Yesterday we published a post by James Vega predicting that conservatives are beginning a “stab in the back” propaganda effort aimed at arguing that Democrats threaten to squander an ongoing military victory in Iraq, partly by using lots of action verbs attributing every positive development in the country to the force of arms.
As commenter Joe Corso pointed out, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer abundantly confirmed Vega’s prediction this very morning, with a piece that described a long series of events in Iraq as part of an invincible surge-related campaign.
Interestingly enough, Krauthammer’s heroic spin was ostensibly aimed at convincing John McCain to make the victory-or-disgrace argument on Iraq the very centerpiece of his entire general-election campaign.
Let’s hope McCain is listening.

One of the fascinating aspects of the upcoming presidential general election is that it will offer highly contrasting organizational models. Chris Bowers of OpenLeft nicely describes the Obama campaign’s M.O.:

The Obama campaign is clearly obsessed with maintaining a tight, top-down organizational and message structure. So far, as TPM Election central notes, the Obama campaign has been “famously devoid of (publicly visible) infighting and/or leaking.” Last month, they put the clamps on progressive 527’s, and now they are taking over the DNC. Virtually the entire general election messaging will run through the senior leadership of the Obama campaign, and no one else. This makes the Obama campaign something of a living paradox, as it sports the largest grassroots corps in electoral history, combined with the tightest top-down message structure in recent Democratic presidential election history.

Meanwhile, John McCain’s campaign has yet to show any signs of grassroots energy, and its own organizational structure is regional, not national. Furthermore, McCain will have to rely on the RNC and 527s for a significant portion of its message-delivery function.
It’s part of the CW of the 2004 campaign that Bush’s ability to centrally control his message, and distribute it via a sophisticated grassroots network, gave him a big advantage over John Kerry. This may also represent a largely hidden but important advantage for Obama.

In the last few days editorials in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have started laying the foundations for a new two-pronged propaganda campaign – one that will serve to support McCain’s candidacy during the campaign season and then seamlessly convert into a “the perfidious Democrats stabbed our troops in the back” campaign in the event Obama wins the election and troops begin to be withdrawn.
The key to this new campaign is the assertion that the Sunni and Sadrist “insurgents” in Iraq are actually now on the very verge of collapse – shattered, demoralized and reeling from recent setbacks in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul. It is therefore only if the weak-kneed Democrats start withdrawing troops that the insurgents can possibly win.
Now anyone who has carefully read the articles about events in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul in the New York Times, Washington Post and major wire services is well aware of three facts:
1. The insurgent pullbacks in all three of these cities were carefully negotiated withdrawals with the entering government troops obeying mutually agreed-upon conditions (in Sadr City, for example, one element of the agreement was that US troops would not be part of the entering forces) In Mosul, the Times reported that “the Iraqi military appears to have allowed many insurgents to slip out after scores of negotiations with militias and their leaders.”
2. While preceded by periods of serious combat, the actual withdrawals or negotiated surrender/amnesties did not involve significant casualties for the insurgents or the unplanned abandonment of weapons, ammunition, supplies or materials.
3. The press reports gave no indication that the withdrawals were accompanied by any widespread demoralization, panic or breakdown of discipline among the insurgent forces.
(This last item may seem surprising to Americans because our military culture almost automatically identifies retreat or withdrawal with humiliation and failure while heroism is identified with standing fast (e.g. “not one step backward,” “fight to the last man” etc.). Arab-Persian martial culture is different, however, with withdrawal often envisioned as a specific kind of military operation that includes feigned retreats and false surrenders. The most famous historical example of this style of battle was the Parthian archers who would feign retreat and then decimate the pursuing cavalry by twisting around and firing arrows while their horses still raced ahead. Similar tactics of feigned retreat and false surrender were also a significant element in the reputation Arab and Persian generals gained during the Middle Ages of being uniquely “cunning” and “devious” compared to their more “upright” and “chivalrous” European opponents)
In short, while the insurgents’ loss of their bases in the three cities represented a significant setback, there is absolutely no reason to take seriously the idea that the events in Basra, Sadr City or Mosul have pushed them to the literal verge of collapse.
Now let us look at the exact words the Wall Street Journal and New York Post editorials used to characterize the events:
The New York Post, “Eat Crow, Iraq War Skeptics,” June 9, 2008
The Iraqi army “forcefully reoccupied” the three cities.
The Iraqi army “compelled insurgent militias to lay down their arms.”
The Wall Street Journal, “Iraq and the Election,” June 6, 2008
The Iraqi army “routed insurgents in three of their most important urban strongholds.”
Basra was “liberated from Sadrist goon squads.”
The Sadr City truce “had all the hallmarks of de-facto surrender.”
In Mosul, “the remaining terrorists were forced to scatter to the countryside or flee for Syria”
All these phrases – “forcefully reoccupied,” “routed,” “forced to lay down their arms,” “surrender,” “scatter,” and “flee” are extremely misleading as descriptions of what actually occurred during the negotiated withdrawals from the three cities and give ordinary Americans an utterly false visual image – an image of broken, panic-stricken and demoralized insurgents dropping their weapons and fleeing in terror.
This exaggerated image is of course vital for the Stab in the Back narrative to seem plausible. The enemy has to be on its “last legs” and “certain to fall if we can just stay firm a tiny little bit longer.” If, on the other hand, the Sadrists and Sunni insurgents are more accurately described as “playing possum,” “keeping their power dry,” “biding their time,” or “waiting for the right moment,” then the events of this spring appear more like a positive but not decisive trend in a long war of attrition with no end necessarily in sight. In this case, the Stab in the Back narrative falls apart.
What should the Dems do?
First, they should directly challenge the distorted view of events which underlies the “stab in the back” narrative whenever it is presented so that it does not become unconsciously accepted on the basis that “I’ve heard it so often that I guess it must be true.” Independent media watchdog groups as well as specifically Democratic sources should consistently quote articles from the major papers and wire services showing that the picture of “insurgents on the verge of total and complete collapse” is simply not supported by the facts to date.
Second, when the Republicans do roll out the “stab in the back” argument – as they inevitably will – the Democrats answer should be categorical.
Neither the Sadrist nor Sunni insurgencies were decisively shattered or broken by the events in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul and it is a genuinely shameful betrayal of the incredible sacrifice of our brave and dedicated men and women in uniform – and their families back home — for writers and commentators – for whatever partisan political motive — to deliberately sugarcoat that reality and distort the facts about how difficult the real conditions are that our soldiers are facing in Iraq and what it will actually take to pacify the county . Our men and women in uniform deserve better.
Before writers and commentators make vile assertions about Democrats stabbing our troops – our brave and dedicated troops and their families — in the back on the basis of misleading characterizations of the actual military situation in Iraq, they should look at themselves in the mirror.
And they should be ashamed.
James Vega is a strategic marketing consultant whose clients include leading nonprofit institutions and high-tech firms.

Editor’s Note: We are proud to publish today an original article by two noted academic experts on the highly relevant topic of Hispanic voters in 2008. The authors are R. Michael Alvarez, a professor of political science at Caltech in Pasadena, and Jonathan Nagler, a professor of politics in the Wilf Family Department of Politics at NYU. Together they have studied voting behavior in recent presidential elections, and have written a number of papers on Hispanic political behavior. In 2004 they were involved in Hispanic research for the Kerry campaign, and have worked on a number of Hispanic research projects in association with Greenberg, Quinlan and Rosner Research.
We also anticipate recieving and publishing some comments and rejoinders from other experts in this field over the next couple of weeks, and intend to continue this discussion until election day and beyond.
Winning the Hispanic Vote in 2008
by R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler
Introduction
Historically, Democratic presidential candidates have done quite well with Hispanic voters (with some exceptions, such as Cuban-Americans). For the past three decades, Democratic presidential candidates have typically received more than 60% of the votes cast by Hispanics.
But in the 2004 presidential election, Hispanic support for John Kerry was lower than the historic norm. While there has been much debate over the exact percentage of support that Kerry received from Hispanic voters in 2004, a consensus has emerged that at best Kerry might have received 60% of the Hispanic vote. But no matter what we think the exact percentage was, Hispanic voters were attracted to Bush in greater percentages in 2004 than to any previous Republican presidential candidate in recent history (See David L. Leal, Matt A. Barreto, Jongho Lee, and Rodolfo O. de la Garza, “The Latino Vote in the 2004 Election”. PS: Political Science and Politics, v. 38, 41-49, 2005; Marisa A. Abrajano, R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler, “The Hispanic Vote in the 2004 Presidential Election: Insecurity and Moral Concerns”, Journal of Politics, forthcoming (April, 2008); David L. Leal, Stephen A. Nuno, Jongho Lee, and Rodolfo O. de la Garza, “Latinos, Immigration, and the 2006 Midterm Elections.” PS: Political Science and Politics, v. 41, 309-317, 2008.).
There are two questions that Kerry’s performance with Hispanic voters in the 2004 presidential election raises. One question is why — what was it about the context of the 2004 presidential election, and the messages articulated by Kerry and Bush, that caused more Hispanics to support Bush than is normal for a Republican presidential candidate? The second question is what does this imply for the 2008 presidential election — what strategies should the Barak Obama, the presumptive Democrat nominee, pursue to insure a stronger performance among Hispanic voters in November 2008?
In this article we provide answers for both of these questions.
What Happened in 2004?
The Kerry campaign appeared to treat the Hispanic vote seriously in the 2004 election. Just prior to the Democratic National Convention in late July 2004, the Kerry campaign announced an unprecedented financial investment aimed at targeting Hispanic and African-American voters. At that point in the 2004 campaign, the stage seemed to be set for Kerry to devise a strong appeal to Hispanic voters.
But that appeal failed to take into consideration the potential Republican election strategy, as well as the particular context of the 2004 presidential race. In research we have done with Marisa A. Abrajano (The Journal of Politics, 2008), we found that despite their concerns about the national economy and the war in Iraq, Hispanic voters were attracted to Bush because of two appeals: first, his stance on moral values; and second, his national security message.
In our paper, “The Hispanic Vote in the 2004 Presidential Election: Insecurity and Moral Concerns”, we used exit poll data from most of the states with large Hispanic electorates to develop a statistical model to determine the issues that motivated Hispanic voters to support Kerry or Bush (We used respondents from Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and New Jersey. These were the states where the Hispanic population was at least 6% of the state population, and where the necessary questions were asked on the Exit Poll. In Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Texas respondents were not asked what they felt the most important issue was.)
We then used our model to examine support for Kerry or Bush in two different hypothetical scenarios. In the first scenario we simulated one aspect of campaign strategy: what if Kerry had been successful in completely neutralizing particular issues, that is – convincing all Hispanic voters that the issue was not important? In the second scenario we considered what would have happened if instead of completely neutralizing issues, one of the candidates had persuaded all Hispanic voters that a particular issue was the most important issue of the election to them? So for example, in scenario one, what if Kerry had successfully persuaded all Hispanic voters that moral values were not a concern, or that national security issues were not a concern? Or, for scenario two, what if Kerry had convinced all Hispanic voters that education was the most important concern for the election, or that health care was the most important concern for the election?
This analysis revealed that had Kerry managed to neutralize select issues, two issues would have been powerful in moving Hispanic votes into his column: terrorism and moral values. Our statistical model predicts that if had Kerry completely neutralized the moral values issue, his vote share among Hispanics in the states we analyze would have increased 2.2 percentage points, from 60% to 62.2%; had he done the same with terrorism, his vote share among Hispanics would have increased 2.7 percentage points, from 60% to 62.7%. As Kerry lost the popular vote by less than 2.5 percentage points, obviously these are meaningful swings in the vote.
Compared to moral values and terrorism, traditional Democratic issues such as education and health care played relatively little role in 2004. Performing similar counterfactual analyses to those we describe above, our model predicted that had no Hispanic voters felt that education or health care was the most important issue, then Kerry’s vote share would have dropped by only 0.5 percentage points and 0.6 percentage points respectively (from 60.0% to 59.5% and 59.4%, respectively).
This does not bode well for a Democratic candidate: the alternative way to frame this is that Kerry only convinced enough Hispanic voters to believe that education or health care were the most important issues in the campaign to raise his vote share less than one percentage point compared to an electorate where no Hispanics thought either of these were the most important issue. Yet these are issues that Hispanics have traditionally claimed were
important. This suggests Kerry was simply not winning enough votes in an issue area that has traditionally favored Democrats. Our model predicts that if Kerry had done well in this area and convinced all Hispanic voters that education or health care was the most important issue, then his vote share would have risen by 5.3 or 11.6 percentage points, respectively. Obviously convincing all Hispanic voters that either of these was the most
important issue was not feasible. But in the states we examined, only 8.4% of Hispanics listed education as the most important issue, and only 6.8% of Hispanics listed health care as the most important issue. These percentages are well below the percentages of Hispanics who have listed these as major concerns in polling conducted prior to the election contest.
What Does This Mean For 2008?
Clearly, much has changed since the 2004 presidential election. The second Bush term, the 2006 Democratic successes in the midterm elections, the continued war in Iraq, turmoil in the housing market, rising prices, and signs of economic recession all will help to shape the context of the 2008 general election. And since 2004 the issue of illegal immigration has also risen in national concern; recent surveys of Hispanic voters show immigration and in particular efforts to deal with illegal immigration to be an important concern. Recent polling has shown the immigration issue to be an important one for other voters as well, especially white voters across the nation.
Given the prominence of the immigration issue, especially for Hispanics, and the failure of federal efforts to devise legislative solutions to help resolve the problem of illegal immigration, many have argued that the immigration issue might be one that the Obama and the Democratic Party could use to their advantage in the 2008 presidential race. But now that the context of the presidential race is becoming clearer, it is no longer the case that the immigration issue will necessarily be important in the 2008 general election, nor an issue that the Obama can easily use to win Hispanic votes. There is one reason for this — the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain.
McCain has in the past has backed comprehensive immigration reform, most recently in the Senate bill he cosponsored with Ted Kennedy that would have, among other reforms, created an “essential worker visa program.” While risking the possibility that he will anger the more conservative elements in the Republican party that desire strong action on immigration (such as building a wall along the US-Mexican border, etc), McCain’s past stance on immigration will make it difficult for Obama to easily draw clear distinctions on this issue, and may effectively reduce the prominence of the immigration issue in the general election.
If that happens, we believe that McCain will draw directly from the 2004 Republican playbook when it comes to the Hispanic electorate. He is likely to turn again to national security (an issue where his background as a Vietnam veteran, his support for the surge in Iraq, and his legislative career in Congress give him strong credibility) and moral values as issues in his messaging to Hispanic voters. As in the 2004 election, we believe that this may again erode Hispanic support for Obama. But there are ways in which the Democrats can develop messages that can mitigate, if not eliminate, the potential threat which moral values and national security issues may pose in November 2008.
Consider the current context: continued fallout from the sub-prime mortgage crisis; plummeting housing values, soaring numbers of foreclosures, and a lack of credit for purchasing homes. Basic costs of living for food and especially gasoline are rising dramatically, with $4 per gallon gas common across the country. We have clear signs of an ongoing economic slowdown, if not recession. Consumer confidence is sagging. Many families, including many Hispanic families, cannot afford adequate health care, and in many instances have no health care coverage at all. The American casualty count in Iraq has passed 4,000, and there are no signs that the Iraq War will end soon.
Data from Hispanics who participated in the recent Super Tuesday primaries, as compiled by the Pew Hispanic Center, shows that this basic trilogy of issues are of importance to Hispanic Democratic voters: the economy (53%), the war in Iraq (24%), and health care (21%). Importantly, both white and African-American Democratic voters on Super Tuesday perceived these same three to be of importance, in the same relative order; the economy, the Iraq War, and health care.
Thus, there is a basic narrative that Democrats can – and must – develop in order to have a strong Hispanic strategy in 2008. That narrative needs to focus on the core strengths that the Democratic candidate will bring to the table: a progressive message that articulates how the federal government will bring the nation economic growth, how it will provide affordable housing and credit to middle and lower income families, how it will deal with skyrocketing costs for food and energy, how it will make health care available and affordable, how it will make quality education a priority, how it can bring high-quality jobs to all those who want them, and how they will end the war in Iraq.
We think that for Democrats to retake the White House in 2008, they must work to get strong Hispanic support — and keep Republican Hispanic support at or below the 35% threshold. Doing this will not be easy, but will require that the Democrats take advantage of the constellation of domestic issues that work so strongly in their favor with Hispanic voters: the economy, education and health care.

It’s officially “Veep Week” over at The New Republic, and today Michael Crowley offers arguments in favor of former GA Sen. Sam Nunn as Obama’s running-mate.
As I’ve noted before, I worked in the Senate for Sam Nunn back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and did some speechwriting for him after that. I truly revere the man, as much for what he has done after leaving the Senate (his often-lonely crusade to deal with nuclear proliferation and everything related to the threat of nuclear terrorism or accidental nuclear war) as for what he did in the Senate for 24 years. But having been out of touch with him for some time, I also have no idea if Nunn is interested in running for vice president (he’s been in a grand total of one competitive political race, and that was in 1972), and have a healthy appreciation for the reasons other Democrats don’t like the idea.
Crowley’s argument for Nunn stresses his national security street cred (made more acceptable to many antiwar Dems because of Nunn’s outspoken opposition to the First Gulf War and his statements deploring the current Iraq war as a strategic disaster); his ability to reinforce Obama’s recently vulnerable claims to bipartianship; and his reassuring, “fatherly” personal image. He also acknowledges that strong antipathy to Nunn among gays and lesbians, thanks to his leading role in the 1993 Gays In the Military saga, could all but disqualify him from the ticket. (Nunn has recently indicated that it’s time to reconsider “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I have reason to believe from watching him deal respectfully and supportively with gay staffers that he’s not a homophobe, but what’s done is done).
I actually think Crowley may have understated Nunn’s potential value to Obama, either as a running-mate or as a prominent surrogote, on national security. Think about this: underlying all of the Bush-Cheney administration’s arguments for its version of the War on Terror, including the Iraq War, the sweeping rejection of civil liberties, and the imperial view of presidential powers, has been the claim that the threat of nuclear terrorism makes this a unique period of U.S. history. Dick Cheney can hardly utter three sentences without mentioning the subject.
Sam Nunn has the unique credibility to demonstrate the fraudulent nature of these arguments, which conceal a dreadful negligence towards the actual threat of nuclear terrorism. Before and even after 9/11, the administration sought to dramatically reduce funding for the Nunn-Lugar initiative aimed at dealing with nuclear security in the former Soviet Bloc (forcing Nunn, eventually, to seek private funding to deal with the subject himself), and it took years for Bush to make nuclear security an issue in bilateral talks with Russia.
Moreover, and for the same reason, Nunn would be very useful in getting under John McCain’s thin skin on the security implications of the GOP candidate’s apparent determination to launch a new Cold War with Russia. And best I can tell, Nunn is in general accord with Barack Obama’s overall national security vision, which has gotten scarce attention in the news media. That’s probably why Nunn, surprising a lot of people, endorsed Obama for president back in April, a highly unusual step for a cautious politician who had last made political news at the beginning of the year by backing the idea of a third-party “Unity” ticket.
Crowley goes on to make an effort to turn one of Nunn’s supposed handicaps–he’s boring–into a strength, as a “fatherly” counterpoint to the youthful excitement generated by Obama. While I agree Nunn would be reassuring, particularly to older voters, to what’s left of conservative Democrats, and most of all to the Senior Punditocracy, whose members typically think Nunn walks on water–I actually don’t buy the premise. Nunn’s reputation as “boring” is largely the product of the fact that he’s gotten virtually no attention for anything he’s said and done on subjects other than the inherently “boring” if essential nuts and bolts of defense policy. He and I once conspired to conduct a test case, by crafting a speech to the Atlanta Press Club that said not a word about defense issues. He even told the room full of reporters what he was doing, and challenged them to write about his views on non-defense issues. Not a single story was filed. He was supposed to stay “boring.”
Sam Nunn actually has a wicked sense of humor. He once observed, in one of those back-handed compliments we all learned to expect, that “it takes a lot of boring staff to make a boring Senator.” On another occasion, in 1990, he introduced Bill Clinton at an event as “the first politician in history to become a bright, young rising star in three different decades.” (Clinton responded by saying: “Next time you hear Sam Nunn described as a dour, humorless man, tell them you heard him eat my lunch here today.”). And even though he never had a serious political challenge in Georgia, he was always just as comfortable working the room at a Shoney’s or a Waffle House as he was operating in the Senate cloakroom.
Crowley doesn’t much mine Nunn’s background as a very successful politician, but he does plausibly suggest that Nunn could help Obama put Georgia’s 15 electoral votes in play, in part because the McCain-sapping ballot presence of former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, supplemented by the anticipated high African-American turnout rates, will make the state much closer than in the recent past. And although few Americans under the age of 45 would know Sam Nunn from a lamp-post, that’s not true in Georgia, where he’s perceived, if somewhat dimly these days, as some sort of political deity.
Having said all this about Nunn “shortcomings” that may well be smaller than people think, the real question is whether he wants the gig, and whether Barack Obama thinks his value is enough to offset the very genuine anger at Nunn among gays and lesbians–similar, in many respects, to the feminist hostility to Jim Webb–and the other “base” concerns that would emerge after a close scrutiny of his Senate voting record on a number of domestic issues.
But if nothing else, the serious discussion of Sam Nunn As Veep may illustrate the extent to which he could serve as a significant campaign surrogate, and next year, perhaps as a key member of the Obama administration, where being effective but boring won’t be much of a handicap.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist
UPDATE 2: Another source of affinity, given Obama’s highly communitarian rhetoric and ethic of service, is Nunn’s history as perhaps his generation’s most avid congressional supporter of voluntary national service. Back in the Bush 41 administration, Nunn represented the radical wing of congressional sentiment on the scope of a national service inititative (radical in the sense of scale, not meaning support for mandatory service), contributing a great deal to the eventual Clinton AmeriCorps initiative. It’s really personal with Nunn: his wonderful daughter, Michelle Nunn (who mulled over a 2004 Senate race in Georgia before withdrawing, mainly because she had a very young child) is a long-time service professional who is currently CEO of the Points of Light Foundation.

In some Democratic circles the notion is quickly dismissed. But Obama’s expected nomination opens up the possibility that ’08 could be the year that Democrats secure some beachheads in the south, the region most African Americans call home. For an update on Democratic prospects in the south, check out Louis Jacobson’s largely skeptical Stateline.org post “Will Obama have coattails in the South?” (flagged by Facing South‘s Chris Kromm). Among Jacobson’s more encouraging observations:

On a statewide level, the biggest down-ballot impact for Democrats will likely come in the close race for North Carolina open-seat governorship, which pits Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) and Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (R). Even before the presidential primaries began, incumbent Democrats seemed to be well-positioned to retain several other statewide posts in the Tarheel State, including attorney general and secretary of state.
…When North Carolina Democratic chairman Jerry Meek endorsed Sen. Obama the day after the North Carolina primary, he said, “I cited my belief that he would have a substantial down-ballot effect. It will be strongest in statewide races, and all of those are intensely competitive.”
Only three of every four people who voted for president in North Carolina’s Democratic primary also voted in lower contests, such as the labor commissioner race. Still, the total Democratic turnout was three times as high as the Republican turnout, so one can expect that many of the new voters will have an impact in the fall as well, said John Davis, president of the North Carolina Forum for Research and Economic Education, a business and political research group. “Obama’s impact down-ballot will be huge for Democrats, if he is able to sustain his momentum,” Davis said.

On the Senate:

Two U.S. Senate seats — those held by Republicans Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina — are far more threatened by former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove (D) and North Carolina state Sen. Kay Hagan (D) than had been predicted just a few months ago. And endangered U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) may find an energized black base her only way to win a third term given the state’s population loss following Hurricane Katrina.

Jacobson has a lot to say about possible conservative backlash, that Obama will actually increase the GOP vote. That’s a question mark, based on the debatable assumption that previously apolitical reactionaries will turn out to vote against Obama. What appears to be a sure bet, on the other hand, is a record-level Black turnout in the South — a major asset for down ballot Dems.

There’s been so much going on during the last week on the presidential election front that it’s obscured some good news on the congressional front.
The latest Democracy Corps “battleground survey” of congressional districts focuses strictly on 45 Republican-held House seats. It showed that Democrats continue to have, and have actually expanded, their advantage in these districts where “Bush won by 12 points in 2004 and Republican members won by the same margin in 2006.” This leads the DCorps team to suggest that 2008 could represent rare back-to-back “wave elections” wherein Democrats significantly expand the House majority they won in 2006.
Meanwhile, the nonpartisan and very cautious Cook Political Report, which has been predicting Democratic House gains of 10-20 seats for a while, has just changed its authoritative House ratings to move ten Republican-held districts into more vulnerable categories.
Paul Rosenberg at OpenLeft has a very detailed summary of all the recent polling evidence on the congressional races, but the trends are pretty clear.
It’s looking good, and any lingering idea that down-ballot Democrats have to distance themselves from the national ticket to survive should be forgotten. This is a year when being a loud, proud Democrat is definitely a positive.

Last night I listened with dismay to a panel of TV pundits as they pummeled Barack Obama for “letting himself” get drawn into a debate with John McCain over Iraq policy. “It’s the economy, stupid!” they chortled, as though the phrase represented some sort an enduring truth rather than an ephemeral (and actually misleading) bit of Carvellian legend from the 1992 Clinton campaign. One pundit seemed beside herself with frustration that Obama didn’t just “wrap himself around a gas pump” and make gas prices the centerpiece of his general election campaign.
To the extent that John McCain is trying to make the general election almost excusively “about” national security, for Obama to take this sage advice essentially would mean conceding that cluster of issues to the Republican. It would also mean discounting Obama’s advantage on Iraq policy, and reduce his credibility as a potential president ready to grapple with all the country’s challenges.
That’s why I was happy to read E.J. Dionne’s column this morning, which reminded Democrats of the electoral consequences of succumbing to their ancient habit of changing the subject from national security to domestic issues. He did so in the context of an argument for Joe Biden as Veep (another thing entirely), but the bigger issue is how Obama himself frames his campaign message and agenda, with or without help from any particular running-mate.
The idea that Clinton’s 1992 campaign provides the template for 2008 doesn’t make a lot of sense to begin with. The 1990s were a historical anomaly in that international issues in general were virtually occluded, thanks to the end of the Cold War and a brief period of unquestioned U.S. global hegemony. And besides, if there is any one crucial lesson of the Clinton 1992 and 1996 victories, it’s that Democrats need not concede large areas of public policy (e.g., crime, welfare, fiscal discipline, government reform) to the opposition. There are distinctly progressive approaches to “Republic issues” that can blunt or even reverse long-standing GOP advantages and make “Democratic issues” even more salient. That’s true of national security as well (cf. James Vega’s TDS series on progressive messaging and military strategy).
There’s no significant risk that Barack Obama will fail to spend a lot of time talking about the economy in the general election campaign. But he also has a compelling case to make for a progressive foreign policy and national security posture, beyond opposition to the war in Iraq, and if only because voters continue to exhibit doubts about the Democratic Party on these issues, he needs to make it.
A word to political pundits: It really is time, folks, to retire the “It’s the Economy, Stupid!” line. It wasn’t entirely true even in 1992, and endlessly intoning it with dripping contempt for a more comprehensive message is, well, kind of stupid.

One of the hoary talking points Republicans will pull out in the general election campaign is that Democrats are for larger government, and the GOP is for smaller government. This won’t be as easy a sell as in past elections, given the massive expansion of federal spending during the Bush-Cheney administration, not to mention Republican support for highly instrusive government limitations on civil liberties.
But Democrats will need to make the case that stronger government is truly necessary if we are to reverse the extraordinary income inequality of recent years, and the rapid erosion of the middle class, and of economic security for all but a fortunate few. That’s the argument made in detail by TDS Co-Editor Bill Galston in the latest issue of The American Prospect.
Galston’s determination to champion a stronger public sector role in national economic life should draw some attention, given his important role as a domestic policy advisor to Bill Clinton at the time when Clinton was claiming that “the era of big government is over.” This is, he argues, a very different era:

From today’s vantage point…the 1990s appear to have been the proverbial calm before the storm. Although the Bush administration’s misguided fiscal and foreign policies have worsened our plight, our problems are structural and long-term, and no simple return to the status-quo ante will resolve them. Most analysts and policy-makers underestimated the impact of huge numbers of new workers in China, India, and the former Soviet Union entering the global market system. International economic forces are limiting wages for most U.S. workers, increasing income inequality, and heightening pressure on the World War II–era system of benefits provided through the private sector. In these circumstances, average families have resorted to record levels of borrowing to maintain purchasing power, driving the savings rate into negative territory for the first time on record and raising personal consumption to an unsustainable 70 percent of GDP. The Bush administration has squandered the resources it could have used to ease the reform of the large entitlement programs. And the back-loaded costs of deregulation are now clear: among them, an epidemic of corporate misconduct and crisis in credit markets, here and abroad.

Galston examines a variety of negative trends for middle-class families, but simple compensation provides the most alarming picture:

Recent work by MIT economists Frank Levy and Peter Temin shows that a wedge has been driven between productivity gains and compensation (wages plus health care and fringe benefits) for full-time workers at peak earning age. Since 1980, productivity has increased by 71 percent while median compensation rose by only 19 percent, and 82 percent of personal income gains went to the top 1 percent of the population.

Stronger government efforts to create a “21st century social contract” will inevitably require an expansion of the public sector, and perhaps, given the fiscal climate and the need to sustain economic growth. That’s why Galston continues to believe that government policies must be reformed, including, perhaps, limitations on publicly financed health care benefits, if costs cannot be contained otherwise. But the alternative to stronger government is a big government that doesn’t accomplish much of anything in terms of providing equal opportunity or economic security. And that’s the path we are on under Republican governance.