Freshman Van Hollen (D-MD08) faces Republican thrust in 2004

[goobergunch]

Republicans claim he’s ineffective but have no candidate
By Michael S. Gerber

<snip>

Van Hollen is in the middle of the pack. He is there not to speak but to support. A freshman Democrat from the capital’s affluent northwest suburbs, he is a minor player on the Education and the Workforce and Government Reform committees — a situation that’s a far cry from the spotlight he occupied a year ago, when all of Washington was watching to see if he could pull off two big wins in a row and gain a spot in Maryland’s congressional delegation.

<snip>

Republicans say Van Hollen’s narrow margin of victory last year — he won with 52 percent of the vote — and his status as a freshman put him on their target list. And they will try to convince voters that having a representative from the majority party is better for the district.

<snip>

Abrams said Republicans would attack Van Hollen’s opposition to GOP reform of Head Start, his foreign-policy views and his junior status. “You have a back-bencher on a secondary committee,” Abrams said of Van Hollen.

more...http://www.hillnews.com/campaign/080603_vanhollen.aspx

Where do I begin insulting the Repukes on this one?


1) Van Hollen beat Morella, a 16-year incumbent, 52%-47%. Morella was popular because she was the most liberal Republican in the House and essentially lost because she voted for Hastert as Speaker. The district voted for Gore 66%-31%...the Repukes have little chance of picking up this seat.
2) By 2004, we'll be attacking the Repuke Head Start plan-not vice versa.

This does concern me, however, because I don't want us to be wasting money in safe districts like MD-8.

[BayCityProgressive]

1. What a bunch of blow hards

[NJCher]

2. thrust, juggernaut, yada yada

What's with HillNews and the rest of these places that always have to use these macho sexual terms to describe political events. Sheesh. Republican "thrust" my a$$. More like a Republican five-finger exercise.


Cher

[jiacinto]

3. Jean Cryor (R) or Howard Denis (R)

would be the only Republican candidates with a half decent shot at winning. Denis is the County Council member from Bethesda and Potomac. He almost lost last year. Cryor is a State Rep from Potomac, and she barely won too.

I grew up in the 8th district my whole life. Morella was able to win because she voted like a Democrat. And she won office in the 1980s, when suburbanities had much more hositility to the Democratic Party than they have now.

Montgomery County is much different than most other "suburbs" of major cities. A large share of residents commutes to government jobs. The area is also extremely diverse--there are a lot of immigrants and foreigners. At my high school students spoke more than 100 languages and represented all continents. Children of ambassadors and foreign businesmen/women live there.

Morella won comfortably through most of the 1990s and the late 1980s. The Democrats liked her because she wasn't a far right conservative. Most Democrats who could have beaten her chose not to run against her. She worked well with politicians from both parties and was able to do a lot of good for the district. She defeated most of the third tier candidates who ran against her because Democrats openly supported her.

Then in 1998, against Ralph Neas, who heads People for the American Way, I believe, she polled only 60% after winning more than 70% of the vote in her previous races. In 2000 Terry Lierman, who was involved in a scandal with Arlington County, VA Democrat Jim Moran (D), held her to 52% in the old district, which I show here:



The old district was much more hosipitable to Morella. It included Damascus and Republican leaning precincts in the upper part of the county. Damascus is clearly a Republican town, perhaps the only one in Montgomer County. Potomac, located in the Southwest part of the county, also is somewhat Republican. But even there a Republican state senate Senator--Jean Roesser (R)--lost in 2002. So saying that Potomac is "somewhat Republican" is not saying much. Even there Democrats are more likely to win than Republican.

Redistricting changed the 8th and made it much more hostile for Republicans. The new 8th appears here:



Notice what is missing. Damascus, which is in the extreme northern part of the county, now belongs to the 6th, which extends from the Baltimore and DC exurbs to the Panhandle, held by Roscoe Barlett (R). Although this map is convoluted, for Damascus, it makes sense because that community shares more common interest with the counties in the 6th than in the 8th. The 6th contains the rural panhandle and the exurbs of Carroll County, Frederick County, Northern Baltimore County, and Northern Harford County. Those counties gave Ehrlich (R) crushing margins. Carroll gave him almost 80% of the vote. While Frederick, Carroll, and Harford are among the state's largest growing counties, Montgomery, Baltimore, Howard, and Anne Arundel counties are adding more residents. A lot of the new people coming into those exurbs are "white flight" fleeing the Baltimore and DC area. They are tired of the suburban sprawl, but it is slowly crawling into those counties.

Notice the 4th coming across Gaithersburg and the rest of the northern part of the County. That does not make as much sense as the two counties are much different, but this redistricting took away a lot of the key precincts Morella needed to keep her seat. The same thing eliminated Ehrlich's seat in the Baltimore area, but that's another thread.

The new 8th also includes key precincts in Eastern Mont. County and PG County. The old 8th gave those precincts to Al Wynn (D), who represents PG County. It picks up key precincts in working class areas. It also takes in the Hyattsville, Chillum, Colmar Manor, and Bladensburg parts of PG County and stops at the Anacostia river. It is a small sliver of PC County, but these areas are heavily Democratic and minority. They did not vote for Morella and helped give Van Hollen the margin he needed to defeat Morella.

The Democrats in the 8th are DLC Democrats more often than not. They are very affluent in most areas, although the E. Montgomery County and PG County areas of the 8th are more low to middle income families. They are professionals and white collar, highly educated workers. But they are also not conservative. A large Jewish population exists here. So if Van Hollen were voting like Maxine Waters he would be at risk, but his record matches the district pretty well.

So back to the question of who could run. As I said the only two GOP candidates with even half a decent shot of winning would be Cryor and Denis, but they both barely won the last time. And they are not that popular in the area. Cryor could very well lose her seat in the next election, as she is the only Republican state legislator from Montgomery County in Annapolis. Dennis is the only Republican on the heavily Democratic county council. Both of them would start at a disdadvantage to Van Hollen.

For Van Hollen to even be in danger he would have to get involved in a major scandal of the highest order. Even as Ehrlich was winning the state the 8th was giving at least 60% of its vote to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. With PG County's precincts added, and with Damascus and the up-county areas gone, Denis and and Cryor would not be able to beat Van Hollen. Even in the old district, running against a flawed candidate in 2000, Terry Lierman, Morella got only 52% of the vote.

The Republicans are deluding themselves if they can win MD-8. Maybe in the 8th of the 1990s they had a shot, but not in this new seat. Van Hollen should be able to prevail without any problem.

[JohnKleeb]

5. I agree with you but I wish my area was like the 8th

[jiacinto]

6. Where are you?

nt

[JohnKleeb]

10. Northern Va- Frankie Wolf's district

Herndon, parts of Reston, Falls Church, Vienna, Mclean* I cant spell that name sorry.

[jiacinto]

11. That area is changing

Nader and Gore got more votes than Bush in Fairfax County in 2000.

[TheDonkey]

7. What is Perry Hall's/ White Marsh's district?

You seem knowledgable on Maryland! Do you know which district White Marsh is in? Thanks.

[jiacinto]

9. That is the 2nd

Dutch Ruppersberger (D) won that seat as Ehrlich was sweeping the area 2-1. It is that claw that stretches from the Susqehana into Baltimore and its suburbs.

[TheDonkey]

12. Thanks!

Your findings are very interesting. You've compiled a lot of useful info on Maryland (my home state!)
I grew up in Perry Hall/ White Marsh and hoped the area leaned democratic! :)

[jiacinto]

4. No one else is interested in what I wrote?

nt

[goobergunch]

8. It's extremely interesting...

and I didn't feel it needed comment...I didn't have anything to add.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[mndemocrat_29]

13. It was very interesting

I agree that van Hollen will be easily reelected.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

14. Junior Member Yes...

but he is taking his job seriously and it takes time to build a up powerful resume. The 8th district was won by Connie M. because she was center left on social issues and opposed Bush's tax cuts and questioned the wisdom of a war in Iraq.
The new district is more hospitible for a moderate/liberal Democrat. Unless he screws up BIG TIME he will get at LEAST 60% of the vote next time, maybe more!!!

[jiacinto]

15. For the reasons stated in my earlier post in this thread I

think that Van Hollen will win comfortably next year.

[Il_Coniglietto]

16. He's kinda my congressman

I have two homes so my two congressmen are Adam Schiff and then Van Hollen. There was a very big movement at my old school (Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS) to support him, though I remember that very few knew much about his positions. It was mainly the idea that there could be a Democrat there replacing Morella that attracted them. I also remember that people knew Morella was desperate since she started using attack ads.

But any other Republican beating Van Hollen? Pfft. As mentioned, Montgomery County is a very diverse and politically-active place, but also proudly liberal (though it has its more conservative pockets). Van Hollen is safe.

[jiacinto]

17. Van Hollen is not going to lose next year

The GOP is bluffing here. Only two Republicans hold any elective office in the county.

Morella had a good run--she was there for sixteen years. She was just in the wrong party for the distirct.

She knew that when a competetive Democrat finally ran against her she would be out.

[carpetbagger]

18. Yeah, right.

Montgomery County is made up of a bunch of civil servants (I moved there when my father got a civilian job with the Navy) who believe in the power of government to help people with the things they can't do themselves. If Steve Abrams thinks he can win county-wide elections, he's been smokin' the wacky tobbacky. If he thinks he can do it on a platform of gutting head start, they've probably laced his stash.

But if he thinks he can win in the 8th district, which is missing the key Fredneck-and-exurban-mansion areas of Damascus, Laytonsville, and Olney, he's truly been spending too much time in Poolesville. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, Poolesville is a small town gradually being turned over to development, where everyone moved there to "get out of the city". There's a lot of cops who live there.

As to the placement of Gaithersburg in the 4th, it sort of makes sense, besides from a gerrymandering point of view, because of the numbers of minorities in some of the involved precincts, as well as providing a way to re-create a pure rural-exurban 6th district, which had covered much of the upper county in the 1980's (with the same 118 boundary through Germantown), but which in the 1990's was missing enough chunks of land near Baltimore to preserve Helen Bentley's 2nd district base.