Good news on two counts

It keeps Wasserman-Schultz from ruining the DCCC and on course to run for the Senate.

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by: RandySF @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 00:27:42 AM CST

Van Hollen is definitely the best one for the job

and having continuity can only be a positive.

I am having a little trouble understanding the part about independent expenditures.

I think I misunderstood Populista's reply to me previously, because he also said CVH didn't have direct control over coordinating the IE's.  I thought he meant coordinating with other IE's such as Emily's List.

What authority does the chair of the DCCC have over how much money raised by the DCCC gets spent in specific districts?  None at all?  General guidelines, but no specific dollar amounts?

In 2006, many were critical of Emanuel because so much was spent in IL-06.  It was not mentioned at any point that this was out of Emanuel's control.

In the 1990's, when Martin Frost from Dallas was chair of the DCCC, a large % of the DCCC's money was spent protecting Texas incumbents.  There were articles written at the time about this being Frost's decision.

Any clarification of this would be helpful.

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by: DCal @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 00:52:04 AM CST

It's my understanding

That the DCCC Chair can appoint a staffer to run the IE unit and transfer DCCC funds to the IE unit but the IE Unit Director and their staff make the final spending decisions.

Obviously they can tell by other moves the Chair makes which races are a priority but I don't think they can directly coordinate with the Chair and rest of the DCCC.

I'll check with my campaign finance freind though.

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by: Populista @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 01:22:06 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Thanks for following up on this.

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by: DCal @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 09:43:08 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Checked with my lawyer freind

Van Hollan and the main DCCC staff directly coordinate with candidates and their campaigns. The IE's are Independent Expenditures which means they cannot have contact with the campaigns and by extension Van Hollan and the DCCC.

I do think he gets to pick the staff members and they can probably tell by who's on the red to blue list who to spend on but CVH does not get direct input as it would be illegal.  

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by: Populista @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 21:06:07 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Mixed feelings

Well. CVH is clearly the right guy for the job and is FAR better then the alternative of having disloyal Dems DWS or Davis running shop.

But he also now won't be Caucus Chair and if he loses a few seats in a tough year it could torpedo his chances at becoming Speaker someday despite how hard he's worked.

We will see though. I hope he grooms Bruce Braley to take over for 2012. He seems more in the CVH mold of hard work and backing of all Democrats compared to the more showoffy and selective style of Rahm and DWS.

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by: Populista @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 01:26:53 AM CST

A bit O/T

but just how many seats DID we actually pick up? I seem to be persistently finding one more than everyone else is.

Counting the special election wins, we have 1) Bright, 2) Kirkpatrick, 3) Markey, 4) Himes, 5) Grayson, 6) Kosmas, 7) Minnick, 8) Halvorson, 9) Foster, 10) Cazayoux, 11) Kratovil, 12) Schauer, 13) Peters, 14) Childers, 15) Titus, 16) Adler, 17) Heinrich, 18) Teague, 19) McMahon, 20) Maffei, 21) Massa, 22) Kissell, 23) Driehaus, 24) Boccieri, 25) Dahlkemper, 26) Nye, 27) Perriello, and 28) Connolly.

Minus 1) Mahoney, 2) Boyda, 3) Cazayoux, and 4) Lampson.

So don't we come up with a net of 24 seats?

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by: JFM110 @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 06:26:01 AM CST

Childers

was an incumbent, albeit for a short time, so not a pickup.

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by: generalleeferd @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 10:50:28 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Also

Subtract Foster for same reason and add Kratovil.

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by: generalleeferd @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 10:54:27 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Nevermind

that's wrong too. I give up for now!

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by: generalleeferd @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 10:55:43 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I get the same result

But, many organizations have not called VA-05 yet and Goode, I believe, has not conceded.  See the dKos map, for example.  Perhaps that's the discrepancy.

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by: sicembears @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 11:09:48 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Also

Also, I believe there are still three other races that have not been called--CA4, OH15, and AK-AL.  All are R held, so our total can only go up.  Also, LA4 and LA2 still to be held with LA4 a definite pick up opportunity and no threat to us in LA2 (even though I'd prefer to lose this one).

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by: sicembears @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 11:15:15 AM CST

[ Parent ]

A lot

We had 233 seats in '07
+ 3 special elections wins in '08 (incl. LA-06)
+ 25 wins Election Night
- 4 losses Election Night (incl. LA-06)
257 seats

That's +24 this cycle (+21 from Election Night). It does not count OH-15 and LA-04 which we could very well pickup. Here is a list of all of our pickups this cycle

+
AL-02 (Bobby Bright)
AZ-01 (Ann Kirkpatrick)
CO-04 (Betsy Markey)
CT-04 (Jim Himes)
FL-08 (Alan Grayson)
FL-24 (Suzanne Kosmas)
ID-01 (Walt Minnick)
IL-11 (Debbie Halvorson)
MI-07 (Mark Schauer)
MI-09 (Gary Peters)
NC-08 (Larry Kissell)
NJ-03 (John Adler)
NM-01 (Martin Heinrich)
NM-02 (Harry Teague)
NV-03 (Dina Titus)
NY-13 (Mike McMahon)
NY-25 (Dan Maffei)
NY-29 (Eric Massa)
OH-01 (Steve Driehaus)
OH-16 (John Boccieri)
PA-03 (Kathy Dahlkemper)
VA-02 (Glenn Nye)
VA-05 (Tom Perriello)
VA-11 (Gerry Connolly)
MD-01 (Frank Kratovil)
IL-14 (Bill Foster)
MS-01 (Travis Childers)
LA-06 (Don Cazayoux)

Losses
-
FL-16 (Tim Mahoney)
KS-02 (Nancy Boyda)
LA-06 (Don Cazayoux)
TX-22 (Nick Lampson)

And I think Kilroy will be the winner when the recount is done in OH-15 and Charlie Brown MIGHT still have a chance in CA-04. Also we look well poised to pickup a seat in the runoff for LA-04. If all of those break for us we'll have 260 seats.

That good? :)

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by: Populista @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 12:35:05 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Ah, you are correct

My earlier tally didn't include MD-01 for some reason! I'll fix it, thanks.

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by: James L. @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 12:48:08 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Specials

Thanks for counting the specials in the gain.  Given the very short period of incumbancy they really are 2008 pickups and should be included.  Impressive that we held two, and would have held the third if not for a turncoat independent bid.

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by: LanceS @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 07:36:34 AM CST

Agreed -- the specials were part of this election cycle

and should definitely be counted.  They have been forgotten until now.  The DCCC, under Van Hollen's watch, deserves to get credit for these pickups.

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by: DCal @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 09:58:03 AM CST

[ Parent ]

And LA-06...

can be almost completely blamed on Michael Jackson.  I mean, seriously, talk about fucking over your constituents by letting Cassidy win.  Now watch as Cassidy ignores them in Congress.  (And the 12% that voted for Jackson deserve some blame too.)

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by: BruinKid @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 11:19:16 AM CST

[ Parent ]

OT

But Franken trails by just 204 votes now. I wonder if that included the new absentee ballots that were supposed to be added today.

http://electionresults.sos.sta...

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by: Progressive America @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 09:35:25 AM CST

Mikulsi

I suppose this is the best evidence yet that Mikulski won't be retiring in 2010. I don't think CVH would have been trying for Caucus Chair or willing to take the DCCC if he expected the Senate seat to open up.

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by: zac @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 09:48:05 AM CST

In response to negative CVH feelings

So we all complained about the spending of the DCCC, why were they spending in this district when they need to open up the playing field and take advantage of this monumental chance at picking up seats.

I agreed with this sentiment, the DCCC should've gone into IA-4 and blah blah blah.  HOWEVER, we were all very clearly wrong.  We all said they spent way too much money into certain seats we thought we were guaranteed to win and not enough in seats where an ad buy of like $500k would go a long way.

We didn't even win all of those seats nor the other seats people felt too much money was being spent, OH-15 seemed like a pretty sure pick-up and we haven't won nor lost it yet, that should've been an easy pick-up and I like many others felt they were spending way too much money in this and OH-16 and should've expanded on other races.

MN-3, lean Dem, we lost by 8%.  Why should we be spending money in other seats with extreme outside shots of picking them up, and in all honesty, when we weren't even sure if that $200k or $500k ad buy would really help all that much but was based on speculation, when we didn't even have seats like MN-3 already in the bag.  

Any gripes about how DCCC spending should be reviewed in hindsight of the actual election results.  If anything, CVH knew that a lot of the pick-ups we thought we had in the bag were not so and that his decisions were right all along.

So here' my endorsing CVH.  He did a great job and while for every seat we gained, there was one seat we could've gained, I bet CVH will be all over those in 2010.  I think the presidential turnout if anything hurt us.  We were playing in red districts mainly and presidential turnout brought out regular voters who normally vote Republican downballot.  Those voters will not be coming out in 2010 so hopefully we can turn out more of our base than the Republicans (feasible) and pick-up a lot of the seats we missed.

I'm really eying FL-21 and FL-25.  Those are seats where it may take two tries.

Furthermore, this than takes off the table open seats where we wont have a shot probably for a long time (MO-9, MN-3).

Here's hoping that 2010 brings us all the other seats we hoped we would get this year!  I'm fine with taking my prediction of gain of 40-50 and having that take 2 cycles   :)

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by: Andrew @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 14:54:08 PM CST

I don't think

we don't have a chance in MN-03 for a long time. MN-03 unlike MO-09 is a Democratic trending district. It has been won by Kerry, Amy and Obama. I think Ashwin just wasn't the right candidate. It's really too bad beacuse I really wanted Ashwin to win and he seemed so perfect which is why I got behind him from the start. But apparently the voters in the third district didn't feel the same way.

We've got a deep bench to take a run at the seat in 2010. I think Hovland would be the best choice. Maybe Maria Rudd.

I agree with you on CVH though. He did a good job.

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by: Populista @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 17:43:07 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I just worry

that incumbency will trump everything, regardless of candidate.  To me, the 49%-41% was meant to say, we trust Paulsen as our congressman, not that we didn't like Madia, but Paulsen is familiar.  That idea to me inherently speaks of becoming entrenched.

Hopefully I'm wrong.  

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by: Andrew @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 18:36:58 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Don't take that results for everything

Got to remember that there was a strong Independence Party candidate that took 10 percent of the vote. That's why we didn't do that great in Minnesota downticket races as we should of because of that crappy 3rd party in MN siphoning votes from us.  

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by: bradley minoski @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 23:57:17 PM CST

[ Parent ]

That can't be all

What about State Senator Terri Bonoff, the woman who first Democrat to run in that district but lost to Madia at the MN-03 convention. She would of probally gave Erik Paulsen a run for his money since she had the money, experience, more liberal on the issues then Madia and unlike Madia was always a Dem. If you all forgot Madia used to be a Republican and even supported Bob Dole for President in 1996.

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by: bradley minoski @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 23:55:06 PM CST

[ Parent ]