Van Hollen using fear as a weapon

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the affable chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign committee, has not hesitated to use fear tactics to scare off would-be Republican candidates.

Time and again this cycle, negative information about GOP candidates has been pushed early on in the race or even before they enter the race, with the purpose of keeping them from even making the effort to run.

{mosads}In an interview with The Hill on Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chairman credited the expansive effort with sending some of the 29 incumbent Republicans into retirement and, more recently, discouraging non-incumbents.

“There are two pieces to that: One is putting pressure on incumbent Republican members to make the decision to retire, and the other is to put pressure on candidates that they’re trying to recruit and convince them that it’s not a good idea to run against one of our incumbents,” Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen doesn’t give the initiative complete credit but says it has played a major role in setting the table for potentially expanding the Democratic majority in the 111th Congress, which is generally a tall task just two years after a big swing to take the majority.

He pointed to candidates like state Rep. Don Cazayoux (D) in Louisiana and state Sen. John Adler (D) in New Jersey, who jumped in previously noncompetitive races where incumbents would later retire, as well as early advertising the committee did on issues like the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

With just more than six months to go, though, Van Hollen’s focus has shifted to non-incumbents.

On Monday, former Arizona Senate President Ken Bennett turned down GOP entreaties to run for Congress. It was the second time he said no to the race, and he joined a long list of public figures who have come to the same conclusion.

Democrats had been circulating a 2006 assault plea by Bennett’s son that involved sodomizing boys with broomsticks. Bennett denied the effort had anything to do with his decision, but he’s hardly been the only one on the receiving end of Democrats’ hardball politics.

A local blog, PolitickerAZ.com, posted a DCCC memo detailing Bennett’s alleged vulnerabilities, including his son’s assault plea, and Bennett later spoke to the blog about the incident. Local media also reported that the DCCC requested records on the case to see if Bennett unduly influenced an outcome of which the victims’ families didn’t approve.

{mospagebreak}Van Hollen mentioned two examples in New York where the GOP has missed out on top candidates thanks to his efforts — retiring Rep. James Walsh’s (R) and freshman Rep. John Hall’s (D) seats.

In Walsh’s district, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick declined to run shortly after an expansive story questioning his campaign committee spending appeared in the Syracuse Post-Standard.

Van Hollen all but claimed credit for a New York Times story about businessman and Hall opponent Andrew Saul accepting campaign donations from real estate developers with business before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, on which he served as vice chairman. Saul dropped out almost instantly.

{mosads}“Well, we certainly did some research into that, and others I think looked into it as well,” Van Hollen said of the Saul contributions. “And then you’ve got the situation [in Walsh’s district] where they’ve run through a string of candidates, including the district attorney. We made it clear we were going to make his record — which is certainly fair game — we were going to make his record a big part of the debate and the campaign.”

The GOP is still without top candidates in those two New York districts and retiring Rep. Rick Renzi’s (R-Ariz.) Republican-leaning district eight months after he retired. They are all attractive seats that were held by Republicans just 18 months ago. Now, along with several others in similar situations, they risk being lost causes.

Van Hollen said the committee’s research operation, which used to be contracted out, is now run in-house, improving turnaround time on his information campaign.

“That has made a huge difference for us,” he said. “We’re able to respond very quickly and also able to provide people with information very quickly when you’ve got someone challenging an incumbent or in one of our challenger races.”

He has also brought his field operation in-house, separating it from the Democratic National Committee because many of his targets lie in seats that aren’t in presidential battleground states.

One such seat is in Mississippi, where Democrat Travis Childers came within a percentage point of winning outright in Tuesday’s special election. Instead, he will go to a runoff with Republican Greg Davis in a district that voted 62 percent for President Bush just four years ago.

Van Hollen remains cautious in his optimism, despite the fact that it would already be his second takeover of the cycle. He talks in terms of the number of strong challengers he has recruited — which has fluctuated around 50 in recent weeks — rather than a net gain of seats.

{mospagebreak}“We really are poised to beat history in this election, but I do get nervous when people start talking about big numbers, because if you look historically after every wave election, the party that rode the wave actually loses seats,” Van Hollen said, invoking a historical lesson that he has repeated frequently this year.

But all things said, Van Hollen likes where he’s at with the electoral map and says, with an aggressive reverse recruiting strategy, he is prepared to remake that history.

{mosads}“Some people would have thought it would be crazy to take this [job] on, given the historical math,” he said. “But so far it has turned out.” 

 Excerpts of interview with Rep. Van Hollen

Q: Is it hard to compete with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for money, given that the House hasn’t had trouble passing a lot of bills and the Senate has?
A: To the extent that we pick up in the House, it sends a signal to the Republicans that if they keep up their obstructionist tactics, whether it’s in the House or the Senate … they’re going to pay a political price.

Q: Is it helpful when bloggers raise issues like DCCC Red to Blue Co-Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (Fla.) refusal to campaign against Florida Republican colleagues Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen?
A: We have made it clear to all our members that we want their support for all our candidates, and as you probably know, the House Democratic leadership sent a strong letter just to make it absolutely clear that we fully support all those Democratic candidates in the Miami area. … So I think that’s blown over. In fact, I think since then you’ve seen Congressman Wasserman Schultz do some very helpful things for those candidates.

Q: What did you think of the letter from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) fundraisers criticizing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for taking the position that superdelegates shouldn’t reverse the outcome of pledged delegates?
A:I think the letter was counterproductive; it was probably counterproductive from the point of view of the Clinton campaign. I think we’re beyond that. … I’ve taken that position, I think even before the Speaker articulated that position.

Q: What is the status of the changing dues system?
A:Right now the staff of the DCCC is working with some of the staff from [Majority Whip James] Clyburn’s [D-S.C.] office and trying to work out details. … I think it was a good suggestion that we should also acknowledge other kinds of support including political support, so it is not a substitute for people’s help on the financial side, it’s rather a supplement to and a way to recognize some of those other efforts.

Q: Do you want a lot of freshmen to speak at the Democratic National Convention? (Note: Freshman Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), who represents a conservative district, has said he will avoid going to the convention if possible.)
A:I think that we are going to be talking to [Democratic National Committee Chairman] Howard Dean about ways to sort of showcase our new members. But again, that is really in the planning stages.

Q: Do you think Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) “bitter” comments and his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright are overblown, or will they hurt him in battleground states?
A:I think it is overblown. I have no doubt that the Republicans will try and use sort of Karl Rove tactics to make it an issue. … I think people are really fed up with what they perceive — and I think correctly — as people trying to use these kinds of issues and comments to blow them up in a way that sort of distracts people’s attention from the real issues.