Will Hillary Clinton be a Drag on Local Dems?

A reader sent us an article that appeared in the New York Times dated December 4, 2007, about how certain freshman House Democrats are concerned that a Clinton nomination will hurt them in their re-election races. Although the article's headline was entitled "Vulnerable Democrats See Fate Tied to Clinton's", the writer only mentioned five Democrats by name. They were Nancy Boyda of Kansas, Zack Space of Ohio, Nick Lampson of Texas, Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana.

The article focuses on Nancy Boyda of Kansas and what she is doing to make sure she distances herself from Clinton. The article has a great quote by Boyda:

Ms. Boyda, who is trying to establish a political identity as independent, said her intent was simply to show the voters of both parties in her district that she was delivering for them. Of the presidential race, she said: “It is something I have no control over, quite honestly. They will demonize any Democrat who becomes the nominee. I just put my head down and work.”

The Clinton campaign, of course, downplays this concern. The article quotes Harold Wolfson, Communications Director of the Clinton campaign, in the following excerpt:

Advisers to Mrs. Clinton, who has long sought to parry concerns within her party that she is too polarizing, dispute the idea that she could hinder Democratic candidates in Republican districts. They note that New York Democrats gained a net of four House seats in her two Senate elections and that she campaigned actively for House contenders in both.

“Anyone can speculate, but there are a set of facts that tell a very different story,” said Howard Wolfson, communications director for the Clinton campaign. “The actual evidence makes clear that she is an asset in tough districts."

The problem may not be in 2008, but in 2010. In 1992, Bill Clinton won election but didn't get over 50% of the popular vote. The Republicans, led by Bob Dole in the Senate, declared on election night that since he didn't win over 50% of the vote, his election wasn't really legitimate. They then proceeded to block his most popular intiative on health care. The result was that the Democatic turn-out fell in 1994, and the Republicans took control of Congress for 12 years.

The same thing could happen in 2008 and 2010. Clinton could win in 2008 and the Democrats could retain and even increase their majority in Congress. If, however, there wasn't 60 reliable votes in the Senate, the Republicans could block legislation. The result might be a depressed turn-out in 2010 and a Republican come-back in the mid-term elections.

Right now the Republican minority in the Senate is set on a course to force a record number of cloture votes, votes that are designed to end filibusters. When Democrats were in the Senate minority from 2003-2007, the highest number of cloture votes was 58 in both the 1998 and 2000 terms of Congress. At the rate cloture votes were being scheduled in July of 2007, the number for the 2006 term of Congress is projected to be 153.

There is one big difference,though, between then and now and that is that the political make-over of the former states of the Old Confederacy has pretty much been completed at the Federal level. It will be hard for the Republicans to find enough Congressional seats to take back the House in 2010 if they haven't done so in 2008.

Another possibility is that the Democrats could, if they hold on to their Senate majority, force a vote to amend the Senate rules and do away with the filibuster. The Republicans threatened to do so after the 2002 mid-term elections to get more of Bush's radical, right-wing judicial nominees confirmed. The argument was that it would only take 50 votes to change the Senate rules because the Vice-President could break a tie.

Whatever happens, Representative Boyda is correct. Down-ticket Democratic candidates can't control what Republicans do, they can only control what they do and how hard they work. No matter who is the nominee, Republicans will demonize any Democrat who gets the presidential nomination. They have to, because Bubble-Boy has failed to achieve anything other than get the U.S. involved in an endless war in the Middle-East, and run up huge budget deficits.