Democrats Plan: Split GOP, Tea Party
Democrats are looking for someone to blame for their electoral woes — and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez is working hard to make sure it’s not him.
Showing that they’ve learned the lesson of Massachusetts, Menendez and his staff will distribute a memo Tuesday advising Democratic campaign managers to frame their opponents early — and to drive a wedge between moderate voters and tea-party-style conservatives.
“Given the pressure Republican candidates feel from the extreme right in their party, there is a critical — yet time-sensitive — opportunity for Democratic candidates,” the DSCC writes. “We have a finite window when Republicans candidates will feel susceptible to the extremists in their party. Given the urgent nature of this dynamic, we suggest an aggressive effort to get your opponents on the record.”
The memo urges Democratic candidates to force their opponents to answer a series of questions on health care, taxes and some of the favorite causes of the far right:
“Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen? Do you think the 10th Amendment bars Congress from issuing regulations like minimum health care coverage standards? Do you think programs like Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should never have been created in the first place? Do you think President Obama is a socialist? Do you think America should return to a gold standard?”
If a Republican candidate says no to any of the questions, the memo says Democrats should “make their primary opponent or conservative activists know it. This will cause them to take heat from their primary opponents and could likely provoke a flip-flop, as it already has several times with Mark Kirk in Illinois.”
As chairman of the DSCC, Menendez has been rocked by a series of setbacks: the out-of-the-blue retirement announcement from Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.); Monday’s news that Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden won’t run for the seat previously held by his father, Vice President Joe Biden; and Republican Scott Brown’s stunning win last week in the race for the late Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat.
Menendez has escaped much of the blame for the Massachusetts massacre, and he plainly hopes to keep it that way. In his memo, he suggests the way to avoid similar losses in the future is to do what Democratic candidate Martha Coakley didn’t: frame the Republican contender early and track any shifting positions by video or other means.
Unlike his predecessor, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Menendez had maintained a fairly low profile running the DSCC. But that changed in the immediate aftermath of Massachusetts.
Menendez spoke last week at a private Democratic Caucus meeting, where he urged all his party’s candidates to “run scared.” In a series of interviews with reporters, the New Jersey Democrat said that he has ordered a top-down review of all candidates’ campaigns to ensure they are properly calibrated to the “volatile” electorate. And over the weekend, he appeared on two Sunday political talk shows to mount a vigorous defense of the Democratic stewardship of Washington — and a counterattack against the GOP.
The jury is still out on Menendez’s tenure, which will be measured by his committee’s fundraising prowess, where it devotes its resources and time, its ability to recruit top-tier candidates and, ultimately, its success at preventing an electoral bloodbath in November.
In an interview, Menendez said he knew this cycle would be “tough and challenging” and that maintaining 60 seats is a lot harder than getting them.
“It’s not buying the car that’s tough; it’s maintaining it,” Menendez said. “But maintaining is not as attractive as buying it.”
In a sense, Menendez has been a victim of bad timing. Schumer, who was chairman for two cycles, was able to tap into an energized Democratic base that was eager to rebuke George W. Bush; as a result, he helped turn a 10-seat deficit in 2005 into an 18-seat advantage after the 2008 elections.
And Schumer benefited from what Republicans acknowledge was weaker competition at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which was run at the time by then-Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, followed by Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. The new NRSC chairman, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, is seen as much more aggressive and as a better fundraiser than were his two predecessors.
Under Schumer, the DSCC trounced the NRSC in fundraising. But while the DSCC still maintains an advantage, the fundraising margin has tightened under Menendez as the DSCC competes for cash with a more aggressive Democratic National Committee and against an NRSC buoyed by an energized GOP base.
“We’re going to absolutely have the resources to engage an aggressive campaign wherever we decide to get engaged,” Menendez said. He also said that, in most of the Senate races, Democratic candidates are holding a cash advantage over GOP candidates.
While a veteran campaign strategist complained Monday that the DSCC has been “monumentally unimpressive” under Menendez, Schumer said in an interview that Senate Democrats believe Menendez has done an “outstanding job under very difficult circumstances.”
And other Democrats, too, are sympathetic.
“The White House can spin [the Massachusetts race] any way they want,” said one senior Democratic senator up for reelection, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But this was about Obama and health care. This was not about Bob Menendez and the committee.”
Despite the Dorgan setback, DSCC officials say Menendez has had success in keeping most of his incumbents from retiring. And they point out that Menendez helped Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd decide to drop out of an uphill bid for reelection this year — a decision that has given Democrats a better shot at keeping the seat in their column.
But there’s a long road ahead. In addition to the serious risk of losing the Delaware and North Dakota seats, Democrats face the possibility of losing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s seat in Nevada and Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s seat in Arkansas. At the same time, Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania appear highly vulnerable, and Obama’s former seat in Illinois looks ripe for a GOP takeover.
Democrats still have a shot at four seats opened up by GOP retirements: in Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio. And they have an outside shot at knocking off Republican Sen. Richard Burr in North Carolina. But the DSCC suffered a setback last year when it couldn’t get a top-tier recruit to take on Burr in North Carolina. Party officials also were disappointed that the DSCC couldn’t attract Florida’s chief financial officer, Alex Sink, to run for the Senate in that state.
Menendez has had some recruiting successes, including Rep. Charlie Melancon, who gives the party a shot at taking out Republican Sen. David Vitter in Louisiana.
But if Democrats suffer a bloodbath and can’t pick up the open GOP seats, Menendez will almost certainly suffer the brunt of the blame.
“He’s got the worst hand to play of any DSCC chairman, ever,” said Democratic strategist Steve Murphy, who is advising several Democratic Senate candidates this cycle. “His job is to minimize losses in this economic environment. The notion that Democrats pick up seats or even hold what we have is not realistic.”
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Sources: Politico, Google Maps
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