Dear Fellow Democrats;
Greetings from The Democratic Strategist.
We are pleased to present the two TDS Strategy White Papers below. It is our hope that they spark some useful and energetic discussion among Democrats.

1. “Planning Ahead for Democratic Victory in 2010 – Setting Initial Goals and Objectives.”
2. “How Democrats Can Keep and Expand the Support of the Younger White Working-Class Voters who Voted for Obama in 2008.“

For some time we have felt that the Democratic community has needed an additional format for the discussion of political strategy, one that is longer than standard newspaper and magazine political commentary, makes direct use of empirical data and proposes specific strategies to accomplish some defined objective.
We see TDS Strategy White Papers as filling that role.
As a result, we are now making a call for proposals for Strategy White Papers. We are looking for Strategy Papers that address the following subjects:

1) Specific political strategies for 2010 and 2012
2) Strategies for strengthening and building upon the new geographic and demographic patterns of support that have emerged from the 2006 and 2008 earthquakes.
3) Analyses of key strategic choices facing the Dems and how they will impact our success in 2010 and 2012.

More detailed editorial requirements are spelled out in the “Write for us” section of the TDS website. Accepted submissions will receive appropriate compensation and substantial electronic distribution.
Please send letters describing proposed strategy papers to editors@thedemocraticstrategist.org, and be sure to include your full contact information.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Bill Galston, Stan Greenberg, Ruy Teixeira

As the New York Times reports today, the states have virtually all certified their November 4 presidential voting totals, and we can begin to make some judgments about turnout.
Overall, 131 million votes were cast, up from 122 million in 2004. As a percentage of eligible voters, turnout was 61.6%, not that much above 2004’s 60.1%, but still the highest turnout percentage since 1968.
It appears that the lack of doubt about the winner of the election, and lack of Republican enthusiasm for John McCain, combined to lower turnout a bit. The turnout-increase champ was NC, where the percentage of eligible voters particupating jumped from 57.8% to 65.8%. Aside from winning the state in the presidential election for the first time since 1976, Democrats also won close senatorial and gubernatorial races in the state, and picked up a House seat.
Early voting rose sharply around the country, with 31% of the electorate casting early or absentee ballots (up from 22% in 2004). Election Day truly ain’t what it used to be.

Media Matters’ Jamison Foser’s has a extremely important piece on the outrageous way in which the media commentary and coverage of the Blagojevich scandal tends to imply – without any evidence – that Barack Obama may have done something wrong. As he says:

“Most telling is the tendency of many journalists to speculate that the Blagojevich scandal may ensnare Obama without acknowledging that the complaint against Blagojevich contained absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama, or that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said, “I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever, his conduct.”
…Even worse than ignoring Fitzgerald’s exculpatory comments, Time actually suggested they are bad news for Obama:
“On more than one occasion during his stunning press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama’s now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians, it’s never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance them from a front-page scandal.”
“Got that? Fitzgerald said there’s no evidence Obama did anything wrong. Bad news for Obama!

Foser then continues:

“…Perhaps the most striking aspect of the media’s attempts to link Obama to the Blagojevich scandal has been the volume of news reports that are purely speculative — and not only speculative, but vaguely speculative. That is, they don’t even consist of conjecture about specific potential wrong doing. They simply consist of completely baseless speculation that Obama might in some way become caught up in the investigation at some point in the future …“Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti set the standard for pointlessly speculative news reports with an “analysis” piece declaring that “President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t even stepped into office and already a scandal is threatening to dog him.” In the very next sentence, Sidoti had to admit that “Obama isn’t accused of anything” — but that didn’t stop her from continuing to offer ominous warnings that Obama could be implicated in the scandal, interspersed with concessions that he, you know … isn’t.”

The major problem is not that the reporters are deliberately promoting Republican talking points. Rather it is that skilled (and, in fact, even utterly mediocre) PR operatives can almost effortlessly manipulate the coverage of a “scandal” by understanding the medias’ three-step process.

1. During the first 24-72 hours of a breaking story reporters and analysts are in a desperate life or death competition to inflate the importance of a “scandal” and make it as big as story as possible. (After all, nobody gets a Pulitzer or a raise for a story titled “XYZ scandal of limited importance”). Conversely, there is no penalty or downside cost to reporters and analysts for engaging in baseless speculation (In fact, if salaries were actually reduced based on the number of a reporter or analysts’ idle speculations that turned out to be groundless, the practice would quickly disappear).
2. Once the “story” is established as “news”, dramatic statements by leading Republicans or simply growing media or internet discussion of the “story” become themselves officially more “News” – justifying another set of headlines and TV teasers saying “back in a moment with new information on this breaking story.”
3. After the “big news” phase has passed, there is no tradition in American journalism or other effective pressure on journalists that will lead them to produce follow-up stories that correct the false impressions generated during the initial frenzy. Think about it. When was the last time you saw a follow-up news story – in the same front page position and the same headline size as the original stories that says, for example, “Obama emerges unscathed from Blagojevich affair – no evidence of personal involvement found”. The media simply do not consider themselves obligated or responsible for producing news stories like this in the aftermath of a media feeding frenzy. Correcting a false impression is not a “big news” story like the original misleading version.

The result of these three factors is a systematic, inherent bias that even the most clumsy partisan PR operatives can manipulate to their advantage.

Read more…

In the wake of the narrow passage of the anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 in California, there was a lot of unhappy talk about African-American Obama voters making the difference. But a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California looks at the results from various optics, and concludes that educational and income levels, and age, were the most important variables in determining the vote.
Indeed, there’s an extraordinarily strong correlation on these factors. Those with a high school education or less favored Prop 8 by a 69-31 margin; those with a college degree opposed it 57-43; and those with some college but no degree supported it 57-43. It’s the same story on income: those earning under $40,000 supported Prop 8 by a 63-37 margin; those earning over $80,000 opposed it 55-45; and those in the middle supported it by the same 52-48 margin as the electorate as a whole. Least surprisingly, voters under the age of 35 opposed Prop 8 by a 57-43 margin; those 55 and older backed it 56-44; and those in-between split evenly.
For some reason, the PPIC report doesn’t provide a breakout for African-Americans (though a variety of experts have disputed the 70% “yes” findings of the exit polls), but it does show Latinos supporting Prop 8 by a 61-39 margin. Evangelical Christians backed the initiative by an astounding 85-15 margin, while Catholics supported it by a less-overwhelming 60-40 margin. The ideological polarization was typical: 17% of self-described liberals voted for Prop 8, while 17% of self-described conservatives voted against it, and moderates split evenly.
One way of interpreting these results is to suggest that “low-information voters” swung the results in response to superior (and also factually misleading) pro-8 ads, or perhaps superior GOTV operations. But in any event, making it all about race, or about the betrayal of one element of the progressive coalition by another, would not appear to be warranted by the facts.

Even as Americans have focused on the transition to the Obama administration, our friends Up North in Canada have been undergoing a political drama with more twists and turns than a fictional potboiler.
When we last looked in on the Canadians in this space ten days ago, a grouping that included the centrist Liberals, the social-democratic New Democratic Party, and the Bloc Quebecois was poised to topple the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper and form a virtually unprecedented coalition government. But Harper played the one card he had, and convinced Governor General Michaelle Jean to grant an adjournment of Parliament until January 26, forestalling a no-confidence vote that would have brought down his government. There’s a wonderfully detailed blow-by-blow account of events up to that point now available at Macleans.
As polls showed a backlash against the coalition maneuver, Liberals decided to accelerate their election (originally scheduled for May) to replace Stephane Dion as party parliamentary leader and putative Prime Minister of the coalition government. Former Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff–reportedly not a huge fan of the coalition–won with relative ease.
It remains anyone’s guess what will happen next month. If the coalition hangs together and forces a no-confidence vote, Jean could let them set up a government, or could order new elections (given the passage of a few more weeks since the last election in October), in which the Conservatives might have a significant advantage. Alternatively, the Liberals, with arguably the most to lose in new elections, could blow up the coalition and bide their time. It will be very interesting in Ottawa on January 26.
The one sure thing is that events have forced the Conservatives to backtrack on many elements of the neo-Hooverist and blatantly partisan economic package that precipitated the whole crisis. They’ve abandoned plans to end public financing of the political parties, and to temporarily ban public sector strikes. And they’re now talking about stimulating the Canadian economy, and maybe even helping the auto industry, instead of digging in their heels and welcoming a deep recession as a healthy opportunity to discipline the private and public sectors.
Perhaps the Tories’ counterparts in the U.S. should pay heed to this rethinking of neo-Hooverism, which may ultimately prove to have saved the day for Harper and his party.

As you probably know, Senate Republicans blocked action on legislation providing a “bridge loan”–or a bailout, if you prefer that term–to the Big Three automakers. Some GOPers claimed to favor an alternative approach; some seemed to welcome the idea of a collapse of the U.S. auto industry; and still others simply cited public opposition to any further bailouts. In reaction, stock markets registered losses worldwide.
It’s unclear at this juncture whether the Bush administration will find a way–perhaps using the earlier bailout funds–to keep the Big Three automakers alive until the next Congress is sworn in. Either way, it’s beginning to become obvious that all the let’s-tough-it-out, anti-bailout, anti-stimulus talk in conservative circles since Election Day could have real consequences, for the GOP and for the country. According to Politico, Vice President Dick Cheney told Senate Republicans at a luncheon meeting yesterday that if the auto plan were rejected, it would be “Herbert Hoover time” in America. We’ll soon know if Republicans are willing to live with the responsibility for making that happen.
For an angry assessment of the Senate GOP’s actions, see John Judis’ piece from The New Republic yesterday.

Nate Silver has an eyebrow-raiser, which makes for an interesting follow-up to J.P.Green’s post yesterday on appointing Republicans to the cabinet so their seats can be filled by Democrats. As Silver explains in his fivethirtyeight.com post, “Appointed Senators Rarely Win Re-Election“:

Over the past 25 Congresses, there have been, by my count, 49 senators who selected by gubernatorial appointment in midterm (this excludes cases where a senator-elect acceded to office a few days early to gain seniority on his colleagues, a once-common courtesy that is becoming less so.) Of those 49 senators, only 19 — fewer than 40 percent — won their subsequent special election. Meanwhile:
* 13 of the 49 (27%) ran for office, but were defeated in the general election;
* 7 of the 49 (14%) ran for office, but were defeated in the primary;
* 10 of the 49 (20%) chose not to seek a permanent term (including one who was prohibited by state law from doing so).
These numbers are far below the usual benchmarks for incumbent senators. Since 1990, about 81% of incumbent senators have sought re-election, and among those have sought it, 88% have won it. By contrast, among the 80% of gubernatorial appointees since 1956 who chose to seek re-election, only 49% survived both the primary and the general election.

Silver provides a well-researched chart covering the 49 appointees, their backgrounds and fate. He also provides some interesting analysis, noting the poor track record of appointments that could be characterized as based more on nepotism and cronyism, than merit and,

By contrast, appointees who had significant recent experience as legislators performed fairly well. In 7 of the 49 cases, the appointee was a sitting member of the House of Representatives; 6 of the 7 won re-election. Seven others were sitting members of their State Legislatures at the time of their appointment; 5 of those 7 won re-election.

He discusses possible reforms, such as a constitutional amendment and some state-enacted reforms you probably didn’t know about, unless you live there:

Alternatively, states can move to solve the problem themselves by passing a “fast” special elections law, as states like Oregon, Wisconsin and Massachusetts now have (and Illinois soon will). Other states have evolved other checks and balances; Utah and Wyoming require that the candidate be selected from among a list prepared by the state party apparatus, while Alaska, Hawaii and Arizona require appointees to be from the same party as the departing senator. Arkansas provides for gubernatorial appointments, but does not allow the appointee to run for re-election.

As Silver concludes, “…More states ought to consider reforms like these. A Senate seat is a [bleeping] valuable thing — too valuable to allow a governor to bypass the voters.”

In the midst of Blagogate, it seems a smidge unseemly to be encouraging deal-making in political appointments. But Democrats are clearly not getting a filibuster-proof majority through the ’08 elections, so perhaps it’s time to turn our attention to other measures to get to 60 Senators. Toward that end, Jonathan Singer’s MyDD post “Make Olympia Snowe Cabinet-Level SBA Chief,” and the comments following his post explore ensuing ramifications, should Snowe accept a cabinet post, and Maine’s Democratic Governor John Baldacci appoint Snowe’s Democratic replacement.
Singer riffs on a post in Politico‘s The Crypt, noting Snowe’s advocacy of making the Small Business Administration a cabinet-level post, as it was during the Clinton Administration. The idea is to do so, and make her the Secretary. It’s unclear whether she would be interested, but it’s certainly worth a try
It seems like a fairly plausible scenario. Snowe has been a Senator since 1994. She always shows up atop the list of liberal Republicans. She is hugely popular in her state and influential in the Senate as a swing vote on progressive legislative reforms. She is consistently rated one of the better U.S. Senators.
There has been talk over the years of Snowe switching parties, but it just hasn’t happened. Perhaps it has been an unappealing prospect, with the Democrats’ tendency to form circular firing squads during many of her 14 years in the Senate. True, she will have additional leverage in the new Senate. Now, however, she has to look at her career ahead in light of a strong possibility that she may never be in a Republican majority again, which means no committee chairmanships. She can continue as a swing voter, deciding the fate of bills here and there, but with dimmer prospects for sponsoring and enacting major legislation, especially given her party’s knee-jerk obstruction of meaningful reforms. You couldn’t blame her for thinking it’s time for a change. Possible solutions might include switching parties or accepting an appointment in the Obama Administration.
Other “liberal” Senate Republicans in states with Democratic governors, like Collins (ME) and Voinovich (OH) could also be approached. Specter (PA) is occasionally mentioned as a switch-or-cabinet worthy Rino. If they can’t be enticed by the remaining cabinet-level positions, perhaps committee chairmanships as Democrats, where possible, would have some appeal. If we could get one or two Republicans to cross over, it could make a great difference for the better in enacting a progressive agenda, although even if they don’t switch and just vote with Dems, it will help a great deal. No doubt Sens. Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer have thought about it, and perhaps under-the-radar overtures have been made.
Most of the high-level Party-switching in recent decades has been in the wrong direction, from the Democratic point of view. (Wikipedia has a fascinating chronology on the topic). But the pendulum has swung to the left now, and it is time for Democrats to take more vigorous advantage, recruiting Republicans who are tiring of their party’s shrinking tent. Granted, the list of acceptable Republicans for Obama’s cabinet-level posts is a short one, as is the list of remaining positions that have appeal for political horse-trading. They include the Departments of Labor, Interior, Education and Transportation, CIA Director, Director of National Intelligence. Call it a long shot, but maybe it would be good if a Senate Republican who fills the bill is approached before all the positions are gone.