Yesterday Politico reported that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) started shifting ad buys around in a quest to win a net 25 seats in November.
In a series of strategic decisions Wednesday afternoon, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reduced commercial buys in four, Republican-friendly districts, each of which are seen as uphill for the party, sources told POLITICO. The shifts are the broadest since the DCCC began its advertising campaign last month.
(snip)
Democratic strategists say they’re trying to determine which contests present their best opportunities to help the party net 25 seats, and which are harder sells. In some cases, they say, they are running ads in districts and then following up with polling to figure out if their investments are having an impact on voters.
Democrats shift ad buys in bid for House
Democratic House Minority Nancy Pelosi appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show last night and explained that the fact that Mitt Romney picking Paul Ryan has his running mate changed the landscape of the elections for the House of Representatives. Mitt Romney is the gift that just keeps on giving, isn't he? Why does Pelosi think the choice of Paul Ryan matters in House races?
Because Medicare, Medicare, Medicare, the three most important issues in the campaign, in alphabetical order. That issue was clarified, focus was on it, and we can not lose the debate about Medicare, because if we do, forget Democrats, forget Republicans, Medicare is gone. We'll be back to a time before Lyndon Johnson. We will be putting seniors at the mercy of the insurance companies by giving them a voucher, but not a guarantee. And the severing of that guarantee, the architect of that, is Paul Ryan; his being chosen made a big difference for us.
Paul Ryan is also a gift that keeps on giving, too. Mitt Romney described him as "an intellectual leader of the Republican Party." That certainly was also the considered opinion of many political insiders about Paul Ryan before he stepped on to the national political stage. It turns out that that once the national media started paying closer attention to Paul Ryan, his credentials of being an intellectual didn't hold up well to scrutiny. When Wonkblog's Ezra Klein at
The Washington Post took a closer look at Ryan's Budget, he produced an article titled
Everything you know about Paul Ryan’s budget is (probably) wrong. Nobel Prize-winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman went on ABC's
This Week with George Stephanopoulos a few weeks ago and said:
I’m going to disagree, respectfully, he [Paul Ryan] was never a man of substance. This is who he always was. That was always an illusion.
I couldn't agree more. Paul Ryan is isn't a man of substance; he never was, and quite frankly he is a despicable human being. All you have to do is watch a
2011 video of him, and see how he treats his own constituents to see that. But don't even get me started again about that.
Nancy Pelosi explained during the interview how the numbers are looking promising for Democrats to regain control of the House by comparing now with where we were in 2006 and how the momentum picked up. Before the interview with Nancy Pelosi, Rachel Maddow also mentioned that "some political scientists say, actually, that is a real possibility, that the Democrats could take back the house." Then she showed this article on screen: Republicans at risk of losing the House. Those who enjoy a good wonky analysis might want to check it out.
As always, the video and transcript are below the fleur-de-orange. Leader Pelosi stayed for the segment that followed which was about the new voter purge efforts here in Florida. It's a longer segment. I will try to get it transcribed and write a diary later today.
Update: The next segment and interview with Nancy Pelosi is at this diary: Pelosi responds to Maddow about Voter Suppression and Purges: “Don't agonize; organize.”
Those who use iPads or other devices that don't recognize embedded videos, can watch the segment at
MSNBC's website.
Video of Mitt Romney: Paul Ryan has become an intellectual leader of the Republican Party.
Video of Nancy Pelosi on CNN: That is the day things really changed. We were on a path. I would have said to you then, we were dead even. Well, momentum is very much with us. The Medicare issue in this campaign, so we have a message, we have the messengers, we have the money; we had the mobilization. We have a very excellent chance to take back the House.
Video of Nancy Pelosi: For 18 months, they have been the three most important issues in the campaign, in alphabetical order. Medicare, Medicare, Medicare. And when Ryan was chosen, the agent for the destruction of Medicare was chosen as the vice presidential candidate, well, it clarified the debate for many people in the races that we are active in.
Rachel Maddow: Whatever it says about American politics, the fact is that the balance of power in Congress and the House of Representatives has been shifting pretty wildly in these past few elections. In '06 and '08, the Democrats swung 52 seats in their direction. They seized both control of the House and a huge majority in the House. Then in 2010, the Republicans swung 61 seats back in their direction, and they got control in 2010. And now for this year, beltway common wisdom says there's really no chance the Democrats can swing enough seats back to them to take the House back over. But some political scientists say, actually, that is a real possibility, that the Democrats could take back the house [See Republicans at risk of losing the House by Sam Wang, Princeton Election Consortium, September 20, 2012]; and the Democrats themselves sounding increasingly confident that they might do it. And frankly, stranger things have happened, even very recently. Joining us tonight for the interview is the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Madame Leader, it's great to have you here. Thank you for coming.
Nancy Pelosi: My pleasure, Rachel. Great to be here, always.
RM: Democrats need 25 seats?
NP: Yes, we have a drive for 25.
RM: You have said that you think the majority is with you. The momentum is with you. Is that based on what's going on in the presidential race, or is there something else that's going on that makes you feel that momentum?
NP: Well, both. We have been working very hard to get to a place to put the house in place. We did that by, say, late spring/early summer. But when August 11th, mark that date on your calendar, when Ryan was chosen, that made a very big difference. Because Medicare, Medicare, Medicare, the three most important issues in the campaign, in alphabetical order. That issue was clarified, focus was on it, and we can not lose the debate about Medicare, because if we do, forget Democrats, forget Republicans, Medicare is gone. We'll be back to a time before Lyndon Johnson. We will be putting seniors at the mercy of the insurance companies by giving them a voucher, but not a guarantee. And the severing of that guarantee, the architect of that, is Paul Ryan; his being chosen made a big difference for us.
RM: And so you feel like the choice of Paul Ryan made essentially every other campaign issue, at least, fall away for any House candidate who chooses to run on that. That that's a clear enough issue on that issue that nothing else really has to matter?
NP: Well, on House races, especially in a presidential year, you only have a small opportunity to get people's attention and to hit them with your best shot, as to what your message is. And this has been an issue that hits every generation. It's about the seniors, of course, it's about their families, and how all of them can have economic as well as health security, because their seniors are taken care of. We're very excited about it. But I wish that it were not a race about Medicare, because the fact is, Medicare is on the ballot. My name is on the ballot, the President's name is on the ballot, many people's names are on the ballot, but Medicare is on the ballot. And if we do not win the House, and of course if the President doesn't win, but we feel pretty good about the President's winning, that would be very much at risk.
RM: In terms of how you think that shapes the map and opportunities for House Democrats, are there places in the country that you feel like you might, honestly, not be all that competitive this year. But specifically on that issue, specifically because Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan, there's geographical parts of the country where Democrats can compete better.
NP: Well, first of all, the fact that President Obama is on the ticket will get more people to the polls. Many of the races, the battleground states that you showed earlier, are just a few states. We're in many more states than the president. So we're basically on our own, Texas, California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Washington State, Arizona, although it may become a battleground state, because the opportunity might be there for the President. And we expect to win about 20 seats in the states I just named. Then we go where the President is, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, states like that, to take us, oh, I want to go beyond 25, I would like to have 35. But it's very discreet races; some states have blue patches that we want to win back. There are 66 districts that are held by Republicans that were won by President Obama and about a third of those were also won by John Kerry. And so we think there's real opportunity. Now, mind you, people didn't say we were going to win the House in '06 when we first made this attempt. Yet, it took like another few weeks before they started to see the handwriting on the wall that the momentum was with us, and that the polls, and that these individual districts were coming our way. Right now we're in about an average of five, five points ahead, average in the generic. some eight, some two, average of five, that five is enough to win the House. I'd like six or seven percentage points difference in the polling for us to take ...
RM: In terms of the generic ballot, people are asked; do you prefer a Republican or a Democratic Congress?
NP: In individual districts.
RM: In individual districts. One of the issues that gets a lot of attention in terms of how it might affect the presidential race is the issue of voter suppression, becoming more difficult to register to vote and to vote. If you have a moment, we have actually some new news on that out of Florida. Can you hold on just a moment, and come back and comment on that. How that's going to affect not just the presidential race, but also the race to control the Congress. We'll be back with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi right after this.