At a time when it seems most elections have been “nationalized,” it’s worth noting that local factors can have a major impact on individual contests. That’s being demonstrated by an incident in the red-hot competitive Alabama gubernatorial race.
Tim James, a Republican candidate closely associated with the Christian Right, has been struggling to get into a runoff position against “establishment” candidate Bradley Byrne. James recently got a boost from an infamous Fred Davis’ “viral” ad that fed the post-Arizona immigration frenzy among Republicans by attacking Alabama’s system of allowing driver’s tests in languages other than English. A new R2K/DKos poll of Alabama shows James moving up and challenging “Ten Commandments Judge” Roy Moore for a runoff spot.
But now James is dealing with a problem that is distinctive to Alabama: reports that he’s said he’d fire or cut the salary of Nick Saban, the coach of the reigning National Championship Alabama Crimson Tide football team. The rumor is apparently based on a remark–which might well have been a joke–the candidate made to a University of Alabama student newspaper. But its power is evidenced by the James’ campaign’s official denials, and the prominence the “issue” has acheived in the primary that will be held on June 1. It has added salience because James’ candidacy owes a lot to the legacy of his father, former Gov. Fob James, who was a star football player at Auburn (the school Tim James also attended).
A Georgia-based college football blogger hilariously referred to this “issue” as “the third rail of Alabama politics.” But in a close primary contest in a state where college football is a quasi-religious phenomenon, that may not be much of an exaggeration.

Before we move on from the controversy over Rand Paul’s comments on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it’s important to understand that controversy over his political philosophy is likely to persist. And ironically, that’s especially true if the accusations of active or latent racism on Paul’s part are completely unfair.
If Paul’s original observations on the Civil Rights Act were motivated by indifference to discrimination against minorities, or the conviction some conservatives share that any government action to protect minorities is itself racism, then the controversy is limited to this one topic. In that case, the damage is limited to those voters who care about civil rights, many of whom will not be voting for Rand Paul in Kentucky or Republicans anywhere else.
But if, as his defenders insist (and as the record seems to support), Paul is simply expressing the consistent view that the operations of free markets, not government, are the best guarantor of individual rights in general and the interests of the poor and minorities in particular, and that the U.S. Constitution, rightly interpreted, reflects this conviction, then other, equally controversial issues may come into play, and not just those that involve other types of discrimination.
Most immediately, it’s worth remembering that principled, non-racist opponents of civil rights laws have to accept responsibility for their tacit alliances with racists. Best I can tell, Barry Goldwater did not have a prejudiced bone in his body. But there can be zero doubt that thanks to his “principled” opposition to the Civil Rights Act, his 1964 presidential campaign was totally dominated by segregationists in five of the six states he carried in the General Election, and served as the “bridge” whereby segregationists eventually migrated from the Democratic to the Republican party. At some point, the subjective motivation of civil rights opponents, past, present or future, becomes rather irrelevant.
But more importantly, Rand Paul’s concerns with the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act suggest a radical outlook with political implications that go far beyond civil rights. After all, the provisions of the Civil Rights Act that limit the right to discriminate by private property owners depend on the same chain of “activist” Supreme Court decisions that made possible the major New Deal and Great Society initiatives, involving interpretations of the General Welfare, Commerce and Spending clauses that today’s (like yesterday’s) “constitutional conservatives” routinely deplore. Rand Paul’s campaign platform reflects the common Tea Party demand that the federal government be restricted to the specific enumerated powers spelled out in the Constitution. This constitutional fundamentalism, which appears to object to every expansion of federal power enacted since 1937, is made more explicit by Rand and Ron Paul’s friends in the Constitution Party, which forthrightly calls Social Security unconstitutional and demands that it be phased out immediately.
So: instead of challenging Rand Paul’s latest backtracking on the Civil Rights Act, or calling him racist, progressives would be better advised to corner him on his attitude towards the constitutionality of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which, like the Civil Rights Act, reflect functions of the federal government that are not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution.
Add in the fact that Rand Paul has been calling for an immediate balancing of the federal budget without tax cuts, which would require some drastic action on federal spending, and it becomes plain that his honest and principled (at least up until his flip-flop on the Civil Rights Act) efforts to apply “constitutional conservative” doctrines to current affairs imply policies that when spelled out would repel many, many voters–just like Goldwater’s platform in 1964.

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
Conventional wisdom: it is a fickle, fickle thing. The latest example of the incredible lightness of opinion in today’s media and political climate is the reaction to the results of the race in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district. Politicians and pundits, right- as well as left-leaning, are taking it as evidence that Republican hopes of retaking the House this November are too optimistic. That may turn out to be the case, but PA-12 is hardly enough evidence to warrant the conclusion.
First, let’s place that district in context. Yes, it was one of Obama’s ten worst Appalachian congressional district’s during his 2008 primary contest with Hillary Clinton. But it was his best of those ten, by far, during the general election (he got 49 percent of the vote), and it was the only one of the ten that John Kerry carried in 2004. The reason: its party registration is so overwhelmingly Democratic that even when lots of conservative Democrats peel off, a majority or near-majority remains for the party’s nominee. So while the Republicans may have believed their own hype in the run-up to this week’s special election, PA-12 was always going to be tough for them.
Now let’s look at three Gallup surveys released within the past week. One notes that so far in 2010, only 23 percent of Americans have been satisfied with the way things are going–well below the 40 percent average of the past three decades, and the lowest reading recorded in a mid-term election year going back to 1982. A second survey observes that the two political parties have been at or near parity among registered voters since January in the generic congressional ballot. This is especially significant because (as the survey shows) “the structure of voting preferences seen in the first three months of the [election] year generally carried through to the end.” And parity among registered voters would be bad news for Democrats: on average, Republicans have enjoyed about a five-point turnout edge in midterm elections.
The third survey underscores this point. It highlights a 19-point gap between conservatives and liberals in their enthusiasm about voting in this year’s midterm elections. And 62 percent of those who describe themselves as “very conservative” (10 percent of registered voters) say that they are very enthusiastic, versus only 44 percent of those who term themselves “very liberal” (a scant 4 percent of registered voters).
Connect the dots and we have the portrait of an electorate that’s highly dissatisfied with the status quo and that seems poised to give more votes in the aggregate to Republican than to Democratic candidates this fall. I don’t know how many House seats that translates into, but I’d be surprised if the number didn’t start with a “3” (at least). As far as I can see, only a big change in the economy–a significant increase in the rate of GDP growth leading to a noticeable reduction in top-line unemployment numbers and a bump up in real disposable income for those who have jobs–would be enough to change the overall outlook for November.

MyDD‘s Jonathan Singer has a post up that should be of interest to the Jack Conway for Senate campaign. Singer focuses on one of Rand Paul’s more significant vulnerabilities revealed in recent interviews:

…Paul made fairly clear that he did not believe it within the bounds of Congress’s powers to address issues of private discrimination. In legal parlance, Paul does not believe that Congress’s power under Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution to “regulate Commerce… among the several States” extends to the private actions of the citizens of these states…
…The problem with this view is apparent to just about anyone who lives in a world of reality rather than ideology. It is fine enough to believe that, in theory, individuals’ contractual and property rights should not be trampled on by the state, and that, what’s more, the market will solve all problems. But the fact is the market did not solve the problem of institutional racism. It took state action, not only in directing state actors but also in directing the practices of private individuals like the ones who owned restaurants. The same can be said about the Americans with Disabilities Act, which like the Civil Rights Act restricted individual action to ensure access for those who otherwise might be denied access. The good acts of individual property owners to accommodate their workers in the ways described by Paul in his NPR interview are important — but they were not enough. Only when the state stepped in were the rights of the disabled to access restaurants and other accommodations ensured.

Singer then suggests four very good questions for Paul, “considering his apparently limited views of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers”:

1. Do you believe the federal minimum wage is constitutional?
2. Do you believe federal overtime laws are constitutional?
3. Do you believe the federal government has the power to enact work safety laws and regulations?
4. Do you believe that federal child labor laws are constitutional?
A “no” answer to any of these questions would presumably be problematic for the Paul campaign considering folks seem to like the minimum wage, laws that stop employers from, say, making their workers use machines that cut off their hands, and laws that prohibit 7 year olds from laboring in coal mines.

So it’s not only the racial aspects of Paul’s views that are going to cause him trouble. Singer has hit on a major weakness of Paul’s knee-jerk libertarianism, the belief that the private sector has constitutional protection from damn near all regulation. The politically-alert segment of the white working class in KY would be very interested in Paul’s answers to Singer’s questions.
Jack Conway didn’t get to be Kentucky A.G. by missing opportunities like this one. This senate seat should be a Democratic pick-up.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take before the past views and associations of new Republican superstar Rand Paul all come to light, but he’s currently on track to serve as the living link between all sorts of older forms of radical conservatism and the contemporary Tea Party movement. Indeed, it appears that his Lester Maddox-ish instincts about the supremacy of private property rights could be the least of his problems. Now it transpires that just last year he was guest speaker at an event held by the Constitution Party.
Now this is hardly a surprise, since his old man has long been friends with CP founder Howard Phillips, and endorsed that party’s presidential candidate in 2008. But most people don’t know much about the CP, which combines limited-government conservatism with the peculiar doctrines of Christian Reconstructionists, for which a simpler term is Theocrats. And no, I’m not using “Theocrats” as an insult, but as a technical description of what they support.
Here, right off the Constitution Party’s web page, are the opening words of its party platform:

The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States.
This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been and are afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.
The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.

What the Constitution Party means by “Constitutonal boundaries” is made clearer in the later sections of its platform, particularly this section:

Social Security is a form of individual welfare not authorized in the Constitution.
The Constitution grants no authority to the federal government to administrate a Social Security system. The Constitution Party advocates phasing out the entire Social Security program, while continuing to meet the obligations already incurred under the system.

Do you suppose Rand Paul would like to go on Rachel Maddow’s show and discuss the constitutionality of Social Security or the Dominion of Jesus Christ and His Believers over the United States? Probably not. Theocracy and abolishing Social Security don’t poll well. And maybe he doesn’t actually believe this stuff, but simply enjoys the company of extremists.
But Paul does not have some sort of inherent right to pose as a victim when he own words and his own associations come back to haunt him. And I suspect we are just at the tip of that particular iceberg.
UPDATE: Clearly, Rand Paul wants to stay in the news. He’s just been quoted defending BP from “un-American” attacks by the Obama administration.

Although they offered significant positive signs, the elections this Tuesday were not in any way a decisive victory for Democrats. What they did represent, however, was a very powerful and substantial setback for the bitter extremist campaign that was launched against the Dems more than a year ago.
Some fierce opponents of Obama and the Democrats were elected in Republican primaries on Tuesday and a group of moderate Republicans fell to challengers from the right even as progressive Dems had a good night and Dems won the single partisan election. But something deeper was also going on. Years from now these primary elections may very likely be seen as the moment when the furious advance of a bitter and determined conservative political assault reached its limit and ground to a halt. This Tuesday was the day when the arrogant claims that the vast majority of Americans were so ferociously and bitterly opposed to the Democratic agenda that they would swamp the political system with their fury were revealed to be hollow. It was the day that the social movement that Republicans had described as unstoppable found itself stopped and the citizen army that conservatives declared invincible encountered opposition that it could not overcome.
Let us be very clear. Millions of Americans sincerely believe that health care reform and the entire Obama agenda is profoundly misguided and they have every right to their view. They have a right to insist on that limits to government are more important than needed social legislation, that balancing the budget is more important than creating jobs and to vote and speak in support of their beliefs.
But what Democrats have faced for the last year has not been a normal political conflict, but rather an assault modeled on a military campaign — an attack conducted in the language and spirit of warfare. The defeat of the Health Care Reform bill was to be – in Jim DeMint’s memorable phrase – “Obama’s Waterloo.” The fierce conservative resistance to his plan would resonate with Americans like a modern-day version of the Alamo, or the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae and lead to a stunning, catastrophic defeat that would not produce a renewed and sincere search for compromise but rather a body blow to the democrats that would break Obama’s spirit and doom his agenda.

Read more…

So welcome to the Big Time, Rand Paul! Fresh from his primary victory on Tuesday, the Kentucky Tea Party idol managed to tie himself into knots on Rachel Maddow’s show last night under questioning about past remarks doubting the wisdom of the public accomodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This morning he “clarified” his remarks and then started blasting Maddow and his critics, as conservatives across the chattering classes characterized this unforced error as a “smear” of poor innocent Paul.
In better news for the son of Ron, Rasmussen released the first post-primary poll of the Kentucky Senate race, and showed an astounding 25-point lead for Paul over Jack Conway. Rasmussen, of course, has been known to find Republican support at levels higher than any other pollster, particularly in Kentucky (a pre-primary poll showed Paul up by 14 points over Conway, when other polls showed a close race). Nate Silver wrote up some pretty good reasons why Rasmussen may have gotten this is a little wrong, mostly relating to the traditional problem that robo-polls often produce skewed response rates based on the enthusiasm of the respondent, which is a particularly bad practice when you’re doing a snap poll in the wake of a big and much-hyped primary win.
All in all, it was an up-and-down day for the Republican Senate nominee, but he best start getting his story straight, because it doesn’t require the analytical or rhetorical skills of a Rachel Maddow to deduce that the man has some beliefs that are not within shouting distance of the political mainstream. I can’t wait for the first time an interviewer demands to know exactly how he would immediately balance the federal budget without tax increases.

The Senate today invoked cloture on the financial regulations bill, with three Republicans–Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and–yes-Scott Brown–joining 57 Democrats in favor. Russ Feingold and Maria Cantwell, who wanted to make changes in the bill, voted “no.”
This clears the decks for final passage, and then a complex House-Senate conference to resolve differences in this bill and the one passed by the House in December, which seems like many years ago.

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
I believe in comprehensive immigration reform—so much so that I helped organize a bipartisan task force on the matter. (Here is the report.) I understand that most Americans have qualms about taking harshly punitive measures against illegal immigrants. And there is little doubt that a party seen as anti-immigrant will eventually lose the support of an increasingly diverse population, and especially of young people, as the fate of the post-Pete Wilson Republican Party in California demonstrates.
But I still have no idea why some leading Democrats, such as Chuck Schumer, think that pushing this issue right now will be helpful in November. If they believe that recent events in Arizona have created a public groundswell for a more liberal response, they’re just wrong. Let’s look at four high-quality national surveys conducted this month.
According to a CBS/New York Times poll, 65 percent of Americans see illegal immigration as a “very serious problem,” 74 percent think it weakens the economy, and 78 percent believe the U.S. should be doing more to stop it. These beliefs help explain why 51 percent of the people think that the new Arizona law is “about right,” versus only 36 percent who say it “goes too far.” They reach this conclusion despite the fact that 72 percent think it will have disproportionate effects on certain racial and ethnic groups and 78 percent believe it will burden police departments. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds the same thing: 64 percent of respondents support the Arizona legislation (46 percent strongly) despite the fact that 66 percent believe that it will lead to discrimination against Latino immigrants who are in this country legally.
The Pew Research Center probed more deeply and came to a similar conclusion. Its researchers began by examining public opinion on three key provisions of the Arizona law: requiring people to produce documents verifying legal status (73 percent approval); allowing the police to detain anyone unable to verify legal status (67 percent approval); and giving authorities the right to question anyone they think may be in the country illegally (62 percent approval). Pew then asked whether, “considering everything,” respondents endorsed the Arizona bill: 59 percent said yes, versus only 32 percent who disapproved.
Pew breaks down its results by subgroup. While the results for Republicans and independents are predictable, those for Democrats aren’t. Sixty-five percent of Democrats support requiring people to produce documents, 55 percent would allow detention of non-verifiers, and 50 percent would allow questioning based on police suspicion only. Accordingly, Democrats are split down the middle on the Arizona law: 45 percent in favor, 46 percent opposed. Notably, Pew finds somewhat more Democratic support than do the other surveys, suggesting that additional information about the Arizona law tends to move Democrats toward it rather than away from it.
For its part, a series of Gallup surveys also underscores the public’s concerns with immigration. A majority believes that we should emphasize better border-control, and 51 percent of Americans who have heard about the Arizona law support it as opposed to 39 percent who don’t.
This does not mean that the United States as a whole is on the verge of a new era of nativism. Each survey identifies reservoirs of sympathy for immigrants, illegal as well as legal. But when Americans strike an overall balance, their concern about the social and economic consequences of the current situation outweighs their worries about the humanitarian consequences of changing it. That is why Gallup concludes one of its surveys as follows: “Recent Gallup polling found nearly as many Americans rating immigration reform as an important national priority as said this about financial reform for Wall Street. That aligns with the wishes of some Senate Democrats who are reportedly pressing for quick action on comprehensive immigration reform.” However, continues the Gallup report, “Public opinion on the issue might not align as well with the policies these Democrats have in mind.” Based on the evidence I’ve cited from four respected survey organizations, it’s hard to disagree.
Democrats who favor proceeding with this issue have two remaining arguments. They claim that, win or lose, pushing hard on an immigration bill would mobilize parts of the party’s base and produce net gains for Democratic candidates in key districts and states. Given the fact that at least nine out of ten voters this November will be non-Latinos and that most contests involving high percentages of Latino voters are likely to remain safely in the Democratic column anyway, this claim is intuitively hard to believe. At any rate, the burden of proof is on its proponents.
Second, one may argue that all of this is irrelevant: the Arizona law is an unconscionable assault on the civil rights of immigrants who are here legally and on the human rights of those who aren’t. The soul of the Democratic Party is at stake, and shrinking from the fight would be a disgrace. Maybe so. But no one should believe that virtue will be its own reward—certainly not between now and November.

Last week I did a post asking if it was actually possible that California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who’s on course to break every national record for spending in a state political race, could actually lose her primary. Now one of the more respected California polling outfits has weighed in, and yes, Whitman’s in some trouble, though still ahead.
According to the Public Policy Institute of California, Whitman’s 61-11 lead over Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in March has dropped to 38-29, with the undecided vote actually going up to 31%. With less than three weeks left to go until the June 8 primary, Whitman’s spending total for the cycle is now up to $68 million (!), and Poizner’s dropped $24 million himself in a much shorter period of time. It is very, very difficult to watch television in California right now without heavy exposure to constant back-and-forth attack ads from these two candidates.
I’ve written the contest up over at FiveThirtyEight for anyone who’s interested. The bottom line is that the Whitman-Poizner battle is good news for Democratic candidate Jerry Brown, and if Poizner’s immigrant-bashing message prevails or forces Whitman to emulate it, it could have long-term repercussions for party politics in the Golden State.