• AR-Sen: I don't know if this is outright shenanigans or innocent bureaucratic bungling, but a lot of eyebrows are being raised over a strange turn of events in Garland County that's going to lead to long lines and voters avoiding the polls. The county, with a population of 80,000 and 42 precincts, will have a total of two polling places for the upcoming runoff election. Worth noting: Garland County (home of Hot Springs) is the most populous county in Arkansas that went for Bill Halter in the primary.
• IL-Sen: The Mark Kirk story seems like it's finally catching hold in the Chicago market. At the link, you can check out the whole "misremembered it wrong" story splashed across the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times, and watch a withering WGN news story.
• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi has reported $600K in contributions in one week since announcing his bid. Anyone who is surprised by this number should get better acquainted with the term "low hanging fruit;" the interesting numbers will be the ones in future weeks to see how he does now that most of Washington's major real estate and contracting players have, assumedly, maxed out. Also in the not-surprising file, state Sen. Don Benton dropped out of the race and endorsed Rossi. Benton was the more or less GOP frontrunner prior to Rossi's entry, but also something of a Republican-establishment stand-in for Rossi with a lot of overlap in supporters, so there wasn't much incentive for him to continue. Goldy correctly yawns at Benton's departure, saying that Clint Didier (the Palin-endorsed teabagger in the race) was always the real speed bump for Rossi and one that'll continue to pose a problem: he can't run away from Didier and his supporters, whose enthusiasm he'll need in November, but if he gets too close to them, he'll lose whatever moderate image he once had, which he'll also need in November.
• CA-Gov (pdf): The last pre-primary Field Poll, or at least part of it, is out. All that they've released today is the Republican gubernatorial primary numbers, which are very much in line with everyone else's numbers lately. They see Meg Whitman leading Steve Poizner 51-25, only half the 49-point lead she had in the last Field Poll in March but still certainly enough to get the job done for her on Tuesday. Keep your eyes peeled for the rest of the data.
• NY-Gov: Maggie Haberman has an interesting retrospective of the big bag of Fail that was the Steve Levy campaign. She weaves together a number of threads that didn't really make it into the national media -- unwillingness to fully commit to the race, his reluctance to dip into his war chest, tabloid stories about law school friends -- to paint a picture of a campaign that, in hindsight, was doomed from the outset.
• AR-03: Sarah Palin (and the Susan B. Anthony List) weighed in in AR-03, adding one more "Mama Grizzly" to her trophy room. She endorsed state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, who's in a runoff against Rogers mayor Steve Womack for the GOP nomination in the open seat race in this safely-red district. Bledsoe only compiled about 15% of the vote in the primary, although with a huge number of candidates, that was enough to squeak by into second place.
• NY-15: In case there was any doubt that a combination of age, sliminess, and having lost his Ways and Means gavel might prompt a last-minute retirement for Charles Rangel, they were laid to rest. He'll be officially kicking off his next campaign this weekend.
• OH-18: The long-unresolved GOP primary in the 18th appears to be finally over, as former state Agriculture director and 2008 nominee Fred Dailey conceded. He lost to establishment pick state Sen. Bob Gibbs by 156 votes according to certified results, and the automatic recount only changed two votes. While this is one more in a string of recent GOP primaries where the establishment candidate beat the teabagger, this, like many of those races (like, say, IN-08 and IN-09, and IN-03 and IN-05 if you want to call the woeful Souder and Burton "establishment") where the anti-establishment candidate came within a hair of winning, and where if there had been fewer teabagger candidates spoiling the broth or things that just bounced slightly differently, the media would be talking about an entirely different narrative.
• Media: So, speaking of media narratives, I'm wondering if the media are starting to dial down their "Dems are dooooomed!" narrative that's been conventional wisdom for the last half a year. Not just because they may be noticing that the polling evidence for that is sketchy at best, but also, as this Newsweek piece points out, that they may have gotten suckered by the Democrats themselves, who seem to be engaged in the ages-old practices of expectations management, lowballing their predictions so they look like heroes later.
• Ideology: 538 has some fascinating charts up as part of a new post on where states (and where the two parties within each state) fit on the liberal/conservative scale, looking at it on multiple dimensions instead of on a left/right line. West Virginia (socially conservative and economically liberal) stands out as an interesting outlier on the chart, which does a lot to explain its particular brand of politics.
AR-Sen: The Big Dog is coming back home to stump for Blanche Lincoln, the first time he's done so this race. Meanwhile, the SEIU just tossed in another $100K for phonebanking and another $100K for field on behalf of Bill Halter. (There's also an amusing negative $100K entry for "reverse phonebanking.")
CA-Sen: Chuck DeVore is as insane as this ad. A true must-see. In news of the normal, President Obama kept to his promise to return to CA for two more Barbara Boxer fundraisers. The events raised $1.75 million, $600K of which will go to Boxer and the balance to the DSCC.
KY-Sen: Heh, that was quick. Rand Paul is already planning the dreaded "staff shakeup." The only problem is that he can't fire himself. Barring that, Mitch McConnell is telling his least-favorite fellow Kentuckian to shut the fuck up and hide under a rock - "for the time being."
PA-Sen: I agree - this is a magnanimous move. Arlen Specter introduced Joe Sestak to his Senate colleagues at their weekly lunch yesterday. Very gracious.
AL-06, AL-07: Unsurprisingly, corporate lawyer Terri Sewell is the only Democrat airing TV ads in the primary to succeed Rep. Artur Davis, spending about $200K so far. With $783K, she's far outraised her chief competitors, Earl Hilliard, Jr. ($328K) and Shelia Smoot ($100K). Sewell can also count among her contributors Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.
Crazily, though, ten-term GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus is also airing ads in advance of his primary in AL-06, some $70K worth. Bachus has spent an amazing $680K on his campaign so far, even though his challenger, teabagger Stan Cooke, has raised just $29K total. This is the reddest district in the nation according to Cook PVI (R+29), which may explain Bachus's anxiety, since he is the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee and voted in favor of the bailout.
AR-01: A similar situation in AR-01 as in AR-02 below, where first-rounder David Cook endorsed the somewhat less-conservative Chad Causey over the extremely conservative Tim Wooldridge in (you might be a little surprised to hear me say this if you don't already know the names) the Democratic runoff.
AR-02: Some runoff endorsements on both sides from the also-rans. Patrick Kennedy and John Adams (great names, huh?) both endorsed Robbie Wills in the Democratic race, while David Boling endorsed Joyce Elliott. I suspect national Dems would prefer Wills over the more-liberal Elliott, but this race is probably too touchy to get involved in.
DE-AL: Joe Biden returned home to do a fundraiser in Wilmington for John Carney. No word on whether he'll also do one for Senate candidate Chris Coons, but it's not like it's a big schlep.
FL-25: The statewide Florida AFL-CIO, following the lead of its South Fla. branch, endorsed little-known longshoreman Luis Meurice in the Democratic primary, rather than Joe Garcia. The union, Florida's biggest, backed Garcia in 2008.
IN-05: This is exactly the kind of weird that Dave Weigel specializes in. Tim Crawford, the teabagging "Democrat" who snuck to victory in the Democratic primary here, abruptly dropped out of the race after an unpleasant meeting with, you know, actual Democrats... and then wrote a long, rambly email saying he was un-dropping-out. Ah well.
IN-09: Speaking of Joe Biden, he'll also be doing a fundraiser in late June for Rep. Baron Hill in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
NC-08: I would really freakin' love to see Tim D'Annunzio pull this one off. The entire NC House GOP delegation just collectively endorsed former TV sportscaster Harold Johnson, terrified as they are of the spastic-fantastic Tim-diana Jones. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here stat.
RI-01: Scott Brown is coming to Rhode Island for a fundraiser with state Rep. John Loughlin, the GOP's candidate in this open seat. To date, Loughlin's raised about $344K, which might not seem too bad, but in fact he's been running for a long time, since well before Rep. Patrick Kennedy announced his retirement.
VA-11: Businessman Keith Fimian has a new poll from McLaughlin & Associates showing him with a 36-23 lead over Fairfax Co. Supervisor Pat Herrity in the GOP primary. A March poll had Fimian up 29-17. Herrity had his own poll out last month, though, showing him with a 42-21 lead - and pointed out that Fimian claimed his internals had him just three points behind Gerry Connolly before election day 2008, but lost by twelve.
DSCC: Uh, good, I guess. The DSCC has cancelled plans to have EPA chief Lisa Jackson headline an NYC fundraiser next week - but what a retarded idea in the first place. It seems pretty inappropriate to me to have cabinet members doing hackwork like this (can you imagine Hillary Clinton or Eric Holder shilling for dollars?), but it's even worse when you're talking about the head of the EPA in the midst of the oil spill crisis in the Gulf. I also find it unctuous that the original invitation promised that the event would be "intimate, so each of you will have a real opportunity to get to know and to speak to Lisa about issues of concern to you and our nation." Pretty gross when it's our team selling access to the ultra-wealthy. Barf.
Ideology: Alan Abramowitz has a great piece up at the Democratic Strategist, looking at the correlation between ideology (as measured by DW-NOMINATE) and election performance by Republican senators. Using a modified eight-point DW-N scale, Abramowitz finds: "For every additional one point increase in conservatism, Republican incumbents lost an additional three percentage points in support relative to their party's presidential candidate." But shhh... don't tell the Republicans!
The last item on 4/6 Afternoon Daily Digest about the relative popularity of "socialism" and Teabaggers got me thinking. If the GOP (or at least right-wing activists and opinion makers) is willing and eager to embrace the tea-party movement, why is it that Democrats continue to treat "socialism" as toxic? Certainly, its a losing proposition nationally (no Democratic candidate for president should EVER call themselves 'socialist'). In some parts of the country though, my hunch is that progressives/liberals/Democrats/the left ought to revisit their assumption that 'socialism' is to American politics as oil is to water.
The question I'm exploring here is:
Where might 'socialism' have either 50+ favorablity, or at least net postitive favorability?
One year ago I tried out an experiment where I plotted US Representatives' voting records against the presidential lean of their districts, in an effort to identify what representatives were not the most liberal or conservative, but who most overperformed or underperformed their districts. After some hemming and hawing, it was called the PVI/Vote Index. The point of the exercise was to give some clarity and focus to one of the most frequently heard refrains of the liberal blogosphere: "We're going to primary that ratfink so-and-so," usually delivered without much consideration as to what kind of candidate that district might actually support.
It's time to revisit the topic, partly because another year has gone by, and aggregators have released another year's worth of data, letting us look at the 110th Congress as a whole (instead of just 2007). Also, with the creation of the blogger/labor Accountability Now PAC for purposes of nudging (or primarying) recalcitrant Dems, with Progressive Punch adding a similar function to their website, and with even the Cook Political Report (subscription req'd) tipping a toe into this type of analysis, it seems like other people are starting to zero in on who is and isn't a good fit for his or her district.
As before, the Index is based on a pretty simple idea: rank every district from 1 to 435 in terms of how Democratic its presidential voting record is, rank every representative from 1 to 435 in terms of how liberal his or her voting record is, and find the difference, with a larger difference in one direction or the other meaning that representative is overperforming or underperforming the district's lean. (There are a host of methodological issues that go along with this assumption, and I'll discuss some of them over the fold. In the meantime, let's get right to the numbers.)
Let's start with Democrats who are underperforming their districts (in other words, Democrats whose voting records are less liberal than their district composition would ordinarily support):
Rep.
District
PVI
PVI rank
DW/N
Liberal rank
Difference
A. Davis
AL-07
D+17
65
- 0.286
183.5
- 118.5
Meeks
NY-06
D+38
6
- 0.397
122
- 116
Meek
FL-17
D+35
11
- 0.390
126
- 115
Jefferson
LA-02
D+28
28
- 0.371
139
- 111
Doyle
PA-14
D+22
42
- 0.363
142
- 100
Engel
NY-17
D+21
45
- 0.378
137
- 92
Brady
PA-01
D+36
9.5
- 0.439
96
- 86.5
Sires
NJ-13
D+23
39
- 0.398
121
- 82
Berman
CA-28
D+25
35.5
- 0.406
117.5
- 82
Fattah
PA-02
D+39
5
- 0.454
84.5
- 79.5
D. Scott
GA-13
D+10
112
- 0.257
191
- 79
Moran
VA-08
D+14
81
- 0.345
152.5
- 71.5
Crowley
NY-07
D+28
29
- 0.431
100
- 71
Rush
IL-01
D+35
12
- 0.455
83
- 71
Lipinski
IL-03
D+10
106.5
- 0.312
174
- 67.5
Reyes
TX-16
D+9
117.5
- 0.286
183.5
- 66
Towns
NY-10
D+41
3
- 0.492
69
- 66
Harman
CA-36
D+11
103.5
- 0.319
169
- 65.5
Rangel
NY-15
D+43
2
- 0.493
67
-65
Cooper
TN-05
D+6
144.5
- 0.211
208.5
- 64
Three of the top four underperformers here were also in the top four last year: Artur Davis, Kendrick Meek, and Bill Jefferson, which indicates that the pattern is pretty consistent. (The fourth, Greg Meeks, not coincidentally the only African-American member of the New Dems besides Davis and Meek, replaces Charlie Rangel.)
Notice something else interesting? We don't have to primary any of those three! Jefferson learned the hard way that the future is Cao, while Davis and Meek are doing us a solid by opening up their seats to run for higher office. (And if they somehow win, they'll immediately switch from goats to heroes in my book, since if they stay consistent policy-wise, they'll suddenly be vastly overperforming the lean of their states as a whole.)
But it does shine a spotlight on the open primaries in AL-07, FL-17, and LA-02. These primaries should be absolute top priority for blogosphere action: these are districts that can support progressives, not just centrists, and we have basically free shots at electing Better Democrats here. (These mostly-African-American districts may be a little outside the familiarity zone of the mostly-white blogosphere, but remember that one of our signature achievements is knocking off Al Wynn in MD-04, which is what can happen when the netroots and the local grassroots actually work in concert.)
As with last year, the list is heavy on Congressional Black Caucus members, some of whom are also Progressive Caucus members. The latter may not be terribly fruitful targets (although, again, the primaries will be very important once they retire), who are being penalized a bit unfairly for living in some of the nation's most Democratic districts. They'd need to be in McDermott/Kucinich/Lee territory to be truly apt 'fits' for their districts.
Some better targets might be a little further down the list, including frequent netroots foils like Dan Lipinski and the newly-vulnerable Jane Harman. To my eye, one of the juiciest targets is Jim Cooper, about the only representative in a district with a solidly Dem PVI who's not just voting poorly around the margins but on some of the important stuff as well (like the stimulus). Pressure on Cooper is particularly important as the focus turns to health care, as his singular influence in the health care arena gives him unique power to obstruct progessive health care policy.
Now let's turn to the good news: the Democrats who are most overperforming their districts, and who are most deserving of our praise (or in the case of the bluest Dogs, our tolerance). As with last year, it's a mix of flat-out progressives in swing or light-blue districts, and Blue Doggish types who are entrenched in deep-red districts that would likely flip without them (or, in the sad cases of Lampson and Boyda, Blue Doggish types who failed to get entrenched):
Rep.
District
PVI
PVI rank
DW/N
Liberal rank
Difference
C. Edwards
TX-17
R+18
417
- 0.240
196
221
G. Taylor
MS-04
R+16
404.5
- 0.248
193
211.5
Matheson
UT-02
R+17
408
- 0.154
222
186
Pomeroy
ND-AL
R+13
379
- 0.245
194
185
DeFazio
OR-04
D+0
200
- 0.602
27
173
Lampson
TX-22
R+15
390
- 0.038
234
156
Doggett
TX-25
D+1
187.5
- 0.533
49
138.5
Herseth
SD-AL
R+10
337
- 0.234
199
138
Skelton
MO-04
R+11
347
- 0.203
212
135
Hinchey
NY-22
D+6
147
- 0.685
13
134
Stupak
MI-01
R+2
228.5
- 0.436
97
131.5
Filner
CA-51
D+7
137
- 0.723
9.5
127.5
Oberstar
MN-08
D+4
160
- 0.570
36
124
Kucinich
OH-10
D+8
125
- 0.791
3
122
Spratt
SC-05
R+6
283.5
- 0.325
165
118.5
Obey
WI-07
D+2
185
- 0.486
72
113
Chandler
KY-06
R+7
300.5
- 0.256
192
108.5
Rodriguez
TX-23
R+4
254.5
- 0.348
150
104.5
Boyda
KS-02
R+7
308
- 0.218
206
102
Boucher
VA-09
R+7
303
- 0.232
201
102
One advantage of the PVI/Vote Index is that, at the same time as shining a light on Democrats who are lagging their districts, it also illuminates right-wing Republicans camped out in moderate districts, who should theoretically be vulnerable a good Democratic challenger because of their poor fit with their districts. If there's any doubt, check out which of these nutjobs who've overperformed their districts got defeated in 2008, and how many more got a serious scare.
Rep.
District
PVI
PVI rank
DW/N
Liberal rank
Difference
Ryan
WI-01
R+2
224
0.690
397
- 173
Feeney
FL-24
R+3
241
0.744
409
- 168
Chabot
OH-01
R+1
205.5
0.626
372
- 166.5
Garrett
NJ-05
R+4
261
0.771
417
- 156
Shadegg
AZ-03
R+6
288.5
0.903
429
- 140.5
Rohrabacher
CA-46
R+6
291
0.826
424.5
- 133.5
Kline
MN-02
R+3
233.5
0.616
365
- 131.5
Bilbray
CA-50
R+5
264
0.684
394
- 130
Fossella
NY-13
D+1
191
0.507
317
- 126
Walberg
MI-07
R+3
230.5
0.589
356.5
- 126
Weldon
FL-15
R+4
251.5
0.622
367.5
- 116
Campbell
CA-48
R+8
311
0.826
424.5
- 113.5
Bachmann
MN-06
R+5
273.5
0.663
385.5
- 112
Manzullo
IL-16
R+5
263
0.630
374
- 111
Franks
AZ-02
R+9
322
0.910
431
- 109
Tiberi
OH-12
R+1
210
0.508
318
- 108
Royce
CA-40
R+8
315
0.794
421
- 106
Roskam
IL-06
R+3
236.5
0.552
341
- 104.5
Mica
FL-07
R+4
251.5
0.583
355
- 103.5
Castle
DE-AL
D+7
142
0.291
245
- 103
Finally, one last table: the Republicans who are "underperforming" their very conservative districts. While there are a few moderates here (like the primaried-out Wayne Gilchrest), mostly it's semi-sane conservatives in some of the darkest-red districts in the nation. I'm keeping this list to 10, as either way, there's not much we can do about these guys, other than sit back and watch as the Club for Growth goes after them with chainsaws. (Note that Jerry Moran, who's vacating his seat to run for Senate, is one of them. His moderation, relatively speaking, may be an asset for him when running statewide.)
Rep.
District
PVI
PVI rank
DW/N
Liberal rank
Difference
W. Jones
NC-03
R+15
395
0.279
242
153
Simpson
ID-02
R+19
421
0.397
271
150
Moran
KS-01
R+20
427
0.442
286
141
Platts
PA-19
R+12
366
0.327
255.5
110.5
D. Young
AK-AL
R+14
387
0.420
278.5
108.5
Lucas
OK-03
R+18
414
0.493
310
104
Crenshaw
FL-04
R+16
407
0.489
308
99
Bachus
AL-06
R+25
433
0.538
335.5
97.5
Gilchrest
MD-01
R+10
335
0.254
238
97
Aderholt
AL-04
R+16
399
0.476
303
96
Much more discussion of the methodology and what this all may mean, over the flip.
The original economic rescue package that went down to narrow defeat on Monday was notable for the strange coalition that formed. Rather than a clear left/right split, the opposition was an interesting grouping of vulnerable incumbents and representatives from districts geographically or economically far removed from Wall Street, from across the ideological spectrum.
Today's second-try vote that passed the bailout 263 to 171 (with Dems splitting 172-63 and the GOP splitting 91-108) necessarily involved a lot of people flipping from nay to yea. As with the original vote, the flippers weren't heavily concentrated at one point on the ideological spectrum, but scattered throughout. 33 Dems switched from nay to yea, as did 25 Republicans. (Only one representative, Jim McDermott, switched from yea to nay. And one GOP representative, Jerry Weller, switched to no vote to yea.)
If there was one place the switches came from, though, it was the Progressive Caucus, which was originally 35-32 in favor of the bailout. Today, 16 caucus members flipped to yea, making it 50-17 (accounting for McDermott going the other way). The Progressive Caucus shares many members with the Congressional Black Caucus, which also turned direction (reportedly because of heavy lobbying by Obama himself, based on his promises to revisit the issue in January), with 13 flippers, changing its numbers from 18-19 to 31-6. Likewise, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus also turned, with 5 flippers, going from 8-13 to 13-8.
As was predicted, there was little movement among the Blue Dogs, who reportedly weren't happy with the additional pile of debt thrown in as a 'sweetener.' Only 5 Blue Dogs flipped, as they went from 31-22 to 36-17. Likewise, 8 New Dems flipped (some of whom are also Blue Dog members), going from 38-21 to 46-13.
On the Republican side, the ultra-right Republican Study Committee still remained the main bastion of resistance. Of the 205 25 GOPers who flipped, only 11 came from the RSC, as the RSC went from 26-81 to 37-70. On the other hand, the country-clubby Main Street Partnership moved to the most pro-bailout caucus in the whole House, with 7 flippers, taking it from 21-15 to 29-8 (including the addition of Weller).
In the wake of yesterday's failed vote on the colossal Wall Street rescue plan, let's take a look at how the members actually voted. This is one of the most confusing votes in recent memory, as there aren't clear ideological fissures in the voting blocs. There's something more fundamental going on here: self-preservation... and the question of whether each representative is more in fear of the constituents who keep him or her in office, or the financiers who keep him or her in office. (As often happens, Nate Silver already got there first, but I'm adding some additional details.)
As you've probably already seen, the bill failed 205-228, with Dems splitting 140-65, and the GOP splitting 95-133 (with one GOP non-voter and one vacancy). The votes, however, were pretty evenly distributed throughout the ideological spectrum.
Last week I wrote about Where We Can Make the Most Progress in the House, where I tried to measure the biggest probable right-to-left swings that might result from the 2008 election in the House (the biggest one would be swapping out Dana Rohrabacher for Debbie Cook, in case you missed it). In the comments, the question came up of what would happen if I ran the same analysis for the competitive 2008 Senate races.
I have been reluctant to do so, because when I did the House, I relied on a demographic model for predicting which caucus new House members might join and, from there, predicting their likely DW-Nominate score. That just doesn't work with the Senate: demographics-wise, states don't break down as cleanly as do House districts. And Senators tend to disobey their states' partisan lean much more so than Representatives: consider that we have two moderate Republican senators in one of our bluest states (Maine), two populist Democratic senators in one of our reddest states (North Dakota), and the swing states in the middle give us as wide a range of personalities as Russ Feingold and John Sununu.
So, I decided to try a different approach, more speculative than I generally prefer, where I tried to project prospective Democratic senators' voting preferences by averaging out the scores of already sitting senators who seem to have some commonalities with them. As a vague rule of thumb, I tried to use one senator who had the most in common geographically and one who seemed to have the most in common ideologically and/or stylistically, although these categories pretty thoroughly blended. Here's a case in point: Mark Warner. I decided he had a lot in common with Jim Webb (- 0.359), a fellow Virginian and someone else who knows how to connect with white working class voters, and also with Joe Biden (- 0.338), another mid-Atlantic senator with a mix of liberal intentions and pro-corporate leanings. Average those, and voila: Warner projects at - 0.349. (Some of my comparables, or the resulting scores, may strike you as completely misguided. This is all pure speculation on my part, so feel free to argue why in the comments, or ask for some clarification on a particular choice. My feelings won't be hurt.) One exception: if the Democratic candidates have a House record, I used their most recent score from there.
State
110th Sen.
110th Score
111th Sen.
111th Score (and Comparables)
Difference
OK
Inhofe
0.766
Rice
-0.392 (Dorgan + Casey)
-1.158
CO
Allard *
0.636
M. Udall
-0.375 (110th Congress)
-1.011
MN
Coleman
0.178
Franken
-0.746 (Klobuchar + Feingold)
-0.924
NH
Sununu
0.481
Shaheen
-0.442 (Leahy + Feinstein)
-0.923
TX
Cornyn
0.557
Noriega
-0.336 (Bingaman + Salazar)
-0.893
NM
Domenici *
0.281
T. Udall
-0.525 (110th Congress)
-0.806
NC
Dole
0.451
Hagan
-0.330 (Webb + Lincoln)
-0.781
NE
Hagel *
0.376
Kleeb
-0.366 (Tester + Dorgan)
-0.742
ID
Craig *
0.457
LaRocco
-0.242 (103rd Congress)
-0.699
OR
Smith
0.155
Merkley
-0.698 (Wyden + Whitehouse)
-0.698
KY
McConnell
0.507
Lunsford
-0.168 (Pryor + Ben Nelson)
-0.675
AK
Stevens
0.260
Begich
-0.360 (Tester + Bingaman)
-0.620
MS
Wicker
0.465
Musgrove
-0.147 (Landrieu + Ben Nelson)
-0.612
VA
J. Warner *
0.258
M. Warner
-0.349 (Webb + Biden)
-0.607
ME
Collins
0.084
Allen
-0.449 (110th Congress)
-0.533
KS
Roberts
0.376
Slattery
-0.151 (103rd Congress)
-0.527
As you can see, swapping Jim Inhofe for Andrew Rice is the biggest gain (probably in terms of IQ points as well as in terms of voting record) even without factoring in that Rice may be more progressive than my score gives him credit for. However, unlike the House, where there are a fair number of opportunities to replace a right-winger with a progressive, in the Senate we're pretty much limited to replacing right-wingers with moderates, or moderate Republicans with progressives, so the shifts are smaller.
Finally, you may notice asterisks for the GOP-held open seats. I've compiled a separate table that doesn't focus on "progress" but the "what if," i.e. how big a swing we're looking at in terms of the potential replacement (each of whom I've projected to be more conservative than the guy they're replacing, either based on their House record or on comparables). If you prefer to swap these numbers in for the numbers based on the retiring senator, this doesn't change the order of the overall results too much, although it does highlight the importance of making sure we win our biggest races. (Especially in Colorado... Mark Udall is on the moderate side, and hasn't endeared himself much lately with his Iraq and FISA votes, but he's way to the left of Allard, and even more so than Schaffer, who it turns out was one of the most conservative members of the House during his time there.)
Who's the most powerful member of the House? If I told you it was Tim Mahoney, you'd probably laugh in my face; after all, he's a freshman, and a bit of a flake. Well, if you order all members of the House from most liberal to most conservative (using DW-Nominate scores for the 110th Congress), Tim Mahoney is #218 out of 435. He's smack in the middle of the House, and the whole thing pivots around him, in the same way that Anthony Kennedy holds all the cards on the Supreme Court because he's #5 out of 9.
There are several things wrong with my proposition, though: first, 435 is a lot larger than 9, and there are a lot of transitory coalitions that form around various topics, so the spectrum isn't always very clear. You aren't even going to get aggregators to agree on who goes in what slot (ask National Journal, they'll tell you that #218 is Mike McIntyre; ask Progressive Punch and they'll tell it's Charlie Melancon).
More importantly, just as Matt Stoller mentioned yesterday in regards to 60 as the 'magic number' in the Senate, there aren't very many votes where it actually comes down to the bare minimum. Even controversial things tend to pass by a sizable margin once the initial haggling shakes out (the most recent Iraq Supplemental passed 268-155, and the FISA Amendments passed 293-129); actual 218-217 votes are almost unheard of. As he sagely pointed out, the key is to build the coalitions and implement the infrastructure that allow progressives to control the discursive arena in Congress regardless of actual numbers so that the progressive POV becomes more of an institutional inevitability.
Nevertheless, some of that sense of the 'possible' within that discursive arena is directly influenced by the seat count. Think back to the backstory behind the FISA vote last week: a lot of Dems voted with leadership, but leadership's hand wasn't forced by a widespread popular uprising, just by the 21 Blue Dogs who signed the January letter of intent to jump on board the Republicans' discharge petition. We'll probably never know who those 21 signatories were (although, given the spectrum in the House, one can assume it included Mahoney, McIntyre, and Melancon), but it's clear they turned the tide on the FISA amendments. Looking at the pivot point, Pelosi could have safely ignored 12 Blue Dogs (233 - 12 = 221), but she couldn't safely ignore 21 (233 - 21 = 212).
What if, on the other hand, there weren't fewer Blue Dogs, but rather more Progressives in seats that are currently occupied by moderate (or, in a few possibilities, extreme) Republicans? If there were only 7 more Democrats, all Progressive or New Dem, then Pelosi also could have ignored the 21 Blue Dogs (240 - 21 = 219). Now, of course, this is pure speculation that only 21 Dems would have signed the discharge petition, but my point stands that it would take only a few more net Progressives to move the core Blue Dogs past the pivot point and thus out of the House's driver's seat (or at least out of reach of the steering wheel). In shorter words, the goal for the 111th Congress needs to be: Progressives + New Dems > Blue Dogs + Republicans.
By popular demand (meaning questions from at least two different commenters), I need to do a follow-up to The Class of 2008: Who's Going to Be Progressive? from last Friday that sees it through to the next step. I had previously investigated The House Seats Where We Made the Most Progress in 2006, comparing the DW-Nominate scores of new Democrats elected in 2006 against the Republicans who occupied the seats until 2006. The question arose: which seats will potentially have the biggest similar right-to-left shifts in 2008?
There's a big problem there. The demographic prediction method I was using in the Class of 2008 diary was, at best, a blunt instrument, and I feel a little embarrassed using it even to estimate broad categories like "Progressive" or "Blue Dog," let alone using it to extrapolate specific legislators' future DW-Nominate scores to three significant digits. However, I quickly realized the importance of making some educated guesses about this topic, pushed along by Mimikatz's diary over at Open Left. It's important information for deciding what races to give our relatively-tiny netroots dollars to, where we can have the most leverage in moving the needle to the left.
As an added bonus, most of the races that topped the list are lower on prognosticators' watch lists. Many are on the DCCC's "Emerging Races" list and on Swing State Project's "Likely R" or "Races to Watch" lists. Again, that stretches the effect of our dollars, and it means our targeted giving can help clue the DCCC in for what deserves "Red to Blue" status instead. Here are the top 20 races for maximum right-to-left impact:
A few days ago I wrote about the House districts that made the greatest progress in 2006, moving from Republican to Democrat and, in the best cases, moving from wingnut to progressive. That left me wondering, however, where would the greatest changes in the House come in 2008? Unfortunately, that would require knowing where on the liberal/conservative spectrum the likely new freshmen in 2008 are likely to fall. That's something where there won't be useful metrics until at least, say, late 2009. After trying hard to put that question out of my mind, finally I decided, "Damn it, I want to know right now."
I tried looking at issue pages and other content on a few candidate websites... and man, did my eyes glaze over fast. While I was pleased to see a general conformity with Democratic messaging and avoidance of right-wing talking points, there was little there to help a discerning eye differentiate between a Progressive, a New Dem, or a Blue Dog. Basically, everyone hates high gas prices and global warming; everyone loves job creation, access to health care, cute children, firefighters, and standing in front of scenic views in their districts.
So, I was left with no alternative but to do what any reasonable nerd would do when faced with the task of extrapolating future events: I performed a Poblano-style analysis using a variety of demographic factors, bearing in mind what demographics in a district tend to lead to what kind of representative getting elected. Just as whether a district would go for Obama or Clinton turned out to have little relationship to that district's PVI, the PVI alone isn't a good indicator for whether a district is likelier to produce a Progressive, a New Dem, or a Blue Dog.
