A Path through Red and Blue

How many 12-year-olds do you know who obsessively watch C-Span?

Probably about the same number of 17-year-olds you know who are savvy and confident enough to challenge one of the field’s leading political pundits and bet against him on the outcome of an under-the-radar congressional race.
 
David Wasserman ’06 did both. Before even arriving on grounds, Wasserman visited a class taught by Professor Larry Sabato. “After the class, I said, ‘Hi Mr. Sabato, my name is David Wasserman and I am a high school student from New Jersey. I just wanted to let you know that it has been a dream of mine to study under you.’”

Sabato responded, “Well, we’ll soon find out if it is a dream or a nightmare.”

After arriving at U.Va. in the fall of 2002, Wasserman sought out the expert. When Sabato opened the floor at a “Crystal Ball” talk where he was sharing his predictions about the 2002 mid-term elections a hand shot up from the back of the auditorium.

Wasserman asked about some of the U.S. House races in Indiana. Sabato discussed them in detail, winding up with a predication about the 7th District race between Julia Carson and Brose McVey. “I’d be willing to bet anyone ten dollars that this election is going to turn out to be a real barn burner.

The hand in the back shot up again. “Mr. Sabato I’ll take that bet. I don’t think that race is going to be very close.” Wasserman put in writing his prediction that Carson would not win by less than five percentage points. Sabato handed the student a ten dollar bill and told him he was on his honor to return it when he lost. He never had to: Carson won by a healthy nine percentage points. Wasserman still has the ten dollars.

Before long, Sabato was betting on Wasserman, not with him. Throughout his U.Va. career Wasserman interned at the Center for Politics; after graduation, he closely followed races around the country as a consultant at the Center. In 2007 Wasserman took his talents to Washington, where his knack for political prognostication is still winning him money as an analyst with the Cook Political Report, where he is responsible for covering Congressional races in all 435 districts.

In this role, Wasserman, another winner of the Emmerich Wright Prize, said he relies heavily on what he learned at U.Va. “The Distinguished Majors program was the highlight of my academic career and always will be. It was a longtime goal of mine to write a thesis on Congressional redistricting.”

Another Department grad, Jay Cost, is a noted political blogger now writing the HorseRaceBlog at Real Clear Politics. Like Wasserman, Cost credits the Politics Department for providing him with a broad base of knowledge on which he still relies every day. “I am not talking just about American political institutions and voting behavior but also the theories and philosophies that underlie a lot of our governing institutions. If you want to understand something, you have to understand that the subjects are very broad, and that they incorporate many different ideas and concepts. I really picked that up from the Politics Department.”

After graduation, Cost used this broad knowledge base as a springboard for a personal blog he started in 2004, which clearly represented his conservative Republican views. “I’m not really a believer in objectivity as it is expounded by the media. This year, my approach has been that I am not any less Republican or conservative, but that I am going to try to write something that both Republicans and Democrats can read. I have lots of questions I could ask, so I try to pick the questions that both sides want answered and not questions where people on either side can say they reject the question’s basic premise.”

Partisanship has never been an issue for Joanna Gluckman Martin ’02, who became involved in Democratic electoral politics at U.Va., working as a fundraiser for Governor Kaine’s gubernatorial campaign and then in his administration on the Governor’s appointments to boards and commissions. She joined the Obama campaign just after the Senator’s March, 2007 official announcement.

Reached as she was packing for Denver, Martin, whose focus is on Mid Atlantic fundraising, recalled a class on campaigns and elections that truly stoked her political fires. Congressman and Board of Visitors member L.F. Payne, who was at the time heading up Governor Mark Warner’s gubernatorial campaign taught the course, which featured a variety of high profile guests. (Martin is pictured at left at INVESCO Field in Denver during the Democratic National Convention in August.)

Martin enjoyed a particularly sweet return to her old stomping grounds last October. “The coolest thing about the U.Va. connection for me was when Senator Obama came to the Charlottesville Pavilion. We had more than 5,000 people, roughly the same amount of people that came out for similar events in cities like San Francisco. And to see the students and the community come together in this way was really exciting.”

Among those representing the other side of the aisle in D.C. is Jennifer Allen ’06. After interning in the General Assembly for Delegate Rob Bell, the Republican took a mere three days off after graduation before joining the office of Congressman Frank R. Wolf (R-Va) as staff assistant. She was later promoted to the position of scheduler, and currently, in her words, “manages his life, basically.”

She credits advisor Gerard Alexander with being especially helpful during her time at U.Va., in addition to being a rare kindred political spirit. “There aren’t a lot of Republicans in the department!”

Heading to George Washington to pursue a graduate degree in International Relations this Fall, Allen will continue her current full-time duties, which include a number of high profile opportunities to pursue her global politics interests. “Representative Wolf is ranking member on the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and Co-Chairman of the Human Rights Caucus,” she said. “So I picked a great office!”