Wasserman instead considers everything in the broader political context. A terrific Democratic candidate who aces her interview might not stand a chance in a district that the Republican normally wins by twenty points. So why bother with the candidate interviews at all? Mostly, Wasserman is looking for red flags—like the time when the Democratic congressman Eric Massa (who would later abruptly resign from Congress after accusations that he sexually harassed a male staffer) kept asking Wasserman how old he was. The psychologist Paul Meehl called these “broken leg” cases—situations where there
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