Embrace Your Inner Thirteen!

posted by Zach Patton

We here on the 13th Floor embrace the fact that our offices are located thirteen stories above the ground. We love it!  Bring it on, fate! That's what we say!

But it seems that some of the folks in Sen. John McCain's presidential camp are suffering from a little triskaidekaphobia.

According to the new DC Hill pub The Politico, McCain's presidential HQ will be located in a high-rise in Arlington, VA, on the floor between the 12th and the 14th.

But don't call it the 13th floor!:

The nerve center of McCain's 2008 campaign, the "Straight Talk Express," will be located on floor "M." The exact meaning of the "M" remains unclear. McCain? McFly? Macho Man? Whatever, but it's certainly a step up from the floor's original designation, an unlucky 13.

Come on, McCain, you were a POW -- don't be afraid of a little 13.

What Goes 'Rounds...

posted by Josh Goodman

Everyone's glad to hear that South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson is feeling better, but a few people are probably especially relieved: his family, his fellow Senate Democrats and Republican Governor Michael Rounds.

Rounds is the man who would have had to chose a replacement if Johnson had died or was incapacitated, with control of the Senate depending on the partisan preference of his selection. In other words, Rounds would have been stuck deciding between choosing a Democrat, and earning the ire of his party, or choosing a Republican, and being accused of using a personal tragedy for partisan gain.

But there's more going on than just that. According to D.C. insiders like WashingtonPost.com's Chris Cillizza and Roll Call, there's widespread speculation in Republican circles that Rounds will run for Johnson's Senate seat in 2008. That ambition, though, would have been complicated mightily if Rounds had to choose Johnson's replacement.

Just think what his dicey options would have been.

New Day for Daley

posted by Alan Greenblatt

It's looking increasingly likely that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is set to win a sixth term this year. The Chicago Sun-Times has this story today about how prominent local politicians who had thought of challenging him are now falling over themselves to cuddle up to Hizzoner.

Daley has been an impressive mayor, but his administration also had serious problems with cronyism and patronage scandals that have been disturbing even by Chicago standards. It will be worth watching to see whether Daley, who is set to surpass his father's record for length of service in 2010, proceeds with yet more innovations and development triumphs, or spends a good chunk of yet another term watching aides fall under indictment.

Legislatures: Who's Really in Charge?

posted by Josh Goodman

Which party, Democratic or Republican, has more power in our brand-new state governments? That simple-sounding question is actually much more complicated than at first blush, but, if you can tolerate a little bit of math, I'll do my best to explain.

The raw numbers show that Democrats have 28 of 50 governorships (56%) and 3989 of 7382 legislative seats (54%). But those numbers treat Wyoming's (pop. 515,000) governorship as just as important as California's (pop. 36,458,000) and each member of the New Hampshire House (who on average represent about 3,300 people) as no different from members of the Texas Senate (representing 758,000 each).

With all apologies to Wyoming and New Hampshire, I don't think that makes a lot of sense, so I prefer to adjust for population. Democratic governors are in charge in states with about 161 million people or 54% of the U.S. population. That's a giant reversal from prior to the November elections, when Republican executives governed 188 million people or 63%. However, you only have to go back to early 2003, before the recall that booted Gray Davis from office in California, to get to the last time Democrats had the population edge.

Legislatures are a bit more complicated, but here's the method I think works best: Each legislative house should count for half the state's population.

'Twas the Fight for the Speakership

posted by Josh Goodman

Nothing's stirring in the political world this week, except in the Texas House.

When Texas Republicans retained their majority in the state House of Representatives in November (albeit with five fewer seats), Tom Craddick seemed ensured another two years as the body's speaker. But fellow Republican Brian McCall is running against Craddick and feels confident he can win when legislators choose a new speaker January 9.

While McCall's task is difficult -- ousting someone who's been speaker since 2002 and who won his first legislative election in 1968 -- the math required for him to get to the magic number of 76 is fairly simple:

1) McCall needs the votes of the House's 69 Democrats.

2) He needs to remember to vote for himself (very important).

3) He needs to find six other Republicans who will support him, perhaps after being promised one of many plum committee chairmanships.

Though it might seem odd that McCall's bid hinges on support from the opposite party, it's not all that unusual. Just last month in the Alaska Senate, members of the Democratic minority won themselves some committee chairmanships by forming a governing coalition with a group of Republicans. Something similar is afoot in Alabama, where, despite the nominal 23-12 Democratic edge, six dissident Democrats may join with Republicans to decide the body's leadership.

In Texas, Democrats seem open to the idea of supporting McCall en masse, largely because they regard Craddick as overly partisan and confrontational. It's not clear whether McCall is willing to allow Democrats to run some committees or if he's just promising better treatment instead.

There's a precedent for the latter approach in New Hampshire, where two years ago Democrats conspired with some GOPers to choose a moderate Republican as House speaker, even though they weren't receiving any chairmanships in the bargain.

The gambit succeeded: The Republican leadership worked well with Democratic Governor John Lynch. This year, voters gave Lynch credit for the new spirit of bipartisanship and handed his party victories up and down the ballot (The irony of voters rewarding one party for bipartisanship isn't lost on New Hampshire Republicans). As a result, the newly minted Democratic majority in the House won't have to consult with anyone else to choose a speaker.

Generation D?

posted by Josh Goodman

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne points to an important statistic from this fall's elections: Sixty percent of voters under the age of thirty supported Democratic candidates in U.S. House elections, which is a far higher percentage than any other age group.

Young voters also skewed toward Democratic gubernatorial candidates in hotly contested states including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Florida (although they didn't differ much from the overall electorate in Maryland and Nevada). If everyone 30 and older had stayed home, Phil Angelides would be the next governor of California.

As Dionne notes, this group didn't favor Democrats a generation ago, when, in 1984, Ronald Reagan won young voters and all voters in equally large landslides. Even as recently as 2000, exit polls showed Al Gore winning 48% of young voters -- and 48% of the overall electorate.

This isn't, however, a single-election phenomenon.

Is Obama For Real?

posted by Alan Greenblatt

The last thing I want to get involved in is speculation about the next presidential election, but I think some of the initial reaction to the prospects of Barack Obama is worth a comment. Not the adulatory response he's receiving, but the skepticism you hear about him here in Washington.

This by now is rote. Howie Kurtz makes the point that Obama hasn't undergone the level of scrutiny he'll receive as a declared candidate. It is a safe assumption that someone will find some dirt that will scuff him up a bit. And there is the fact that Obama is a black man, which is a source of as much guessing about his ultimate prospects as Hillary Clinton's gender. (Here's a contrarian view.)

Finally, there is the point that Obama lacks experience. He was only elected to the Senate two years ago. (His eight years in the Illinois state Senate doesn't seem to count for much in this accounting.) He lacks experience and a record of achievement. Etc.

Well, I wonder whether people who don't follow politics for a living care quite as much about these things.

Blue Suburbia

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Following an election, it's always good to check in with Rhodes Cook, my old coworker at CQ and author of an important political newsletter. We talked over the phone about very broad lessons from the 2006 elections -- not about what issues were important, but macro issues about targeting voters and the shape of the electoral map.

We talked, actually, not just about macro issues but microtargeting -- the big buzzword of this cycle. Both parties did their best to get individualized messages to specific voters based on what was known of their political inclinations and things like consumer habits. This was in contrast to the old model of targeting messages to precincts.

This all grew out of the sense, from the 2004 election, that Karl Rove had come up with a grand new strategy. Target messages to your base and you can win in an evenly divided electorate. As Rhodes notes, the old idea was that each party starts with about 40 percent support and fights over the remaining 20 percent in the middle. As has been widely noted, the middle -- the independents and moderates -- made their clout known in this year's elections, calling Rove's genius status into question.

"Each election forces one to revisit such topics as to what's effective in voter mobilization or who you aim at," Rhodes said. "It is surprising that they [the Republicans] went the other way and were as successful as they were as long as they were with this base strategy. You don't want to box yourself in so you can't make a good play for that 20 percent."

A Good Start

posted by Zach Patton

There's been renewed talk lately of something that's been a perennial topic of discussion on the 13th Floor for years: a vote in Congress for D.C.

As you probably know, the residents of the District of Columbia --despite paying federal taxes -- don't have a vote in the House or Senate. (Isn't there a phrase for that?)

But a plan to give D.C. a voting member in the House is receiving new attention. The deal would add two seats to the House, balancing what would be D.C.'s solidly Democratic vote with a solidly Republican new district in Utah. (Utah just barely missed qualifying for a new seat following the 2000 Census).

In a post-election press conference a couple weeks ago, President Bush said he would consider the plan, the first time he's acknowledged it.  And Utah's moving ahead, with lawmakers a couple weeks ago appointing a committee to draft a plan for adding a district to the state.

This, of course, is all terribly exciting. As a resident of the District, being taxed without representation is a pretty tough pill to swallow.

So for all the momentum this idea seems to be gaining, I say "huzzah." And to all the people working to make this a reality, I say "thank you."

But I also say this: "Now what?" Getting representation in the House is fantastic and everything -- don't get me wrong. But everybody talks about this plan like it's the solution to D.C.'s representation problem.

It's not. It's a good start, but what about the Senate? You know, the other arm of Congress? The one that confirms presidential nominees?

I love all this talk about a D.C. congressional representative. But I'd like to hear some talk about a couple of D.C. senators, too.

The Blue-ing of the Burbs

posted by Alan Ehrenhalt 

A belated thought about what happened in Virginia last Tuesday, and what it might mean for other states:

There was a time, not too many years ago, when my home county of Arlington, the inner-suburban territory just across the Potomac from Washington D.C., used to support Republicans running for statewide office. Then Arlington turned Democratic, but the Republicans didn't worry too much, because adjoining Fairfax, with five times as many people, was safely in the GOP column.

In the past decade, Democrats began carrying Fairfax. Still, Republicans had a cushion: They dominated Loudoun and Prince William, the fast-growing outer suburban counties just beyond the Fairfax line.

Now that cushion is just about gone as well.