 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|||||
 |
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
||||||
2006 Primary Season Opens in Texas
By Rhodes Cook
Editor, The Rhodes Cook Letter
As originally published in the "The Rhodes Cook Letter".
I
Few incumbents in the Lone Star State have drawn primary opposition March 7, but DeLay is one of them. He has three Republican challengers in his Houston-area district.While none are likely to come close to defeating him, the size of the anti-DeLay vote will be the first tangible evidence of the trouble that the veteran incumbent is in with his constituents. And it could be a harbinger of what other ethics-tinged members of Congress may encounter when it is their turn to face the voters.
Normally, the primaries are a very easy hurdle for incumbents on their way to the general election. What volatility there is in the nominating phase is usually limited to the once a decade post-redistricting year, when the lines are redrawn and many House members must adjust to at least some new terrain. In the most recent of these post-redistricting years – 2002 – eight House incumbents suffered primary defeat, by far the highest number in any election since 1992.
In other election cycles, the primaries usually take a more placid form. Few incumbents lose. Few incumbents are threatened. Few issues are framed for the fall election. And much of what attention the primaries attract is focused on the nominations for the small number of competitive open seats for governorships and federal office.
That was the case in 2004. Just two House members lost primaries (both Texas Democrats). Only one governor suffered primary defeat (Democrat Bob Holden of Missouri). And no senators were beaten by intra-party rivals.
Yet this year’s congressional primary season may not be so calm. Every decade or so there comes a “big wave” election that claims a number of incumbents. The last time such a wave hit in the general election was 1994, when three dozen Democrats were ousted on both sides of Capitol Hill and Republicans gained control of both the Senate and the House.
The last time such volatility occurred in the congressional primaries was 1992, when the combination of redistricting and the House banking scandal lashed at the Democrats and served as a precursor of the anti-incumbent tide that would rout them from Congress two years later. Altogether, 19 House incumbents were beaten in the primary season of 1992, a post-World War II record. Fourteen of them were Democrats.
Republicans: An Ethics Storm Brewing?
There are plenty of controversial issues already in play this year that could similarly roil the waters for the Republicans, either in the upcoming primary season or the fall general election. There is the ongoing war in Iraq, the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program, the new Medicare drug plan, the government response to Hurricane Katrina, and the nation’s immigration policy. But by far the issue that could affect congressional incumbents the most in 2006 is the one that could touch many of them personally, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
There has been no surer route to electoral defeat in recent years than when voter doubts are raised about their congressman’s personal ethics. In 1992, many of the congressional primary losers were tarred by the House banking scandal. Five that lost had “bounced” at least 300 checks at the House bank.
In 1998, the lone primary loser in Congress was the ethically tainted Jay Kim, a Republican from California. He was required to stay in the Washington, D.C., area and wear an electronic ankle bracelet during much of the primary season after pleading guilty to accepting illegal campaign contributions.
In 2002, the highest profile loser in the congressional primaries was Gary Condit, the California Democrat who was linked for months in tabloids and newcasts to the Chandra Levy murder case (although his connection to the murder of the Washington intern was never proved).
While few members of Congress have yet to be implicated directly in the current lobbying scandal, Abramoff’s ties to the GOP and his disproportionate giving to Republican officeholders threatens to make the issue a far bigger problem for the Republicans than the Democrats as the year wears on.
Democrats: Murtha, Lieberman and Iraq
Yet Democrats have concerns of their own this year, with the most notable their failure to come to grips with the Iraq war. They have been split on it from the beginning. When Congress voted to approve the use of military force against Iraq in October 2002, nearly 60% of Senate Democrats voted in favor (29-to-21), while more than 60% of House Democrats voted against (126-to-81).
The party has sought to handle the issue by running as many Iraq veterans for Congress this year as they can. But the Democrats are clearly not of one voice, and the issue might soon begin producing primary battles within the party just as the Vietnam War did in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
One side of the issue is represented these days by Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Marine veteran and friend of the military, who has argued of late for an immediate pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq. On the other side is Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2000 and an aspirant for the party’s presidential nomination in 2004, who has argued just as forcefully for his party to support President Bush in the war effort.
The irony is that it would not be a surprise if either drew a significant primary challenge this year – Murtha, from a pro-war Democrat in his fiercely patriotic, blue-collar, southwest Pennsylvania district; Lieberman, from an anti-war Democrat in affluent, heavily suburbanized Connecticut.
Murtha was so politically secure in 2004 that he ran unopposed in both the primary and general election. But he is no stranger to party primaries. He was nearly blindsided in the 1990 Democratic primary by a feisty challenger who claimed that Murtha was a junketeer and congressional pay raiser who was using his clout in Washington to secure his own financial well-being. Murtha’s challenger sent out a campaign mailing dubbed “John P. Murtha’s Wheel of Fortune” and mocked the value of Murtha’s incumbency by appearing at abandoned factories and vacant storefronts with a cardboard likeness of the congressman.
The well-connected Murtha responded by tapping defense contractors and lobbyists, manufacturers and unions for their support and emphasizing the economic benefits he had brought the area. Billboards sprouted around the district that claimed: “Experience … Makes It Happen.” Murtha won the primary, but just barely, with 51% of the vote.
In 2002, he had another primary as redistricting threw him into a new district with Democratic Rep. Frank Mascara. Once again, Murtha was better financed and better connected than his rival, and won the primary by a margin of nearly 2-to-1.
On the other hand, in his three terms in the Senate, Lieberman has never had to face Democratic primary voters. In Connecticut, a pre-primary convention has traditionally acted as a filter to limit access to the primary ballot. But since Lieberman’s re-election in 2000, Connecticut has passed an open primary law, which enables potential challengers to skip the convention and file directly for the primary.
For what it is worth, when the bulk of the New England states held presidential primaries in early March 2004, Howard Dean won 54% of the Democratic primary vote in his home state of Vermont while Lieberman took just 5% of the Democratic primary vote in Connecticut. Both had withdrawn from the presidential race weeks earlier but their names remained on the ballot. Whether that modest showing under such circumstances should cause Lieberman much concern for a Senate primary in his home state is dubious. But the fact remains, he is untested in such a contest.
The primary filing deadline for Democratic Senate candidates in Connecticut has yet to be set but is likely to be early June, with the primary on August 8. Meanwhile, the primary filing deadline in Pennsylvania is March 7, with the primary itself scheduled for May 16.
But before either state comes Texas, and the first day of reckoning in 2006 for Tom DeLay.
Home | Analysis | Biography | Bookstore | Links | Subscribe!
Rhodes Cook
rhodescook@aol.com© Rhodes Cook 2005.
