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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Month: July 2010

Heck, They Got Color TV Sets

I don’t know how much Rand Paul’s latest tin-eared gaffe will cost him in terms of votes in the KY senate race (AP report here). But I’m pretty sure he didn’t win any hearts and minds in the Louisville forum, where he commented on poverty. Paul said “The poor in our country are enormously better off than the rest of the world…” and referenced an old propaganda film that showed color TV sets in homes of the poor.
For sheer arrogance, it may not top Jim Bunning’s ‘Tough Shit’ response to a question about unemployment, but it reflects a similar, clueless spirit. Kentucky has been hit harder by unemployment than most states, and tied for second of the 50 states in percentage of residents living in poverty.
Paul’s Democratic opponent Attorney General Jack Conway didn’t pounce on Paul’s remark, a missed opportunity to make Paul back up and eat it. All is not lost, however. Conway should still be able to make Paul elaborate. One possible response to get things rolling:

Mr. Paul’s remarks reveal a disturbing callousness about poverty and a profound ignorance about the economic hardships many Kentuckians are experiencing. Kentucky doesn’t need another deaf ear toward working people in the U.S. Senate, and we certainly don’t need another errand boy for the rich representing our state.

Kentucky is tricky political terrain, fairly described as a red state in recent years. That’s not the same thing, however, as saying a majority of KY voters have unlimited tolerance for would-be leaders who keep making embarrassing remarks.


Palin Strikes Again

Sarah Palin’s selective intervention in Republican primaries this year reached a new level today, as she endorsed another female “conservative reformer” in Georgia’s highly competitive Republican gubernatorial contest.
Former Secretary of State Karen Handel, who recently surged into second place in one recent poll of Georgia Republicans, was the beneficiary of Palin’s gesture.
It was fairly predictable, given Palin’s clear-cut desire to be closely associated with the election of conservative women around the country. Indeed, Handel’s overall profile and message–the brave conservative reformer taking on the corrupt good ol’ boys–has been remarkably similar to that of SC’s Nikki Haley before the SC contest was taken over by hamhanded attacks on Haley’s morals and background.
There is one, difference, however, that made the Handel endorsement a bit less of a slam dunk for Palin: she’s not necessarily the favorite candidate of social conservatives, Palin’s most reliable base. Handel’s been at odds with Georgia’s premier anti-abortion group over her refusal to back a ban on IV fertility treatments, and has also been attacked for a friendly attitude towards the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group.
The campaign of former Congressman Nathan Deal, whose struggle to edge Handel for a runoff spot has been significantly endangered by Palin’s embrace of Handel, pushed back hard, in a statement reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s Jim Galloway today:

It’s disappointing that Sarah Palin has chosen to back the most liberal Republican in this race.
In past races, Karen Handel endorsed taxpayer-funded domestic partner benefits and gay adoption — and she’s been caught lying about it. Just last night, Handel finally admitted she’d written a check to a gay rights group — when previously she said the check was a forgery and she never lived at that address.
As Fulton Commission chair, Handel voted to give taxpayer dollars to “Youth Pride” which did outreach to gay and “questioning” kids as young as 13 and funded seminars such as “Unsung Heroes of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community” – this was during a budget crisis.
We do hope that the former governor will look at the record and reconsider, or explain to conservative Georgia Republican primary voters why she’s endorsing Handel in light of these well-documented facts and Handel’s clumsy effort to cover them up.

Georgia Right-to-Life officials are said to be “shocked” by Palin’s endorsement, and like Deal, can be expected to try to discourage her from personally campaigning for Handel.
It will be interesting to see what happens during the last week of this primary. Palin got a lot of credit–probably too much credit–for Haley’s ascent to the top of the primary pile, and then her landslide runoff victory. The long-time front-runner in the Georgia race, insurance commissioner John Oxendine, has long been considered vulnerable to a late surge from one of the other candidates. Handel, whose big handicap has been a lack of funds to run ads, will get a lot of free media, and maybe some last-minute cash, from the bear hug by the mother of the Mama Grizzlies.


Unstable Platform

Seyward Darby has an amusing piece at the New Republic‘s site with some of the loonier provisions found in state Republican Party platform documents.
It’s all good clean fun, but does this craziness matter? No, suggests the CW; party platform committees these days, at any level, are a sandbox dominated by ideological activists, producing turgid documents that candidates feel free to ignore.
Fair enough, I guess, but what about those states where ideological activists have an unusually important role? How about, say, Iowa, whose caucuses often all but dictate one or the other party’s nominating process?
I strongly suggest a reading of the Iowa Republican Party Platform by anyone who accuses “liberals” or “the media” of exaggerating the extremism of today’s conservatives.
This 367-plank, 12,000-word document, adopted just last month at the Iowa State Republican Convention, is relentlessly kooky. Right up top, before the “statement of principles,” the platform features a long, ominous quote from Cicero about “traitors.” It’s not made clear whether said traitors are Democrats, RINOs, or Muslims, but treason sure seems to be a major preoccupation for Iowa Republicans.
Once you get to the “statement of principles,” it’s hard to miss principle number seven, which would have satisfied Ayn Rand even on one of her crankier days:

The individual works hard for what is his/hers. Therefore, the individual will determine with whom he/she will share it, not the government. No more legal plunder. Legal plunder is defined as using the law to take from one person what belongs to them, and giving it to others to whom it does not belong. It is plunder if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what that citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Given that principle, it’s not surprising that elsewhere the platform flatly calls for the abolition of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (along with minimum wage laws), and of the federal departments of Agriculture (!), Education and Energy. It also appears to oppose any anti-discrimination laws of any sort.
Beyond such basics, the Iowa GOP Platform is essentially a compilation of every right-wing consipracy theory-based preoccupation known to man. In a nod to Glenn Beck, the statement of principles mentions “Progressivism” along with “Collectivism, Socialism, Fascism, [and] Communism” as ideologies incompatible with the Founding Fathers’ design. There’s a birther plank. There’s a plank about the “NAFTA Superhighway.” There’s a plank about ACORN. There’s a plank about the “fairness doctrine.” There’s plank after plank after plank opposing the nefarious activities of the United Nations. There’s a plank calling for abolition of the Federal Reserve System. Needless to say, there are many, many planks spelling out total opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage in excrutiating detail, and attacking any limitation on campaign activities or use of tax dollars by religious organizations.
The very end of the platform holds that Republican candidates should be denied party funds if they don’t agree with at least 80% of the platform, as determined by questionnaires asking about every single crazy plank. This is something we should all be able to get behind; I’d love to see not only Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad, a notorious fence-straddler on many issues, but the entire 2012 GOP presidential field, have to check boxes next to solemn items like:

We oppose any effort to implement Islamic Shariah law in this country.

If all this madness is really out of the mainstream of Republican thinking, then perhaps the adults of the GOP should expend the minimum effort necessary to say so very explicitly.


TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira: Public Cautious on Spending Cuts

Conservatives are pulling out all stops in trying to implant the meme that the public wants an all-out war on the federal deficit, including spending cuts of the sort Republicans favor. In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages, however, TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira explains:

…The grain of truth here is that the public is in fact concerned about the size of the deficit. But everything else is wrong. There are many more important things to the public than cutting the deficit.
Take jobs, for example. The public declared by 60-38 in a mid-June Gallup/USA Today poll that they favored Congress passing new legislation this year that would provide “additional government spending to create jobs and stimulate the economy.” Of course, this is exactly the kind of legislation conservatives are now strenuously opposing on the grounds the public is sick and tired of spending to create jobs.

As for other cuts in social spending,

…A late June Pew poll asked the public if they’d approve of various spending cuts to balance their state’s budget this year. The public opposed all of them. This included 73-21 opposition to cutting funding for K-12 public schools; 71-25 opposition to cutting funding for police, fire, and other public safety departments; 65-27 opposition to cutting health care services provided by state or local government; and 50-43 opposition to cutting funding for maintaining roads and public transportation systems.

At a time when congress is considering a range of new initiatives to stimulate the economy and hiring, Teixeira says it’s important to remember that the public wants to keep essential social programs: “Policymakers would do well to remember this as they consider bills that would pump additional money into the economy by extending unemployment benefits, preventing teacher layoffs, and the like. Killing these bills in the name of deficit reduction is not doing the public’s bidding–it’s exactly the reverse.”


TDS Co-Editor William Galston: Can Democrats Recover Before the Midterms?

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
I’ve just received the top-line numbers of Democracy Corps’ most recent poll. From a Democratic standpoint, there’s hardly any good news. Here are the essential findings among likely voters:
· right track/wrong track: 31/61
· the economy: has bottomed out and is starting to improve (40); is at the bottom and is not yet getting any better (22); has not yet bottomed out and will still get worse (34)
· Obama approval/disapproval: 45/51
· Obama shares/doesn’t share your values: 46/51
· Obama is/isn’t on your side: 45/52
· Obama is/isn’t too liberal: 57/38
· Obama is/isn’t a big spender: 61/34
· Obama is/isn’t a socialist: 55/39
· Obama has/doesn’t have realistic solutions to the country’s problems: 43/55
· Mean Republican/Democratic Party ratings: 46.0/43.3
· Mean Congressional Republican/Democrat ratings: 43/4/40.7
· Generic Republican/Democratic Congressional support in November: 48/42
As if all this weren’t bad enough for Democrats, the survey reveals that they’ve lost control of the narrative. For example:
“The best way to improve our economy and create jobs is to invest more to put people to work, develop new industries, and help businesses grow in expanding, new areas.”
OR
“The best way to improve our economy and create jobs is to cut government spending and cut taxes so businesses can prosper and the private sector can start creating jobs.”
FIRST STATEMENT: 43
SECOND STATEMENT: 50
I doubt that anything that will happen between now and election day (or anything Democrats can say) will substantially alter these views; history suggests that by now, they’re too entrenched. And Obama’s ratings, though higher than those of congressional Democrats, are hardly robust. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that in this year’s contested races, Democrats who can’t win based on local issues or opposition research will probably lose.


Angle’s Angling a Tad Late

There’s an interesting sub-drama playing out in the Nevada Senate race. (Update : Thanks to Jim Gibson for correcting the state) Kristi Keck at CNN.com reports on Sharron Angle’s efforts to tone down her message and persona to the point where she appears to have an actual chance of being taken seriously by a majority of voters. Here’s how it’s playing in the website campaign:

In Nevada, Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle last week unveiled a revamped website that no longer details some of her more controversial positions, such as her calls to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and support for a nuclear waste dump facility at Yucca Mountain.
The campaign of Angle’s November opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, posted a copy of Angle’s original site at www.therealsharronangle.com. Angle’s campaign sent a “cease and desist” letter to Reid’s campaign, saying that the website falsely represented itself as Angle’s website.
Reid’s campaign temporarily removed the site, but the Nevada Democratic Party reposted it, claiming First Amendment protection. Reid’s campaign said Angle was trying to mask her views, but Angle’s campaign insisted its Democratic opponent was “doing desperate things to win.”

Keck quotes Angle copping a plea on a conservative radio program: “Today, I actually softened because I’m being held accountable for every idle word.” Not being a career politician, she said she doesn’t always say the best words.
John Avlon, author of “Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America,” explains in Keck’s article: “When you are all of a sudden confronted with the possibility of real governance, then some of the red meat stops making practical sense…” TDS contributor Alan Abramowitz, author of “The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy,” adds “It’s when some Tea Party candidates or figures start engaging in Obama derangement syndrome that their message starts becoming political kryptonite.”
One of the most devastating takes on Angle’s campaign comes from GOP veteran insider Michael Gerson, who writes in his WaPo op-ed column this morning:

The Republican wave carries along a group that strikes a faux revolutionary pose. “Our Founding Fathers,” says Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle, “they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason, and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.”
…Mainstream conservatives have been strangely disoriented by Tea Party excess, unable to distinguish the injudicious from the outrageous. Some rose to Angle’s defense or attacked her critics. Just to be clear: A Republican Senate candidate has identified the United States Congress with tyranny and contemplated the recourse to political violence. This is disqualifying for public office. It lacks, of course, the seriousness of genuine sedition. It is the conservative equivalent of the Che Guevara T-shirt — a fashion, a gesture, a toying with ideas the wearer only dimly comprehends. The rhetoric of “Second Amendment remedies” is a light-weight Lexington, a cut-rate Concord. It is so far from the moral weightiness of the Founders that it mocks their memory.

Gerson notes that, in her fondness for excess, Angle is not alone among the current crop of high-profile GOP candidates:

The Republican wave also carries along a group of libertarians, such as Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul. Since expressing a preference for property rights above civil rights protections — revisiting the segregated lunch counter — Paul has minimized his contact with the media. The source of this caution is instructive. The fear is not that Paul will make gaffes or mistakes but, rather, that he will further reveal his own political views. In America, the ideology of libertarianism is itself a scandal. It involves not only a retreat from Obamaism but a retreat from the most basic social commitments to the weak, the elderly and the disadvantaged, along with a withdrawal from American global commitments…. Libertarianism has a rigorous ideological coldness at its core. Voters are alienated when that core is exposed. And Paul is now neck and neck with his Democratic opponent in a race a Republican should easily win.

Gerson goes on to add that the GOP “wave carries along a group more interested in stigmatizing immigrants than winning their support” and he laments the response of too many Republicans who should know better “to stay quiet, make no sudden moves and hope they go away.” He adds

…Significant portions of the Republican coalition believe that it is a desirable strategy to talk of armed revolution, embrace libertarian purity and alienate Hispanic voters… With a major Republican victory in November, those who hold these views may well be elevated in profile and influence. And this could create durable, destructive perceptions of the Republican Party that would take decades to change. A party that is intimidated and silent in the face of its extremes is eventually defined by them.

For Dems, we can hope that enough swing voters will get it sooner than later, in time to tell the Republicans in November “Go sell crazy somewhere else. We’ve got serious problems here, and this is no time for tea party nonsense.”


TDS Co-Editor William Galston: Preparing For a Showdown In the Middle East This Fall

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic
In his session with the press after an Oval Office discussion with Prime Minister Netanyahu. President Obama said, “We expect … proximity talks to lead to direct talks, and I believe that the government of Israel is prepared to engage in such … talks.” Indeed it is, without further ado and without preconditions. But it takes two to tango, and the Palestinians have steadfastly refused to initiate such talks unless Israel agrees to a complete settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Responding to the meeting, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that “Netanyahu must decide if he wants peace or settlements. He cannot have both.” Last year this was Obama’s view as well. As he said in his Cairo speech, “The U.S. does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” For his part, Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of Yisrael Beitenu, which controls 15 vital seats in Netanyahu’s coalition, has declared unequivocally that the current partial freeze will not be extended when it expires in November; the settlements will grow. Several smaller right-wing coalition partners have said the same thing.
For the reasons stated in my column last week, I do not think that the prospects of replacing the current Israeli coalition with one more forthcoming on the settlement issue is likely to succeed. Arithmetically, Likud, Kadima, and Labor would produce a solid 68 votes in the 120-seat Knesset. But there’s a problem: even if Netanyahu wanted to bring his Likud party into such a coalition, he probably couldn’t. There’s no evidence that a majority of Likud MK’s would go along, and splitting Likud would destroy Netanyahu’s political base. There’s an outside chance that Shas, which represents Sephardic Orthodoxy, could be bribed with yet more state funds for its educational and social institutions. (It has worked before.) But recent developments within Shas have brought it closer to the pro-settler camp, and there are other obstacles as well.
There’s one remaining possibility, articulated today by my Brookings colleague (and former U.S. ambassador to Israel) Martin Indyk after his trip to Jerusalem and Ramallah last week: Obama’s perceived even-handedness has emboldened Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, to move into direct negotiations and to try to strike a final deal with Israel. If Indyk is right, substantial Israeli concession on West Bank security issues would give him the “fig leaf” needed to make direct negotiations possible, even if settlement activity continues.
Indyk has a thousand times more experience in these matters that I do, and I very much hope that he’s right. But somehow I doubt it. The settlements are as visceral for the Palestinians as they are for pro-settler Israelis, and I find it hard to believe that Abbas could so easily set aside or explain away his previous position. If Netanyahu is serious about squaring this circle, he’ll probably have to put his cards on the table and answer some questions about the shape of a final settlement, including borders, Jerusalem, and mutual security. Whether he could do this without blowing up his coalition is anyone’s guess. And I haven’t even mentioned Hamas or questioned the willingness of either party to enter an agreement that doesn’t include it. My best guess: it will take some brave steps on both sides and skillful U.S. diplomacy plus an ample helping of luck to avert a crisis this fall. I am not optimistic.


Will Abortion Be a Defining Issue in California?

For non-Californians interested in Golden State elections, there’s probably a tendency to lump together the campaigns of the Republican nominees for governor (Meg Whitman) and senator (Carly Fiorina). After all, both are women; both are former corporate executives; both came to national political prominence during John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign; and both are facing very well-known Democratic pols (gubernatorial candidate and former Gov. Jerry Brown and Sen. Barbara Boxer).
Moreover, both these races are very competitive, as indicated by new Field Polls over the last two days. Brown leads Whitman 44-43 (Whitman was up 46-43 in the last Field Poll back in March), while Boxer leads Fiorina 47-44 (she was up 45-44 in March).
But there are some pretty important differences between the Whitman and Fiorina campaigns. Most obviously, Meg’s a billionaire while Carly’s a mere multi-millionaire, and Whtiman’s already spent $100 million in this cycle, far more than Fiorina. Beyond that, though, the two Republicans differ on two highly inflammatory issues. One is immigration, where Whitman, while doing some pretty heavy illegal-immigrant-bashing during her primary, stopped short of endorsing Arizona’s new show-your-papers law; Fiorina did endorse it. According to Field, Whitman trails Brown among Latinos by a relatively small 50-39 margin, while Fiorina trails Boxer 55-32.
The other issue is abortion, where Whitman is basically pro-choice, while Fiorina is the darling of right-to-life organizations (and their closest national political ally, Sarah Palin). Here’s how the excellent California political site Calbuzz analyzes the potential impact of the abortion issue:

No pro-life candidate has won at the top of the ticket in California in a race for governor or Senate in more than two decades. And the new [Field] poll shows a considerable gender gap which suggests that Boxer may be benefiting from her stand on choice compared to Fiorina’s, even before the issue is driven home to voters.

Indeed, it’s interesting that Boxer still holds a lead over Fiorina despite discouraging approval/disapproval ratings (41-52, compared to 34-29 for Fiorina), and you can bet Boxer will fan doubts about her opponent on abortion is what has become a strong pro-choice state.


The Reefer’s Edge May Help Dems in Mid Terms

Joshua Green, senior editor of The Atlantic has an interesting post, “Do Marijuana Ballot Initiatives Help Democrats Win?” Green cites the piggy-back strategy used by Karl Rove as a possible template for Dems:

Not long ago, Karl Rove was considered a political genius. His mastery of the small, clever maneuver–typically unappreciated until it swung an election–was a big reason why. To his enemies, nothing exemplified Rovean perfidy like the state ballot initiatives he encouraged banning gay marriage that appeared across the country in 2004. Rove’s idea was that conservatives lukewarm on President Bush could be persuaded to support the ban–and, once they’d shown up to do that, would probably vote for Bush, too. On Election Day, the ballot initiatives passed easily and Bush narrowly won a second term.
…Acting on a tip from an Obama official, I found a few Democratic consultants who have become convinced that ballot initiatives legalizing marijuana, like the one Californians will vote on in November, actually help Democrats in the same way that gay marriage bans were supposed to have helped Republicans. They are similarly popular, with medical marijuana having passed in 14 states (and the District of Columbia) where it has appeared on the ballot. In a recent poll, 56 percent of Californians said they favor the upcoming initiative to legalize and tax pot.

The idea is to re-enthuse the youth base which was so helpful in Obama’s victory. Green quotes Jim Merlino, a Colorado political consultant, who helped pass marijuana initiatives in 2000 and 2006: “If you look at who turns out to vote for marijuana, they’re generally under 35. And young people tend to vote Democratic.”
The pro-legalization constituency undoubtedly can be found to some extent among all age groups, especially the greying generation of the 1960’s. The assumption would be that it might also increase mid term turnout of liberals, who favor legalization, but also libertarians, some of whom vote Republican and perhaps even some conservatives, who realize that minor marijuana offenses account for a substantial percentage of incarcerated individuals and associated expenditures.
Green acknowledges that there is no hard data indicating a clear link between marijuana ballot initiatives and increased Democratic turnout, nor even between same sex marriage ballot initiatives and Republican turnout. But he does cite a study indicating that in the 1982 midterms nuclear freeze initiatives in ten states had “a significant positive effect on Democratic candidates.”
In November up to a half-dozen states may hold ballot initiatives to permit medical patients, and others, to smoke marijuana. In California, which has already legalized marijuana use for medical purposes, voters will decide on legalizing it for adults. The state NAACP has endorsed Proposition 19, arguing that selective enforcement of current marijuana laws disproportionately penalizes people of color.


Southern Republican Focus on Immigration Intensifies

As regular readers might recall, back in May I did an analysis which predicted that the furor over immigration policy touched off in Arizona would have its greatest political impact not in the southwest or west coast, but in the Deep South, where a combination of new and highly visible Hispanic populations, low Hispanic voting levels, and red-hot Republican primaries would likely bring the issue to the forefront.
Nothing that’s happened since then has made me change my mind about that, though southern Republican unanimity on backing the Arizona law and replicating it everywhere has reduced the salience of immigration as a differentiator in some GOP primaries, most notably in South Carolina (where in any event the Nikki Haley saga eclipsed everything else).
But in Georgia, whose primary is on July 20, immigration is indeed a big issue in the gubernatorial contest, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway:

For the next 13 days, all stops are off when it comes to debating the issue of illegal immigration.
The Obama administration’s court challenge to the Arizona law that gives its peace officers the authority to stop and impound undocumented residents is already serving as a stick to a wasp nest in Georgia’s race for governor.
Former congressman Nathan Deal’s first TV ad of the primary season on Wednesday focused on illegal immigration and a promise that Georgia would soon have an Arizona-style law.
On the answering machines of tens of thousands of GOP voters, former secretary of state Karen Handel left a message of endorsement from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. Expect to see Brewer at Handel’s side before the July 20 vote.
The climate doesn’t brook dissent. Democrats have been uniformly silent on the Arizona issue.

As it happens, Deal and Handel are battling for a runoff spot. Handel and long-time Republican front-runner John Oxendine are also proposing radical changes in the state tax code, abolishing income taxes entirely, but so far that momentous issue is not getting the kind of attention generated by the action of another state on immigration three time zones away.