Ed. Note: Here was the case study I was talking about earlier. Thanks in advance for any comments and criticism. And if there are formatting problems, please let me know.
“How Leonard Boswell was Saved by the Democratic Wave”
The power of incumbency is tough to beat in American politics, particularly in an era of partisan reapportionment and redistricting. Iowa’s method of non-partisan redistricting ultimately creates a congressional district map that is fairly balanced and always quite competitive, as well as cohesively shaped so not to appear to make a mess of the map. In 2006, most political pundits and prognosticators predicted a strong Election Day victory for Democrats across the country because of the national mood that favored Democrats on issues like the economy, ethics, and Iraq. Americans did not give Congress high approval ratings prior to Election Day and on generic congressional ballots Democrats continued to have 10+ percentage point advantages over Republicans. But not every Democrat was favored to win or survive the wave.
Starting in June of 2006, Chuck Todd of the National Journal began listing Leonard Boswell’s 3rd CD seat in Iowa as one of his top 30 seats most likely to change partisan control. For many weeks, it was among the only Democratic seats listed in Todd’s rankings until it became routinely joined by Georgia’s 12th CD seat held by Democrat John Barrow and Illinois’ 6th CD seat held by Democrat Melissa Bean. By Monday, November 6th, the day before Election Day, Todd released his final rankings—of the 60 congressional seats most likely to change hands—and Boswell’s seat was not listed. Clearly, over the course of the campaign things had changed and in the eyes of the pundits had locked up a win. But what was it that gave Boswell the win? Was it a strong campaign ran by the best strategists and consultants? Was it strong party involvement? Was it the strength of incumbency? Was it fundraising? Was it a strong message of being a change in the Republican status quo? Was it the national mood? There are many variables that need to be addressed, but the ultimate conclusion appears that both Congressman Boswell and his Republican opponent, Jeff Lamberti, ran strong campaigns but the national mood against Republicans and their years of leadership prompted a strong Democratic message across the nation as well as anti-Republican sentiment thanks to Congressional scandals involving sex and ethics, as well as the war in Iraq.
Direct Assaults on the Electorate
Both campaigns waged an assault on the electorate that was positive and negative, as well as receiving help from outside groups to pass information on to the electorate. However, these outside groups were mostly negative. Part of the largest appeal to the electorate—beyond the campaigns themselves—came from the party congressional committees. In the 2006 cycle alone, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised almost $108 million on races across the country and spent over $92 million (Center for Responsive Politics, ). DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel, Congressman from Illinois, said late in campaign 2006 that as many as 58 House seats might be in play for Democrats. The amount of competitive seats even prompted the DCCC to consider taking out a loan to maintain the financial edge in competitiveness (VandeHei, “Funding constrains Democrats”, Washington Post, 18 Oct 2006). Washington DC’s Roll Call newspaper reported that three weeks out from the November 7th elections, the DCCC did take out an $11.5 million bank loan (Whittington, “Sources: DCCC Took a Late Loan,” Roll Call, 16 Nov 2006). For the 2006 cycle, the National Republican Congressional Committee raised over $152 million and spent $136.7 million (Center for Responsive Politics, ). While on the simplest level, this seems to be fairly uncompetitive, it is quite significant that so many seats were considered in play by at least one party. In modern years, of the 435 seats up for grabs every two years in the House of Representatives, usually less than 10% of seats are considered contested. Emanuel’s number of 58 seats is over 13% of seats in the House considered competitive by just one party. In this cycle, it is less likely that Republicans saw that many competitive seats because of the national mood and the redistricting that took place by Republican state legislatures after the 2000 Census, however, it still bodes well for the electoral process in America that political realities like a never-ending war, ethics problems, and the inability to pass effective legislation can still motivate the electorate to turnout in record numbers and participate in the process.
Just how involved were the DCCC and the NRCC in the IA-03 race? Well, in the last three weeks or so of the campaign, the two committees along with a couple of other independent groups managed to spend $573,264, with most of the money being used in opposition to candidates—in other words, negative advertising in the form of TV ads, radio ads, or robo-calls. Of all of the money, only about 2% was spent on expenditures in support of one candidate, or as positive advertising or spending. The 2% of supporting expenditures came from the National Right to Life PAC in support of Republican Jeff Lamberti (Political Money Line, ).
The strength of the parties’ involvement in media buys and attacks against their opponents shows just how much of a role the parties will continue to play in very competitive races. Some thought that the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) in 2002 would weaken the role of the parties and generally be an anathema to party politics and the electoral process in America. However, they were wrong. The parties are still fighting hard and their independent expenditures (uncoordinated, of course) continue to make these races quite costly. Money still has a definitive role in the process.
Consider that Jeff Lamberti raised $1.72 million to take on incumbent Democrat Leonard Boswell who raised $1.95 million; Lamberti spent $1.46 million and Boswell spent $1.68 million, as of the last reporting date on October 18, 2006 (Center for Responsive Politics, ). Together, both candidates raised over $3.6 million for the entire cycle, not to mention the independent expenditures from the DCCC, NRCC, and other entities that easily put them over the $4 million mark. Consider, as well, that throughout the statewide gubernatorial race, Democrat Chet Culver and Republican Jim Nussle raised a combined total of a little more than $13 million (Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board). The Boswell-Lamberti total raised is 30% of that total spent across Iowa’s 99 counties; the 3rd CD itself is only made up of 12 counties with a population of 585, 305 (United States Census, 2000). Based on that census population and amount spent by both candidates, an average of $5.36 was spent on each person in the district. If you consider that only 117,871 people in the district voted for either Boswell or Lamberti, then an average of $26.64 was spent per voter (Washington Post Election 2006 results, ).
Negative advertising and outside groups
How big of a role did negative advertising play in the 2006 race between Boswell and Lamberti? A large role, to say the least. The day before the election, Tim Higgins in the Des Moines Register noted, “In the final days before voters pick a candidate in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional race, it’s come down to name-calling,” with Lamberti labeling Boswell as one of the “least effective members of Congress” and Boswell labeling Lamberti as a “rubber stamp” for President Bush or as a “multimillionaire politician” (Higgins, “Trash talk intensifies as race nears end,” Des Moines Register, 6 Nov 2006). The campaign committee battles across the nation were just as negative. Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press noted that in this electoral cycle, there is “nearly $1 of nice for every $10 of nasty” when looking at the advertising paid for by the committees. He also notes that “In 2004, the parties spent about $6 on ads in favor of congressional candidates for every $5 spent opposing candidates” (Kuhnhenn, “Negative ads far outweigh positive,” Associated Press, 1 Nov 2006).
The NRCC launched five negative ads versus the DCCC’s five; essentially making for a competition between the two committees as well. Boswell and Lamberti themselves also launched negative ads, sometimes in the form of comparison ads to give themselves a bit of a positive from the ad as well. The Des Moines Register noted just some of the controversy over the portrayal of records in the ads:
Boswell and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have been running television commercials making an issue of Lamberti’s wealth.
The DCCC ad, for example, notes that Lamberti voted to increase state lawmakers’ pay “even though he benefits from a multimillion-dollar trust fund.”
Last year, Lamberti voted to raise lawmakers’ pay, but the increase doesn’t go into effect until after he leaves the Legislature. In 1997, he also voted to increase lawmakers’ pay.
Lamberti has said Boswell is distorting the record and accused the congressman of voting for his own pay increases while in Washington and while at the state Legislature. Boswell has said he didn’t vote for a raise while in Congress but did receive cost-of-living increases. (Higgins, “Trash talk”)
Why so much emphasis on negative advertising? In the eyes of many political experts and campaign consultants it is simply because they work. While people may not state on opinion surveys that the ads matter, the portrayals of candidates in the ads do matter. Take for example the DCCC ad called “Hog Lots” against Jeff Lamberti. At issue were Lamberti’s contributions from corporate hog lot owners and his opposition to so-called ‘local control’ of corporate hog lot sitings. One of the images in the ad is of a little girl drinking water—water that has supposedly been polluted from hog lot waste runoff. That image of fear resonates with the voter and becomes a powerful tool for the campaign or party to use as an issue to either 1) motivate undecided voters interested in local control to turnout to vote for Congressman Boswell, or 2) to make the electorate fear the quality of their water if electing Lamberti, so they must vote for Boswell to protect their water.
It was not just the party committees that went down and dirty negative. Outside interest groups got involved as well, largely on the Republican side. In 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were founded as a 527 group (because of the section of the IRS tax code that governs those organizations) and they proceeded to call into question the record of Vietnam War service of Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John F. Kerry. While their initial ad purchase was minimal, the claims in the ads were so outrageous and controversial that they received hours of free media through TV news shows and the cable news outlets who had many pundits and experts speak on the veracity of the ads and that gave them a greater impact across a greater swath of the electorate. One of the large financiers of that effort was Bob Perry of Texas, who also was the sole financier of a 527 group called the Economic Freedom Fund which became involved in several races at the national and state level in the 2006 election cycle. Perry gave so much money, in fact, that he became the largest sole 527 contributor this election cycle, beating George Soros (Forsythe and Salant, “Soros Bumped as Top Political Giver by Swift-Boat Group’s Perry,” Bloomberg News, 3 Nov 2006).
The EFF targeted the IA-03 and Leonard Boswell, as well as races in Georgia and Oregon, and began launching mailings and ads across these districts. The ads were decidedly negative, labeling Boswell as voting against tax cuts for working families, voting to tax small businesses more, and voting against tax relief—clearly the focus was taxes, a traditional Republican base-motivating issue. The television ads held enough irregularities in citing Congressman Boswell’s record that complaints from Boswell’s campaign to the television stations WHO and KCCI prompted them to pull the ads from airing until they received versions that had changed citations or were less controversial in substance (Boswell for Congress press release, 15 Sept 2006). KDSM Fox News at 9 said during the September 18 broadcast that “The Economic Freedom Fund was forced to make changes to a commercial due false citations within the ad.” The ads and mailers were so controversial and had such an impact on the electorate and press coverage that eventually, on October 5, Lamberti sent out a press release which stated: “This morning my campaign sent a letter to the address listed on the Economic Freedom Fund’s financial reports, requesting that they cease advertising on our behalf” (Lamberti for Congress pres release, 5 Oct 2006). That release also came two days after the KCCI/Des Moines Register debate where Lamberti said, “When you see an ad that’s put out by my campaign, I will stand by it…I don’t like what I see coming out of the third party groups” (televised debate on KCCI TV Channel 8, 3 Oct 2006).
Conclusions on the campaign and how the wave saved Boswell
As the title of this paper hints at, this author believes that the Democratic wave saved Congressman Leonard Boswell from being ousted by Republican challenger Jeff Lamberti. In the 2006 race, Boswell faced his toughest challenge since he first ran for and won the 3rd CD seat in 1996, when he defeated Mike Mahaffey by 1%. In the proceeding races, he won by 16%, 29%, 8%, and 10%. In 2006, he only beat Lamberti by 6% points, or 11,000 or so votes. What part of the Democratic wave contributed to Boswell’s win? First and foremost, one must look at the involvement of the DCCC in the race.
Contrary to what some political experts may have thought after the passage of BCRA in 2002, the parties have continued to play very significant roles in competitive Congressional races. Iowa’s 3rd congressional district was no different. What exactly did BCRA do for congressional campaigns and their finances? According to Gary Jacobson in Michael Malbin’s The Election After Reform, their effects have been “marginal” (Malbin, 201). As he also notes, “BCRA did nothing to alter the strategic considerations that dominate decisions to contribute and spend campaign money, the consequences of which were on full display in 2004” (202). If you look at Tables 1.1 and 1.2 below, which I have put together, you can notice that the CCC fundraising and spending for the 2006 cycle are not significantly lower than they were in 2000 and 2002, the years preceding BCRA’s implementation. The one noticeable figure is that for the first time in the previous three cycles, in 2006 the parties raised more money than they actually spent. What is the significance of that? Without a more macro examination of the national political scene, it would not be right to speculate, however there are likely good arguments pointing to increased DSCC fundraising advantages over its Republican counterpart as well theories on congressional approval ratings and the Democratic wave that led to Democratic control of the House and Senate.
Table 1.1: Money raised by the parties and committees
2000 2002 2004 2006 (as of 11/13/06)*
Committee Total Total Total Total
DNC 260.6 162.1 394.4 118.6
DSCC 104.2 143.5 88.7 103.9
DCCC 105.1 102.8 93.2 107.9
Democrats 458.1 408.4 576.2 493.3
RNC 379.0 284.0 392.4 207.9
NRSC 96.1 125.6 79.0 77.9
NRCC 144.6 193.3 185.7 152.4
Republicans 611.5 602.9 657.1 598.1
Total 1,069.6 1,011.3 1,233.2 1,091.4
Table 1.2: Money spent by the parties and committees
¬ 2000 2002 2004 2006 (as of 11/13/06)*
Committee Total Total Total Total
DNC 257.3 170.3 294.6 119.9
DSCC 104.8 146.7 88.3 94.6
DCCC 107.3 103.8 92.7 92.6
Democrats 510.7 459.3 710.4 456.6
RNC 350.8 305.6 382.6 200.7
NRSC 95.3 126.5 78.7 70.0
NRCC 148.3 204.0 185.8 136.7
Republicans 679.8 685.9 875.7 559.5
Total 1,190.5 1,145.2 1,5861.1 1,016.1
*Information obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics on November 23, 2006; .
Not only did BCRA essentially leave the parties as they were with the ability to raise soft money, but it also helped them revitalize voter mobilization and ground game efforts which had been neglected for fundraising and finance control in previous electoral cycles. From that mobilization effort and more grassroots appeals, the parties were also able to gobble up more unitemized contributions, or monetary contributions less than $200. While some of this can clearly be credited to the national political atmosphere and technological advances, BCRA also forced campaigns to go back to old fundraising methods of targeting the voter and doing direct hard money appeals instead of relying on big corporations or trade associations to drop in large amounts of cash.
Clearly, money still mattered in the parties’ involvement in the IA-03 race and it continues to be a national trend. Many experts argue that more change is need in the financing of elections so as to move beyond some of the advantages that incumbents, particularly in the House, face each cycle such as the ability to get free media and fundraise easily. Another problem in the IA-03 race that is also becoming a national trend is the involvement of 527 groups largely as attack institutions meant to essentially go negative and demonize political opponents, while still appearing entirely uncoordinated from the actual campaign that will benefit from the attacks so as to abide by BCRA and IRS/FEC guidelines. With regards to 527s, the law is really unclear as is the future. Restrictions are needed on soft money contributions to them so as to bring them under control. As academics Stephen Weissman and Ruth Hassan note, many large and successful 527s are planning on permanently placing themselves into the system (Malbin, 97). While we can see, at least in 2004, that the people who had contributed large amounts of soft money before BCRA were not doing the same thing with regards to 527s—there were amazingly large amounts of ‘first-timers’—what was seen was an increase in individual megadonors. In the 2006 election cycle, that is still the case with groups like the Economic Freedom Funded, which was funded solely through Bob Perry, the same megadonor who financed the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004 and garnered a whole lot of free media attention for their ads attacking John Kerry. The biggest problems like in the disclosure and accountability of these groups. You cannot predict where these major donors will go and how they will act. Not to mention that with former party big-wigs at the helm and advocating for the same issues, they seem like front groups for the national parties and candidates, and make politics seem even more corrupt.
How did money impact the so-called Democratic wave that washed over Washington DC and brought Congress back to Democratic control? Well, it had a large role in the ability of the Democratic party to successfully brand the Republican party as the party of President Bush, the failed Iraq War, the Congressional ethics mess, and the Congressional page scandal. In summation, the Democrats branded the Republican Congress as being a rubber stamp for President Bush’s failed policies and offered themselves and their policies as an alternative to the Republican leadership. Thus, that led to a national campaign message of bringing about a change. But how could that help incumbent Democrats like Boswell facing a tough challenge from a Republican like Jeff Lamberti, who campaigned in large part on a message of change from Boswell’s “ineffective” record and on roping in out of control fiscal and spending policies in Congress? It did not help Boswell, to a large extent. He was thus forced to campaign according to his politics—as a middle-of-the-road moderate or conservative Democrat who would be tough on illegal immigration and criminals, but yet still looked out for working families and those in need.
What Boswell was also able to effectively do is tie Lamberti to President Bush and the apparent failed policies that have hurt America over the last six years of Republican leadership. President Bush himself came to Des Moines and campaigned with Lamberti (while also verbally slipping up and referring to Jeff three times as ‘Dave Lamberti). This visit by Bush only helped to ensconce the Boswell campaign’s effort to tie Lamberti—a Republican with few or no ties to the DC establishment—as part of the problem. As Dan Balz noted, “His name is not on any ballot this fall, but George W. Bush is the central issue of campaign 2006” (Balz, “By rallying GOP, Bush risks rallying Democrats,” Washington Post, 5 Nov 2006). In addition to the campaign visit by President Bush, the Des Moines Register’s editorial comments endorsing Boswell could not have helped either when they wrote “Iowa does need change. So does the country. But it won’t happen if people send yet another toe-the-line Republican congressman to Washington” (Editorial Board, “The Register’s Choices for Congress,” Des Moines Sunday Register, 28 Oct 2006).
However, Lamberti’s campaign still posed quite a significant threat to Boswell because of his ability to motivate the Republican base and capitalize on the change message in a different way—by emphasizing his ability to be more effective than Boswell if he were elected to DC. With help from the NRCC, Lamberti emphasized a traditional Republican message that focused on taxes and talked about the need for change in a way that appealed to residents. Lamberti said that you should vote for him “for a change” even though he would be siding with the Republican leadership and would help to maintain the status quo. However, Lamberti was able to push aside, to some extent, the notion that he would be a part of the Republican status quo by pointing out the record of Congressman Leonard Boswell and emphasizing his desire for fiscal conservatism by putting budget issues under control. Most experts agree that had this year not had such a Democratic-leaning year, Boswell easily could have lost to a strong campaign from Lamberti. Beyond the appeals to the people via ads, both candidates seemed to be very similar on some issues. Both took tough stances on illegal immigration and both refused to set a timeline the Iraq War. While there were clear nuances to their positions, it may not have been clear to the people. When it came down to the nitty-gritty of the race, however, Boswell was able to be pushed over the edge on issues like raising the minimum wage and touting his leadership and public service. Join that with a heavily Democratic county like Polk in the 3rd CD and a national mood that favors Democrats and you have the perfect recipe to save Boswell from a tough challenger like Lamberti. As Drake political science professor Dennis Goldford told Radio Iowa, “It does seem to be if not a tsunami for the Democrats, it does to be a Democratic wave that has washed through Iowa to some extent” (O. Kay Henderson, “Drake professors says turnout in six urban counties key in election, Radio Iowa, 8 Nov 2006).
Vibrant American democracy flourished in the elections of 2006 as we saw dramatic changes occur in leadership occur across the country as the Democratic party took back control of the House, the Senate, gubernatorial seats across the country, and control of the majority of state legislatures. That was, in large part, to the national mood that favored Democrats thanks to a message of failed Republican leadership on ethics, Iraq, and many other pressing issues. The Boswell-Lamberti race was reflective of the challenges that Republicans outside the Beltway faced when getting tarnished with the failed leadership of fellow party members while also being reflective of the natural advantages given to incumbents like Boswell, including the ability to out-raise opponents in fundraising. Overall, however, the national mood against Republicans saved Leonard Boswell from a race that could have been much, much closer thanks to a strong challenge from Jeff Lamberti.
