PA-4 and Wingnut Welfare

By Dave Anderson:

One of the secondary races that I was keeping an eye on last night was the Republican primary for PA-4.  It was a two person race for the right to run against Rep. Jason Altmire (D) in November.  One of the candidates is a local attorney, activist and low-level Bush political appointee.  The other was also a local attorney, high level Bush appointee and a three bit player in at least one Bush politicization of the Justice Department scandals.  The second was Mary Beth Buchanan, the former US Attorney for Western Pennsylvania, and the local Republican establishment choice for PA-4.

She got crushed!

She lost by a 2:1 margin.  I guess my theory that the Wingnut Welfare Machine is broken has some validity to it as she has been out on her ass in Republican sinecure positions since she left her post on Grant Street last summer.  

This lack of wingnut welfare or at least wingnut welfare with any
prestige and value as a future jumping off point has trickled its way to
Pittsburgh. Former US Attorney for Western Pennsylvania, Mary Beth
Buchanan recently resigned with nothing solid lined-up... Normally, the
former US Attorney for the region is welcomed back into the
public-private sector elite. Fred Theiman,
the region's US Attorney from 1993-1997 is currently the head of
the Buhl Foundation and sits on half the power boards in the region....

The
Pittsburgh Comet is passing along reasonably solid rumors that the
Pittsburgh Republican establishment and more particularly, its
Republican leaning law firms made it clear that there would be no work
available for Ms. Buchanan.

The Republican establishment can't get one of their own a high profile public or private sector job because of her loyalty to the Bush Administration, and they can not get her through a primary in a rapidly trending Republican district.

Wow.

Besides Mary Beth Buchanan, and the local GOP establishment, the other big loser is Jason Altmire.  He has been lucky in running against Republicans who provoke a visceral dislike among liberals and Democratic door-knockers in the form of Melissa Hart.  Quite a few activists held their nose for a chance to keep Hart out of Washington.  I think quite a few local activists were willing to hold their nose to keep Buchanan away from power.  I don't think the Republican nominee, Rothfus, will inspire that type of motivation for Altmire to use against his activist base.  

Altmire wants to lose in 2010

By Dave Anderson:



Jason Altmire (D-PA) wants to lose his seat next year. That is about the only thing that makes sense from his announcement that the Democrats should take further steps to de-motivate the Democratic base by continuing to not deliver on promised policy changes that Democrats, him included, ran on successfully in 2006 and 2008.



From the Hill:

Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) argued that an election night rebuke for Democratic candidates across the nation could lead some in the party to rethink their plans on healthcare reform and other issues.


�It looks as though the anger that has been boiling up the last couple of months is going to lead to a pretty high turnout from Republicans and from people who are concerned about increased spending,� Altmire said Monday evening during an appearance on Fox Business Network.


�And I do think that if the results show Republicans have a pretty good night, that probably is going to lead some Democrats to think that, going into next year, we need to take a second look at the way that we�ve done a lot of bills we�ve addressed up to this point,� the Pennsylvania congressman added.

Altmire thinks that base excitement is what will propel Republicans to wins this afternoon. And that the proper response to that analysis is to take actions to further unite and empower the Republican base while depressing the Democratic base. This is basically the path that Craig Deeds tried to take in the Virginia Governor's race that he is projected to get crushed in. He took Altmire's implied advice of not advocating for general Democratic platform planks and creating seperation between him and the most popular and notable Democrat in the country. And he is getting crushed because his base has decided to not give a fuck. Public Policy Polling has two very interesting snippets of analysis that illustrate this claim:


From 11/2/09:

Beyond that the same themes that have shown throughout the general election show up in the last survey. 61% of McDonnell's voters are 'very excited' to vote on Tuesday while just 14% are 'not very excited.' For Deeds' supporters on the other hand 36% are 'not very excited about casting their ballots and just 31% are 'very excited.' That enthusiasm gap has existed for months now and made a Deeds comeback all but impossible

From 10/26/09

One thing I find interesting looking back over our last four polls is that the percentage of likely voters who are Democrats has fallen every time. This is the first race we've polled regularly in the last few years where I've noticed this happening- this is also the first race we've polled regularly in the last few years that's so lopsided. Does anyone know if it's normal for supporters of a particular candidate to finally just decide they're not going to vote if they think he's going to lose? The more inevitable Deeds' loss has seemed the fewer Democrats we've found planning to vote.

Deeds policy pronouncements basically told the Democratic base to not care who won or lost. Deeds indicated that he might push for Virginia to opt-out of any public option healthcare plan. That is a generic issue Republican talking point in a safe seat, not the statement of a Democrat who needed to rally his base that is already disappointed that we are debating triggers v. opt-in v. opt-out instead of some variant of Medicare-E or single-payer.



I door knocked in Altmire's district in 2006 in support of state candidates and without absolutely no coordination with the Altmire or any federal campaign (just had to get that out there for legal reasons.) I live fifteen minutes south of the district. I routinely work in that district. I know some of the Democratic activists in that district. I have a decent feel for at least the core Democratic areas of the district. For Altmire to win re-election in 2010 while running against a generic Republican instead of Melissa Hart who had become too closely associated with Santorum and high personal negatives combined with laziness in 2006, he needs to have 95% Democratic unity and Democrats turning out at a higher rate than Republicans plus he needs to win independents 60:40 and pick-off some moderate(ish) Republicans. Altmire's expressed desire to slow things down on healthcare means the Democrats in his district will turn out at a rate no higher than and most likely significantly lower than already motivated Republicans. And that means he loses in 2010 to a generic Republican challenger.

Independents are idiosyncratic

By Dave Anderson:

There are very few people who hold opinions that are within a few percent of the median American voter's position on ten medium to high salience issues.  There just are not that many people who are that wishy-washy on multiple issues and who are also paying attention to politics.  I say this as both a political observer and as a political data geek who has seen issue group polling and other predictive/micro-targetting data.

Digby makes the point that the American political elite thinks that there is a great swath of non-aligned voters who truly express either an intense desire for the Beltway Consensus or for a moderate position on everything. 

The number of independents out there is quite large and all national politicians need to reach them in elections in order to win. But the knee jerk assumption that they are always more moderate than everyone else is probably wrong. They might just be more cranky, more cynical, more uninformed, more skeptical or more impatient. There are a lot of reasons why someone might be an independent in American politics but I suspect that ideology is at the bottom of the list.

I vote that most indepdents are idiosyncratic. Here is a short link from such an "independent" or swing voter from the 2006 election.  The key thing to know is that Jeff Habay, the guy's son, was a Republican state rep who was then up on multiple public corruption charges of which he was later convicted:

There are still some districts that Democrats need the Republicans to be fake anthrax mailing, conspiracy theorists for us to win in.  And by the way, I got to canvass Jeff Habay's immediate family this weekend, and that was a very interesting conversation as to how Mellissa Hart was Rick Santorum's right hand in destroying such a fine young man, and therefore they were planning to vote for Altmire.  I would categorize these individuals as very soft support in 2008.

The Habay family voting pattern was mostly likely 2004 party line Republican, 2006 split ticket, favoring most Dems, and 2008 party line Republican.  According to the political elite, they would be "independents;" according to me they would be idiosyncratic voters responding to highly personal motivations for their votes. 

This was probably the most idiosyncratic reason for swing-voter behavior, but I know in my canvassing experience, there are very few balancers, while there are numerous idiosyncratic reasons that prompted swing voter behavior.