The Village Strikes Back

The Cook Political Report, based on no polling, no gauging of public sentiment, nothing, just up and moved Alan Grayson's seat to a toss-up based on his comments the other day. Keep in mind that Grayson currently has no opponent yet. Doesn't matter - a Democrat said something mean, surely this will hurt him.

Here's how this works. Charlie Cook is seen as a big pooh-bah inside the Village. If he divines that a seat is in trouble, that becomes the conventional wisdom. It can hurt fundraising for an incumbent and help it for a challenger. Especially in this case, where the assessment cannot possibly be based on any data, you can conclude that Charlie Cook doesn't really appreciate outspoken Democrats, so he manufactured his ratings to downgrade Grayson, not just to hurt him, but as a warning to his colleagues not to step out of line.

Only thing is, Alan Grayson keeps taking in lots of money online. He's now raised over $100,000 in a little over a day, as much as $150,000 according to his campaign staff. Charlie Cook may have gone to the fainting couch and did his part to try and get Grayson thrown out of office, but the people don't seem to be buying it.

This is the kind of pressure a Democratic who doesn't follow the Village-approved rules for discourse is under. You can get Alan Grayson's back and let everyone know that the rules of the Village don't apply in the real world, where we actually like people with guts willing to say what they believe.

The New PVI Ratings Are Out! The New PVI Ratings Are Out!

Charlie Cook's PVI (Partisan Voting Index) ratings have become an indispensable tool for quickly identifying the partisan lean of any particular Congressional district in the country. Cook basically takes the Presidential results of the past two election cycles in a particular district and matches them against the results of the entire country to come up with the PVI number. If a district is R+3, for example, that basically means it is 3 points more Republican than the country as a whole. I like the Cook PVI because it isn't based on raw registration numbers, but actual electoral performance that is somewhat uniform across the country.

Thanks to the release of full election data by Congressional district throughout the country, Cook can now calculate the new PVI ratings for every seat. The California numbers are worth considering (You can find them all at this link). As Cook notes, there are 8 districts in the state with "Obama Republicans"; that is, Republican Congressmen in districts that Obama carried (There are no "McCain Democrats"). Those districts are:

CA-03 (Lungren), CA-24 (Gallegly), CA-25 (McKeon), CA-26 (Dreier), CA-44 (Calvert), CA-45 (Bono Mack), CA-48 (Campbell), CA-50 (Bilbray)

Of those seats, the three with the closest PVI ratings are CA-26, CA-45 and CA-50, all which have R+3. CA-24 is an R+4. And the rest in this group are R+6. Keep in mind that 2004 Bush-Kerry stats are factored into this, so there may be a bit of lag from the actual nature of the district.

Of these seats, the only Republican-held seat to get noticeably more Democratic from the 2004 set of ratings was CA-48, which went from an R+8 to an R+6. Several Democratic-held seats shifted in that fashion as well, as the largest partisan shifts in the country were "disproportionately western and suburban," says Cook.

The most Republican district in the state is CA-22 (McCarthy), which is the 44th most Republican in the country at R+16. The most Democratic is CA-09 (Lee), the 5th most Democratic in the country at D+37. A couple other notes:

• Jerry McNerney still holds an R+1 seat. However, this is not surprising, since Democrats hold 34 of the 50 seats between R+2 and D+2.

• CA-10 grew slightly more Democratic this time, at D+11, further destroying the myth that it's a moderate seat. Actual somewhat close (though not in danger) Democratic seats include CA-18 (Cardoza, D+4), CA-20 (Costa, D+5) and CA-47 (Loretta Sanchez, D+4).

• Turning to races from last year, CA-46 remains moderately competitive at R+6, while CA-04 (McClintock) is R+10, a testament to how strong Charlie Brown was to even compete.

Now, this just measures the partisan lean of a district, not the partisanship of a particular member of Congress. A better judge for that would be the Progressive Punch score weighted for district tilt, an excellent measure of whether or not a member is out of step with their district. In California, the strongest Dems are Barbara Lee, Linda Sanchez and Lynn Woolsey, while the weakest Dems are Jim Costa, Jerry McNerney and Jane Harman (and remember, that's district-weighted).

A lot to digest here, but much of it is familiar - we have multiple potential Congressional targets, and have for a number of cycles, but just need to use resources and ground talent better.

CA-04: Charlie Cook Finally Wakes Up And Moves This To A Toss-Up

Charlie Cook, the favored Congressional tipster for insiders, is notoriously conservative in his selections. And as such, he's slow to recognize races that, based on outdated fundamentals, simply "can't" be competitive. It's embarrassing that it's taken him this long to move CA-04 to a toss-up. Here's his precis:

CA-04 OPEN (Doolittle) Lean Republican to Toss Up
All GOP state Sen. Tom McClintock needed to do to put this district away was to run ads noting Democratic nominee Charlie Brown’s attendance at anti-war rallies. The only problem? McClintock ran out of money too soon and has been inexplicably “dark” on broadcast television in the final phase of the campaign, allowing Brown and the DCCC to remain in strong contention by portraying McClintock as a carpetbagger and self-serving career politician.

Republicans in Washington fret that McClintock has run a second rate campaign and that even with an extensive statewide fundraising network, he has failed to put together a competent media strategy. The NRCC, too broke to come to McClintock’s rescue, is also off the air in the expensive Sacramento market. Some Republicans suggest that in the end, their biggest advantage in this district may be the presence of Proposition 8, a measure to eliminate same-sex marriage, on the California ballot. This race should be a slam dunk for the GOP, but right now it is a toss up.

First of all, there's no way that misleading anti-war rally attack would have derailed the Brown campaign. Most of the country is against the war. But putting that aside, Cook shares my astonishment that Mr. Fiscal Conservative McClintock managed to run out of money weeks before the race was over. That is some epic mismanagement.

Cook is wrong about another thing, the NRCC is trying to ride to the rescue, up with a new ad trying to paint Brown as a "liberal yes man." I just don't think this is the year to throw around the "L" word like it's some kind of boogeyman. Anyway, don't they know that these days, you're supposed to call the Democrat a socialist or a Marxist? Looking at the ad, it looks like the NRCC and McClintock went Dutch on it.

The point is that the GOP hasn't totally given up on this race, and while I'm confident in Brown's abilities he could definitely use some reinforcements in the final week. You can give at the Calitics ActBlue page.