Posted on 01/24/2010 4:24:26 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry is expected to announce his retirement tomorrow morning, according to three sources briefed on the decision.
Berry will become the sixth Democrat in a competitive seat to leave in the last two months but the first to announce his retirement since the party's special election loss in Massachusetts last Tuesday.
"The message coming out of the Massachusetts special election is clear: No Democrat is safe," said National Republican Congressional Committee communications director Ken Spain.
Berry, first elected in 1996, had been noncommittal about his re-election bid for months although, privately, his allies insisted he was planning to run for re-election.
While Berry had rarely been challenged in the 1st district over the past decade or so, the seat has a clear Republican tilt as Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) won it with 59 percent in 2008.
Arkansas will be a huge focus of Republican efforts in the fall with Berry and Rep. Vic Snyder (D) retiring and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) in deep trouble as she seek re-election.
The field to replace Berry isn't yet set although Democrats mentioned include state Rep. Keith Ingram, Berry chief of staff Chad Causey and Jason Willett, a former state party chair. On the Republican side, broadcaster Rick Crawford is in the race.
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
Let’s not say “likely”, yet. First of all, we have not much of a farm team in this district. The only legislative Republicans within AR-1 are in the extreme western edges (no State Senators, just 3 State Reps, 1 from Baxter Co. (81st Dist.), another from Searcy Co. (90th) & another from Lonoke Co. (48th)). We’ve not won this district for Congress since 1873. Presuming our nominee isn’t totally incompetent, we do have a relatively decent shot. Warren Dupwe back in the ‘90s came close to winning it (against Blanche Lincoln with 47% in ‘94 and Berry with 44% in ‘96).
A big problem is if Dustin McDaniel, the State AG, gets in, he’d have better name ID to hold the seat. It’s remarkable the Dems are having to roll out their statewide officeholders to try to retain these House seats, it does show the difficult situation they’re in. I also mentioned, too, we have virtually no declared Republicans for the statewide offices, for which FIVE of them may be open. Only Lt Governor has a declared GOP candidate.
Even if no other Republican runs, I think that we would be favored in November against any Democrat other than Marion Berry.
How many open-seat races in CDs as Republican in presidential elections as the AR-02 did the Democrats win in 1994?
At or above 59% ? None. But I’m still saying there are districts McCain carried in some areas where the Republicans have a weak bench (AR-1, TN-8, PA-12, for example, and even AL-5 is weak even with Griffith’s switch). That was a situation with Reagan, he carried districts where the GOP was quite weak to non-existent. Not exactly the same now, of course.
This info from Arkansas Times (liberal) about Berry and Rick Crawford (R):
http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2009/04/gop_candidate_exploring.aspx
I checked out the freshman Democrats elected to the House in 1994, and it seems that the least Democrat districts there were the ME-02 that Snowe vacated and elected Baldacci (I think it gave a small majority for President Bush in 1988 but saw him finish third in 1992 well behind of Clinton), the KY-03 (which I think gave Dukakis a small margin in 1988 but was carried fairly comfortably by Clinton in 1992), the MN-06 (which was redistricted in 1994, and under the new lines was carried fairly comfortably by Clinton in 1992), and the PA-20 (which went strongly for Dukakis in 1988, as did all of W. PA, but was a bit more competitive in 1992). I don’t have my 1996 Almanac with me, so it’s possible that I misremembered the presidential votes in those districts, but my point is that the only Democrats that were elected in 1994 in districts that were Republican in presidential elections were incumbents.
BTW, I don’t think that the AR-01 is really a 59% GOP district or whatever McCain got in 2008, since Obama was uniquely unpopular among rural white Southerners, but the 2004 results show that the district definitely leans Republican. In a politically neutral year, a first-tier Democrat would defeat a second-tier Republican, but 2010 is not a politically neutral year.
My confidence is a bit less inspiring: I think the GOP will pick up between 50-75 House seats. : )
I went to check those figures you cited for the Dem winners, none came from districts where the GOP Presidential candidate performed above the low 50s prior to that (at least with respect to 1988, since GHW Bush lost all of them in ‘92).
That left-wing paper link in the post prior to yours mentioned former Clinton Transportation Sec. Rodney Slater as a possible candidate (he is native to the district), but I’d sincerely doubt a Black liberal is going to win that seat (if Zero’s subpar performance was any indication). I think he’d prefer to remain in the private sector where he currently is (I don’t even know if he currently resides there).
The AR-01 takes in most of the Mississippi Delta counties, but I think that blacks are around 27% of the electorate and there’s no way that a black Democrat could win that seat even if we weren’t in a year this toxic to Democrats.
BTW, the Democrats have big advantages in both houses of the AR state legislature, and Gov. Beebe will almost certainly be reelected, but it would be worth a try for Republicans to work with black Democrat legislators to draw a black-majority (or at least over 40% black) congressional district that takes in black areas of the Delta, Pine Bluff, Little Rock and southern Arkansas. That would create a heavily Democrat CD in which a black Democrat can be elected and make the other three CDs comfortably Republican.
Yeah, we discussed that before, but frankly given that we really can win all four of those seats, and the relatively low (overall) Black percent statewide (it doesn’t meet the threshold of requiring the state to draw one Black CD), I’d rather try to take all of them instead of needlessly giving one seat away.
Such a plan of yours wouldn’t likely pass, anyway. For one, Gov. Beebe wouldn’t sign it. Two, White Dems would oppose it. Three, Black Dems knowing what it would accomplish might not go for it, either. They’ve become a bit more politically sophisticated than they were around 1992, because what good is it to get a single seat for themselves out of a given state when it means they may end up serving in the political minority ? From a party standpoint, they’re cutting their own throats.
They’re either cutting their own throats or guaranteeing that the Democrats would win one House seat even in the worst of years for their party.
(I do agree that black Democrats won’t be pushing for black-majority state legislative districts as much as they used to because they’d rather have fewer black Democrat legislators in the majority than more of them in the minority. However, Congress is different, and the state legislature would not think that drawing lines for only 4 out of 435 districts will decide the composition of the House.)
100 Seats will change hands...
75D and 25 R Maybe
It’s remarkable the Dems are having to roll out their statewide officeholders to try to retain these House seats, it does show the difficult situation they’re in.
Doesnt look like the Dems have a very deep bench either.
Lose 25 House seats on our side ? If we lose 5, I will be shocked. In fact, I’ll bet we’ll lose just 1, and that’s LA-2 (the New Orleans seat).
Actually, the Dems have a gargantuan pool to draw from, since they make up 100% of the statewide officeholders in AR and close to 3/4ths of the legislature. The problem, however, is that it’s too overrepresented by them. I said that they’re so panicky, however, with the federal races that they want to roll out the big guns (either statewide officeholders, ex-Presidential candidates, or potentially former Cabinet members) rather than rely on local state legislators in those districts.
No way. Unless you are talking about the GOP primary, even then 25 is way too high. In fact only 1 one major GOP house primary race featuring an incumbent comes to my mind. Ex-Rep David Davis against RINO inc. Phil Roe in TN-1.
There are only 3 GOP seats that are in serious danger of falling to the rats.
We're not in an anti-incumbent mode like the rats say, we're in an anti-incumbent party mood, the party in charge is the rat party. Republican senators and congressmen are not fighting for their political lives right now. Guys who would face tough races in an even year seem likely to cruise to victory.
Bebee has 82% (!) approval last I heard. And no challenger in sight.
The AR GOP better find candidates for the other statewide races though. And a sac lamb for Beebe cause you just can’t not contest the governorship. That’s unheard of for a major party. For Arkansas the Republicans last didn’t run a candidate in 1918 and that was an aberration.
http://www.ourcampaigns.com/ContainerHistory.html?ContainerID=106
They didn’t run a candidate in 1942.
Oops I missed that 1.
I wonder what the last time was for any state, and either party. 1975 Louisiana?
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