Larry Sabato And The D.C. Pundit-Industrial Complex
Updated below.
There’s a fascinating revelation in Ben Smith’s article today about political prognosticator Larry Sabato that really tells you a lot about how the D.C. pundit-industrial complex works and how D.C. insiders reinforce their mutual influence, unwittingly at times.
The article reports that Sabato, one of D.C.’s best known inside-game pundit-types, received earmarks on a regular basis for an educational program at his University of Virginia Center for Politics. The earmark cash was delivered by former Congressman Virgil Goode of Virginia’s 5th District, a longtime friend of Sabato. Goode was ousted last year in a surprise upset by young long-shot Thomas Perriello.
Turns out, though, that during the race, Sabato had regularly been predicting a comfortable victory for Goode until the end — and though Smith doesn’t say this outright, there are no signs he disclosed the earmark arrangement that was benefiting his institution while calling the shots on the race.
Predictions of victory from the likes of Sabato are no small thing. They influence insider chatter, which has a real impact on endorsements and fundraising and can swing a contest’s outcome.
To be clear, everyone expected Goode to win, and there is no suggestion that Sabato made any predictions he otherwise might not have. But this is a disclosure issue: It seems fair to ask whether people reading Sabato’s punditry on that race should have been told his institution was benefiting from one candidate. Erring on the side of disclosure seems appropriate.
This is a classic example of the ways in which the lines slowly get blurred in Washington and of the ways in which the interests of incumbents and D.C. inside-game types intersect and reinforce each other. D.C. is an odd place.
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Update: Sabato responds and promises full disclosure with punditry going forward.
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Disclosure is the “liberal fascism” of punditry. Just ask Rick Scott.
Washington is not an odd place, Greg. It is one of the best venues for “you scratch my back…” Rick Scott has been all over with his “save the insurance industry – your faithful friend ” stuff. He does not refer to the very large fines he paid for his dishonesty in manipulating his health company. Fraud had its price. I think we know that the Villagers in the MSM have the same interests as the Pols they cover: ” You scratch…”
One of the reasons I really liked it when the Obamas went to NYC to see a play was that I love to see him get out of DC – out of the bubble. I think it’s healthy for presidents especially to not spend all their time in the Company Town.
And the guy who beat Goode isn’t funding Sabato’s requests. Wonder why.
“D.C. is an odd place”
D.C. is a dishonest place.
I think the real story in this is not the failure of disclosure but that a Republican outfit survived off of
porksocialismearmarks.“D.C. is a dishonest place.”
mike, what government doesn’t create a place like DC?
mike – basically, the rule is: power corrupts.
So from now on any call Sabato makes will be suspect.
“D.C. is an odd place”
.
Versaille plus ink.
or…Versailles plus inks
There’s a cute limerick about Sabato:
Need a quote?
Do not tarry.
Call U V A.
And ask for Larry!
You’re sounding a bit jaded, yourself, Greg
I would like to address your question about disclosure eforts. I am the Chief of Staff of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. The Youth Leadership Initiative is one of several programs offered by the Center for Politics and may be accessed from the Center’s website at http://www.centerforpolitics.org. The Youth Leadership Initiative is a civics education program offered to primary and secondary grade-school teachers (K-12) not only in Virginia, but in every state in the nation as well as Department of Defense schools for American students whose parents are stationed on miltary bases in various countries around the world.
Congressional funds designated for this program are accompanied by a host of federal regulations, all implemented and monitored by the U.S. Department of Education. To receive Congressionally designated funding for the Youth Leadership Initiative, the Center for Politics is required to submit a detailed grant application first to the Unveristy’s Office of Sponsored Programs and then to the U.S. Department of Education. Only after that application is approved by the the US Department of Education are the funds available for use by the program. All usage is strictly governed by federal regulations and the parameters of the approved application. These funds are never available for the general use or general operation of the Center for Politics or any other program but the Youth Leadership Initiative. Additionally, since the Center for Politics is a unit of the University of Virginia, once a grant application is approved, all spending and procurement of goods and services related to the approved grant application are governed by, and subject to state and University procurement regulations. The entire proces is managed by the University’s central Office of Procurement.
As required by the US Department of Education, the Center for Politics discloses on our website that the Youth Leadership Initiative is funded by the United States Congress. In addition, we also note that the Youth Leadership Initiative is also supported by state funding and by private donors. This disclaimer statement is featured in the upper right area of the front page of the Youth Leadership Initiative section of the Center’s website http://www.centerforpolitics.org or http://www.youthleadership.net.
Professor Sabato is the Director of the Center for Politics, but receives no salary from the Center for Politics. He is a University professor who reports directly to the President of the University. He is not a paid employee of the Center.
Internally at Center for Politics, accounting responsibilities are executed and overseen by a Chief Financial Officer who reports to the Chief of Staff of the Center. Professor Sabato does not administer the allocations or expenditures of the federal and state funds designated for this program. As noted above, these are governed by federal, state and University regulations. Contrary to what may be assumed, these funds are never “received” into a University bank account. Instead, the funding is made available from the U.S. Department of Education as a draw-down account. The funds remain with the Department of Education and are drawn down only on approval by the University’s Office of Procurement in a manner consistent with the initial federal grant application. These federal funds are not available, nor would it be approved, for the general operation of the Center for Politics or other programs such as the Center’s Crystal Ball.
In addition to the disclosure on our website, Congressional funding for the Center for Politics’ Youth Leadership Initiative has been reported by scores of media outlets throughout Virginia and around the nation. Presently, the program serves nearly 50,000 teachers, providing instructional resources that reach millions of students across the nation and around the world.
Ken Stroupe: methinks you protest too much.
I have to call bullshit on Mr. Ken Stroupe from UVa. I run a research lab (science not policy) funded by federal agencies. Like Ken, I have to submit my long detailed grant proposals through my university’s office of sponsored programs. I must follow all state and federal regulations, and of course every test tube and beaker is purchased through our office of procurement. All those details and many many more translate into, “I work at a university.” What Mr Stroupe left out is the minor detail (ha!) called “PEER REVIEW”. Everything is trivial except that. Mr Stroupe is describing mundane paperwork, mostly performed by administrative assistants, and puffing it up to something big. Were these grants peer reviewed, Mr. Stroupe? If so, my hat is off to you. If not, you are obfuscating.
“Odd” meaning “lacking an operable moral compass”?
While everything Ken Stroupe is saying may be technically correct, the facts remain that
(1) The Center for Politics was awarded $7 million dollars as an earmark, entirely because of former Rep. Virgil Goode. This grant was not awarded as the result of a competitive process with peer review, the normal procedure.
(2) Whether Sabato is getting paid directly isn’t unimportant, but it’s not the whole story. His grant pays the expenses of running his center (via university overhead); and allowed him to grow his center’s budget by $1 million yearly, which meant he could supervise 10-20 more staff. Maybe everything these staff were doing was pursuant to the grant’s aims of youth education, but in the real world that’s typically not the case.
Everyone in a bureaucracy wants to build a bigger empire with more people working for them — and academia is no exception, because the more staff you have, the easier it is to accomplish your research goals.
Normally, peer review is the check on abuse, because if your product is bad, your grants don’t get funded and your papers don’t get published, your empire will fall. Earmarks like this subvert the system, which can allow corrupt research to flourish.
I don’t doubt that Sabato is striving to be an accurate political observer, but in this case it looks like he let friendship — or the wishes of his donor Virgil Goode — get in the way of accuracy. And that’s exactly the risk of this earmarking system.
I hope in the future he recuses himself, or improves his disclosure, when Virgil Goode and Cordel Faulk are the topics of discussion.
p.s. Sal Paradise: that’s not a limerick, it’s just doggerel.
And I recognize the tepid wit of Washington Post columnist-for-life Richard Cohen.
Mr Stroup says: “[Professor Sabato] is a University professor who reports directly to the President of the University.”
In other words, he’s not a professor at all. He’s a crony.
As has been pointed out by others, every word in Stroupe’s comment is true, and every word means something other than what he tries to imply.
A rather interesting example is
“These funds are never available for the general use or general operation of the Center for Politics or any other program but the Youth Leadership Initiative.”
Which strictly speaking is true, but that does not mean a portion of the money from the DoEd was not washed, cleaned and channeled to the CfP. Universities have overhead rates that are charged on direct costs. That money, once collected, has no limitations on it. They also have policies that return a portion of the direct costs to the organization that has the grant. For the Center for Politics this is an astounding 70%
http://www.virginia.edu/finance/finanalysis/Distribution%20Percents.html
Something that Larry probably negotiated when the manna fell from heaven.
F&A is usually charged on modified direct costs, everything except equipment, stipends and tuition. In practice this means ~3/4 of the total direct costs. UVa’s F&A (facilities and administrative aka overhead rate is ~52% OTOH, DoEd has a limit of 8% total direct costs on F&A. In that case CfA got over 500K$ of pretty much unrestricted money to play with over the years this earmark ran. If they were charging at the 52% rate, it was certainly much more.
http://www.research.vcu.edu/osp/whatrate.htm
Someone needs to do an FOA on the budget in the proposal. DoEd will probably black it out as proprietary, but UVa is still subject to state FoA rules AFAIK (Whether UVa is still a state university is another one of those interesting questions).
It was nice to find out that Sabato and Goode are friends. I’m glad that they now have more time to spend with each other.
And Prof. Sabato? It’s much better to respond to apparently well-founded accusations yourself, with facts, than to have a lackey attempt to blow smoke up our butts.
I wonder what U Va’s overhead rate is. A quick search finds a FAQ suggesting it’s about 50%, which would mean that of that $7 million grant, about $2.3 million goes to the university, of which on the order of $1 million could get funneled directly to Sabato’s department. (Albeit it’s possible that Sabato has arranged his center so that only about $1.3 million goes to the university, and less to his department, in exchange for the center being about to charge the government directly for a similar amount in direct administrative costs…)
What Mr. Stroupe overlooks is that no one has accused Prof Sabato of financial wrongdoings, and following his lead on that argument doesn’t examine Greg’s central premise. What Prof Sabato has done is peddle his *** to the bidder who offers him what he craves most – prestige. It isn’t how much his department brings in (the University’s measure of success), or how right his predictions are (which ought to be the media’s standard), but how many times Larry gets on teevee or quoted in the newspaper – his own standard of success.
I’d wager that at least one of his staff members is responsible for his clippings and recording his appearances, and probably booking his speaking engagements. Again, not a misuse of funds but a testament to ego.
I remember Larry Sabato from my UVA student days. He was involved in student government then. He’s a sharp guy, but temptations are out there …
Interesting reading. Was not sure the govt had grant money left to give out.
Very good article, I’m glad to be a follower.
My brother would fall in love this website. We were not too long ago discussing about this. lol