The Lesson of Jim Sasser
The Plank writes about the giddiness of a Democratic Capitol Hill “source” emboldened by the latest findings of the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. The poll shows (on page 9) that a majority of adults (as opposed to voters) say that they would rather give a new person a chance than re-elect their U.S. representative. The source, like many Democrats, is hoping that this means that 2006 can be for the Democrats what 1994 was for the Republicans - a time to take back the Congress.
Back in 1994, I was the person who saw the NBC/WSJ data before anybody else - even before Peter Hart! (I was the Hart Research numbers guy.) And what I can tell you is that it wasn’t any generic congressional question on a national poll a year out that suggested to Hart or Geoff Garin or Fred Yang or me that we Democrats were in trouble. It was the results from specific races the summer before the election. In particular, it was Tennessee.
It may seem hard to believe today, but Senator Frist wasn’t always Senator Frist. In 1994, he was the not particularly impressive challenger to Senator Jim Sasser. Sure Frist had lots of money, but he wasn’t smooth and hadn’t even voted until he was 36. I don’t know if The Plank’s source was on the Hill back then, but if he (or she) was, I bet the source was fully expecting (like everyone else) that Sasser would be the new Senate Majority Leader once the formality of a November re-election was completed.
A funny thing happened on the way to the coronation. As early as the summer of 2004, Garin’s polling showed Sasser down double-digits to Frist. It wasn’t that Sasser was disliked. Or that Frist was a superstar. A tidal wave of change was forming in the minds of voters nationwide, a wave that would sweep Democrats from power. The early detection system, however, was not a generic congressional question on a national poll. The early detection system was the actual trial heats from races across the country. Sasser’s summer polling was just one prominent example. If Tennessee voters were ready to throw out the next Senate Majority Leader, imagine what voters in your state could do to your backbencher. And that’s what they did.
In my mind, the moral of this story is that we Democrats should not get too excited by the latest NBC/WSJ results. I believe they are purely a function of the low esteem with which voters hold both the Bush Administration and the Congress right now. I don’t think they are in any way an assessment of next year’s congressional race in the voters’ own districts, since I’m sure that voters have no idea who is running against their incumbent. Maybe there will be another tidal wave of change, maybe there won’t. It’ll have to be a strong one to overcome the incumbency protection plans Republicans and Democrats alike conspired on when it came to redistricting. In the meanwhile, all we can do is get the best possible candidates in all the right seats and make sure they have the money (Frist came well-funded, after all) and the message (it’s cliché to say, but think “Contract with America”). It’s too early for us to tell whether there will be a killer wave, but that shouldn’t keep us from getting the best possible surfboards.
