Following the break is a complete roundup and ranking of Ohio races for the U.S. House of Representatives. I have separated them into Republican-held and Democratic-held seats and divided each into tiers. Within each tier they are ranked in order of likelihood of changing parties.
Democrats were very successful in 2006 in winning a U.S. Senate seat, four out of five statewide offices, and a net gain of seven seats in the Ohio House of Representatives, but the U.S. House races were a relative disappointment. The party gained only one seat and watched two promising races end in narrow losses after recounts. In this cycle Ohio has three open GOP seats and perhaps four or five races altogether that already look very promising, with another two or three that could be added to that list. The DCCC has already added three races to their "Red to Blue" program and is likely to take an interest in at least two more. In other words, Ohio is once again a critical congressional battleground.
The Chris Dodd campaign has done a great job with its debate talk clock meter. I would like to introduce a new debate meter, one that measures how many times Iraq was mentioned in each of the last five debates. The pattern is illuminating:
Iraq peaked as an issue in the Democratic primary in late September, when the residual forces issue hit the mainstream. Since then, it has been a straight, downward decline, with mentions of Iraq cut 80% over the last five debates. Iraq is clearly being "taken off the table," not only by Democrats but also by the media outlets that sponsor their debates. Bill Richardson seems to be just about the only candidate discussing Iraq these days.
Avoiding Iraq is a path to doom for Democratic candidates. In the two most hotly contested special elections this year, MA-05 and OH-05, Republican candidates over-performed first by blurring on Iraq themselves, and then by benefiting from the Democratic candidate taking Iraq off the table. It unfortunately seems to be the path we are walking down. I think we need a series of primaries that will match the impact of Lieberman-Lamont last year in order to, once again, make this point clear to the Democratic establishment.
I noticed that Weirauch didn't mention Iraq in her ads, but did go aggressively on gas prices, health care, and an antipartisan 'Washington is broken' message. I suspect that had something to do with the apathetic muddle of the electorate, a muddle which several commenters on Dailykos mentioned they heard from voters when they were phonebanking. The alternative conventional wisdom on the loss is that Republicans dropped a whole bunch of money and prevented us from grabbing this one under the radar.
Regardless, there's a problem with taking Iraq off the table in favor of other issues like the economy or health care. And that is, very simply, that Iraq is linked to the economy and health care; a dollar spent in Iraq is a dollar not spent on health care. The issues may not separated in voters' minds, but they are separated on polling questions and therefore in the political strategies Democrats adopt. This separation is just an assumption by pollsters, and I don't know if there has been a lot of testing to justify it. Do voters really stop caring about Iraq when the economy turns bad, or are the two problems linked? Certainly the economy and Iraq are linked, and the same leadership that screwed up one screwed up the other. But the data doesn't tell us whether voters get this story, because it assumes there is no overall story to tell. People are interested in Iraq or health care but not both.
After going over thirty pages of polling data at Polling Report on Iraq, I noticed that the lines of questioning are mostly organized around military tactics and strategy - are we winning, should we pull out troops, is Bush doing a good job. They have little to do with what people actually think about the war in Iraq. Why did we go to war? Why are we there? What do you think of the trade-offs in being there? Do you think that spending money in Iraq is hurting the economy here? Are we there for oil? Is America bogged down in Iraq? Is Iraq preventing America from investing in a better energy system?
We don't have data on these questions, because pollsters aren't asking them. And because Iraq is set against health care and the economy in most polling, the issues are seen as competitive. But are they? Can you really talk about the economy without talking about Iraq? I don't know, but I doubt it.
Anyway, on the flip I published a polling memo from the House Democratic Caucus, Rahm's shop, gleefully claiming that the economy has superseded Iraq as the number one issue on voters' minds, and that Democrats are trusted on the economy. I wonder why that message didn't work in Ohio's 5th district. There are many possible explanations, of course, and I'm not sure that talking about Iraq would have made a difference. But we have seen this movie before.
The race is done by a with a roughly 57-43 margin. After going over the paid media messaging by the two candidates, I have a few thoughts on what happened here. The first question Democrats should be asking themselves is why Robin Weirauch didn't mention Iraq in her ads, and the second question is whether not mentioning the issue that ranks number one on the list of voter concerns had anything to do with Weirauch's unremarkable loss in OH-05 tonight. It might also be worth noting that Weirauch didn't mention she was a Democrat in her ads. This is early 2006 all over again (and 2002, and 2004, etc). If you don't mention you are a Democrat, and you don't mention Iraq, you are giving up huge points of distinction. Being a Democrat running for Congress is an advantage these days, and Iraq is tied into everything. So on the messaging front, Weirauch gave up her two biggest tools to distinguish herself in this race, right off the bat.
Ok, now to the analysis. Weirauch lost her third race in this district, after losing in 2004 by a massive blowout and in 2006 by roughly the same margin she lost tonight (though she spent only $115k in 2006, a small sum suggesting very little media penetration in the district). I went through a bunch of the messaging, from Latta's awful commercial with Fred Thompson and the West Wing theme song to Robin Weirauch's series of antipartisan ads, and my conclusion is that this was very similar to Francine Busby's loss in CA-50. Two generic candidates went after each other with unmemorable messaging, one about immigration and one about ethics, and the district's inertia carried the Republican to victory. The Democrat didn't mention Iraq, and the Republican fear-mongered on immigration, and voters basically didn't care about either.
While this race was going on, I didn't have any great insights into OH-05, so I made a very safe prediction.
If this district goes even remotely close to our way, Democrats should expect another wave in 2008. If Weirauch gets blown out by a larger than 61-39 margin, we'll know we're in trouble. Anything in between keeps us in our current muddle.
I think that's still basically right. This district didn't matter, except that it got the DCCC and RNCC to waste a bunch of money. We had more money than they did, so that's good. Here are a few observations.
One, not putting Iraq front and center in your campaign is really weird. Weirauch mentioned it once, in brief in her opening announcement, without taking a position on it. And then at the very end she called for a responsible end to the war. It was not included in any paid media on TV to the district.
Two, not mentioning that you are a Democrat is weird. If you are running on change in a Republican district, that means being a Democrat. If you don't tell voters that, it's not like they aren't going to find out. It just means you don't represent anything at all.
No polls that I know of. The Democrat in this campaign is Phil Forgit, but Republicans are favored to retain the seat. Expectations for a close race are not as high here as they are in OH-05
Any additional information is appreciated in the comments. As far as I am concerned, I think we have already won in OH-05, no matter what happens.
The Blogpac educational adbuy is up to 35,084 in the district. Google adwords lets you draw the target area on a map, and track impressions and clicks by keyword. I drew the map so that it is slightly larger than the district and encompasses Toledo.
Over the last four days, people in the district have used Google to do 310 searches for 'Bob Latta' or 'Latta', 343 for 'Robin Weirauch' or 'Weirauch'. For some contrast, there have been 161 searches for 'Bush', 289 for 'Clinton', '116' for Iraq, and 9529 for 'jobs'.
I've spoken to several analysts about this kind of ad buy, and there's really no way to measure impact, though really, there's no way to coherently measure impact of any specific set of ads through any medium. Interestingly, this has led to the total abandonment of the internet space in this district to Blogpac and, oddly, Slatecard, the right-wing equivalent to Actblue. It also looks like the Robin Weirauch campaign has begun advertising on Google.
Blogpac is on the Blue Majority page, so if you've chipped in on that page and threw a few bucks to Blogpac, this is what it's going for.
In an amazing report tonight, The Politico quotes a GOP source as saying that a poll taken by the campaign of State Rep. Bob Latta (R-Bowling Green) last week showed him trailing Robin Weirauch (D-Napoleon) by four points.
On the ground in Ohio, we've been hearing that internal polls showed a close race, and there was an exciting rumor last week that Weirauch's pollster said she was only down by three points. This race seemed like it was amazingly close for a R+10 district, but still a long shot. Now, with this leak about Latta's poll, victory looks like a very real possibility tomorrow.
These are the ad variants Blogpac is running. Each of them links to a news article from a neutral source of information.
Back on Friday, BlogPac purchased educational Google Ads on Bob Latta. These ads appear only in Google searches for "bob latta," and a few related keywords, that were conducted within fifth congressional district of Ohio. The ads were designed to serve two purposes. First, they were designed to educate interested potential voters in the special election on Bob Latta by directing them to relevant local news articles in the Toledo Blade. Second, they were designed to measure how many people in the district were conducting Google searches for Bob Latta during the final weekend of the campaign.
On the second point, the numbers so far are decent. From 4 p.m. Friday through 2 p.m. Monday, there were a little more than 200 Google searches for either Latta or Bob Latta were conducted in the fifth congressional district of Ohio. Overall, across all searches and related content on the broader Google network, the ads have generated over 25,000 impressions. From noon through 2 p.m. today, there were 1,800 new impressions, or one over four seconds, and all of them within the fifth Congressional district of Ohio.
On the first point, the Googlebomb search engine optimization campaign initiated on Friday has been quite successful. The targeted Toledo Blade articles have risen from outside the top twenty, all the way to #6. Simultaneously, MyDD's Bob Latta tag has risen to #2 (passing the Bob Latta campaign website), Swing State Project is at #7, the Stakeholder is at both #8 and #9. The more than 200 people in OH-05 who have Googled Bob Latta since Friday have seen their results dominated by progressive blogs and negative local news articles on Bob Latta. Also, no one else appears to have even purchased Google Ads on this campaign, except BlogPac.
There are a couple of lessons to be learned from this, as I discuss in the extended entry.
Want to conduct the easiest Googlebomb search engine optimization ever? If so, then I say we target Bob Latta, the Republican candidate in the special election for Ohio's fifth congressional district. This really will be easy. Currently, a Google search on Bob Latta turns up his Ohio state legislature page as the first result, his campaign website as the second result, and this as the third result:
Casas Elegantes is a small, very personalized rental agency.
We specialize in the finest vacation rentals in San Miguel de Allende. The business is owned and operated by retired Gringo, Bob Latta, who lives full time in San Miguel. Bob, an Arkansas native, retired after a successful 33 year career in sales for ITW/Signode Corporation and moved to San Miguel. After settling in San Miguel with his wife Carol, Bob started Casas Elegantes to bring a new dimension to the vacation home rental business.
Wow. At first, I thought it was too late for a Googlebomb search engine campaign in OH-05, but when I saw that this was the third result on Google searches for Bob Latta, I knew it was still doable. Swing State Project is the fourth result. The DCCC, blog, The Stakeholder, is the fifth. A professor of biology at the University of Toronto is the sixth. An Ohio GOP blog is seventh, Breaking Blue on MyDD is eighth, a bank manger in Palo Alto is ninth, and As Ohio Goes, another Ohio progressive blog, rounds out the top ten.
Without even trying that hard, four progressive blogs are already in the top ten for searches on Bob Latta. With a little effort over the weekend, we should have no problem pushing whatever we want on Latta not only in the top ten, but possibly even above his campaign and state legislature website. On Monday and Tuesday, that could turn into a few thousand effective voter contacts.
Here are the articles I suggest we target:
Bob Latta: "Ohio Elections Commission rebukes Latta for lies about foe," from the excellent local paper the Toledo Blade. This should be the top target, although it does talk about the primary campaign instead of the general.
Bob Latta: "Prison doesn't bar Noe from political controversy, Weirauch ads use 'Coingate' figure against rival Latta" also from the Toledo Blade. A pretty good target, too. Not to second guess myself, but maybe this should be the top target.
Bob Latta: "DCCC turns up heat in solidly GOP district," from the Politco. Not bad, but the source of the article isn't as good as the Toledo Blade. Also, I wonder if the title will help or hurt undecided voter psychology. Will voters who see this article think "oh, all my neighbors vote Republicans, so I should too," or will they think "hmmm, people around here are turning away from Republicans, so I should too"? Hard to say, but it still might be worth a shot if you don't like either of the first two articles.
Here is how you can participate. Whenever you write about Bob Latta, embed a hyperlink to the news article of your choice above. If you have a blog, stick your preferred Bob Latta hyperlink in the template of your blog (more info on how to do this, and why it is important, can be found here). If you don't have a blog, embed your preferred hyperlink into your signature line. BlogPac will purchase in-district Google ads in the district to help out the campaign, and measure how many voter contacts it makes.
Why will this work? Because the most common political action people take online is to look for more information about candidates, and they look for that information on search engines. This technique is designed to direct OH-05 voters looking for information on this campaign to local news articles we want those voters to read. Effectively, it increases the reach of potentially negative press on Republican candidates.
So, let's give this a shot. We are already doing quite well on Google results for Bob Latta, but I think we could do even better.
Update: Alright! In only five hours the Toledo Blade onBob Latta is up to 14th in Google searches for Bob Latta. Making progress...
I'm the New Media Director for Barack Obama's campaign.
Within minutes of the send there was a diary up with the email that Barack Obama sent to supporters in Ohio today, so I won't paste that here.
But I did want to make a note about why this race is significant, and why Obama supporters (and supporters of the other presidential candidates) should do what they can to help.
I was on the ground for the special election in OH-02 back in 2005, when an unexpectedly strong showing by a Democrat in a deep red district presaged the sweeping Democratic gains the following year.
There's an interesting race shaping up Ohio 5th, a mostly rural district which voted for Bush in 2004 by a 61 point margin. The region has been devastated by job losses, with outsourcing and trade crushing the local economy. It is at the same time a very socially conservative place, with the largest city Bowling Green having only about 30k people. The region shows signs of progressivism, with Ohio's first utility-sized wind farm. According to wikipedia, "there are four turbines that are 257 feet tall. These turbines generate up to 7.2 megawatts of power--enough to supply electricity for some 3,000 residents. Located about six miles from the city, the turbines can be seen for miles and have become a local attraction."
Democrat Robin Weirauch is running a spirited campaign with lots of help from institutional sources. It is a very uphill battle in OH-05, but these numbers are stunning, if there is any truth to them.
"I've heard that there are internal polls that show a 3-point race," said Ohio Democratic consultant Dale Butland. "It would be shocking. If that district goes Democratic, then there would literally be no district in this state that would be safe for Republicans."
A Republican insider with knowledge of the district said the special election "is easily within a 55-45" percent margin. "I think the DCCC knows that, otherwise there's no way they would have put the money into it."
The only public poll so far in the race showed Latta leading Weirauch 50 percent to 36 percent in early November. Weirauch's showing in that poll was lower than 43 percent she received in her 2006 challenge to the late Rep. Paul Gillmor (R), who died in September.
Weirauch is running on a fair trade ticket, pairing both a harsh stance against immigration (bad!) with a stance against unfair trade agreements in a heavy union district.
Latta has gotten endorsements from conservative groups: the NRA, National Right to Life, NFIB, Farm Bureau, etc. The Republicans are pouring resources into this one. If this district goes even remotely close to our way, Democrats should expect another wave in 2008. If Weirauch gets blown out by a larger than 61-39 margin, we'll know we're in trouble. Anything in between keeps us in our current muddle.
James L noticed that establishment Dems and the DCCC are pouring resources into the OH-05 special election of Robin Weirauch. It's a +10 Republican district, and she's running against free trade and on economic fairness.
The labor organizers out there are some of the best in the country and are coming off of the incredibly successful Kentucky 07 program. It should be a low-turnout winnable election in a traditionally Republican area, and the organizers I know out there are very excited about it.
The first reporting deadline for the special election to replace deceased Rep. Paul Gilmor (R) was yesterday, and the big story is that ideological extremist State Sen. Steve Buehrer (R-Delta) has a large Club for Growth-generated cash advantage over the conservative but more pragmatic State Rep. Bob Latta (R-Bowling Green), whose father preceded Gillmor and who is leading in the GOP primary according to the limited polling data available. On the Democratic side, third-time candidate Robin Weirauch (D-Napoleon) is far back in fund-raising but has received a recent boost from unions, and she faces no serious primary opposition to deplete her war chest. The primary is set for regular general election day, November 6th.
Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) has died. Details of his passing have not yet been made public. Check RollCall.com for further updates
The OH-05 occupies most of northwest Ohio, and has a partisan voting index of R +10.1. That is almost identical to SD-AL, which was won in a special election, and is actually lower than the OH-02, which has been competitive for more than two years now. A special election will probably take place in early 2008 or late 2007.
Update: OK. Fine. Whatever. I am sorry that some guy I never heard of until now has died of natural causes at an advanced age after a long, successful and prosperous life. If I prayed, I imagine I would say something like my prayers go out to his friends and family, who I also do not know.
Yes, the special election is the first thing I thought of. Call me heartless if you want, but that election will be of far greater impact to the nation and to my own life than offering sympathy to a group of people who are entirely unknown to me. I don't even know who I would be offering sympathy to, in this case.
Feel free to think whatever you want of me based on this. In the future, please inform of of the proper amount of time to point out that there will be a special election following the death of a relatively unknown member of Congress. Suggestions for prefunctory, dishonest statements I should make regarding "thinking" about said deaths are also welcome.
