Tag Archives: Adam Pagnucco

Adam Pagnucco, Jamie Raskin

How Jamie Raskin Could Win

A guest blog by Adam Pagnucco.

Congressional District 8 has three strong Democratic candidates with a chance to win.  One of them is District 20 State Senator Jamie Raskin.

Strengths

Raskin has successfully established his brand as the effective, results-oriented progressive in the race, and he uses it as a contrast against two well-funded opponents who have never held office and have no local political history.  He started with a geographic base that accounted for roughly a sixth of the district and expanded it into other areas with a nearly year-long ground campaign.  His supporters are passionate, knowledgeable, loyal and numerous.  It would not be a stretch to say that he has wrapped up close to 90% of the district’s regular Democratic activists, the kind of people who play big roles in County Council and state legislative races.  His fundraising has been mostly local and is competitive with Kathleen Matthews.  His mail program has been second only to David Trone’s, although Emily’s List has been catching up in their advocacy for Matthews.

Weaknesses

As the third-ranking candidate in terms of finances, Raskin is running a more targeted race than either Matthews or Trone.  He has made a token investment in television in favor of a robust mail campaign, which can be targeted to regular voters.  There is good reason for this, but let’s remember that Rob Garagiola made a similar choice against John Delaney in 2012.  If turnout is high and jammed with low information voters who have not seen Raskin’s mail, he would be at a disadvantage.  Also, Raskin’s dispute with Delegate Kumar Barve over an inaccurate television ad has earned him negative coverage in the Post (twice), the Sun and Bethesda Magazine during the crucial final weeks of the race.

What Our Sources Say

Source: “Raskin has had the clearest message – that you should vote for him because he is the one who has actually passed bills that deliver on the progressive values all of the candidates say they support – but the question is whether he has put enough resources into TV ads to compete with the Trone-a-thon (and to a lesser extent the Matthews ads) that have blanketed the region with spots for his competitors.”

Source: “A hypothetical: If you could choose between a candidate who had a fantastic TV game but mediocre ground game, or a candidate with a fantastic ground game but mediocre TV game, who would you choose?  If you chose the latter, congrats, you’ve picked the winner of the CD8 race.”

Source: “Raskin isn’t a bad guy but the issues he’s advanced in the State Senate that he talks about frequently on the trail — a place with only 14 Republicans — have absolutely ZERO chance of happening in a Republican Congress. The key progressive battles in Congress won’t be waged in the near term on social issues, but as Chris Van Hollen showed, they’ll be fought on budget issues. That’s the effective progressive void CVH will leave in the House and Raskin simply doesn’t have the budget chops to fill it.”

Source: “He inherited Frosh’s very strong Montgomery County network which, along with his own record, gave him an instant third of the vote.  That’s an enviable position to be in.  On the other hand, he has a long voting record in a year of outsiders, is arguably to the left of Bernie Sanders, and doesn’t have a great deal of humility.  Still, if he wins it is a great victory for activism, involvement, and progressivism.”

Source: “Jamie’s candidacy is the test of whether there is value to being in the state legislature for people who aspire to higher profile office (offices on the top of the ballot that most voters learned about in civics class in high school – President, Senate, House). Hard working legislator, deep community connections, excellent reputation and undeniably brilliant. But, does he have any kind of advantage from having all of those elements in front of an electorate that does not follow Annapolis? Do the liberal party insiders who support him have as much electoral power as the state legislators and county councilmembers think they do? We’re about to find out!”

How He Could Win

Raskin supporters tend to be very liberal, know that Raskin is very liberal, and have lots of information about the race.  That message is reinforced through the grass-roots network that Raskin has built.  High information voters like these almost always vote and they will have an outsize impact on a low turnout election.  Turnout in Montgomery County has been trending downwards for years, and if that continues, it will favor Raskin.  Under this scenario, his people will stay with him and the remaining low information voters will be divided between Matthews and Trone.  Whether this will play out in the context of a competitive Democratic presidential primary is anyone’s guess, but Raskin’s base is the envy of the field and he has a good chance to win.

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Adam Pagnucco, Kathleen Matthews

How Kathleen Matthews Could Win

A guest blog by Adam Pagnucco.

Congressional District 8 has three strong Democratic candidates with a chance to win.  One of them is former WJLA anchor and Marriott executive Kathleen Matthews.

Strengths

Matthews is an attractive, polished female candidate – an advantage in any Democratic primary dominated by women.  She has been a great fundraiser, excels on television and has run an intelligent campaign based on her strengths.  She has been endorsed by the Washington Post, as was John Delaney in 2012.  Emily’s List has basically taken over her mail program, enabling her to shift more money to her home medium of TV.  And she has not made any significant mistakes during the campaign.

Weaknesses

Matthews started out with no history in local politics, even though she was once well-known as a local journalist.  That caused skepticism from local Democratic Party activists, most of whom quickly lined up behind Senator Jamie Raskin.  Her history of running Marriott’s PAC, which donated to Republicans as well as Democrats, is an issue for some.  Comptroller Peter Franchot, Delegate Bill Frick and former County Executive Doug Duncan are among her few local endorsements.  She has raised far more money out of state than in state.  And her campaign, while professional, has emphasized more standard national Democratic issues than local issues.  Still, Matthews’s strengths outweigh her weaknesses and she has a very good chance to win.

What Our Sources Say

Source: “Matthews started slow – she was so poorly informed and unfamiliar with the people and issues in the district that she bordered on offensive in early appearance and meetings with activists and other potential supporters – but she has become much more comfortable and has performed reasonably well in later candidate forums and debates. The conventional wisdom – and I suspect it is correct – is that Trone takes a bigger chunk of support from Matthews than from Raskin, because Raskin is presumably strongest among the most intensively engaged Democratic base voters, while Trone and Matthews are competing for voters who are less ideological and are less likely to know much about his legislative record.”

Source: “Among insiders, there’s a sense that Kathleen is running a very generic campaign.  Campaign-in-a-box kinda thing.  But insiders are usually wrong, and she obviously has gender on her side (and isn’t afraid to use it).”

Source: “With all due respect to Kathleen who seems like a perfectly nice and intelligent woman, female voters in this District are far too smart to be pandered to the way she has this election cycle. To talk about her time at Marriott in the context of creating jobs and being a business person is like saying her husband – who was Tip O’Neill’s press secretary – served as Speaker of the House.”

Source: “Strong candidate and strong campaign.  If it weren’t for a completely unprecedented amount of self-funding by another outsider candidate, she would have the race sealed.”

How She Could Win

Matthews and her chief ally, Emily’s List, are running an all-female, all-the-time kind of campaign.  And they are smart to do so since women account for roughly 60% of Montgomery County’s Democratic voters, no matter how you cut the electorate.  If Matthews gets a majority of women, she could start with 35 points.  If she adds just five more points from men, she has 40, and that’s probably good enough to win.

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Adam Pagnucco

Updated: Fundraising in Congressional District 8

This is a guest blog by Adam Pagnucco.

Last October, we summarized fundraising in Congressional District 8 through the third quarter of 2015.  Today, we present updated numbers incorporating campaign finance reports through April 6, 2016, which are the last reports due before the primary.

First, let’s look at the top-line numbers by category.

Total Wine co-owner David Trone stands out.  His $12.5 million in resources, almost entirely self-funded, accounts for 67% of all money in the race.  Trone has set the all-time nationwide record for self-funding in a U.S. House primary and his financing approaches the range of recent major candidates for Maryland Governor.

Former WJLA anchor and Marriott executive Kathleen Matthews and Senator Jamie Raskin have both done well.  At the beginning of the race, many observers were predicting that it would take $2 million to win, and both Matthews and Raskin are roughly at that mark.  If it were not for Trone, their financial performance would be attracting more comment.  The other candidates combined have accounted for 9% of the election’s funding and face steep challenges to be heard.  (Dan Bolling’s report has not been filed as of this writing, so his numbers are not included here.)

Top Line

Unlike state and county contributions, federal contributions must be designated for the primary or the general.  The candidates have collected relatively little general election money and their budgets are almost entirely available for the primary.

Primary vs General

Burn rate, which is the percentage of money raised that has been spent, is not a terribly meaningful statistic at this point.  Most of the candidates’ money is gone now with the exception of Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez, who can afford some late mailers if she wishes.  But Trone and Matthews have additional self-financing capacity, and even Raskin can self-fund to a limited extent.  (So far, he has given himself just $2,700.)  Additionally, this statistic is affected by the timing of bill payments.  Candidates who pay late look better on cash-on-hand than those who pay early.  Note: Trone’s raised figure includes the two self-funding contributions he made last week, but his cash on hand applies to April 6.  That makes his data not strictly comparable to the other candidates, but at this point, he and the others are spending as fast as they take money in.

Burn Rate

The maximum allowable individual contribution is $2,700 per election, both primary and general.  Matthews leads in this category.  Thirty percent of her fundraising has come from maximum checks and her average individual contribution is the highest in the field.  Raskin has the smallest average individual contribution, but that does not include his lead in unitemized contributions of $200 or less.  There’s no way to tell from the campaign finance reports how many of those small contributions he has received, but they total over $300,000.  Raskin is the race’s small dollar leader.

Avg Max Individual

In terms of geography, large amounts of out-of-state cash have been flowing into CD8.  Excluding self-financing and unitemized contributions, only Raskin has received a majority of his contributions from Maryland while Delegate Kumar Barve is close at 47%.  Nearly half of all money from Marylanders in this race has gone to Raskin.  Matthews, Gutierrez, Will Jawando, Joel Rubin and Dave Anderson have all received less than a third of their contributions from Marylanders other than themselves.  Rubin’s take from California is more than double his receipts from Maryland.  Matthews’ number one location of contributions is the District of Columbia and she leads in receipts from the District, Virginia, New York, California and Massachusetts.

By State

Here’s a breakdown by locality, both inside and outside the district.  Matthews leads in funding from Potomac and is basically tied with Raskin in Chevy Chase, while Raskin leads in Bethesda, Silver Spring, Rockville, Kensington and Takoma Park (the latter by light years).  Matthews dominates in fundraising from large localities outside the district.  She has raised more than three times as much money from New York City as she has from Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Rockville and Kensington combined.

By City

This data makes clear the fundraising strengths of CD8 candidates.  Trone is self-funding A LOT.  Matthews has tapped into a large monetary base combining national level Democrats, PACs and business money.  Raskin has national and PAC money too, but most of his financing is local and much of it is small dollar.  All three have the resources they need to win.  Given the fact that these three account for 91% of the funding in this race, it’s hard for the other candidates to break through.

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Republicans

The GOP Bench, Part IV

The following is a guest post by Adam Pagnucco:

Most attention concerning the next round of state and local elections centers on the Governor’s office. Can the Democrats find a nominee to knock off Larry Hogan or can the Governor earn a second term? But the playing field is much larger than that. In truth, we are about to find out whether Maryland is on its way to becoming a genuine two-party state.

For most of the last few decades, the Maryland Republican Party has been almost irrelevant. Their sole Governor from the seventies through the early 2000s, Bob Ehrlich, was ejected after one term. Their presence in the General Assembly was negligible. Most of the large local governments were controlled by Democrats most of the time. The great debates of the day were driven by discussions within the Democratic Party and were not affected very much by those on the outside. But there is a real question now as to whether that sort of Democratic dominance will continue.

Regardless of whether Governor Hogan is reelected, the GOP enjoys a stronger position for future elections than anyone can recall in recent times. In 2022, the County Executives of Anne Arundel, Harford and Howard could very well be running for the GOP gubernatorial nomination whether Hogan wins a second term or not. If and when they do, Republican council members and/or state legislators will run to fill those Executive seats and become the next generation of local leaders. Competition for local council seats will be fierce in swing jurisdictions like Frederick, Howard and Baltimore County. Term-limited local officials will run for the General Assembly. In other words, in the absence of an earth-shattering event (like a Donald Trump presidency) or a mass revival of the Maryland Democratic Party, the Republicans’ recent gains could become self-sustaining.

The GOP will probably never be the majority party in Maryland in our lifetimes, but they don’t have to be. All they have to do is become competitive. That will enable them to become a factor in public policy debates both through their ability to win and hold elected office and through the threat of their doing so. We may already be seeing the effects of this as a bill to steer public funding to private schools has passed the Maryland Senate. Of the 25 Senators who voted in favor it, 14 were Republicans and some of the Democrats came from competitive areas like Anne Arundel, Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore. The House did not pass the Senate’s proposal, but did agree to use public money to fund private school scholarships for the first time in the budget. Rising right-wing influence may also be a factor in the Senate’s passage of tax cuts for the rich. This is a reversal from the Senate’s approval of tax hikes for “half millionaires” (those making $500,000 or more) in 2012 and the General Assembly’s approval of a temporary millionaire tax in 2008.

Another consequence of the GOP’s ascent could be the empowerment of its extremist elements. Governor Hogan presents a moderate face to the public. But a recent Baltimore Sun poll found that 34% of Republican primary voters supported Donald Trump for President and another 25% supported Ted Cruz. That is sure to capture the attention of Republican elected officials and influence their behavior. Republicans like race-baiting Delegate Pat McDonough (labeled by the Sun as “the Trump of Baltimore County”); neo-Confederate Anne Arundel Council Member Michael Peroutka; Delegate Neil Parrott, who wants to require HIV victims to get tattoos to obtain medicine; Hogan-appointed anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant Baltimore County school board member Ann Miller; and Frederick County Council Member Kirby Delauter are all part of the GOP bench. Imagine what they would do with real power.

The challenge facing Maryland Democrats is not just Governor Hogan – it’s also the growth of the GOP in areas other than the two Beltways and the portion of I-95 connecting them. Will the Democrats respond with a sweeping statewide effort to regain their past dominance? Or will Republican gains at the local level be entrenched? That may be an even bigger question than the identity of the next Governor and it could set the political table for many years to come.

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Eighth Congressional District

Broadcast TV Spending in CD8

The following is a guest post by Adam Pagnucco:

Unlike most state and local races below the level of Governor, the contest in Congressional District 8 has seen a lot of television ads.  These ads are trackable, although not easily.  Today we present a first cut on who is advertising where, and for how much.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires TV and radio stations to report on political ad purchases.  In 2012, the FCC required broadcast TV stations to post political ad purchases on the agency’s website, but with a large caveat: the files are in pdf format.  They are not accessible through spreadsheet or database software, and are therefore not readily crunchable.  They are also not searchable.  A researcher has to go through every relevant station, one at a time, review all pertinent folders and manually enter the data to prep it for analysis.  This is a challenging and time consuming task!

The data is also incomplete.  Cable and satellite TV stations and radio stations are not currently required to report their political ads to the website, although they will be starting in the next cycle.  Furthermore, the reports do not include production costs.  They only include amounts paid to the TV stations, both gross and net of commissions.  So the information reflects only a portion of candidate spending on TV.  That said, broadcast TV is an important part of large-scale federal elections and data on it is worth looking at.

We assembled political ad data for all CD8 candidates in the year 2016 for all of the Washington area’s broadcast TV stations.  Contracts often cover a week or more into the future, so the most recent ones we obtained are active through April 16 – ten days before primary election day.  The broadcasters reported a combined total of 127 contracts through noon, April 4.  Here is the number of spots and gross amount for each broadcaster reporting.

Broadcast TV Spending by Network

Unsurprisingly, the big four networks dominate.  Also not surprising is that WRC-TV, long the top-rated local network, is a runaway leader in ad spending.

Broadcast TV Spending by Month

David Trone kicked off the 2016 ad season on January 26, when he began advertising on every network in our dataset.  On February 7, he paid for five spots worth $200,000 on WUSA on Super Bowl Sunday.  (That amount is more than what most candidates for State Senator and Delegate spend in their entire campaigns.)  Kathleen Matthews began advertising on February 8.  Jamie Raskin joined in on March 24 and Kumar Barve followed on April 6.  The drop in total spending between February and March was caused by a decline in Trone’s spending, part of which is due to the fact that there was no Super Bowl in March.  April spending is down because the contracts have not all been reported yet.

Candidate and Cost per Spot

Trone dominates this category of spending, accounting for the majority of spots and roughly three quarters of gross amounts paid to broadcasters.  There are big differences in the costs paid by the candidates, and that reflects their strategies.  All four candidates advertise during news programs and those shows tend to charge the highest rates.  Matthews mixes in cheaper daytime television like The Meredith Viera Show, Days of Our Lives, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, CBS Soaps and The Insider.  Raskin is keeping his costs down by running 15-second spots, half the length of his competitors.

Candidate and Month

Trone’s edge in TV has been eroding over time.  He had January all to himself.  But his CD8 TV market share dropped to 82% in February, 73% in March and 44% in April (so far) as other candidates have gone live.  (That April number could change a lot!)  Late TV commercials may mean more than early ones because many voters, especially casual ones, make up their minds late.

A few other things are worth mentioning.

  1. Trone’s real dominance may not be on TV or in mail, but in his digital advertising program. His ads are everywhere on the Washington Post and Bethesda Magazine websites.  There is no known source of reporting on those ads outside of the candidates’ campaign finance reports, and even they may be a bit murky.  In any case, Trone is making a big bet on digital and his opponents are not.
  1. Matthews reported an end-of-year cash balance of $1.1 million, but this data shows that she has spent over $800,000 on broadcast TV alone. Matthews has a formidable campaign operation, with staff, field, mail, office expenses and more.  This suggests that she has had a strong fundraising quarter, or is self-financing, or perhaps both.
  1. Raskin is emphasizing mail over TV. He has the second-most extensive mail program in the race behind Trone.  This is a deliberate calculation.  Mail is much easier to target than broadcast TV.  Mail can be sent to regular Democratic primary voters – the people who tend to pay closer attention to elections than others – while TV ads are sprayed into the ether to be viewed by regular voters, casual voters, non-voters, members of other parties and residents outside the district.  Raskin believes that regular voters will support him if they know that he is a) very liberal, b) very experienced in passing liberal bills and c) has a better chance to win than the other liberal elected officials running against him.  (That message has offended Barve, who has been in office for sixteen years more than Raskin and is a high-ranking member of House leadership.)  All three publicly disclosed polls in the race show Raskin at close to 30% of the vote.  If he can hold on to his supporters and his mail strategy gets him another five points, could that be enough to win?

How much does TV spending matter?  John Delaney won his seat in Congress in part through TV ads, and David Trone has so far spent at least double his total.  Kathleen Matthews trails, but she has spent enough to be heard.  The other candidates have not made a major commitment to TV.  Will they pay a price for that?

We will have an update on this data shortly before the primary.

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Republicans

The GOP Bench, Part III

The following is a guest post by Adam Pagnucco:

Far from the eyes of Annapolis, Baltimore, Rockville and Upper Marlboro, the GOP is steadily expanding its grip on county governments in Maryland. In fact, the Republicans hold majorities of almost all categories of powerful county officials.

Let’s start with County Executives (including the Mayor of Baltimore).

Executives

In 2003, six counties plus the City of Baltimore had executive positions. Only Harford County had a Republican Executive. By 2015, three more counties (Wicomico, Cecil and Frederick) had executive positions. The Democrats and Republicans are now tied at 5-5. Anne Arundel and Howard, both strategically critical suburban counties, have flipped from Democratic to Republican. The current Republican Executive of Wicomico defeated an incumbent Democrat to claim the seat. Republicans are a threat to claim the Executive seat in Frederick if they run someone other than Blaine Young, and that would give them a majority for this office.

Now let’s examine County Councils and Commissions.

Councils Commissions

In 2003, the Democrats had local legislative majorities in 11 of 24 counties. By 2015, the Democrats had majorities in 7 counties as Allegany, Cecil, Talbot and Wicomico had flipped to GOP control. In 2003, Democratic local legislators outnumbered Republicans by 77-61. In 2015, the Republicans had an 81-61 lead. Omitting the Big Three Democratic strongholds of the City, Montgomery and Prince George’s, the GOP’s edge increased from 60-45 to 81-28. The Maryland Association of Counties (MACo) is effectively Republican-held territory.

Here are the splits for State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs.

SA Sheriffs

Democrats went from having 13 State’s Attorneys in 2003 to 8 now. Among Sheriffs, Democrats went from 14 to 11. Democratic majorities turned to Republican majorities in both offices.

We’ll have some thoughts about what this means in Part Four.

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Republicans

The GOP Bench, Part II

The following is a guest post by Adam Pagnucco:

The Maryland Democratic Party’s top goal is defeating Governor Larry Hogan. The Maryland Republican Party’s top goal is getting him reelected. But the context of the next election is not simply about Hogan and his Democratic opponent. The context also includes other state and local offices, and in that arena, the GOP is on the march.

To demonstrate that, we compiled data on party identification of office holders at the state and local levels in 2003 (the first year of Governor Ehrlich’s term) and 2015 (the first year of Governor Hogan’s term). The offices we examined are State Senate, Delegate, County Executive (including the Mayor of Baltimore), county councils and commissions, State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. For Senators and Delegates we compiled results at the regional level (large individual counties and groups of small counties) because state legislative districts often cross over county lines. All local offices are reported by county.

Let’s look at State Senators first.

State Senators

The party split of Senators is identical for both 2003 and 2015: 33 Democrats and 14 Republicans. There were no major regional changes between the two years. The imbalance in favor of Democrats is preserved in this category. (Note that the change numbers in the right column don’t add to zero because some regions overlap each other.)

Now let’s look at Delegates.

Delegates

The GOP won a record number of Delegate seats in 2014, but their total (50) is not that much more than it was in 2003 (42). A few regional trends are apparent. The Democrats are down to one Delegate on the Eastern Shore. They are close to an even count in Southern Maryland, although that is because one of the area’s three legislative districts is split with heavily Democratic Prince George’s County. The two Democratic Delegates in Western Maryland come from a district that is narrowly drawn around the City of Frederick. Baltimore City has lost two Delegates who would normally be Democrats because of population shifts.

Despite these changes, the Democrats are firmly in control of the General Assembly and proved it by overriding all six of Governor Hogan’s vetoes. The REAL changes are taking place in local governments, far from the attention of Annapolis and Democratic officials in the party’s strongholds of the City of Baltimore, Montgomery and Prince George’s.

We’ll illustrate that in Part Three.

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Republicans

The GOP Bench, Part I

The following is a guest post by Adam Pagnucco:

Competition between Governor Larry Hogan and General Assembly Democrats has been hot and heavy since the Governor’s first State of the State speech and his first budget. The Governor has alternated between calling for bipartisanship and landing heavy partisan blows against his opponents. The Democrats have responded by holding up some of his legislative agenda and overriding all six of his vetoes. Battle lines are clearly being drawn for 2018.

Hogan is sometimes compared to his former employer, Governor Bob Ehrlich. When Ehrlich won the 2002 general election, Democrats chalked it up to the lackluster campaign run by their nominee and regarded him as a fluke. They soon rallied around Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley and kicked out Ehrlich after one term. O’Malley decimated Ehrlich in their 2010 rematch by 14 points. Senate President Mike Miller promised to bury the Republicans and predicted it would take them forty years to recover. And then Hogan was elected.

Like Ehrlich, Hogan ran against an underwhelming Democratic Lieutenant Governor. Like Ehrlich, Hogan has positive job approval ratings (although Hogan’s are a bit higher for the moment.) And like Ehrlich, Hogan has problematic relations with the General Assembly. But there is one major difference between the two: the Maryland Republican Party is stronger now than it was in Ehrlich’s day.

Prior to Ehrlich, the last Republican Governor was former Baltimore County Executive Spiro Agnew, elected in 1966. Four straight multi-term Democratic Governors (and one Acting Governor) separated Ehrlich and Agnew. In that time period, the GOP had two U.S. Senators (John Glenn Beall and Charles Mathias) but those offices have both been held by Democrats since Barbara Mikulski’s election in 1986. The Democrats held most U.S. House seats and controlled most of the large local governments during the majority of this period. The GOP was rarely a factor in either politics or government.

Ehrlich was criticized by some for not doing enough to change this imbalance. During his time in office, the GOP’s voter registration percentage fell slightly and the party did not substantially increase its reach around the state. After his defeat in 2006, Ehrlich conceded Democratic dominance. He told WBAL, “It’s clear in Maryland that there is a direction people are more comfortable with… It’s the way it’s always been. And then we had this four-year sort of off-course thing, and people are clearly more comfortable with a single-party kind of deal here. They did not like the conflict.”

That is not Governor Hogan’s point of view. He is happy to battle Democrats through his dominant social media machine and uses them as whipping boys for all that ails the state. And Hogan has something that Ehrlich did not: a growing GOP bench. Whatever happens in the next election, that bench is something that demands attention from the Democrats for the foreseeable future.

What does the GOP’s bench look like? We’ll find out more in Part Two.

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Eighth Congressional District

Pagnucco on Trone

The following is by Adam Pagnucco:

The shadow of Total Wine co-owner David Trone has loomed large over CD8 since the day he got in the race.  Rivals fear his apparently limitless self-funding.  His opponents say they are “fighting big bullies” and “under fire from big money.”  Their supporters perceive Trone as a Potomac plutocrat bossing, blustering and buying his way into office.  Laptops and smartphones groan under the weight of his omnipresent digital ads, begging their owners to be shut off until after the election is over.

So who is this guy and why is he running for Congress?

In person, David Trone is a disarming character, far different from what one might expect of a wealthy, Wharton-educated CEO.  He is by turns ebullient, gregarious, intense, and blunt.  He possesses all the nuance of a nose tackle on the goal line.  Argue with him and you will get a roaring laugh and a jabbing index finger.  Trone’s political mastermind, Andrew Friedson, is no doubt trying to smooth out these edges.  Earth to Friedson: it’s not gonna take!

Understanding Trone requires appreciation of two key aspects of his life experience.

  1. He sees himself as an underdog even if others do not.

Trone called himself an underdog as he launched his campaign despite his nearly unlimited self-financing capacity.  This is a recurring theme in his life.  Trone’s father held a number of occupations before buying a farm and ultimately losing it due to alcoholism, leading to divorce and economic hardship for his family.  Later, Trone put himself through Wharton with a combination of loans, selling eggs and running his first beer store when he was not in class.  (Once his chickens caught avian flu and died, Trone concentrated solely on beer.)  These were clear disadvantages compared to Trone’s privileged, blue-blood classmates who aspired to be the next Gordon Gekko.  Trone may be wealthy now, but his mentality remains that of the I’ll-show-you Pennsylvania farm boy who surpassed his supposed betters.  That mentality gives him the edge he uses to win.

  1. He relishes disruption.

In certain localities, the alcohol retail industry behaves like a political-economic oligopoly in which trade associations collude with politicians to draft anti-competitive laws, thus benefiting both of them.  Trone ran into this shortly after he opened his first beer store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and began advertising his low prices.  His competitors persuaded the state legislature to outlaw the practice and Trone was arrested.  The law was thrown out when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a similar law in Rhode Island.  Trone is frequently opposed by native competitors when he attempts to expand into new markets, including Minnesota, Texas and Connecticut.  One local trade association even drafted a handbook on how to compete with him.  A state bill designed to keep him from expanding is now pending in Tennessee.

Trone is detested by his competitors across the nation, and he wears that as a badge of honor.  His business model combining low prices, large selection and highly trained customer service is massively disruptive, forcing his competitors to step up their game or shut down.  Trone’s view of the American political system is shaped by this experience.  Like local alcohol markets, he sees Congress as a place that is dominated by an iron cartel of special interests and venal politicians that ultimately does not deliver on behalf of constituents.  Trone has disrupted the alcohol business, and now he wants to disrupt politics.

How would he do this?  Trone waxes nostalgic for the days when members of Congress formed friendships with each other regardless of party and figured out how to move the ball forward.  He estimates that he has stores in 101 Congressional Districts and engages in significant charitable activity in all of them, thereby creating some commonality with colleagues on either side of the aisle.  Impervious to the constraints of fundraising and party hierarchy, he is not subject to the typical factors that whip House members into line behind their leadership.  Trying to intimidate him would be like trying to stop a rhino with a peashooter, as many competitors have learned to their detriment.  Trone’s beliefs in independence, relationship building, working with the opposite party, negotiation and common interest may seem naïve by today’s standards, but does anyone believe that the perpetual partisan warfare now in Congress benefits the country?

Trone is vulnerable on the issue of money and political influence.  Trone the businessman frequently hires lobbyists and makes political contributions to battle his competitors, who of course do the exact same things.  A notable example is in Connecticut, where he is trying to throw out a state law that sets minimum prices for alcohol.  (Can there be anything more odious to consumers?)  Trone the candidate takes credit for helping consumers in his mail, but decries the use of lobbyists and political contributions which he himself has employed as a businessman.  Trone declares on his website without a trace of irony, “I have learned firsthand the problems with political donations.”  We bet he has!  Trone’s opponents are sure to accuse him of wanting to have this issue both ways and he needs a convincing comeback to use in his defense.

In the eyes of the local political establishment, perhaps the most disquieting aspect of Trone is that he has defied the customary ways of moving up in MoCo politics.  Most people who aspire to elected office here rise up through the party precinct structure, the civic community, county advisory committees and/or political-governmental staff positions.  They go to event after event, network with the similarly ambitious, defer to those who require it and go for smaller positions before trying for bigger ones.  Congress is regarded as at or near the top of the heap.  Trone the disrupter eschews all of this, preferring to spend millions on TV and mail rather than kissing political rings.  A not insignificant portion of anti-Trone sentiment from local Democratic activists derives from his failure to pay his dues.  “You can’t do that!” they say.  But David Trone does what he wants and it has been that way ever since he was a young man, selling eggs and dreaming of better things.

David Trone has disrupted the alcohol business.  He has disrupted the CD8 race.  Will he get a chance to disrupt Congress?  That’s up to you, the voters, to decide.

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Media

Politics After the Gazette, Part IV

This post concludes this week’s series by Adam Pagnucco:

For politicians, operatives, advocates and basically everyone seeking to get out a message, the new era without abundant mainstream media has both good news and bad news.  Let’s start with the latter.

The Bad News: You have to work a lot harder to get your message out and be noticed.

For those of you who long for the days when legions of press would show up to hear about your new office furniture, those days are forever gone.  Consider one of the most infamous figures in recent Montgomery County political history: Ruthann Aron.  The trials of this former politician and planning board member who was accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband transfixed the County in the late 1990s.  Recently, Aron called a press conference to trot out her new book in which she alleges betrayal by her defense lawyer.  Only one reporter from Bethesda Magazine showed up.  Horrified, Aron squealed, “Where’s the Associated Press, where’s The Washington Post?”

There are 188 members of the General Assembly and many more city, county and municipal elected officials in Maryland.  In its current shriveled condition, the mainstream media might have fewer than a dozen reporters who regularly cover government and politics in the entire state.  There simply aren’t enough reporters to go around.  Unless they are doing something extraordinarily good or extraordinarily bad, elected officials below the statewide or executive levels are unlikely to get much attention from the mainstream press unless they work hard to get it.

The Good News: You have more control over the content of your message and who receives it.

For those elected officials, operatives and candidates who are prepared for the new world, the absence of mainstream media is not so much a problem as it is an opportunity.  An unprecedented number of tools are now available for direct communication with the public: email, Twitter, Facebook, blogging and digital ads, to name a few.  Many of these tools can be targeted to very specific audiences.  None of this was possible fifteen years ago when politicians had to rely on newspaper reporters to get out news about their activities.

The gatekeepers to the public are almost gone.  In a way, it has never been a better time to be a politician.

The key to truly excelling in this new environment is to understand how the remnants of the old regime and the tools of the new world interact.  The old regime was top-down: politicians and the press at the top sending news down to the public at the bottom.  The new system is more organic, interrelated and even amoebic in form.  Everything affects everything else.  There is little structure.  Unpredictability is the rule.  What used to be big might have little impact now.  What used to be small can become big VERY quickly.

Consider the following alternative scenarios for how information can flow in this new world.

  1. An article about Politician A and an issue he is working on shows up on Bethesda Magazine’s website. It circulates on Facebook and Twitter.  Politician A blast emails it and gets an advocacy group to do the same, which gets the attention of the reporter.  This generates a follow-up in Bethesda Magazine.  A gets a two-fer.
  1. Politician B is working on another issue but can’t get any reporters to pay attention to it. So B takes out a Facebook ad on the issue and gets hundreds of likes and dozens of supportive comments.  A blogger also covers it and B tweets and reposts it.  B goes back to the reporters and says, “See?  It’s hot!”  Stories are written and reposted on Facebook with more ads to beef them up.  Now the issue is starting to move – and so is B.
  1. Advocacy Group X is all over Issue Z, starting up an online petition and Facebook page to push it. Politician C finds out and gets on board.  Boom – Group X lets their supporters know that C is their hero, and C gets both supportive Facebook posts and good press.  Other politicians get jealous and jump in to grab pieces of the pie.
  1. A group of politicians decides to team up against a common rival. The rival has a larger social media presence and official communications staff than any one of them.  But the group has regional diversity, many Twitter and Facebook followers between them, several blast email lists and a willingness to coordinate.  Each of them puts up social media posts that take on the common enemy.  The rest of the group then retweets and reposts, rotating between lead and supporting roles.  Coordinated blast emails carrying the content go out.  The group members take turns buying Facebook ads and digital ads promoting their statements.  Particular issues get hashtags.  Helpful activists, party sites and other groups pitch in and spread the messages even further.  The official media picks up on it and spotlights the campaign, amplifying it further.  Soon enough, the T-Rex is surrounded by velociraptors and the pack closes in.

Dealing with reporters is still necessary since they haven’t (yet) entirely disappeared.  But success in the new era depends on integrating the old tools with the new, amplifying the effects of both and building communication scale.  Those who master these arts will inherit the new world.  Those who don’t will fade away with the old, just like the ill-fated T-Rex above.

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