Three Events Today

Three events worth taking note of today:

1) Special election in the 14th CD of Illinois to replace retiring Representative Dennis Hastert. This isn't an especially juicy prize, as whoever wins will have to run again in November's general election. However, in a normally safe Republican district the Democrat is running almost even. Special elections such as this one are often considered bellwethers for the coming general - Paul Hackett's August '05 near-miss in the bright red Ohio 2nd presaged the Democratic gains in 2006. To that end, the NRCC has dumped almost 20% of their cash on hand into the race. Part of the GOP's issue here is their candidate - no one really likes Jim Oberweis, and if he wasn't a self-funder the party bosses likely would not have coalesced behind him like they did. Some of his attacks on his opponent have also been questionable in their accuracy. Democrat Bill Foster's also helped by the fact that Illinois is Obama country, and Obama's endorsed Foster; to me, at least, an Oberweis win may be another sign that Obama is losing some of his aura. Coverage from CQ (and CQ) and The Fix are worth reading. If the GOP's using its 72-hour GOTV program, I think Oberweis pulls out a narrow win.

2) The Wyoming Democratic Caucus. Wyoming Republicans caucused months ago - 2 days after Iowa to be exact. Democrats are only now getting around to it, but it's a lot more significant than the GOP contest which Romney won. There are eighteen delegates at stake, and for the life of me, I haven't found any polling on the race. Neither Kerry nor Gore cracked 30% in the state, but Republican Representative (the only one) Barbara Cubin's victory in 2006 was a relative squeaker. I think the outcome is a result of who shows up; fundamentally, I think it's a Clinton state: 89% white, a median income just under $38,000 (less than that of Ohio). But I also have to wonder about immigration to the state from elsewhere, specifically wealthy, liberal voters flocking to places like Jackson Hole. Obviously, they'll be Obama voters and thus could make things interesting. If Clinton wins, expect her to make a lot of noise about it - she hasn't won a primary in a long time. She also needs a win to slow Obama down a bit more; Tuesday's Mississippi primary is demographically Obama country. Coverage from the WaPo and the NYT is worth taking a look at, the latter piece describes essentially record turnout.

3) Duke-UNC: Go to Hell Carolina, Go to Hell! It's at Cameron Indoor, but Duke's been inconsistent of late (though they looked pretty good in their road win over UVA on Wednesday) and UNC's been looking pretty good. The Heels should also have their starting point guard back, though no word on whether he'll start or whether he's 100%. All that being said, Duke won in the Dean Dome by 11, raining 3 pointers. Assuming Demarcus Nelson doesn't get into foul trouble, and that the shooters aren't laying eggs all day long, it should be interesting. It's sort of a mismatch game as Carolina (really, Tyler Hansbrough) dominates the front court while Duke dominates the back court with legitimate marksmen in Paulus, Scheyer, Singler, and occasionally King; both teams have productive benches, and Scheyer has been known to have game-changing performances. Both teams also have that extra motivation. For Duke, it's a home game in the biggest rivalry in college hoops (if not college sports), and the last time senior captain Demarcus Nelson will step foot on Coach K Court. For Carolina, they're looking to protect their #1 ranking, as well as perhaps distract their fans from the tragic death of student body president Eve Carson. For both teams, the ACC regular season title is on the line. Duke's got their 6th man in the Cameron Crazies, so I'll (not entirely neutrally) give the Blue Devils the edge in this one - but expect it to be a classic.

Shilling for Another Dem

So it was one thing when I was pushing Lawrence Lessig's potential Congressional bid (he's decided against running) because it was the California 12, bright blue Bay Area. Sadly we get another party hack in Congress instead.


Now I'm pushing a Democrat running in a district where he has virtually no chance. Why? Same reason as Lessig: credentials (and another reason). Mike Lumpkin is running in the California 52, a San Diego-area district that Bush won handily in both 2004 and 2000, and that current representative Duncan Hunter (perhaps better known as a presidential candidate?) has won without serious challenge for years. But it's also a district where 16% of the population are miitary veterans, and that's something Lumpkin is. Not just a veteran, however, an eight-tour veteran Navy SEAL with a master's degree in National Security and an emphasis on Low Intensity Conflict (otherwise known as counterinsurgency warfare). Sounds like a worthwhile addition to the House.

On the issues, he's a Democrat. He supports bringing the troops home (from both Iraq and Afghanistan?), but does not elaborate. Obviously this gives me pause. However, I'm also willing to let him explain himself - his issues section as a whole is still sketchy thus as a whole, I'm willing to give him time (again, not likely to win). In this he doesn't seem to differ from other Democratic candidates in the district, so his biography gives him the interest-factor edge.

There's another reason I find this campaign intriguing: the likely Republican nominee is none other than Duncan Hunter's son Duncan S. Hunter. For all my conservative, small-r tendencies, I'm no fan of hereditary politics. I'm not supporting Lumpkin, just throwing out there the fact that maybe we need to give hereditary candidates a better run for their money (ask Dan Lipinski about that one) - and maybe this just shows my Chicago roots.

I suppose I should also make mention of how I found out about the Lumpkin candidacy. To be brief, I was chasing down a rumor that a fellow named Eric Greitens was running. He isn't (at present), but he has endorsed Lumpkin. Again, Greitens is a fellow I cannot have less than the utmost respect for: he's a Navy SEAL as well, a Duke alum (bonus points), a White House Fellow (nothing like the White House Intern program, I promise) and a Truman Scholar as well as a Rhodes Scholar. In short, his resume is superhuman. If Greitens runs in the future, I'll be sure to make note of it.

Renzi Gets Worse

So he's not just indicted. He's indicted on 36 counts of corruption, including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, extortion and insurance fraud; two others were charged along with him. One hopes that on top of everything else, we're not running against a "culture of corruption" too this November.

Oh Goody

Rick Renzi indicted. The Congressman from the AZ01 has been ethically challenged for a while - but now it's all out there. Thinking off the top of my head, he'll probably pull out and be replaced on the ballot by a state senator or other local worthy. The seat's not especially safe, only an R+2 (Bush won with 54% in 04 and 51% in 00). Although Renzi won easily in 2004, in 2006, with the ethical questions and the overall Democratic environment, he won with just 52% of the vote. We'll see...

UPDATE: Oops - I'd forgotten that Renzi announced last August that he wouldn't seek reelection. Still, a Republican in the district will have to run tainted by the association.

More Lessig

So he's still not officially running, but he's now got a campaign website of sorts. It's got most of what you'd find on a real site, but he's still not officially in. I'm not certain this is a statement of intent - perhaps he's trying to gauge support still?


He also sat down for an interview with Ars Technica, touching on his campaign and what he'd like to do in Congress. It's worth reading in its (relatively brief) entirety, but I'll pull some key excerpts here. First off, it's worth noting that Lessig is currently focused (academically speaking) on the corrupting influence of money in politics; to that end:

One simple means of reducing the political power of campaign cash, Lessig says, "could be done tomorrow." He wants to ban legislative earmarks, those juicy morsels of targeted federal funding legislators direct toward pet projects and political supporters. Lessig also hopes to encourage more robust public financing of campaigns, noting the salutary effect such policies appear to be having in states like Maine and Arizona. Most immediately—and perhaps most radically—Lessig says he will swear off contributions from lobbyists or political action committees, and he hopes to bring grassroots pressure to bear on other candidates to follow suit.

"This is about building a parallel to Creative Commons in Congress," Lessig explains, referencing the popular legal license he created to help authors and artists make their work available for free distribution and modification. Just as creators under a Creative Commons license cede some control over their works in order to promote a robust open-source culture, Lessig's political vision entails "people in power, legislators, voluntarily waiving that power in order to build a better system."

No more earmarks? Good. Public funding? Less certain how I feel about this. It might make for more reasonable campaigns, however - and perhaps shorter campaigns (which in turn would allow voters to pay more attention). The no PAC money is nice - and in a true blue district like the CA-12 may appeal to voters (pure speculation, that).

On policy, he is (as I noted yesterday) a full-blown progressive. However, and I imagine in opposition to his primary opponent, he's a "free-trade, pro-market liberal." As I've said, we could do worse. So what's he planning on doing in Congress?

"Silicon Valley needs a representative who can speak for the interests of the Internet, of making it flourish," he says. "As we're leading into this moment when the owners of telecommunications platforms are trying to leverage their ownership into control of the Internet, yammering about the need to turn it into the old Bell System, we need someone in Washington who's going to be able to stare them down."

But while Lessig wryly notes that the RIAA and MPAA "won't be excited to have an opponent of extremist copyright legislation in Congress," he also stresses that a congressional run would not be some kind of crusading extension of his work on "free culture." For Lessig, the central policy question will be, "Who ultimately controls innovation on the Internet? That's the net neutrality fight; that's the open spectrum fight."

As I've said, I've got mixed feelings about net neutrality. But as I've also said, we could do worse - Lessig is an intellectual and a thoughtful one at that. Given the district, he's orders of magnitude better than a Republican has any reason to hope for.

I'll credit the unparalleled Glenn Reynolds for bringing this to my attention; on Instapundit, he notes "one certainly can't object to the prospect of more serious thinkers, and fewer professional politicians, in Congress." I wholeheartedly agree.

Lessig for Congress?

One of the more interesting books I've read for a class recently was Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. It's a book about creativity and copyrights, and despite sound like something only a wonk could love, Lessig succeeds in making it accessible, even pleasant, for the lay reader. As such, I strongly recommend it. Besides being an author, Lessig's also a professor out at Stanford Law and a blogger. Busy man. He may also be looking for a new day job.

Lessig lives in (or at least near) California's 12th Congressional District, until recently represented by the late (and sorely missed) Tom Lantos. I didn't always agree with Lantos - indeed the man often drove me up the wall - but I respected him (as Congress's only Holocaust survivor, he deserved at least that much) and found myself agreeing with him more than I might have thought likely. Now there's a Draft Lessig movement afoot, looking to him to replace Lantos. The 12th is a district in which the primary is essentially the ball game - no Republican has gotten more than 43% since 1982 - and more recently most have been held south of 30. Looking at the map such poor performance shouldn't come as much of a surprise - we're talking deep Bay Area here.

I imagine that we can do much worse than Lessig (more on this later). In recent years, Congress's track-record on matters of intellectual property has continually been somewhere between ludicrous and unconstitutional; debate has been minimal at best (the infamous Mickey Mouse Act, properly the Copyright Terms Extension Act, passed by voice vote leaving no record of those few who stood in opposition). Lessig would certainly change all of that, sparking a serious debate on an important and neglected area of policy. Of course it's not all peaches and creme - he's a vociferous Obama supporter and has also stood up for Net Neutrality (on which I remain neutral). But as I said, I imagine we can do much worse.

What's also interesting is the nature of his still-unofficial campaign: it started with a "Draft Lessig for Congress" Facebook group. The movement has gone from there to draftlessig.org website and has gone so far as to have established an Actblue page for the candidate (through which he's already garnered $24,240). Lessig officially remains coy; on his blog, he's said he'll decide soon whether or not to run. Making this whole thing more intriguing is the fact that, in his words, "A bunch of people have asked (and some in the strongest way possible) that I not run because somehow, as a progressive (the pc word for "liberal"), it is wrong to challenge another established progressive."

"Another established progressive" refers to Jackie Speier, who presumably was the establishment candidate to replace Lantos (who had already planned on retiring). Speier looks like Pelosi - which is reason enough to support Lessig over her. She also sounds like Pelosi - cut and run on Iraq, "bring the troops home to fix the economy," yadda yadda yadda (though interestingly, her positions on the Environment and Health Care are "Coming soon...").

If they're both progressives, I presume Lessig feels much the same way on the issues. Given the choice between the two, I have to say that Lessig is the lesser of two evils - in fact he'd be a fine addition to Congress (remember, we're not getting anything that smells like a Republican elected out here). Check out his blog and some of the other links; I encourage you to read Free Culture. This special election may be one worth watching.

Ron Paul's Troubled Home Front

So he's technically still running for president, but if Ron Paul keeps on pressing his absurd presidential bid, he may find himself wandering off the political stage altogether. According to Power Line, Paul's gotten himself a pretty serious primary challenge in Chris Peden. His website is here - feel free to take a look, especially his self-comparisons with Paul.

New Democratic House Strategy

Huh. Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen and the rest of the crowd at the D-Trip have come up with an interesting new strategy for disbursing their financial resources: among Democratic incumbents, only spend in those districts where the NRCC is spending.

It's smart: they're playing a lot of offense next year, and unless incumbents are in deep trouble, they can take care of themselves. Given the enormous cash disparity between the two parties, Republicans won't be targeting many incumbent Democrats anyways. For those Dems who are already flush with cash and in conservative districts, not having the national party visible in their district may allow them to further themselves from their egregiously unpopular national party.

This is also emblematic of the way in which the Democratic Party's pulling ahead of the GOP on the ground - the money helps of course, and they still haven't beaten the Republican Party's infamous "72 Hour Plan" GOTV operation, but they're learning. Thankfully, the national environment in 08 is unlikely to be anywhere near as poisonous to Republicans as it was in 06.

CQ Looks West

Another CQ regional House race analysis, this time looking at the West.

CQ's First House Race Listing

The fine folks at Congressional Quarterly have put together their first list of 78 potentially competitive House races for next year; I'll take a look at some of them (and hopefully remember to link to their regional analysis in the future...

First Thoughts.
Republican Held, No Clear Favorite
- NC-8: No one saw Robin Hayes' near-defeat coming, but that was 2006, this is 2008. He's won pretty comfortably in the past, and there's no promise that having failed to deliver a knockout blow last year, Democrats can do so this year. That being said, the D Trip paid exactly zero attention to this race, and with their tender concern, Hayes may be in serious trouble. It'll be fun to watch.
- OH-15: There are an obscene number of Ohio races on this list, but while last year was a bloodbath for the Ohio GOP (as it was for their Pennsylvania brethren), this year may not be as bad. However, a lot will come down to the presidential election - if the Republican carries the Buckeye state, most embattled Republican incumbents hold on; if Hillary takes it, we lose more ground here. Thanks Bob Taft!

Republican Held, Leans Republican
- AK at large: Don Young and the rest of the Alaska GOP are in increasingly hot water for potential ethical laxities...but whether or not Alaskans care may be another story entirely. Last I checked there wasn't much of an AK Democratic Party, but we'll see.
- CO-4: Chris Cilizza hits the nail on the head with this one, so I'll just quote him:

Every election we look at the strong Republican performance of this district and conclude that there is no way Rep. Marilyn Musgrave can lose the seat. And every election she barely manages to win. This time we won't be fooled. Democrats are heavily targeting this race and Musgrave has proven that she underperforms in this eastern Colorado seat.

I'll add that in addition, Republicans have been unable to find a strong candidate to run for Senate (Wayne Allard's retirement has opened up a seat) while Democrat Mark Udall has been waiting for this opportunity for years. The state did go for Bush in both 2000 and 2004, but I'm leery of describing it as truly red anymore; if it shows its purplishness again next fall, Musgrave may be victim (purple people eater?).

- CT-4: Chris Shays holds a rather macabre distinction: he is the only remaining Republican Representative from New England. The rest were cut down last fall. Again to go to CC, Shays recently threatened retirement (and a de facto loss of the seat) if not given some perks in the House, but it still may be too much. A lot here rides on Iraq - if things are improving, voters may be a bit more forgiving.

- IL-10: Really, CQ? Democrat Dan Seals had no primary opposition last time and an impeccable environment. And he blew it. Now he's got a primary challenger in the person of Clinton White House staffer Jay Footlik (who may have been put up to the task by fellow ex-Clintonista Rahm Emanuel), and Mark Kirk ain't going to be sleeping on the job. But this is a pretty purple district, so a lot may out of Kirk's control. Namely Obama - should the Illinois darling win his party's nomination, Kirk may as well start looking for a position on a corporate board.

Democratic Held Seats, Leans Democratic
- AZ-8: (Again) - really CQ? The GOP held on to this district for as long as it did because Jim Kolbe was sufficiently moderate to do so; he also probably won points in Tucson, a big university town, for his sexual orientation. Conventional Republicans are at a disadvantage here, and Kathy Giffords showed herself to be mildly competent last time. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer once revealed one of his two secrets to advertising to be appear on a horse (the other one was hold a gun): Giffords has taken it to heart, appearing on horseback in many parades and promotional materials. [Note to Arizona Republicans: next time you redistrict, swap some land between the 8th and the neighboring majority-minority 7th. I.e. find the thirty-something percent that vote against Grijalva every two years and tie them into the 8th!]

Again, it's hard to predict much this far out, especially as we don't know who the presidential nominees will be. My guess is that if Hillary's nominated, some of these Republicans won't be feeling the heat so much as she'll turn off swing voters in many purple and light-red states. Many of the Democrats they list are here because they hold seats Bush won in '04, but I don't think that'll make much of a difference now. Long story short, and it's pathetic, but the GOP has little chance of retaking the House next fall.

Hastert to Retire

So far only the Sun Times has picked it up, perhaps because everyone knew it was coming and thus it's hardly newsworthy, but former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is expected to announce tommorow that he's not going to seek reelection.