So You Think You Want To Be POTUS

From Andrew Sullivan:
"Big Dems On Obama's War Plan...Almost uniformly negative. And the GOP will do all they can to destroy this commander-in-chief."

TW: The joy of being a Democratic POTUS. The Dem base is largely pacifist (in a Euro kind of way). The Republican base rabid jingoists (but for the libertarian wing). As a Dem your base will not carry your water, whilst the Republicans circle waiting (or not even waiting) to pounce at the inevitable challenges of a complex conflict.

In a way it frees Obama to do whatever is right as politically it is a no-win situation. So all in all doing the right thing has an actual chance.

Political Re-Alignment

(click to enlarge images, via 538.com)

TW: The above show the movement for the Dems and Republicans by state since the 1994 "Gingrich" election. As we have posited previously the Republicans have become increasingly southern while the Dems have consolidated the northeast whilst growing their base in the mountain states. North Carolina being an exception which has gotten bluer as well.

The tricky part for the Dems is those southern Republican numbers will likely not change too much soon, their base is solid and getting even more conservative. Over time demographics especially related to Hispanics may have a significant impact making some of those states less red .

The Dem inroads in the mountain states and places like NC are precarious and vulnerable to the particularities of current events at the time of the next election. Converting folks disenchanted with W. Bush, Iraq etc. into actual progressive Dems will take some significant work.

Obama Taking Fire From the Left...A Good Thing

TW: Obama is taking fire from the left. Not surprising and it is about time. Fire from the left is far better than fire from the right. It helps re-frame the debate towards the interests of progressives rather than interests of the loud neo-con, Hooverite, insecure Limbovian, Fox loving Palin adherents. That said some help for those on the left is needed as they are somewhat confused about life in power.

From Robert Reich's latest fretful blogpost:
"...Universal health care is President Obama's biggest issue..."

TW: NO NO NO!!! Universal health care is not even in Obama's top five maybe not top ten of issues. Hard-core liberals have wanted universal health care since Truman, it is their issue not the rest of America's. It is the right thing to do. But the vast majority of Americans have coverage to ask them to pay higher taxes just to create universal coverage is not and has never been realistic.

Universal care is a morally relevant and useful component of overall health care reform. Health care reform is needed to reduce the growth in health care spending which threatens to overwhelm the American economy, this IS the Obama and America's high priority. What the health care reform bill must do is create the basis by which health care costs can be more effectively managed in the future. Universal care is one component of this effort not THE issue.

Again from Reich:
"Sally [Reich's Dem friend] also doesn't see why Obama is so bent on bipartisanship."Republicans haven't helped him a bit so far, won't help him, and he doesn't need their votes, so why compromise with them?"

TW: Obama does not necessarily need a bunch of Republican votes but he most definitely needs "Blue Dog" or moderate/conservative Dem votes. The negotiations are not about satisfying grumpy old farts like Chuck Grassley, it is very much about retaining the Blue Dogs.

Liberal Dems forget that not all Dems are elected from majority Dem districts. Folks forget the Blue Dogs are not merely some recalcitrant bloc from deep blue districts and states. They are Dems elected in purple and red districts and states who wish to retain their seats (the rest of the Dems better hope they retain their seats as well). The Democratic party and Obama must respect their positions or the Dems will neither pass significant bills (health care, energy policy etc.) nor retain their strong majorities. There is a delicate line to be tread integrating the Blue Dog needs with progressive agendas but this is the reality of democracy.

From Peter Suderman at Reason via Sullivan's blog:
"...No, I don't think this is a failure of leadership so much as a feature of democratic politics -- and a reminder of how unpleasant and unsatisfying to nearly everyone the business of politics can be.

Democratic politics is a messy business. It's disorganized and frantic and unpredictable and frustrating. Politics is a matter of shouting, and dissent, and deal-making, and strategy, and slippery rhetoric, and compromise. It is not a matter of deciding on the "right" policy and then making it so -- even when your party controls the White House, the House, and the Senate. "

The Partisan Wide Like It Used To Be

TW: I always like a chart that tracks 100+ years of data. The chart above displays the partisan gap going all the way back to the post Civil War period. One can see partisanship decreasing post WWI and continuing at relatively low levels until the Reagan era at which point the line shoots more or less straight up. I suspect much of the low partisanship during the 1920-1980 period is a function of the "unnatural" alliances between the various factions of Democrats from the South and its traditional urban pockets. Correspondingly the Republicans were far more diverse as well with the old Eastern Rockefeller factions combined with the traditional Midwestern, rural conservatives.

Now that the parties have sorted out with less middle ground between the parties but with things like Senate cloture rules requiring compromise, governing has become very slow and pondering. Arguably putting even more power into the hands of lobbyists and entrenched interests which work with DC to create policy below the radar and outside traditional legislation.

Seminal events such as major wars, 9/11, GD 1.0 etc. have always been the impetus for significant governance changes. When those events happen the executive accrues tremendous power which is why it was so damaging to have Bush/Cheney in the WH post 9/11.

Ezra Klein from WaPo frets:
"...we could also agree that this level of polarization makes it virtually impossible to govern in a system that is designed to foil majorities and require a constant three-fifths consensus. It's not good if the country is virtually impossible to govern. Problems don't stop mounting while we try and figure things out. We could respond to this by making it easier for the majority party to govern and thus less likely that we have some sort of massive crisis that totally realigns our politics. I think that's actually less radical than waiting for some calamity to reshape our political system..."

Blue Dogs Caught Between Barack and a Hard Place

TW: Love this piece. The premise is that IF Obama's health care reform is truly unpopular in these Doggie districts they are likely screwed anyway. It addresses the crucial issue of the role of centrists in health care specifically but really more broadly relative to their own party. Folks either politicians or otherwise frequently get confused as to why they are where they are in life.

From Nate Silver at 538.com:
"...Well, then, Mr. Blue Dog, you have a problem on your hands.You're going to lose anyway. If these voters are not capable of supporting health care, what other planks of the Democratic agenda are they going to support?

The carbon tax? Not rural, energy-intensive districts.

Maybe your constituents liked the bailout? Didn't think so.

Perhaps they're waiting for Obama to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act? Um, probably not.

The fact is, Mr. Blue Dog, there's a good chance that the reason you're in power is because George W. Bush was in power. When Bush was in power, you didn't have to advance your party's own agenda -- you just had to block some of the more unpopular elements of his.But you don't have that advantage anymore. You're going to have to endure at least two more elections with Obama as your President -- and since the Republican candidates in 2012 are Dopey, Sleazy and Romney, probably four. You're going to start having to finding at least a few things to vote for.

And if health care isn't one of them, it's hard to see what else is, at least in your sort of district.

Maybe you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. But the only world in which you are popular enough to get re-elected is one which this bill is popular enough for you to vote for."

Good News For Progressives

TW: 538.com did an interview with Democratic pollster Ruy Texiera, who put some meat on the bones of why the Dems are doing well electorally. We have posted on this before, our demographics both ethnically, culturally and age wise are moving towards the Dems.

The Republicans will have to broaden their base if they wish to build a new coalition. The old Reagan coalition (just like the old FDR coalition did) is aging and shrinking into obsolescence. People change, parties must as well.

From 538.com:
"...between 1988 and 2008, the minority share of voters in presidential elections has risen by 11 percentage points, while the share of increasingly progressive white college graduate voters has risen by 4 points. But the share of white working class voters, who have remained conservative in their orientation, has plummeted by 15 points. Want to know why McCain’s strategy failed in Pennsylvania? Same story: white working class voters declined by 25 points between 1988 and 2008, while white college graduates rose by 16 points and minorities by 8 points. Or in Nevada: white working class voters are down 24 points over the time period, while minority voters are up an amazing 19 points and white college graduates by 4 points.

More generally, progressives are doing very well among almost all growing demographic groups, while conservatives are retaining strength only where the country is stagnating or declining. One of the more dramatic manifestations of this pattern is the rise of the Millennial generation (those born 1978-2000). Millennial adults voted for Obama by a 34-point margin, 66 percent to 32 percent, compared to a 9-point margin for Kerry among 18- to 29-year-olds in 2004 when that age group was not exclusively Millennials. Between now and 2018, the number of Millennials of voting age will increase by about four and a half million a year, and Millennial eligible voters will increase by about 4 million a year. In 2020—the first presidential election where all Millennials will have reached voting age—this generation will be 103 million strong, of which about 90 million will be eligible voters. Those 90 million Millennial eligible voters will represent just under 40 percent of America’s eligible voters..."

Competency Trumps Ideology Despite the Echo Chambers

TW: We are somewhat delusional and biased but when you are meant to be running a political party or any other entity it pays to manage your own biases downward. This piece weaves things like the Pundit Fallacy (i.e. "if only MY ideas were adopted, then my party would win), and the common voters tendency to vote competency over ideology to frame the challenge the Republicans face re-orienting their party.

It has been said before but I very much agree with those who say the worst thing W. Bush may have done for the Republicans was not the Iraq War but the Katrina recovery debacle. The Republicans always have branded the Dems as idealistic and ineffectual. Reagan came in after Carter and got things done for better or worse. W. Bush frittered the competency attribute away for the Republicans (their Congressional scandals exacerbated the problem).

W. Bush whatever your opinion of his substance never came across as someone who rigorously thought through issues, there was a flippancy to his management approach. Obama thus far is about 180 degrees different and reeks of rigor in attacking issues. He may not always be right but he appears to at least be thinking things through I think this matters.

Finally as far as the current Republicans go, the piece speaks of the old-guard's quandry. If they have not been "competent", then perhaps they should move on. Therefore, instead of pushing their competence (which the electorate desires), they are pushing ideology. It is a trap.

From Economist:
"POLITICAL commentators are prone to imagining that their own preferred policies and pet issues are also the keys to political success for the party crafty enough to adopt them. So common is this delusion that it's acquired a name: the Pundit's Fallacy. But as the ongoing civil war on the right reminds us, this particular form of cognitive bias can affect the grassroots as easily as the chattering classes. To the frustration of Republican reformers—and the bemusement of Democratic observers—there seems to be substantial disagreement among Republicans, the base no less than the leadership, about whether the party has a serious image problem requiring drastic measures, or whether, as the Black Knight might say, it's just a flesh wound!

...as ideologues sometimes forget, many voters simply don't conceive electoral politics as a contest between liberal and conservative philosophies of government, but primarily as a choice between individuals who may be personally competent or incompetent, trustworthy or corrupt. Among these voters, Mr Andres suggests, the problem is not (as moderates aver) that the party is seen as too extreme or (as conservatives insist) that Republicans need to more clearly distinguish themselves from Democrats, but that the current set of Republican standard bearers are seen as venal and inept. That's awkward for party leadership if true: An ideological problem can be fixed by moving to the right or the centre as needed; a personnel problem can only be solved by moving out. Which, one imagines, strengthens the incentive for them to conclude there's no problem.

...It became evident over the course of the last presidential campaign that much of the conservative base essentially believed that they were representative of the great mass of voters, albeit more politically engaged or informed. If they were aghast at Barack Obama's tenuous links to Bill Ayers, then the contest was won if only John McCain would press the attack. If they considered a programme that would push America closer to European-style welfare states little better than socialism, then voters merely needed the link to be made clear and they would recoil in horror. Yet these tactics did not prove particularly effective.

...For modern conservatives, the narrative of the liberal media seems to play much the same role. Some months ago, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, your correspondent saw bow-tied wunderkind Tucker Carlson roundly booed for suggesting that if the right wished to wield greater media influence, they should stop focusing primarily on opinion and commentary, and learn something from the New York Times' commitment to rigorous original reporting. The audience was incredulous and aghast. They did not simply think, as Mr Carlson happily allowed, that the Times had a liberal editorial page, and that the presuppositions of its left-leaning reporters might skew coverage in subtle but collectively significant ways. They thought it was Pravda. The basic truth that folks who work in mainstream media tend to be left of center had been made to bear almost the entire weight of Republican defeats.

...greater mobility has greatly increased our propensity to cluster geographically with others who share our political views. This increases the cocoon effect for left as well as right, but liberals are more prone to be clustered in densely-populated urban areas where a fair amount of heterogeneity is evident even if the area is, on average, well to the left of the rest of the country. Second, media fragmentation combined with the narrative about the inauthenticity of the MSM makes it easier to believe that the fellow travelers encountered at conservative sites are the truly representative citizens, while the views aired on CNN reflect only an out-of-touch clique centred in New York, Los Angeles and Washington..."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/05/the_perils_of_unpopular_populi.cfm

Holding My Nose But Plowing Ahead

From Economist:
"...'To the frustration and discouragement of many Democrats, House and Senate lawmakers and aides say it now appears likely that President Obama will this week sign into law a provision allowing visitors to national parks and refuges to carry loaded and concealed weapons...A majority of Democrats in the House and Senate still typically come down on the side of gun control. But the fact that they have been outmaneuvered by Republicans on gun issues is rooted in the fact that recently swollen Democratic ranks include senators and House members who represent Western states and more rural areas where gun ownership is popular and deemed sacrosanct.'

This holds an important lesson for people who pronounce on exceptionalism: the fact that more people wear "D"s on their backs does not necessarily signal a change in fundamental values. It also holds important lessons for Republican reformers: sometimes you have to compromise on one of your core issues (as gun rights surely were to urban liberals not too long ago) if you are to have any chance of winning national power."

TW: Have posted on gun control previously and this angle in particular(see key word tab). When I see Obama signing this kind of legislation part of me wants to puke but then I enjoy having 60 Dem senators and I also enjoy the Republican stridency likely meaning the Dems may have 62 or 63 after the 2010 election. That folks feel like they need to pack a gun while in our national parks befuddles me but if that is the price to paid for electoral supremacy I am willing to pay it.

Shut Up Already

TW: Charlie Cook makes a simple but instructive point. Sometimes as a party you are on the wrong side of the majority on a particular issue with little chance of moving the majority. The Democrats perceived this relative to gun control. Rather than hypocritically changing positions which would be intellectually dishonest and therefore not credible, Dems merely stopped talking about the topic. Now that Dems are in power anti-gun control efforts should slow down or cease but just stopping the Republican efforts to arm everyone to the teeth is progress.

Cook suggests the Republicans would do well to mimic this approach relative to hot-button social issues about which the base Republicans may be passionate but the majority of Americans are not despite the base Republicans hopes and dreams. The ideologues faced with these choices choose to fall on their electoral swords, the pragmatists win and nudge the policy in their preferred directions.

From Charlie Cook:
"...It's easier to say that Republicans need to change than it is to say what they should change. But maybe Republicans should take a page from the Democratic playbook.

It would be unprincipled, intellectually bankrupt and pointless for the Republican Party to move from the right to the left on issues or overall positioning. But, on some issues, maybe they would be best off being silent.

When Democrats lost their House and Senate majorities in 1994, polling for organized labor showed that the top issue for union members voting Republican for Congress was guns, something that had nothing to do with unions.

In 2000, when Al Gore lost West Virginia, Gore's state manager later said that the top three reasons for Gore's defeat there were guns, guns and guns. Guns probably played a factor in not only Gore's loss of his home state of Tennessee but in every state that even touched Tennessee.
It was the presidential loss in 2000, on top of the congressional losses in 1994, that convinced the Democratic Party to simply shut up on guns. As much as many Democratic elected officials wanted to legislate the issue, they realized that they couldn't get re-elected if they kept offending so many union members, white males and rural and small-town voters on the gun issue.

Gun-control advocates had plenty of other reasons to support Democrats, so remaining silent on the issue didn't hurt the party that much. Rather, it enabled it to have a conversation with voters who otherwise would not listen as long as guns were on the table.

Republicans need to think about this in terms of their emphasis on certain social and cultural issues. The GOP has turned away a large number of highly educated, economically upscale voters who would be a natural fit for the party were it not for these divisive subjects.

Republicans have created problems for themselves in the libertarian-leaning Mountain West as well because of their stance on these issues. When westerners say they want government out of their lives, they mean out of the whole house, including the bedroom. Generationally, Republicans are killing themselves with voters who are now under 35, who see the party as narrow and intolerant. As Will Rogers used to say, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/offtotheraces.php

Why the Republicans Should Be Very Nervous

(click on image to enlarge)
TW: These kind of charts are very interesting to me. As you can see, self-identified Dems outnumber their Republican counter-parts across all age groups now, which in itself is a feat. More interesting though is the distribution. The Republicans are strongest in the 35ish to 45ish group, those are the folks of my generation and just after or those who came of age during the Reagan years. The Dems have two bulges, those folks 50ish to 65ish, the boomers/1960's generation but importantly is the second bulge those under 35.

My recollection from other studies is that party identification tends to be like other branding once established it is sticky. Those 30 and-unders may be voting Dem for a long, long time. There will be an opportunity for the Republicans in five to ten years as that the boomer bulge ages and declines in numbers. If the Republicans can somehow become relevant for tomorrows 18 year-olds then they can make progress. But with a person like Obama in the White House (not to mention the cadre of knuckleheads running the Republicans at the moment) that may be a tough goal.

Stripping Hyperbole Away From the Fiscal Debate

TW: Had a minor epiphany relative fiscal policy when reading this piece. If one strips the political hyperbole out of the equation, the debate is fairly simplistic. Toss away talk of fiscal prudence and conservatism, it is BS.

There is a consensus (except amongst certain Hooverite Republicans) amongst many Republicans and most Democrats that fiscal stimulus is necessary in order to mitigate the impact of the demand contraction. Certainly the Republicans favor tax cuts more than the stimulus spending favored by Democrats but neither side has sufficient theoretical standing to assert an all or nothing tax cut or spending approach. The opposing ideologues would push to go all one way or the other but the reality is a hybrid approach is likely the best approach.

In the long-run the U.S. needs to eventually bring its fiscal deficit back to balance no doubt. Timing is everything and the next two or three is not the time. But what happens afterward? Conservatives have a legitimate concern that government spending tends to be sticky once initiated. I would argue tax cuts are similarly sticky as evidenced by the shrieking emanating from conservatives as Obama seeks to restore the tax rates on the wealthy back to Clinton levels. And understand the Friedman philosophy about which many Republicans have an almost religious zeal states very clearly that in order to have the magical economic impacts attributed to tax cuts (e.g. Laffer curve drivel etc.) the tax cuts must be permanent in order to engender the proper incentives.

Putting stickiness aside, the baseline U.S. fiscal deficit is growing without any new spending on new wars, universal health care, green initiatives etc. So when I hear or see a politician pontificating on fiscal policy I would ask the following questions:

1) Do they believe some type of stimulus is needed? If not they are Hooverites, suspect either economic ignorance, political expediency or most likely both.
2) If they do support some stimulus, how do they propose to address the long-term fiscal challenges? Earmark reform does not count (i.e. stalks of grass amidst a meadow full of weeds). As I have said before, one either must increase taxes or cut spending in either social security, health care or defense. There is no way around these options unless one believes in the tooth fairy known as the Laffer curve whereby taxes are cut and magically more revenue appears. If the person is unwilling to define how they would address these options and you do not believe in tooth fairies then consider them BSers or merely a typical political flack.

How does Obama fair on these questions?
Re #1: He is clearing in the pro-stimulus camp using a hybrid, if you buy the need for stimulus all of this hyperventilation from these newly minted fiscal hawks (where were they prior to Obama's inauguration?) should be discounted.

Re#2: He has work to do but his restoration of the Clinton tax levels for the wealthy and the cap and trade policy would generate some revenue. He is making some baby steps on reforming the cost side of health care. He will spend less than a Republican would on defense (except massive hyperbole about throwing American security to the wolves/bears/dragons as soon as he announces some defense program cutbacks). He has yet to address social security. But given all of the fretting about him already biting more than he can chew I will be patient on the latter.

Are the Dems the Corrupt Party Now?

TW: No is the short answer or at least not yet anyway although they are working on it. Corruption follows power almost in perfect correlation. If so, the Dems given their growing power will become increasingly susceptible to corruption and its corrosive effects on maintaining power. Corruption is one of those regulators which help keep any single party from retaining power indefinitely.

Those Dems who claimed righteous immunity as a party relative to corruption, especially of the bribery and/or sex related type, were naive and wrong. However, those Republicans seeking to tar the Dems as the new Republicans, if you will, relative to corruption are jumping the gun. Give us time. Unless, of course, the new POTUS can set a fresh example despite the inevitable forces pulling him and more importantly his people towards the dark side.

From Economist:
"...The image problem that sunk the last Republican congress wasn't the outrageous actions of a few members. The ceiling didn't come down because of..Mark Foley... Voters were convinced that congressional Republicans had become the tools of lobbyists, at best unaccountable and at worst corrupt. Republican bragging about the K Street Project—which drew business lobbyists away from the Democrats—backfired. Illegal donations and deals brought down teams of congressmen and senators. The Jack Abramoff scandal, all by itself, brought down at least ten congressmen and senators who resigned or were defeated.

Republicans need to figure this out before they build a quilt out of the disconnected scandals—Rod Blagojevich (money), William Jefferson (money), Tim Mahoney (sex), Kwame Kilpatrick (sex and money)...

It was the shorter, more widespread House banking scandal that convinced Americans not to trust the Democrats. In 1992, voters learned that 355 former or current members of the House had overdrawn their accounts at the congressional bank. Dozens of congressmen resigned in disgrace, and more were defeated at the polls.

Unless voters are convinced that the party in power is collaborating to game the system, or that it's blowing a major national crisis (as with the 2006 Republicans and the Iraq War), they don't kick it out. Individual scandals don't a "culture of corruption" make."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/12/subculture_of_corruption.cfm

Can the Dems Get To 60 Seats In the Senate

TW: A new poll in Kentucky has me thinking about the Senate races. The Dems have dreams of getting to 60 Senate seats which would allow Senate Dems to achieve cloture and greatly increase their operational control of Congress. Going from the current 51 which includes Lieberman to 60 would require another wave election like 2006. Recall though until the Mark Foley scandal blew up the first week of Oct 2006, the Dems while ascendent were not expected to gain control of the Senate or even necessarily the House. When a "wave" hits, the ascendent party suddenly takes almost all close races plus previously barely competitive races become tos-ups. You can go to Congressional Quarterly or Stu Rothenburg's site to get regular status reports but roughly the Dems situation is as follows:

They will likely not lose any Senate seats, Landrieu in LA is the only vulnerable seat but expected to hold.

Mark Warner is heavily favored for John Warner's open seat in VA
Tom Udall is favored for Pete Domenieci''s open seat in NM
Mark Udall (Tom's cousin) is favored for Wayne Allard's open seat in CO
Jeanne Sheehan leads incumbent John Sununu in NH
Mark Begich leads incumbent Ted Stevens (the crooked one) in AK

Those five would get the Dems to 56. The Dems are in tight races in 3 more to get to 59:
MN with Al Franken v. incumbent Norm Coleman
MS with Roger Musgrave v. incumbent Roger Wicker
NC with Kay Hagan v. incumbent Elizabeth Dole

So the Dems would have to pull a sweep just to get to 59 unless...the wave hit putting another 3 or 4 seats in play
KY with Bruce Hubbard v. incumbent Mitch McConnell
OR with Jeff Merkley v. incumbent Gordon Smith
ME with Tom Allen v. Susan Collins (Smith and Collins are decent Senators just in the wrong party)

"Dave" Palin had really helped the Congressional Republicans by energizing their base but she may no longer be enough. The KY result is only one poll but if legit these races are correlated, if McConnell is truly struggling then several other Republicans will be as well. All the tight races get really interesting for the Dems and those marginally competitive races like KY, OR, and ME become competitive. We still have five weeks though many things can change either way.

From Taegen Goodard:
"A new Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll finds Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in a dead heat with challenger Bruce Lunsford (D), 41% to 41%, among likely voters...McConnell does inch ahead 45% to 44% [if leaners included]. Knocking off McConnell would dramatically help Democrats in reaching 60 seats in the U.S. Senate.

Said Larry Sabato: "If Lunsford is actually doing this well, its got to be because the public is so upset by the economic meltdown and may be blaming the legislative leaders. If this is true, Democrats may win a lot more seats in both the House and the Senate than people are predicting."