Democracy Has Prevailed.

February 12, 2008

Melissa Hart Comes Out Swinging!

I caught ex-Representative Melissa Hart on Pintek last night.

She's going negative early, it seems. I thought that was a curious choice given her own rather ungracious excuse for losing in 2006:

Hart says she believes she lost because of Altmire's negative ad campaign.

"I was not going to play the games. Unfortunately I think that took a toll. In retrospect, I had everyone in Washington, D.C., significant number of my colleagues, call me and say you need to cut his legs off, was the term they used," Hart said. "And you know what, you don't need to cut his legs off. He clearly did that his entire campaign, he's new at this, I that hope he doesn't do it the next time."

In the course of her conversation with Mike Pintek, she brought up this article from the Washington Post to criticize Congressman Jason Altmire. It begins with this:

Half a dozen freshman Democrats took to the House floor one late-October morning to cast their lot with Republicans.

Their actions went unpunished by the Democratic leadership that day, as they have on many other occasions in recent weeks. The symbolic gesture -- casting nay votes on approving the House Journal, essentially the minutes of the previous day -- would have no bearing on the leadership's agenda.

While they overwhelmingly support that agenda, the bloc of freshmen has begun casting votes against such minor procedural motions in an effort, Democratic sources and Republican critics say, to demonstrate their independence from their leadership. The number of votes that the potentially vulnerable newcomers to Capitol Hill cast against House leaders is tallied and watched closely by interest groups and political foes.

Good point, Altmire's one of those freshman Democrats. So how many of these votes have there been? 18:

"I'm viewed as an independent. I'm viewed as a conservative Democrat," said Rep. Jason Altmire (Pa.), the first freshman to regularly oppose his party's leadership on the journal vote.

Like several others, Altmire offered no explanation for voting against all but one of 18 roll calls on the routine measure, adding that he had no "pre-planned" rationale for the votes. "I'm certainly not going to win or lose my reelection based on my journal votes," he said.

How many votes has he cast so far? 1,226, according to the Washington Post. According to that webpage, Congressman Altmire's voted with the majority of his party 85.7% of the time.

Missy Hart's making a case for those 17 votes. Let's do some math, shall we?

If we round to the nearest integer, 85.7% of 1,226 is 1,051. So it looks like Jason Altmire has voted with his party 1,051 times. But let's see what happens when we add those 17 votes Missy Hart's so upset over.

1,051 +17=1,068.

So had Jason Altmire voted with his party on those 17 votes, he would have voted with his party 1,068 times.

That would be 87.1% of the time. By my count, that would move him up 15 spots on the list. Of more than 400 members of the House.

And that is what Missy Hart's upset over.

She probably should be upset - by the same accounting at the Washington Post, she voted a whopping 94.4% of the time with her party in the 109th Congress.

By the way, voting against the journal is not even a new idea:

"They're trying to create separation. Our guys did it in '95 and '96," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), a member of the GOP class of 1994.

At the time, freshman Republicans saw congressional popularity plummet during a budget fight that led to a series of federal government shutdowns. Fearful of being tied closely to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), many freshmen also began voting no on the journal in a similar effort to distance themselves.

Thanks for the tip, Missy.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haven't seen it yet, but apparently Missy is up with a negative TV spot as well.

This dovetails with her consultant's MO, which would be to a) Go ugly early and b) Start doing stuff now that he can bill Missy for, even though it makes little strategic sense to spend money on TV at this point. Of course, now that he helped Rudy into the WH...er...not...he has time to spend on Hart.

But don't discount those screwy vote totals. It's that sort of arcania which is used to build negative commercials, "Jason Altmire voted _______ times....."
Doesn't need to be accurate or important; all the consultants want is some number, ANY number, to hang their sleazy hat on.

Piltdown Man

Anonymous said...

John K. says; Altimire is the man. He votes to support the war and continue funding.

steevo said...

I only voted for Altmire because he hates seniors and I saw all those Hart ads and figured that he was my candidate.

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

Why no outrage from you progressives on this.

Look who signed the Congressional Amicus Brief in Favor of Heller
Sen. Bob Casey
Sen. Arlen Specter
Rep. Jason Altmire (PA-4)

Jason Altmire tool of the gun lobby.

Anonymous said...

Why no outrage from you progressives on this.
I think you're confused again, Mein Heir. Let me make it simple for you:

Liberal: Protect constitution; defend individual liberty.
Wingnut: Rape constitution; eliminate individual liberty.

Don't thank me, it was my pleasure.

However, you have now posted several comments in a row without calling me or anyone else a liar. New paradigm?

Anonymous said...

Missy Hart is the reincarnation of Mister Ed.

Anonymous said...

John K. says: Now shitrock is really confused. He must be smelling his liberals ideas again. The last thing left wing kooks do is protect the constitution. LMAO lefties defend liberty. LOL LOL LOL Man that is funny.

Anonymous said...

Now shitrock is really confused. He must be smelling his liberals ideas again.

I admit it. It's true. This completely confuses me.