroes and villains is in open seats. Massachusetts 5th is one such case, where Democrat Niki Tsongas is running against liberal Jamie Eldridge to replace Marty Meehan. It's a fairly strong district for Democrats.
This is an interesting matchup, with both candidates embracing a grassroots style of campaigning. Tsongas has a bunch of fundraisers on Actblue, and so does Eldridge. Tsongas's base is establishment types like Barney Frank and EMILY's List, whereas Eldridge has more of an activist and union base, as you can tell from his endorsement page where I ran into those awesome video endorsements. I've spoken with Eldridge, and he's a really liberal guy in his instincts. When I asked him about immigration, he brought up poverty in Mexico, explicitly linking the economics. Politicians rarely do that, even though it is the only way for progressives to talk about immigration and win. Tsongas is an Emily's List candidate, fairly moderate, and very aggressive in working to communicate with the grassroots. Both candidates in the race (there are five, but these are the top two) are using Bluemassgroup to communicate with bloggers.
Now, I sort of think of Tsongas as a centrist, both because I've watched the debates online for the district and because she was a Vice Chair of the Concord Coalition, which focuses on deficits. The board includes Southern Democrats like Chuck Robb, Sam Nunn and Charles W. Stenholm, as well as financier-types like Robert Rubin, Steven Rattner, and Paul Volcker. What's interesting is that she's no longer listed on the web page, though she was listed as late as May 18th. I have a call in to the campaign to find out what happened. [update: I talked to the press person for Tsongas, and she told me that the Concord Coalition asked her to resign so they could keep from having a political candidate on the board). Anyway, it's important to understand that there are organizing strategies for centrists, the clearest one being gender and identity based models (such as Hillary Clinton's). These are strong, and they are clearly beginning to adapt to the internet and use platforms like Actblue. Anyway, this is a place where there is leverage for progressives, so I'm watching it. We'll see whether activists/unions can go up against Emily's List, and how well we do. This isn't necessarily clear-cut.
Now, another primary is extremely clear-cut, and this one is in WA-08. Darcy Burner, after a spectacular fundraising quarter of $200k, may face a primary challenge from Rodney Tom, a former Republican. Here's Tom's reason for running.
"I have a high regard for Darcy," he said. "Again, I keep coming back to, who can best win the 8th? The 8th is a moderate district, and if there's a strong moderate out there, it's me. I think I share their values and I think I fit this district really well."
Tom just became a Democrat last year, and he's a state Senator who has four years to go in his term. This is a no-lose proposition for him, so he doesn't necessarily care that much if he has a good shot at taking the primary.
Arguments about what kind of party this is going to be are happening all around us, as many of us know. As Republican moderates are being destroyed, and their squishiness revealed, Concord Coalition-style Democrats and former Republicans are seeing a space to move in, space that could be occupied by good progressives.
That's where a lot of our energy ought to be dedicated. I'm wondering, do you know of any other races where this dynamic is playing out?
