Within the Margin

Second podcast. An Empire State-themed show includes discussion of the NYC mayoral race, other pundits’ speculation on state senate retirements, Andrew Cuomo’s current standing and future prospects and the absurdity of New York’s electoral processes. We hope you enjoy, but we also hope you give us feedback either way.

Episode 2: 

We recorded a podcast. It’s a little over a week old, because I was  dallying over where wanted to host the download. Ultimately it made the most sense to put it right here with the rest of the blog. Topics covered include the special election in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional district (or as most would identify it: the one with Stephen Colbert’s sister and the governor with the Argentinean mistress); politicians talking about guns and torture with respect to the Boston Marathon bombing; and early recruiting and fundraising efforts for the 2014 midterm elections. We enjoyed recording, and we hope you enjoy listening.

Episode 1:

The old adage of the Beltway that Social Security is “the third rail of American Politics” may just be wrong. It seems as though the complex, neurotic and seemingly bizarre politics of guns, gun policy and anything involving the term “gun control” may well be the third rail, especially since the conversations, not even policy, seem to fry political discourse within moments.

I’m as guilty as many as simply avoiding gun politics unless it’s shoved into my face with the most recent of tragedies. They’ve happened time and again, and the call to action is almost always silenced in the long game of history. The tragedy at Newtown’s Sandy Hook School isn’t the first school shooting of the year, but it was the most gruesome. As the media was quick to point out, this was the 32nd school shooting since the massacre at Columbine High School. We’ve seen other massacres at all levels of schooling, and every time we react in a knee jerk way about our gun politics, and it has so far produced a record that’s pretty abysmal…maybe it’s time to start changing the overarching approach and when we actually have the gun conversation that’s so badly needed needed in this country.

The way we go about it now, responding to a tragedy with mass hysterics from the Left and Right should have ended on March 1st of 2000, the day after a school shooting in which the perpetrator and victim were 6 years old. Instead both sides of the gun spectrum cling to self-righteousness and petty arguments and responding with fear mongering (more especially on the pro-gun side of the equation who is continually convinced that specifically Liberals are coming to take their guns, and yet there’s nearly 300 million guns in the United States and it’s a safe bet that no “guns rights” activist can name a single instance in which a liberal, any liberal, has ever come and taken their gun without just cause) or blaming things we have no business blaming out of bias (video games, movies and music immediately spring to mind). We butcher the conversations that are needed in every single gun tragedy we immediately start throwing out rhetoric one way or the other about the Founding Fathers and the Founders intent, more on that later.

I’ve always found my own stance on guns at a conflict. While a pacifist, I can understand the wishes of some to own a gun to hunt (a noble endeavor) or to protect one’s home (an honored tradition whence the long time lawlessness of our nation is taken into account), I can even almost understand the wish to own guns for sport. On that last reason I don’t understand why one doesn’t just go to a shooting range and just use an assortment of firearms at the range to get their fill? Regardless, I’m also well aware of the argument made by so many who cite the 2nd amendment as a reason to purchase weaponry. This is the weakest of all arguments because the people who make the case have seemingly no idea of the full text of the amendment or its context within a historical perspective (which is very easy to attribute to the education system or just plain willful ignorance). However, the FULL Amendment reads:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Between our myriad of police forces, sheriffs departments, state level police, federal agents of all sorts, and our Armed Forces, we have more levels of “well regulated Militias” than the founders could ever have dreamed. This is of course all my own opinion and more than open to healthy and open discussion.

It is my hope that this most recent tragedy actually brings about a real dialogue that is badly needed. There have been some encouraging and saddening signs already. I’d like to begin by promising friends and those with whom I’ll never agree with on political issues: Democrats and Liberals are not going to take the guns you have, not unless you give a reason to; it’s too damned much work honestly, we’d spend all our time just chasing games, remember I said there’s something like 300 MILLION guns. Now, that being said, can we please have a conversation about types of guns that can be sold and the size of cartridge magazines? I mean you can kill just as effectively with a 15 round clip for ANY weapon as you will with a 60 round clip…I’d almost be willing to accept the hunting argument with a 15 round clip, hell, 15 rounds is fun for the shooting range I’d bet. However, all I’ll wonder if you NEED a 60 round clip is “how many people are you looking to harm;” it’s beyond unnecessary. Likewise, I’m willing to settle on shotguns and handguns and hunting rifles with no argument…but no one needs an AR-15 or a Mac-10 to bring down a 10 point Buck or to stop the idiot looking to steal from your house, those are meant for one thing: killing. I’m not asking for much I don’t think, there’s much more that I want: closing the gun show loophole, thorough background checks, yearly inspection on the upkeep of the weapon and constant re-certification to own a gun, and pie in the sky dream of ending “Conceal-Carry” in this country.

I hope that the overarching view on guns in this country can change. We don’t need all out bans on all guns, but I think we can come together on re-establishing the Assault Weapons Ban and prohibiting the size of obnoxious sized magazines of ammunition. Unfortunately given the rhetoric of both sides since last week’s horrific events, I don’t think we’re ever going to have the actual constructive conversation that we need, we’ve desensitized ourselves to it by now, it’s seemingly impossible to think anything will change.

I don’t know what to think and have had a hard time with the news over the last week, I don’t know what to fight for as my hopes of vast changes on guns are met with the reality that is no small matter. A functioning and useful conversation is necessary…I’m just hopeful that we get to the table this time with all sides involved, even the idiots calling for arming teachers in school. At the same time, I fear we’ll never get to that table with everyone fair and openminded to change.

Everyone likes Chris Christie. Oh, except for some Republican donors who have probably never actually had to govern a state. Or anything. And who might not listen to enough Springsteen.

Last week, the Times ran a piece detailing Chris Christie’s rocky relationship with Republican insiders amid the fallout from having a warm relationship with President Obama in Sandy’s aftermath. That piece was worth a read to understand the depths to which out-of-state donors sunk as they begged Christie to focus on helping Romney rather than the devastation that had come to his state from Sandy.  Look, it should be noted that Chris Christie was hardly the Romney campaign’s biggest problem. If the Republicans really wanted to win that election, they could have offered a budget whose numbers added up, rather than Paul Ryan’s sleight-of-hand (the Paul Ryan “MATH” Obamicon was one of the more ironic images from the 2012 campaign). They could have offered something besides condescension for the rising demographic groups with whom they performed so poorly. They could have offered a set of values that would not be so easily caricatured as coming from the 1920s (economic policy) or 1950s (social policy. Oh, and foreign policy, with that bit about Russia.)

But they didn’t, and Romney lost, and Chris Christie has little to do with that. It’s probably not the first time in the annals of history that the GOP donor class is out of touch with normal people. It seemed pretty obvious to most, I think, that the man’s commitment to duty and deep love for his state was fueling a desire to work hand-in-hand with the federal government to get through a crisis. But don’t take my word for it. Quinnipiac has been polling the Garden State, and they found that 84% of New Jerseyans approved of Christie’s praise for Obama – including 69% of Jersey Republicans. When it comes to Christie handling his job, particularly inter-governmental relations, I care what people in his state think – not what donors think, and now what insiders desperately looking for their next consulting gig might think.

Now, as Democratic insiders go, I’ve always been pretty tolerant of this guy. There’s a reason for this. When it comes to Christie, the first thing I think of is not union-busting or physical girth or New Jersey bluster – which are the things media people and pundits and political combatants usually cling to. For me, the first thing that comes to mind when I ponder Christie…is Springsteen. That goes beyond Christie and I simply being fans of a man and his music, because the music represents something hard to define, but which is about an attachment to place and time and personal struggle that I feel in an acute way, and which I think Christie does as well. I can disagree with Christie on some – not nearly all – of his policies, but I might consider him something of a kindred spirit in how he goes through his life. So when I see donors lamenting that Christie’s too tight with Obama, or Iowa Republican operatives saying they “don’t forget things like this, I think, “Oh, another bunch of donors and hacks who could use a little more Bruce in their lives.” If you can’t empathize with Christie and understand the importance of place and people before politics in the days and weeks following Sandy, then it seems to me there’s a catalog of music that’s missing from your life. Come back to me when you’ve found your soul.

Sometimes it’s just about geography. My favorite district in my second state is a good example. 

I understand that Republicans are looking for bright spots from this month’s elections, and that’s fair. I’d be doing the same. But to hear Brock McCleary tell it, Keith Rothfus’ victory in southwest Pennsylvania’s 12th district is a triumph of smart campaigning and of prevailing against great odds. McCleary is the NRCC’s  (National Republican Congressonal Committee) Deputy Political Director, and he has a history with this district. He’s forthcoming about how personal this race was for him. I think that attachment is preventing him from seeing this simply as a triumph of partisan mapmaking.

Redistricting took the district that Critz won in 2010 (twice) and  made the Obama ’08 percentage about four points lower than it had been. Then, in 2012, Obama cratered in much of western Pennsylvania, and most profoundly in the areas contained in the 12th district. Critz’ Cambria County base voted narrowly for Obama in 2008. This time, he received only 40% of the vote – a nine-point drop. The same goes for Somerset County. Other counties in the Fightin’ 12th saw anywhere from a 1-4 point Obama percentage drop over 2008 . This collapse didn’t happen in most parts of the county, where Obama’s drop relative to 2008 was around two points. But it happened throughout Appalachia, and southwest Pennsylvania was no different. Winning in a 50-50 district would have been tough enough for Critz. Winning in the redrawn 54-45 McCain-Obama district was going to be tougher, and this turned out to be more like a 57% Romney district. We’re moving back toward straight-ticket voting in this country, and we’ll find that few Democrats held on in districts where Romney’s percentage was so high.

Where did we at WTM see this race going? We had it at Tilt Dem, with Critz’ political chops being just enough to survive the continued reddening of the district. So yeah, we got it wrong – barely – and maybe that validates McCleary’s excitement a bit. But the credit should go to the Republican legislators in Harrisburg who concocted a map where Rothfus could squeak out a three-point win while Romney was romping in the district. They made it more Republican. They removed IUP, where Critz is an alum (as am I). They shifted it north, removing the sections of Greene and Fayette that Critz had previously carried.

Look, partisan gerrymandering kept Republican losses lower than the might have been this year. It also helped Democrats in two of the only places where they got to draw the map – Illinois and Maryland. It’s ok to acknowledge that fact rather than paint Keith Rothfus and his team as a group of political geniuses.

From time to time we like to take things local here at WTM, and on Election Night I promised to elaborate further on the scope of just what had happened in my home county. I don’t toss around words like “historic” without thought; I have a graduate degree in the field and a deep awareness of the transient nature of electoral success. But as election results came in, it became clear that Democrats in Dutchess County were experiencing something akin to their best-case scenario for the evening. In doing so, the party surpassed all of its previous high-water marks, which are ranked below. But first, let’s examine what happened, starting at the top.

President. Barack Obama carried Dutchess County again. His margin was slightly reduced from 2008, but the erosion was not as much as he experienced nationally (-1.24% versus -2.14%, both numbers being subject to minor revision pending final tallies) and was still enough for a comfortable 6.6% margin of victory in the county As much as Democrats struggled here in 2009 and 2010, causing doubts as to whether Obama could again carry Dutchess, he ended up performing pretty decently here. This is the fourth time that a Democratic presidential candidate won this county – the others being Johnson ’64, Clinton ’96, and Obama ’08.

Senate. As expected, Kirsten Gillibrand obliterated her woeful, extremist opponent statewide and carried Dutchess by a 2:1 margin.

House of Representatives. Dutchess is divided between two Congressional districts. Republican freshman Chris Gibson represents northern and eastern Dutchess and carried the county en route to reelection. Fellow GOP first-termer Nan Hayworth represents southwestern Dutchess and was not so successful: she was defeated decisively by Democratic Sean Maloney in Dutchess and more narrowly district-wide. Maloney becomes the third Democrat to represent Southern Dutchess in Congress, following John Dow in the ’60s and John Hall, who won in 2006 and 2008.

State Assembly. The new Assembly map divides Dutchess into four Assembly districts. The 103rd includes only Rhinebeck and Red Hook and is otherwise an Ulster County district; here, incumbent Democrat Kevin Cahill was unopposed for reelection.

The 104th district includes Poughkeepsie, Beacon and sections of Orange and Ulster. This was won narrowly by Frank Skartados in 2008 over 14-year incumbent Tom Kirwan. The latter would be back to win an even closer rematch in 2010, but he passed away before completing his final term, prompting a March 2012 special election. Skartados won that easily, and crushed his opponent in the general. This seat, safely Republican for so long and marginal recently, has officially become a safely Democratic seat.

The 105 and 106th districts are effectively new entities, drawn out of the old 102nd and 103rd. Democrat Didi Barrett’s special election victory in the old 103rd in March made her the first Democrat ever to hold that seat, now effectively the 106th. In her quest for a full term, Barrett faced new territory and a legitimate challenger in West Point graduate and Milan councilman David Byrne. The Republican had won an Opportunity to Ballot campaign to snag the Independence Line from Barrett in September and the Barrett campaign was taking nothing for granted, even in a district slightly more Democratic than the one in which she triumphed in March. She ended up winning by the almost-comfortable margin of 55%-45% – a remarkable feat in territory so unaccustomed to sending Dems to Albany.

The 105th includes all of Dutchess County’s most Republican towns; it did what southern Dutchess does and elected Republican Kieran Lalor to an open seat by a 56-44 margin. That loss for Dems should not detract from the totality of what they did. In 2010, Dutchess was divided between five districts; only one (featuring exactly one Dutchess town) elected a Democratic Assemblyman. In 2012, three of the county’s four districts elected Dems, and did so by healthy margins.

State Senate. This might have been the biggest win of them all. No Democrat had been elected to the State Senate from Dutchess County since young legislator Franklin Delano Roosevelt won a pair of elections in 1912 and 1914. Roosevelt would fade into obscurity, and Democrats rarely even came close to winning the seat again. Even in the great years of 2006 and 2008, the mighty Steve Saland was just too powerful. But his vote for marriage equality invited a Republican primary challenger who nearly defeated him in September; the same man fought on via the Conservative line in the general election. And ready to twist the knife was Terry Gipson, the Rhinebeck village trustee who spent two full years campaigning for this seat, starting as an underfunded longshot and ultimately ending as the 41st district’s next state senator. In dethroning one of the giants of Dutchess Republicanism, Gipson demonstrated the importance of starting early and sticking with it.

Two Dutchess towns (Beekman and Pawling) remain in the 40th district; they voted heavily for Republican incumbent Greg Ball, who won a second term as his Putnam and Dutchess victories outweighed a narrow Westchester defeat.

State Supreme Court. Dutchess forms part of the 9th Judicial District along with Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester. It’s friendly enough turf for Dems, but Dutchess rarely gets represented in the Democratic nominations since Westchester has the highest population, is the most Democratic, and likes to call the shots. But his year, Maria Rosa of Millbrook was one of the Democrats running for three seats on the court, and emerged victorious to become the first Dutchess Democrat elected to the 9th since 1964.

County Legislature. County elections occur in odd-numbered years, but the appointment of incumbent Republican Gary Cooper to a county administrative post necessitated a special election in the 19th district of northeastern Dutchess. Milan’s Debra Blalock mounted a spirited campaign against appointed replacement David Sherman of North East; she was the underdog but fought to a 17-vote lead on Election Night. That’s close enough that it theoretically could have flipped via absentees, but it has not: Blalock’s lead has increased to 71 votes during the counting of absentee ballots. Blalock thus becomes the first Democratic county legislator in history from her district.

Town Races. Several special elections were held to fill unexpired terms for supervisor, justice and town board in different towns. These were all in places Republicans historically win with ease. But in one of them, young Democrat Tim Tuttle bounced back from a 2011 loss to become the first Democrat on the Fishkill town board in half a century.

So let’s summarize. Dutchess Democrats carried the county for the president and U.S. Senate, picked up long-held GOP seats on the Fishkill Town Board, Dutchess County Legislature, and New York State Senate, retook a Congressional seat, held two Assembly seats that had GOP incumbents this time last year, and elected a fresh, local face to the State Supreme Court. It was more than anyone could have realistically hoped for coming in, and it’s an indication that the party’s relatively new (and smallish) registration advantage is starting to translate into victories up and down the ballot. There will still be challenges: this year was partially enabled by Obama’s presence atop the ticket. Republicans around the country are vastly better than Democrats at turning out their voters in local years, and Dutchess is no different in this respect. But with each win, candidate recruitment gets a little bit easier. And as recruiting improves, more wins occur and the cycle begins anew. The candidates and party leaders who made these wins possible should congratulate themselves not only for what they did this year, but for what this year potentially means going forward in making Dutchess a truly competitive two-party county.

The rest of the top five Democratic years in Dutchess County history? We can debate the order, but here’s how I’d rank ’em:

2. 2008
This was the year Democrats passed Republicans in the number of voters registered in Dutchess County, auguring a strong year for the party. Barack Obama was the first Democrat to carry Dutchess in the presidential race since Clinton in ’96 and he blew past Clinton’s 45.6% to win just under 54% in Dutchess. That aided easy wins for each of the county’s incumbent members of Congress, plus several local pickups. In the 100th Assembly district (Poughkeepsie/Beacon/Newburgh and suburbs in Orange and Ulster), Frank Skartados eked out a win over longtime incumbent Tom Kirwan. Joan Posner won a historic victory to take a seat on the county’s Family Court, the first Democratic female to do so in the county’s history. Robert McKeon won a special election to give Democrats the majority on the Red Hook town board. Joanna Shafer won a special town board race in Stanford.

Legitimate disappointments were few. Jonathan Smith’s Assembly campaign against Joel Miller gained traction but didn’t end up quite as close as I thought it would. Anne Rubin’s guerilla campaign against Marc Molinaro will always hold a special place in many of our hearts, though. And…Lumies Huff, anybody? Go Crimson.

3. 1964

In ’64, Lyndon Johnson became the first Democratic presidential candidate in the 20th century to carry Dutchess County – he would be the last to do so until Bill Clinton did so in 1996 with an assist from Ross Perot. As many locals have no doubt heard, even Franklin Delano Roosevelt never carried his home county even while winning nationwide with ease on four occasions. Johnson’s 63%-37% victory was similar to his national margin of victory; he obliterated Republican nominee Barry Goldwater everywhere but the Deep South. That created a coattail affect across the country, and in Dutchess County it was enough to secure victories in Congressional seats that Democrats had not won for a century. The then-27th district, including southern Dutchess, southern Sullivan, Orange, Putnam and part of Rockland, elected John Dow. He would be a liberal’s liberal in Congress, one of the first members to oppose the Vietnam War. Where many of those elected in the Johnson landslide were swept out two years later in a very strong year for Republicans, Dow survived the ’66 election but lost to Martin McKneally, a Nixon law-and-order man, in 1968. McKneally turned out to be a words-not-deeds law n’ order guy, however, and lost a rematch in 1970 amidst revelations that he was a tax evader. Dow’s tenure in Congress finally ended in 1972 when moderate Republican Ben Gilman defeated him and installed a deathgrip on the seat, which eventually became a Rockland/Orange/Westchester seat. The northern Dutchess seat stretched north to Columbia County and west through and beyond the Catskills; it elected Joseph Resnick in 1964. Unlike Dow, Resnick was a strong defender of Johnson’s war policy and cut a more moderate figure on Capitol Hill. He too was reelected in 1966 despite the Republican tide, but gave up his seat in ’68 to run for the Senate (he lost the primay). Resnick was replaced by Hamilton Fish III, who held the seat as it becamse a southern Dutchess/Putnam/Westchester seat.

The other local Democratic wins in 1964 included a Dutchess judge’s election to the state Supreme Court as well as Victor Waryas, who captured an Assembly seat he would hold until 1968 (safe to say ’68 was not a banner year for Dutchess Dems). Locals will recognize the Waryas name from the park on the Poughkeepsie waterfront from which Joe Bertolozzi’s Bridge Music is broadcast in perpetuity.

The Johnson landslide created many wins in terms of quantity, but these proved relatively fleeting. While Obama’s coattails certainly helped this year, Johnson in ’64 was winning by such a large margin that he couldn’t help but bring others into office with him. The test of 2012 will be whether those folks last longer than the local class of ’64.

4. 2007

After four consecutive blowout wins, Republican County Executive Bill Steinhaus finally had a real fight on his hands. Democrats nominated Wappinger Town Supervisor Joe Ruggiero, who amassed a significant warchest previously unseen in local Democratic circles. He fell short by just 2,064 votes, or 3.3%. But with a viable top of the ticket, Democrats won control of the Dutchess County legislature for the first time since 1979. They also won control of the Dover town board, the Beacon mayoralty, and netted gains on the Poughkeepsie city council and East Fishkill, Pawling and Red Hook town boards.

It wasn’t a flawless year for Democrats, however. In addition to Ruggiero falling just short, the incoming legislative majority could have been larger had two Democratic incumbents not lost their seats. Republicans gained control of the Milan and Rhinebeck town boards and captured the mayoralty in Poughkeepsie. They would strike back with a vengeance in 2009 to retake the legislature.

 5. 1977

Yeah, the history of good Democratic years in Dutchess County starts to thin out pretty quickly. 1977 is probably the best contender because it’s the other year – besides 2007 – that Democrats won a county legislature majority, in addition to a decent year at the town and city level. ’77 is particularly important to the county’s political history because of what would transpire in the following months: Republican County Executive Ed Schuler would be indicted and convicted of bribery, leading to his resignation in early 1978. The legislature was empowered to appoint a new executive to serve out Schuler’s term; with the legislature now under Democratic control, it chose Majority Leader Lucille Pattison of Hyde Park to step into the executive’s role. She thus became the only Democratic and only female county exec in Dutchess history and was elected to full terms in 1979, 1983 and 1987.

Honorable Mention: 2005

Dems picked up four seats in the county legislature and were a hair’s breadth from capturing the majority, positioning them to do so in 2007. Diane Jablonski was elected county comptroller – the first Democrat in decades to win that office.  In the Town of Wappinger, Democrats won the supervisor and clerk races as well as maintaining a town board majority.  In Hyde Park, Democrats captured the supervisor seat and the town board majority. Bill Dahncke became the first Democrat elected to the East Fishkill town board since former Town Supervisor Dominick Cannizzaro left office. Dems also held a rare town board seat in Beekman; few incumbent Democrats were defeated anywhere in the county.

We can quibble over details like what constitutes a “legitimate” safety net beyond food or the fact that “some” bridges and roads does not begin to address our national infrastructure woes. But I’ll give Representative Adam Kinzinger a bit of credit for thinking slightly out of the box on the matter of tax rates:

“…I don’t care what tax rates are, they are random number derived from haggling and negotiations. What I want is a small government with a strong and fierce military that can kill our enemies and break their toys, legitimate safety nets that provide food and not a way of life, and some roads and bridges. Put that vision into action and set the tax rates at a percent that covers those costs. And once you have our payment, leave us the hell alone. That my friend, is conservatism.”

However – there’s always a however – that doesn’t explain, Mr. Kinzinger, why you and virtually every other “conservative” in Congress have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise any tax rates by any amount. If you now believe in honest budgeting, fantastic! I’m glad you feel elections matter. I agree – they do! But it means it’s time for you to renounce Norquist. We can’t budget around the priorities you describe if we have an artificial box around how we balance our numbers. That’s not to say rates absolutely must go up – it’s to say that our approach to budgeting cannot be constrained by external political pressures like a tax pledge that never made sense in the first place.