INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”
Guest: Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Chairman of House Democratic Congressional Campaign
Reporters: David Wasserman, Cook Political Report &
Josh Kraushaar, Politico
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TAPE DATE: Sunday, September 28, 2008
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SUNDAY, September 28, 2008 at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET
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STEVE SCULLY, HOST, CSPAN/NEWSMAKERS: Joining us on Newsmakers is Congressman Chris Van Hollen, who’s the Chairman of the House Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. And here for the questioning on Newsmakers include David Wasserman who’s the House Editor for the Cook Political Report. Thanks for joining us on this Sunday morning. And Josh Kraushaar, who’s the co-writer of the Scorecard with the Politico. Thank you for being with us.
JOSH KRAUSHAAR, SCORECARD WITH THE POLITICO: Thanks, Steve.
SCULLY: Congressman, let me begin with some of the news of the day and ask you first and foremost, would Congress be moving this quickly on what many call the biggest legislative – piece of legislation in the history of this country if the election were not a month away?
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, CONGRESSMAN: Well, we would because the fact of the matter is that the financial markets are in great distress and the purpose of this legislation is not necessarily to help them but to prevent the problems there in the financial markets from leaking to Main Street where there’s a major credit crunch, and if something’s not done, the fact of the matter is small businesses won’t be able to get their loans, the economy will grind to a halt. So this is something that needs to be moved forward on quickly.
Now, exactly what the parameters are, of course, has been subject to great debate. We’re going to have the bill on the internet as the speaker said, so the American people can take a look at it, but Congress was very clear, when the Bush administration asked for a $700 billion blank check, Congress said no. We’re insisting that you don’t have the golden parachutes for the CEOs that you make sure that the tax payer benefits in the upside when the economy recovers and not just take all the risk in these deals. Third, that you have transparency and accountability and fourth, that you try and do something for the home owner.
Now, we haven’t seen the actual final draft of these, and so people will have to take some time to review exactly how those principals got translated into the legislations.
SCULLY: With just over a month to go though before the election, what impact does this have? First for the democrats, then if you could look on the other side of the aisle to the republicans, leading up to the November 4th elections.
VAN HOLLEN: Sure well the overall impact is this is – had the American people focus on the important issues in this race, first and foremost the economy. For a couple weeks back there was a lot of talk about more extraneous issues. Now, people are looking at the consequences of the Bush economic record after eight years. We’ve seen 600,000 jobs lost in the economy just since January. We now have this meltdown on Wall Street because the Bush administration had this ideology of deregulation on steroids. They took the referees off the playing field. It was anything goes on Wall Street.
And at the same time, what people are focused on is that John McCain and the republicans seem a little bit out of touch. You had John McCain saying the fundamentals of the economy are strong. You had the republicans in the House saying, hey the answer to this is more tax cuts for folks on Wall Street.
And as opposed to that, you had the democrats saying look we’ve got a problem, we’ve got to solve it but no blank checks. So I think what the consequences for the election are going to be are people are going to see this as the culmination of the Bush administration’s policies driving the economy into the ditch. Democrats have been saying for some time we need to focus on getting the economy going. In fact, it wasn’t much noticed this week, but in the house the democrats passed an economic recovery program, a jobs program, $60 billion invested in infrastructure and also help on the unemployment insurance side so that we could get our economy going again through building the bridges and roads and public transit and the president has said he’s going to veto that bill even as he asks for lots of money for Wall Street.
So what this crisis has done is really focus the minds of the American people on the fundamental issues here, showing that John McCain has been out of touch and the republicans who are running this time around have voted with this administration on these economic policies year after year after year. I don’t think the voters are going to let them run away from that record.
SCULLY: As you know, the house and senate will continue to debate this over the next 24 hours. We want to turn our attention now to some of the key houses races that you’re following. David Wasserman is here from Cook Political Report. David?
DAVID WASSERMAN, HOUSE SENATOR FOR THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to ask you how do you think the landscape has shifted in the house over the course of the past couple months over the conventions we saw a little bit of a republican bounce in some of the generic Congressional ballot polls. We seem to be back to a good lead for democrats on that measure, but in terms of the races, how do you think the landscape has shifted since you first rolled out the red to blue list of candidates in the beginning parts of the cycle?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, you’re right David, we did see, following the republican convention, a little bump for republicans not just in the presidential but in some of the Congressional races. Things have settled down as people again are focused on those big issues, on the economy, on the situation in Iraq and wanting to make sure that we bring our troops home in a responsible manner after all as Barack Obama said, we’re spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, even though the Iraqi’s have large oil surpluses right now.
So I think things have settled down and again, people have gotten back to focusing on what went wrong over the last eight years with the Bush administration and the fundamental economic policy decisions that they made that have driven the economy into a ditch and our candidates around the country are talking about those issues, they’re talking about the bread and butter issues that the American people are talking about around the kitchen table and that has strengthened them.
That being said, we have an awful lot of toss up races, as you well know. These are going to be razor thin margins. I think we’re going to have a very close presidential race. The congressional races are going to be the same way. We have races north, south, east and west. And if you look over the whole canvas, these are going to be very, very tight races. Our red to blue program, we have over 40 candidates on that program.
Those are our priority races. They’re doing very well, but nobody can take anything for granted, despite the fact that the polls show overall Americans are much more confident in democratic leadership in Congress than republican leadership, the fact of the matter is this is going to boil down to tough races in a district by district basis. So far, we think the fact that Americans are focused on the economy, is good news for our candidates because they have clearly distinguished themselves from incumbent republicans who have been voting with the Bush economic agenda.
WASSERMAN: Well, Congressman, the political atmosphere seems pretty schizophrenic these days. You know, we seem to be talking about drilling one moment and national security the next and now the economy and the bail out. Is this putting certain races higher on the target list than others as we shift from issue to issue and different districts feel different effects?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, what it’s doing is bringing more and more races into play. As you know, sometimes as you get closer to election day, the actual playing field narrows. A lot of races that had looked competitive, no longer appear competitive.
In 2006, we saw what is happening now, which is, as you get closer to election day, more and more races come into play. So what we’re seeing as we near election day is some of the races that people may not have been paying as much attention to, to begin with, are now looking potentially competitive. And so what that means for us at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is that we have to find more resources to try and take advantage of the opportunities that are out there. So I think, in this turbulent atmosphere, what you’re seeing, as I say, is races tightening and more races coming into play.
SCULLY: Josh Kraushaar is also joining us. He is the co-writer of the Scorecard on the Politico.
JOSH KRAUSHAAR, CO-WRITER, SCORECARD ON THE POLITICO: Congressman, I want to talk a little bit about the politics of the economic bail out package. We’ve seen a lot of polling, including a recent CBS News/New York Times poll that shows a plurality of voters not approving of the proposal being very harshly critical of it. How tough is it going to be for members to go back into their home districts and explain to their constituents why the government is spending $700 billion to help out Wall Street?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, that’s a good question and they are going to have to be making – explaining their vote to their constituents. Now, every member here in Congress is going to have to look at the proposal and make his or her best judgment about whether or not to support it. And so, of course, part of the message they’re going back with will depend on how they voted on this particular package.
What I’m hearing from constituents is two things, number one, people do recognize that some kind of intervention has to happen in order to prevent the meltdown on Wall Street from really infecting the overall economy, from preventing small businesses from getting loans. From preventing consumers from getting loans for cars, or for mortgages. If that contagion spreads from Wall Street to Main Street, it’s going to hurt the average American. It’s going to hurt middle America. And so most people say we go to do something.
At the same time, nobody likes to be put in the position we’ve been put into by the Bush administration’s policies. We’re again suffering the result of people taking their eye off the ball, they took the referee, the regulatory referee off the field. They said anything goes in the markets. This is an ideology run amuck, its deregulation on steroids and so nobody likes what we’re doing.
On the other hand, what the Congress has done is said to the administration, whoa, no $700 billion blank check and we are going to take those steps I mentioned earlier, CEO pay will be limited, very importantly, we’ve said the tax payer has to benefit from the upside. In other words, we’re going to take equity positions in many of these transactions. So when we take these securities, as the economy recovers and if those securities then become more valuable, the taxpayer can benefit and recover much – potentially all – potentially more than the $700 billion. No one’s promising anything like that. But the point is, the democrats have said the tax payer needs to be protected on the upside.
We also made a proposal that said you should have a fee that comes into effect five years from now that would be applied to financial institutions across the board to make up the difference between what the taxpayer recovers from its equity stake and what the taxpayer is laying out in terms of the initial loans here.
Republicans have rejected that. We’ll have to see if any of that made it into a final package. But the point here is, and I’ll end with this, people say we need to do something. They’re going to have to decide whether what we came up with was good enough, but I think most people calling in to my office and other offices agree, its a whole lot better than what the Bush administration proposed as a way to bail out their policies.
KRAUSHAAR: Congressman, we’ve already started to see some candidates air advertisements attacking this bail out package, play politics with the issue. Should candidates be using this for their political advantage? Should they be bringing up the bail out package, or should this be used as a political football?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think people have obviously every right to take a look at this package and decide whether or not it makes sense or not sense and hold their members accountable. And as part of our process, people who support this package will have to explain to their constituents why they think it’s a good idea and people who oppose it will have to explain why they voted against it, even though most people think something has to be done to help stabilize the economy.
So, I think it’s certainly fair for people to take issue with how their member of Congress voted on this. Let me give you an example, we have candidates who are running ads on the question of social security. What we have seen as a result of this melt down of the financial markets is that people’s future retirement savings are put at risk and there are many members of Congress on the republican side who supported the Bush social security privatization plan.
And the fact of the matter is, if they had had their way, and that privatization plan had gone into effect, then the social security benefits that millions of Americans depend on would be at risk if you had that kind of thing happen in the stock market when their retirement money – their social security monies were coming due. It’s a very fair question to say if you’re incumbent member of Congress, in this case they were republicans, supported social security privatization, what does that say about the risks they’re prepared to take with your retirement and clearly they were prepared to roll the dice and gamble on that.
So, there’s a clear example of what I think is a perfectly fair question for candidates to be asking about republican incumbents.
KRAUSHAAR: Congressman, on the red to blue list of targeted candidates at the DCCC, which you chair, we have a wide variety of candidates in terms of the ideological spectrum and one of the recently added candidates last week was Alan Grayson in Florida, an attorney and businessman who admitted pretty happily to the Wall Street Journal that he was a Code Pink protestor and then a state away, we have the very conservative mayor of Montgomery, Alabama who’s also a targeted candidate that the DCCC helped recruit. How important is it to you that certain candidates are winning on election night versus others for the sake of party unity in the next Congress?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think that’s a great example that illustrates the fact that the Democratic Party is a big tent party. We have people of different views on different issues, but the one common agenda that brings people together is an agenda on the economy that says we need to focus on the middle class. We need to make sure that middle class Americans have an opportunity to participate in the prosperity and growth in the economy in this country. Because for the last many years, what we’ve seen is folks on Wall Street making millions and millions of dollars and other people seeing their wages stagnant.
So what brings together those candidates, while they may disagree on social issues, they may disagree on the war in some cases, but what brings them together is a sense that a lot of Americans have been left behind and that we need to make sure that everybody has a place at the table. Alan Grayson is a good example. He was clearly very opposed to the Bush decision to go to war in Iraq as many democrats, most democrats around the country have been. And he is focused, as you know, on the fact that a lot of these military contractors, like Halliburton, have fleeced the American taxpayer. And whether you’re a democrat, an independent or a republican, you don’t want your money being wasted.
And so Alan Grayson is a terrific candidate in that regard. As are you know, Bobby Bright in Alabama has been the mayor of Montgomery, he’s got a great record as well as mayor. And so, we’ve got people from all parts of the you know – different views on social issues running but they have in common the desire to make sure that middle class Americans have a fair shake.
SCULLY: Congressman, there are about eight to 10 democratic seats that as listed as toss ups. As you look at those races, is there one that worries you the most?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, there’s not just one. I mean I get up every morning and go to bed every night looking at that list of candidates and trying to figure out how we can get those toss ups over the finish line. Because if you look across the landscape, the political landscape, there are a whole lot of races in that category and of course, there are a whole bunch of other races that are either just leaning democrat or just learning republican and the fact of the matter is a little more – a little boost behind some of those campaigns can push them over the finish line.
So, what we do is we try and look across the entire political landscape and say how can the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee help get this candidate or that candidate over the finish line on election day. So we work very closely with all these races and what you don’t want to have happen is wake up the day after the election and see that some of your candidates may have lost by just a hair. You know, just by a razor thin margin. It’s great if you wake up the day of Election Day and see a lot of people winning, even if it’s only by a little bit, that means that you’ve sort of allocated your resources well.
But the issues at stake in this election are critical. You know, we’ve heard from McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis some time ago that issues were not going to matter in the presidential race. Well, I think especially with what’s happened in Wall Street and the economy continuing to sour, people are not going to be fooled. They’re going to focus on the issues and that’s good for our candidate.
Its good for our democratic candidates because when it comes to those fundamental questions about economic policy and the direction we want to take this country, people want to see a change in direction they want to make sure that kids get healthcare, that was vetoed by the president, they wanted transportation infrastructure program to get the country moving again, the president threatened to veto that bill. People are very hungry to move forward and have change and that’s what our candidates represent.
KRAUSHAAR: Chairman, what impact do you think the presidential election is going to have on these down ballot races and are you concerned that having Barack Obama on the ticket is going to be a disadvantage in some of these conservative southern districts? A lot of races in republican territory that you’re either defending or challenging.
VAN HOLLEN: Just a couple points there. First of all, I think having Barack Obama at the top of the ticket is going to be great across the board for our candidates because what he has done is brought millions of Americans off the political side lines in getting them to participate in the political process for the first time, especially young voters who are coming out and that’s going to help lift all votes for democrats because democrats continue to do much better than republicans among young voters.
Our challenge is to make sure that when that young voter comes to the voting booth or any other new voter, that after they vote for Barack Obama, they stick around long enough and vote for the democratic candidate for Congress. So that’s number one.
Number two, we saw in some of our special elections, republicans trying to use Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi against our candidates. In fact in the races of Don Cazayoux, and Travis Childers down in Louisiana and Mississippi, there were ads that were run that showed our candidate with his head wedged between Nancy Pelosi on one side and Barack Obama on the other and the idea was to try and somehow say our candidate was going to be you know part of the Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama establishment. And what people said is look, we’re smarter than that.
We’re not going to be fooled by that. We have candidates – our democratic candidates are independent minded people, they look out for their constituents, number one – they focus on the priorities and the values of their districts. On some issues they’ll agree with you know the democratic position, especially on these economic issues. On some social issues, we have a lot of folks who are social conservatives and they reflect the values of their constituents in those districts.
So, I think overall Barack Obama’s candidacy is going to be helpful and give a boost to our candidates because of the enthusiasm, but in those other areas, our candidates will say, look, here’s where we differ from the national democratic party on this issue. We’re not going to be rubber stamps for anybody and that actually enhances their credibility.
One other point, I think there are a number of our races, in places like Michigan and Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado where our candidates will also help provide some lift to the Obama-Biden ticket because we’ve had some operations that are on the ground, very strong grass roots field operation this time around. In some places where the Obama campaign was not yet organized and we believe that those candidates will help give a boost to the Obama-Biden ticket.
KRAUSHAAR: Which republican, Congressman, are you most optimistic, are you most bullish about defeating this election cycle?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, look, we’ve got a lot of races out there and I’m not going to pick anyone because you don’t want to – again, you don’t want to count your chickens before they hatch and also there are lots of these open seats that are out there right now and you know our candidates aren’t taking anything for granted, and so if I was to say hey, this race you know we’ve got in the bag, we’re optimistic, I’d be getting a phone call saying hey look, this is – this race is still in play.
And it’s true. And it is a pretty volatile situation out there. As we said earlier, people have greater confidence in the democrats in the Congress than the republicans. But people have been frustrated with the fact that change hasn’t happened more quickly. And so have we.
When we see the children’s health bill vetoed, when we see our effort on the economic recovery plan, our infrastructure plan draw a veto threat on all these other issues where the Bush administration has stood in the way, including trying to change direction in Iraq so that we can bring our troops safely home and use those resources here at home in education and healthcare and reducing our debt. Those are areas that we want to move forward in. And so I think we’re bullish on lots of these races.
We think we have an opportunity to beat the pattern of history whereby following a wave election that we saw in 2006, where democrats picked up 30 seats, we will have a chance to pick up more seats because the historical curse has been in recent times, is that the party who benefits from that wave or picks up a lot of seats in one election trends to then lose seats in the next election and we are confident that we’re going to beat that historical pattern and pick up seats.
WASSERMAN: Congressman, I want to talk about one seat in particular and in every cycle it seems as if there are one or two races that are the exception to the rule. This year its amazing for the democrats that there seems to be only one sort of long time incumbent democrat who faces a really tough race where there seems to be lots of incumbent republicans who’ve served for quite a while that are in tough situations.
But one in northeastern Pennsylvania, Paul Kanjorski, who’s served for several decades, is in the tough race against the mayor of Hazelton Pennsylvania, Lue Barletta and at convention time, the DCCC, had actually spent more money on this race than any other in the country. Paul Kanjorski who has faced questions over some of the earmarks that have gone bust in his district, which is struggling economically. How much does that race concern you at this point?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, that’s a race that we’re keeping a very close watch on because what you have there is Barletta, the republican, he became the darling of sort of the right wing radio shows over a number of issues that he had championed. And so he got an initial boost going. What happened then is Paul Kanjorski had an opportunity to go out to the voters and reconnect with them and talk about where he stood on the issues and draw the distinctions between his position on issues and that on Barletta on key economic issues and he also revealed a lot of problems that Barletta himself had had that were drawn into question from his conduct as mayor.
And so, what I think you’re seeing in that race, it’s a very competitive race, a very close race Kanjorski understands that he needs to go back to his voters and explain to them why he is taking this position that he has on many of these issues. But overall, I think again, when the voters there focus on his position on the economic issues on social security and the plan that we put forth recently for economic revitalization and economic recovery and they look where Barletta stands and Barletta has been somebody who does endorse the Bush McCain economic agenda, that folks in that district are going to say look, we want somebody who’s going to look after our interests and not somebody who’s going to support the Bush McCain economic agenda. I think it will come down to that question in that district, like so many others.
KRAUSHAAR: Congressman, care to make a prediction on what range of seats you expect to pick up this election cycle?
VAN HOLLEN: Other than the fact that we are confident that we will beat that historical curse and actually pick up seats in this cycle, I don’t have a number and the reason why is we still have 35 days to go before the election. It is a very volatile political environment. There are lots of issues that are swirling out there. You don’t know what impact at the end the presidential race will have on our house races.
As I said, I think that the Obama campaign will help boost our candidates because of the excitement and the energy and the enthusiasm that’s out there. But there also are other issues that are swirling out there. I mean how voters react to this plan to try and stabilize the financial markets could come into play in a lot of these races. And you don’t know exactly how it will cut.
So those are the kind of issues on the table, but I would say, and the reason that I’m confident that we will beat that historical curse and actually pick up seats is that fundamentally people are focused on the big issue, the economy and the war in Iraq and those are the two big issues in this election. And when it comes to those issues, people will look at where people stand. They’re not going to get distracted at the end of the day, I don’t think by sort of secondary issues and efforts to distract voters and we’ve seen a number of those efforts out of the McCain campaign. I think voters are going to come home and look at their interests, look at the interests of their community and the country and so that’s why I'm confident we will pick up seats.
SCULLY: Congressman before we let you go, how much money do you think you would have – will have spent from your campaign committee on these house races overall.
VAN HOLLEN: Well, it’s – you have to break it down into different categories, but when it comes to our independent expenditure on category, we expect to spend up in the $85 million range. Again, this depends on how many resources come into the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
What we’ve told are supporters from around the country and people who really want to see an agenda for change in the next Congress is that our opportunities are limited by the resources we have because in order to take advantage of all the toss up races around the country, we need to make sure that our candidates can get their messages out and we at the DCCC can give them whatever boost is necessary to get over that finish line. So we are continuing to call upon our supporters to recognize that our opportunities are – our ability to take advantage of the opportunities continues to be limited by the resources that we have.
SCULLY: Congressman Chris Van Hollen is the Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democrat from Maryland joining us live here on Newsmakers. Thanks for being with us.
VAN HOLLEN: Thanks for having me.
SCULLY: And continuing the discussion, Josh Kraushaar who is with the Politico and David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. Let me ask you about two specific house races.
WASSERMAN: Sure.
SCULLY: Ohio 18, Congressman Zach Space, freshman democrat and New Hampshire one, another freshman democrat, Carol Shea-Porter. These are districts that tend to be more republican. So what challenges does the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have in holding these two seats?
WASSERMAN: Well, actually democrats have done generally a very good job of shoring up their first term members, those democrats who were elected from leaning republican districts in 2006. Now I think we sort of have a tale of two races between those two districts and in the 18th district in Ohio, republicans struggled mightily to find a candidate there who would have fund raising success and they couldn’t find one. They have a candidate, Fred Daily, who is not on the top of their list of challengers.
So Zach Space, even though that district could conceivably go for McCain by a very healthy margin, Zach Space the freshman democrat looks to be in good shape.
Now Carol Shea-Porter who has a much more liberal voting record in her first term is facing off against the former Congressman Jed Bradley that she defeated in a surprise upset on election night of 2006. A lot of voters going to the polls in this district still think that Jed Bradley is the Congressman and one of the challenges that she faces is that turn out dropped off so much between 2004 and 2006 in her district, a lot of those republicans who decided to stay home in 2006 are going to be back at the polls. And so that’s why she’s in the toss up column right now.
SCULLY: What are you looking at on election day?
KRAUSHAAR: I think we’re going to have a very wide range of possibilities on how many seats the democrats are going to pick up. They’re going to pick up seats, the environment is in their favor, expectations have been high for the democrats and it’s largely because of what they were able to do in 2007 when the environment was abysmal for republicans. They were able to get strong recruits; they were able to outrace by significant margin their republican counterparts. So they’re experiencing the balance – the advantage of what they were able to do in 2007.
What we’re seeing now is the republicans are getting a little bit of momentum in the environment. There’s a very anti-incumbent sentiment out there. I think a lot of voters across the country are saying throw the bums out, no matter what party they’re from. So we’re seeing a lot of democratic congressmen in republican types of districts, Nick Lampson from Texas or Houston area. Chris Carney, another congressman from northeast Pennsylvania who’s in a district that president Bush won by about 20 points.
A lot of democrats are also very concerned with this economic bail out proposal being unpopular in a lot of these blue collar parts of the country. I think some democrats have to be running scared and really being concerned about their political future.
SCULLY: What did you learn today from the congressman?
KRAUSHAAR: I think he’s very optimistic, he doesn’t like to pinpoint on any kind of specific numbers, on any kind of games, but I think he believes that with this bipartisan package in pace, you know, I think the political risks are minimized to some degree and he wasn’t willing to put a number on how many seats the democrats would pick up, but I think we can expect something in the range of 10 to 15 house seats. I think its going to be a pretty good cycle for house democrats.
SCULLY: And as you look at this race, there’s always been talk of an October surprise and maybe we had a September surprise with the bailout on Wall Street, but with now just over a month before the election what are you looking at in terms of the presidential race and the impact that it may or may not have in these house races?
WASSERMAN: Well, I think the top of the ticket will have a devastating effect for some republicans and a helpful effect for some others. I think districts in which there are high percentages of African Americans are especially ripe for democratic challengers. If you look at Robin Hayes in North Carolina, Steve Chabot in Ohio, the electorate could be more than one quarter black where it hasn’t been in years and that’s a challenge that they’ll really have to work hard to overcome.
But as far as surprises on election night, we saw plenty in 2006 and it’s hard to pinpoint at this – even five weeks out what we’re going to see this election night. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few of the longer term members in the republican party go down in defeat because of this time for change mantra that’s sort of a fresher argument against them, especially those who haven’t had top races in recent years.
And I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the more recent republican freshman or some of the republicans who haven’t served as long come back for another term. Folks like Tom Feeney of Florida, Phil English of Pennsylvania. These are people who didn’t expect to have tough races at the beginning of the cycle but now are in a very tight reelection bid.
SCULLY: And in that Pennsylvania third, what are you looking for?
WASSERMAN: Well Kathy Dahlkemper who’s the democratic challenger there is really and outsider and that’s a helpful profile in this type of election year. She hasn’t held elected office before. Phil English is someone who has a reputation for being a political whiz. He’s served since 1994, hasn’t really had a tough race since then, aided by in 2006 against a weak democratic challenger. And so if the DCCC really pours resources into this Erie district, which is a pretty cheap media market, they could make some things happen in this district. He has to watch his back.
SCULLY: In one other race, the Virginia 11th, this is an open seat, one that the democrats hope to pick up. What are you looking at?
KRAUSHAAR: This is a race between the democrats Gerry Connolly, Fairfax County board of supervisor chairman against a very relatively unknown challenger Keith Fimian, Tom Davis’s seat. But this is – democrats are very heavily favored to do very little to win here because it’s emblematic of democrat success at suburban types of districts.
The district of northern Virginia here in the DC suburbs that on social issues just doesn’t look at the republican party the – that they’re aligned with their interests and Gerry Connolly is a very well known figure in Fairfax County politics and he’s kind of a moderate on social issues. He’s viewed as a moderate on fiscal issues as well. And that’s the democrat brand and that’s how they view their strategies being successful in a lot of these suburban districts where they’ve been picking up seats lately.
SCULLY: Josh Kraushaar who is with the Politico, he’s also the co-writer of the Scorecard which can be found where.
KRAUSHAAR: Politico.com, its right on the front page.
SCULLY: And David Wasserman, who’s the house editor of the Cook Political Report. Gentlemen, thank you both for being with us and thank you for joining us on CSPAN Newsmakers Program.
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