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Stuart Rothenberg's big break came while he was wearing pajamas. It was early on a Friday morning in 1990 and Washington had been paralyzed by several inches of snow. Rothenberg '70, who publishes a political newsletter, was on the floor at home playing with his kids when the telephone rang. It was a staff member from the office of John McGlaughlin, the host of The McGlaughlin Group and another show of political analysis, One on One. The man asked Rothenberg how long he would need to get down to the studio to tape a segment of One on One. "Apparently the guy they planned to have on the show was held up at the airport and couldn't make it in," Rothenberg recalled. "I hung up the phone and rushed into my bedroom to get dressed. I was in such a hurry, I put my foot right through my trousers and had to switch to a different suit." On the way to the studio, says Rothenberg, he prepped himself mentally for the interview. "I was thinking, `just react, have an opinion, don't leave dead air.' I didn't have time to be nervous." These days major network news shows call regularly asking him to appear, and he hasn't ruined a pair of trousers in a long time. He has been on Meet the Press and Today and CNN's Inside Politics; he's a favorite source on NPR's Morning Edition; his election forecasts have appeared in every major newspaper in the country; that was Rothenberg sitting alongside Bruce Morton and Frank Sesno in the CNN studios during live coverage of the mid-term elections on November 3. "Articulate," "authoritative," "plugged in" is how network executives and political insiders describe Rothenberg, who, at 50, has become something of a star. He is an overnight success 20 years in the making. Prior to his being "discovered" on One on One, Rothenberg had been toiling in obscurity, grinding out his Rothenberg Political Report from a small, disheveled Capitol Hill office a short walk from Washington's Union Station. His job, essentially one that he invented, is to inform the Washington establishment about which Congressional candidates are likely to win and which are likely to lose. It is information that helps fuel the election cycle engine, and clearly, people want it. The Rothenberg Political Report, a compilation of statistics, projections and analysis that boils down dozens of political races into an eight- to 10-page newsletter, has only a few hundred subscribers. But the number of readers is less important than who those readers are--political reporters, party operatives and interest group representatives looking for an edge. With the Report to guide them, the press can determine who is worth coverage and who isn't; political action committees can identify candidates worthy of funding support; special interest groups know where and with whom to devote their energies. In a town full of powerful people, Rothenberg establishes who is hot and who is not. Not that he would admit it. Rothenberg is spectacularly unimpressed with his own achievements and influence. "Who has ever heard of me? Nobody," he said. "Outside of Washington and a few political junkies, people are much too busy to sit around watching me on C-Span at eight o'clock in the morning." Talk to anybody close to the political scene in Washington and they will tell you that Rothenberg is a key figure in election cycles, a guru whose predictions and analysis can have a profound effect on the ability of a candidate to generate support or sustain momentum. Dan Sallick, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is one of the party insiders whom Rothenberg regularly calls upon for information and to arrange meetings with candidates. He says a good word from Rothenberg can be a prelude to victory. "Getting good marks from Stu means your campaign is moving in the right direction," Sallick said. "If he says something positive about your candidacy, people in Washington listen. He is the gatekeeper for the Washington community in terms of how they view races." What that means for the candidates is visibility and optimism, both key components of a successful campaign. "If a candidate shows up in the Rothenberg Political Report positively, the next day you will get five phone calls from national newspapers and from television stations trying to find out more about the race," Sallick said. "Our political division will get calls from PACs (political action committees) asking us for bios of the candidate [as a prelude for financial support]. And the converse is true. If you move off of Stu's list you see funding and media interest begin to evaporate pretty quickly." Rothenberg compares himself to an industry analyst for large stock brokerage firms, except that his industry is the election process. "Basically, I'm making buy and sell recommendations on candidates," he said. While most journalists are chasing national trends, Rothenberg is under the radar, probing, looking for clues. His research is legendary. He and his assistant, John Kohut, interview every credible House, Senate and gubernatorial candidate--hundreds in each cycle--and his enormous network of contacts offers him up-to-the-minute polling numbers and public sentiment. His forecasts also are based on an encyclopedic knowledge of voting districts. "He's like a database," said Neal Lavon, host of Voice of America's weekend talk show, Encounter. "You can ask him about any district in the country and he can tell you everything about it." His reputation for fairness and scrupulous honesty endow Rothenberg's analysis with credibility that no amount of public relations spin can match--or overcome. "He comes from Republican politics, but I think Democrats have as high a regard for his analysis as anybody," Sallick said. In a city unaccustomed to hearing the plain truth, where officials are conditioned to sanitize every statement, Rothenberg is refreshingly frank. And he isn't afraid of a declarative statement. "The presidential race is over," Rothenberg pronounced in a column in 1996, eight weeks before election day. He wasn't attempting to sway voter opinion or to influence the election's outcome, he says, he was "merely stating the obvious." "I find the idea that I'm that influential ridiculous," he said. "I was just saying what everybody knew but for whatever reason didn't want to say." Although Rothenberg is circumspect about the importance of his role, his power is undeniable. Last spring he interviewed a young, inexperienced Democratic congressional candidate from the state of Washington, Laura Ruderman. She had potential, he thought, but wasn't ready for prime time. He wrote--politely but pointedly--that she should consider running for a local or state office before attempting to land a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives. Two days after his column appeared, Ruderman dropped out of the House race and announced she was running for state legislature. Call it The Rothenberg Effect. "It doesn't always help our candidates, but he's usually right," Sallick said.
Rothenberg expected to be a teacher when he left Colby for the University of
Connecticut, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1976. He was hired as a sabbatical
replacement to teach government at Bucknell University, but the market for
academics was oversaturated, says Rothenberg, whose wife, Elaine Rusinko,
teaches Russian at the college level. He recognized that his teaching career
would be stunted by lack of opportunity, he says, so he sent around
résumés and was hired by an obscure conservative think tank, the
Free Congress Foundation. He edited the foundation's political newsletter until
1989, when he purchased the newsletter and went off on his own. In the early
'90s he began writing a column for Roll Call, the Capitol Hill
newspaper.
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