As noted the other day, the British party leaders (PM Gordon Brown for Labour, David Cameron for the Conservatives, and Nick Clegg for the LibDems) has their first-ever televised debate yesterday, and it was a pretty good show. I was asked to write up a reaction for Newsweek.com, and here’s the link.
As you can read there, I thought they did a pretty good job for beginners at this sort of thing. The bottom line politically is that Nick Clegg was the runaway “leader,” which is particularly bad news for Cameron’s Tories, who are desperately trying to boost their vote above 40% or so to win a parliamentary majority, and need every “change” vote they can get.

Having been repulsed rather decisively in their efforts to get Democrats to oppose health reform, pollster Doug Schoen and all-purpose svengali Pat Caddell return to the op-ed pages of the Washington Post with even worse advice for Democrats, if that’s possible.
You can trudge through their pastiche of Rasmussen poll findings about the terrible political shape of the Democratic Party, if you have the stomach for that. I don’t think any Democrats are laboring under the misimpressin that everything’s fine right now, and I really don’t see the point of Schoen and Caddell’s triumphant conclusion that Obama and Democrats got no big bounce out of enacting health reform; nobody’s claiming they did.
But it’s the strategic path they lay out for Democrats that’s really astounding. They think Dems should shift to an “agenda aimed at reducing the debt, with an emphasis on tax cuts.” Aside from not explaining how, exactly, that differs from the approach of the Republican Party, Schoen and Caddell suggest this vast shift to the right in order to–get a load of this–win over the “swing voters” of the Tea Party movement. They base the swing voter attribution on an out-of-context finding by the Winston Group that 28% of tea partiers call themselves independents and 13% call themselves Democrats. That means, of course, that 57% self-identify as Republicans (compared to less than a third of the general public), and two-thirds self-identify as conservatives. But none of this self-identification data matters nearly as much as the actual views of the tea partiers, which, as was demonstrated once again by yesterday’s very detailed NYT/CBS survey, place them in the conservative base of the Republican Party.
These “swing voters,” by over 90%, dislike anything and everything about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Their only unhappiness with the GOP is that it isn’t always conservative enough to suit them. They are predominately faithful Fox viewers. They exhibit considerable nostalgia for George W. Bush, and almost unanimously absolve him of any responsibility for either the economy or budget deficits. There is no “agenda” that can bring them around to supporting Obama or his party short of total surrender to the GOP, or in effect a reversal of the last general election, which, believe it or not, has as much authority as a single special election in Massachusetts or this week’s Rasmussen polls.
Democrats don’t need to hate or fear the tea partiers; they reflect a strain in the population, and particularly in the GOP, that’s always been there (a majority of them, after all, are over 45) , and that’s been radicalized by various events of the last couple of years. But lusting after them as “swing voters” would be the height of folly.
Schoen and Caddell need to give it a rest, lest Democrats begin to wonder why they don’t just go ahead and join the party that’s already committed to the spending cut/tax cut agenda they consider the ticket to political paradise.

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
The new journal National Affairs is attempting to recreate the vanished, much lamented Public Interest along more orthodox conservative lines. While a lot of its content is predictable, some articles have opened up space for a productive conversation. Donald Marron’s recent contribution, “America in the Red,” is one such piece. Although I disagree with his specific prescriptions for our long-term fiscal ills—for example, he suggests 40 percent of GDP as a long-term target for the national debt, which I think is unrealistically low—his diagnosis is credible, and several of the strategic points he makes about how to respond are important.
To begin, Marron makes an effective case that long-term fiscal imbalances matter—a lot. Among the reasons:
•Once the economy gets back on its feet, prolonged deficits and mounting debt will weaken economic growth.
•Prolonged debt will likely fuel concerns about inflation and will eventually induce lenders to demand an inflation premium on interest rates.
•As the share of our debt held by foreign lenders increases, we will become vulnerable to pressure on a number of diplomatic fronts.
•The growing debt—and especially our dependence on short-term debt instruments—exposes us to greater rollover risk.
•Rising debt limits flexibility by limiting our ability to borrow more if and when we are faced with another calamity.
•Finally, deficits feed on themselves as the logic of compound interest works against us.
Marron goes on to make some strategic points that liberals should take seriously. Among them:
•A key objective is to stabilize our debt to GDP ratio at a level that does not impose a heavy burden on economic growth. He recommends 60 percent as a plausible interim target. While others might prefer a lower or higher figure, few think that 90 percent, which is where we’re headed by 2020 unless we change course, is acceptable.
•Even with optimistic assumptions, we cannot hope to grow our way out of the problem. And given demographic and political realities, we cannot solve the problem with spending cuts alone, or with tax increases alone. We need both.
In perhaps the most challenging part of his article, Marron implicitly addresses both liberals and conservatives. He reminds liberals that not all spending programs and tax increases are created equal: some tend to spur growth, others retard it. And because growth is so important to a sustainable future, we need to take those consequences of our fiscal choice seriously.
At the same time, he questions the assumptions that guide much conservative fiscal dialogue. What he says is worth quoting:

Policymakers should not always assume that a larger government will necessarily translate into weaker economic performance. As few years ago, Peter Lindert—an economist at the University of California, Davis—looked across countries and across time in an effort to answer the question, “Is the welfare state a free lunch?” He found that countries with high levels of government spending did not perform any worse, economically speaking, than countries with low levels of government spending. The result was surprising, given the usual intuition that a larger government would levy higher taxes and engage in more income redistribution—both of which would undermine economic growth.
Lindert found that the reason for this apparent paradox is that countries with large welfare states try to minimize the extent to which government actions undermine the economy. Thus, high-budget nations tend to adopt more efficient tax system—with flatter rates and a greater reliance on consumption taxes—than do countries with lower budget. High-budget countries also adopt more efficient benefits systems—taking care, for example, to minimize the degree to which subsidy programs discourage beneficiaries from working.”

This is an example of the kind of conservative thinking—empirically based and open to argument—with which liberals can and should engage. This kind of thinking is the only basis on which the necessary grand bargain between Republicans and Democrats can be struck.
Everyone knows what the grand bargain will look like, at least in broad outline. Relative to the current baseline, revenues must rise substantially, but in the way most conducive to long-term economic growth. Relative to the current baseline, expenditures must fall substantially, but without hurting those who are least able to make it on their own. And there is no way to do this without modifying the large programs whose mandated spending rises in response to demographic and technological change. Congressman Paul Ryan will not get his way. Nor will the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. The only real questions are how long it will take us to get where we must go, and how much damage we will inflict on ourselves by delaying the inevitable.

Embattled Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, already being bludgeoned to near political death by fellow Republicans backing his Senate rival, Marco Rubio, took a step today that probably ended his career in GOP politics. He vetoed legislation that would have made placed Florida on the far frontier of experiments in test-based “merit pay” for teachers, while also phasing out teacher tenure. Backed by most Florida GOPers, the bill was considered something of a pet project for former Gov. Jeb Bush (generally considered the power behind Rubio), and had bitterly polarized the state, generating mass protests by teachers and students on the one hand, and angry GOP attacks on teachers unions on the other. Indeed, Republicans sometimes seemed to describe the bill as less about education than about union-busting. It would certainly do more to link teacher pay and job retention to students’ standardized tests results than most proponents of “pay for performance” are comfortable with.
Crist had often hinted he would sign the bill, but then engineered a week of suspense over his intentions, capped by a dramatic announcement one day before the bill would have become law without his signature.
His action will immediately revive rumors (which Crist and his Senate campaign have constantly denied) that he will fold his primary campaign and file for candidacy as an independent. As fate would have it, a new Quinnipiac poll just out today shows Crist narrowly ahead in a three-way general election race with Rubio and likely Democratic nominee Kendrick Meek. Earlier polls hadn’t made the indie route look very promising for Crist.
In any event, whether he refiles as an indie or just decides not to run at all, today’s veto is going to make him even more of a pariah in Republican circles, and an unlikely hero to teachers.

Ah, another Tax Day, another Tea Party poll! This one, from CBS/New York Times, is probably the most extensive we’ve seen. But the findings are only surprising to people who haven’t been paying close attention to the Tea Party Movement.
Tea Partiers are, in almost every significant respect, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans. Two-thirds say they always or usually vote Republican. Two-thirds are regular Fox viewers. 57% have a favorable view of George W. Bush, and tea partiers, unlike their fellow-citizens, almost entirely absolve the Bush administration from responsibility for either the economic situation or current budget deficits. Over 90% of them disapprove of Barack Obama’s job performance in every area they were asked about, and in another sharp difference from everyone else, 84% disapprove of him personally. 92% think Obama’s moving the country “in the direction of socialism.” Nearly a third think he was born in another country. Three-fourths think government aid to poor people keeps the poor instead of helping them. Over half think too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Well over half think the Obama administration has favored the poor over the rich and the middle class (only 15% of Americans generally feel that way).
Interestingly, tea partiers are less likely than the public as a whole to think we need a third political party. That shouldn’t be surprising in a cohort that basically thinks the Bush administration was hunky-dory, but you’d never guess it from all the talk about the “threat” of a Tea Party-based third party.
So these are basically older (32% are retired) white conservative Republicans whose main goal, they overwhelmingly say, is to “reduce government.” But two-thirds think Social Security and Medicare are a good bargain for the country. And they certainly won’t support higher taxes.
Here’s a revealing glimpse into the older-white-conservative psychology from the Times write-up of the poll:

[N]early three-quarters of those who favor smaller government said they would prefer it even if it meant spending on domestic programs would be cut.
But in follow-up interviews, Tea Party supporters said they did not want to cut Medicare or Social Security — the biggest domestic programs, suggesting instead a focus on “waste.”
Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.
Others could not explain the contradiction.
“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”

And that’s the conundrum facing the Republican Party going forward. Having created a fiscal time bomb during the Bush administration, they are now born-again deficit hawks, and moreover, profess to think today’s federal government represents a socialist tyranny. But they are even more adamantly opposed to higher taxes, and their base doesn’t want them to touch “their” Social Security and Medicare, which they figure they’ve earned.
Barring a major retraction of America’s active role in the world, which would enable big reductions in defense spending (and we know few conservative Republicans favor that), the only thing left to do is the sort of wholesale elimination of federal functions last attempted by Republicans in 1995, which failed miserably, or an all-out attack on means-tested programs benefitting the poor. By all evidence, this last approach may please many Tea Partiers, but justice and efficacy aside, there is no approach more guaranteed to ensure that the Republican Party’s base gets even older and whiter than it already is.
At some point, the famous “anger” of the Tea Partiers will have to be propitiated by GOP leaders, but there’s no obvious way out of the dilemma Republicans have created for themselves.

Conservative pundit Michael Barone writes in the Washington Examiner about Tuesday’s Democratic victory in FL-19, attributing Ted Deutch’s win over Republican Ed Lynch to the fact that “few districts have larger Jewish percentages than Florida 19,” as well as to Lynch’s weak, underfunded campaign. Barone sees Deutch’s victory as further confirmation that the Obama Administration’s policy toward Israel has not hurt the Democrats’ credibility with American Jews. Barone reached the same conclusion after analyzing voting patterns in the Jan. 19 MA Senate election. (See also the TDS March 24 post on the topic).
It’s good to know that Jewish voters remain a strongly pro-Democratic constituency. Dems would be in big trouble if they began to tilt Republican in this cycle. But what is more interesting about Barone’s op-ed is his description of the geographic distribution of Jewish voters in the context of the November elections. According to Barone, co-author with Richard E. Cohen of The Almanac of American Politics 2010:

What are the implications for the November elections? Jewish voters are very unevenly distributed throughout the United States, as this estimate of Jewish populations by state indicates. About 2.2% of Americans are Jewish—a decline in percentage over the years; in the 1940s about 4% of the nation’s voters were Jewish. The Jewish percentage is higher than the national average in only nine states and the District of Columbia; it’s identical to the national average in Illinois. Some 54% of American Jews live in just three states (New York, California, Florida); 78% live in eight states (those three plus New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland). Four of these states have potentially seriously contested Senate races (California, Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois). The Jewish percentages of the population in these states are 3.3%, 3.7%, 2.3% and 2.2%. The Jewish percentages of the electorate would likely be somewhat higher in each case; the 2008 exit poll shows them at 4%, 4%, 4% and 3%.
…In what districts do Jewish voters comprise a large critical mass—say, about 20% of the electorate? My list, based on long observation, would include the following: CA 27, CA 28, CA 30, CA 36, CT 4, FL 18, FL 19, FL 20, FL 22, IL 9, IL 10, MD 3, MD 8, MA 4, MA 8, MI 9, NV 1, NJ 5, NJ 8, NJ 9, NJ 11, NY 3, NY 4, NY 5, NY 7, NY 8, NY 9, NY 14, NY 15, NY 17, NY 18, NY 19, OH 11, PA 2, PA 6, PA 7, PA 13. Only a few of these districts are represented by Republicans (FL 18, IL 10, NJ 5, NJ 11, NY 3, PA 6), of which the only one in play is IL 10, where incumbent Mark Kirk is running for the Senate. Of the Democratic seats, I see only a few which look like they might be seriously contested (CT 4, FL 22, MI 9, NY 4, NY 19, PA 7).

Barone concludes that, overall, the Jewish vote “will not be a major factor in the large majority of seriously contested Senate and House races.” However, what is important for Dems in this critical election year is that Jewish voter turnout continues at relatively high levels, particularly in the more hotly-contested districts, where a little extra targeted campaigning might make a big difference.

As the British general election campaign races towards its culmination on May 6, it’s increasingly obvious that the U.S. is hardly the only place where voters are in a bad mood. Virtually all of the polls show the Tories falling short of the 40% or so of the popular vote that would probably give them a parliamentary majority. And in a “hung parliament” scenario, the most likely result would be a coalition government involving Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Dysfunctional as it sounds, the “hung parliament” scenario seems to be one that an awful lot of Britons prefer, according to a poll from Populus commissioned by the Times of London:

The poll shows that 32 per cent of the public hope for a hung Parliament, against 28 per cent who want a Tory majority and 22 per cent a Labour one. Lib Dem voters prefer a deal with Labour in a hung Parliament.
Populus also underlines the extent of disenchantment: a mere 4 per cent think that the parties are being completely honest with voters about their tax plans and only 6 per cent about their approaches to cutting the deficit.
Twenty-five per cent said that they thought that the Tories had put across the most convincing case so far, and 18 per cent said Labour. However, 43 per cent were unconvinced by any party.

Leaders of the three major parties will hold the first of three televised debates tomorrow night. But it’s unclear how many voters will be watching, or in any meaningful sense, listening.

In a finding that will probably raise more questions about the pollster than about the poll-ees, Rasmussen has a new survey out that shows Ron Paul in a statistical dead heat with Barack Obama for the presidency in 2012, trailing him by one spare point (41/42).
The poll is of 1,000 “likely voters” (presumably likely 2010 voters), which really makes you wonder about Rasmussen’s famously narrow “likely voter” screen. And it shows Paul tying the president even though he has relatively weak support among self-identified Republicans; the eccentric opponent of foreign wars and the Federal Reserve System trounces Obama among “unaffiliated” voters 47/28.
I doubt too many observers will take this poll seriously, though it will be manna from heaven not only for the zealous foot soldiers of the Ron Paul Revolution, but for those who think (including, some might say, Scott Rasmussen) that right-wing libertarian “populism” is the wave of the future.
But the poll did produce one hilarious write-up, at USAToday. After reporting the numbers, the author (with a nod to the high-riding Senate campaign of Ron’s son Rand) says:

This raises the obvious question: will the Pauls be the next political dynasty, like the Kennedys and Bushes?

Now that’s what I call getting way ahead of the curve!

In a staff post the other day, we noted that one big reason Republicans are willing to put up with the scandals and incompetence characterizing Michael Steele’s chairmanship of the RNC is simply that new campaign finance rules have already undermined the party’s once-central role in funding campaigns.
At The American Prospect, Mark Schmitt has some useful if somewhat disturbing observations about the independent, corporate-funded committees that will dominate post-Citizens United Republican campaign financing.
Schmitt is one campaign finance expert who doesn’t think Citizens United has changed the source and direction of political money all that much. But it will affect control of political money, and strengthen an already powerful trend towards pirate independent operations that function on the margins of the political system:

Unlike parties and candidates, independent committees don’t have to worry about their long-term reputations. They are essentially unaccountable. The Republican Party plans to be around for decades into the future. It has to worry about its long-term reputation. But independent committees can be use-once-and-burn vehicles. There’s a reason we haven’t heard recently from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the independent committee formed to take down John Kerry in 2004 — like a basketball player sent in to commit six fouls, such operations have one purpose only and can disappear when they are finished.
Finally, independent committees are likely to play a more polarizing role. While parties can choose an early strategy of mobilizing the ideological base, by Election Day, they have to build majorities that include swing voters and independents. The incentives for independent committees are different — by mobilizing the ideological base, they generate not just votes but more and more donors. Their clout, unlike the party’s, derives only from money.

Republicans these days certainly don’t need any additional incentives to run negative campaigns or to elevate considerations of ideology over those of practical governing. But that’s what Citizens United may have wrought.
In the meantime, the RNC will trudge along, and the reduced actual clout of its chairman will not immediately translate into less media attention, particularly if he continues to serve up a rich diet of personal gaffes and institutional funny business. It would be nice, though, if media observers began to get a better focus on the people who are actually raising and spending the money that drives Republican campaigns. They’re the ones flying the jolly roger and proudly flouting every convention.

Democratic state senator Ted Deutch on Tuesday won the first U.S. House race since the enactment of the Democratic HCR bill, beating a Republican candidate who tried to exploit backlash against the act in FL-19. Deutch bested Republican Ed Lynch, by a margin of 62-35 percent of the vote.
Republicans quickly point out that FL-19 is a heavily Democratic district. Dems enjoy a 2-1 edge in voter registration, and the district voted nearly 2-1 for Obama in 2008. Still, Republicans were hoping for an upset to add to Brown’s win of Ted Kennedy’s senate seat in MA. Lynch wrongly perceived that massive opposition of the district’s seniors (About 40 percent of district voters) to the health care bill would help him upset front-runner Deutch. it didn’t happen.
As Congressman-elect Deutch said,

We’ve heard for months that tonight … is a referendum on health care, it’s a referendum on the (President Barack Obama) administration, it’s a referendum on what direction this country is going…’Let me tell you something, what we learned today is that in Broward County and Palm Beach County, Florida, the Democratic Party is alive and well.

The 19th district has a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of D +15. interestingly, the District has only 6.1 percent African American residents, with 12.7 Hispanics. It appears that Democrat Deutch did very well with white seniors, who some pundits see as a big problem for Dems in November. Deutch will finish the remaining eight months of his predecessor’s (who resigned) term, then will run again in November for a full term.