I’m pretty strongly on record dismissing as a media invention the idea that a serious primary challenge to Barack Obama is in the works, barring unforeseen developments.
Now we have some polling data from a state that would have to play a big role in any anti-Obama revolt, New Hampshire.
Magellan Strategies polled over 1000 likely 2012 Democratic presidential primary voters, and didn’t find much in the way of an uprising, at least as measured by hypothetical primary matchups. You may recall that Hillary Clinton won NH in 2008. She’s not about to challenge Obama in 2012, but according to Magellan, if she did, she’d be trailing 59-28. There’s been talk of Howard Dean taking on the president; he trails Obama in the poll 78-10. How’s about Bernie Sanders, who filibustered the tax deal that upset progressive elites so badly? He’d be in even worse shape in NH, down 79-8 to the president.
Keep in mind that NH is a state with a very robust progressive activist tradition, and few of the minority voters that serve as Obama’s hard-core base. Moreover, two of the three hypothetical challengers in the Magellan poll are from the neighboring state of Vermont. If big names like Dean and Sanders can’t get traction against the incumbent in NH, it ain’t much happening anywhere.

It’s increasingly apparent that the Congress which hadn’t gotten a whole lot done since the enactment of health reform legislation may well go out with a flurry of genuinely significant activity. The tax deal cleared Congress last night, even as the Senate killed an omnibus appropriations bill leaving most discretionary spending decisions to the next session. And it looks like the repeal of DADT is back on track for a stand-alone vote. Prospects for ratification of START are less robust, but there’s still a chance a vote could be held in time to coincide with commemoration of the birth of the Prince of Peace.
The tax deal vote (see the roll call results here) went pretty much as expected; the key political factor was that a narrow majority of Democrats (139-112) voted “aye,” which means the White House is not openly aligned against the president’s own party (contrast that with key votes of the Clinton administration, including NAFTA and welfare reform, where a majority of House Democrats split with the president).
“No” Democratic votes were mostly from the more liberal wing of the party (including, interestingly, quite a few folks in leadership), but with a decent sprinkling of deficit hawks. Lame ducks mostly voted “aye.”
The appropriations vote was notable for the defection of nine Republican senators who had earlier supported (and in some cases helped write) the omnibus bill. But that outcome became virtually certain when it became obvious earmarks were the glue used to put together the legislation. Tea Party types led by Jim DeMint succeeded in creating a virtual litmus test against earmarks, so the bill was sure to go down. This also means House Republicans will be responsible for writing appropriations measures of their upon taking over the chamber next month; that will force some interesting decisions and expose some important intra-GOP rifts.
If DADT and START get Senate votes, it will represent a pretty impressive win by Harry Reid in overcoming Republican dilatory tactics, and a pretty strong finish for this Congress.

On January 5th the Senate will consider proposals to change the body’s rules to implement filibuster reform (See Ari Berman’s Alternet post on filibuster reform for a good update). Like many progressive Democrats, I say it’s long overdue and much-needed to restore majority rule, which is a central feature of functioning democracy. But there are three “what if” questions all Democrats should think about over the next 18 days:
1. What happens if we succeed, then in 2012, we lose both the presidency and our senate majority?
2. Would filibuster reform then mean we have greased the skids for Republicans to reverse everything we have achieved during the Obama Administration?
3. Might it be better to postpone filibuster reform until after we see what happens in the 2012 elections?
If I sound a little schitzy here, it comes from weighing the negative consequences of the filibuster since 2008 (and before) against the destruction the Republicans could launch if they dominate all three branches of government, with no filibuster threat. Yes, the threat of a filibuster has cost Dems dearly in terms of the public option and a host of other reforms we could have enacted. But if we keep it, and the Republicans take the white house and senate, we will likely be able to use the filibuster to prevent them from doing their worst. Also, with the GOP controlling the House, if we implement reform on Jan 5, it may not help Dems much, other than shaking loose some judicial nominations in the senate.
Yes, all of this is based on the worst case electoral scenario, but one that is not all that far-fetched, given the current economic reality. I don’t place much value on the “institutionalist” argument of some opponents of filibuster reform, which seems to me is pretty much based on maintaining a form of senate domination, authorized by finagling the rules, as opposed to being expressly granted by the Constitution. But I think we have to at least think through strategic and tactical considerations of the worst case scenario before piling on the filibuster reform bandwagon.
If Obama is reelected in 2012, on the other hand, the risk to Dems of implementing filibuster reform after that election goes down considerably, regardless of which party wins the senate. He can veto bills and make it stick, unless the Republicans have two-thirds of Senate votes for an override.
There are two strong arguments for implementing filibuster reform on January 5: 1. it may be our best shot at it, since some Republicans may support it as part of their bet on a rosier 2012 for their party, and 2. Obama has a good chance of winning in 2012, in which case filibuster reform on Jan 5 won’t hurt Dems.
After weighing all of these considerations, the wise course may be to go ahead and get it done. Filibuster reform is a good thing on principle. But the timing of it can be a little tricky, and a little more discussion about it can’t hurt.

If you needed any additional confirmation about how congressional Republicans will get around the massive contradiction between their deficit-hawk rhetoric and their tax-cuts-uber-alles ideology, it’s now very clear they’ll just deny it all by claiming tax cuts don’t increase the deficit.
That’s the only logical interpretation to make of the House Republicans’ new draft budget rule, which they are calling “cut/go” (as opposed to the longstanding if often ignored “paygo” rules). Here’s the simple bottom line from CQ (subscription-only, via Pat Garofalo of ThinkProgress):

The budgetary mechanism, which Republicans refer to as a “cut-go” rule, will mandate that lawmakers pay for any new spending program by eliminating an existing program of equal or greater value. It is similar to the pay-as-you-go rule previously introduced by House Democrats except that it does not allow spending increases to be offset with new taxes or fees. Also, tax cuts would not have to be offset with spending reductions.

Now there’s only two ways this approach does not amount to a blatant admission that deficits don’t matter at all, Tea Party rhetoric aside. The first, of course, is to adopt the amazingly threadbare, totally discredited supply-side theory whereby tax cuts pay for themselves. Garafolo quotes Mike Pence blithely embracing that chesnut.
The other approach, that of Orwellian redefinition of plain words, is nicely and appropriately presented by Michele Bachman:

I don’t think letting people keep their own money should be considered a deficit.

By this fine theory, if you abolished taxes altogether, the federal budget deficit would vanish.
Cut-go deserves as much mockery as can be mustered against it. It’s the most craven response possibe to the deficit fears Republicans have done so much to stimulate over the last two years, and they shouldn’t get away with cutting-and-running from the challenge.

Despite all of the heated debate in the media and among the politicians about the current tax cut debate, count me among those who are puzzled by the general docility of the public, which supports the tax cut deal in polls, if not all of its key provisions. I chalked it off to the old “Oh whatever, as long as I get mine” impulse. But American Prospect’s Paul Waldman offers a more thoughtful explanation for one part of it in his Tapped post, “The Oddly Unpopular Estate Tax“:

As Kevin Drum says, “Polls routinely show that a substantial majority of people favor higher income taxes on the rich. But polls also show that a substantial majority of people favor repeal or reduction of the estate tax.” At the time (this was back in 2000), I thought it might have to do with a misconception, namely that lots of people assumed that everyone who inherits anything has to pay the estate tax. So we did an experiment in a survey where we asked two versions of the question, one of which asked whether people thought the tax should be repealed, and the other of which explained that the tax was only paid by people who inherited a million dollars or more (or whatever the exemption was back then), then asked whether people thought it should be repealed.
The results didn’t show much of an impact of the information: While support was lower among the group that got the explanation, it was only lower by about 10 points. As I recall, it was something like 65 percent supporting repeal without the information about the exemption, and 55 percent supporting repeal with the information (the data are in here somewhere, if you care to track them down)…

According to an ABC News/Washington Post Poll conducted 12/9-12, 29 percent of respondents “support strongly” a policy of “Increasing the exemption on inheritance taxes so that only estates worth more than five million dollars are taxed,” with another 23 percent saying they “support somewhat” such a policy. And 16 percent were in the “oppose somewhat” category, with 25 percent in the “oppose strongly” group.
Waldman quotes Drum attributing the phenomenon to “…a very deep, very primitive protective instinct that most people sympathize with no matter how rich you are” — leaving money to your kids. Waldman also cites the unrealistic belief of most people that one day they might be rich along with the shrewd propaganda of Republicans, who branded the estate tax the ‘death tax.” He also notes that opinions about estate taxes tend to be most strongly held by the rich and most others don’t care enough about it to take action.
As far as progressive messaging goes, Waldman recommends, “Why shouldn’t Paris Hilton have to pay taxes, just like people who work for a living?” Not bad. It does crystalize the issue succinctly. Not everyone will buy the Hilton stereotype whole hog, since many would understand that not all heirs are that undeserving. But Waldman’s suggestion does get the conversation started. Building support for a progressive estate tax, however, will also require a sustained education campaign so people have more of a sense of the scope of the issue and what seems fair. It’s too late for 2010, but next time a little more public education about the issue might serve Dems well.

Despite the persistent myth that the Republican rank-and-file are all patiently waiting to be told by Great Big Grownups which leader to follow in 2012 (you know, a Great Big Grownup candidate like Mitch Daniels or Haley Barbour or John Thune) there’s remarkably little evidence that conservative activists, the true rulers of the GOP, are converging behind any particular candidate.
For a good indication of the landscape, check out the reader poll recently conducted at the highy influential right-wing site RedState. It was set up like a sports playoff, with sixteen possible candidates being matched up one-on-one in a series of rounds. It’s interesting that three of the four candidates with regular double-digit support levels in state and national polls got knocked out in the first round: Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich. The current DC Establishment heartthrob, John Thune, was also retired in the first round, by none other than John Bolton (!). The poll ultimately came down to Sarah Palin and radio talk host Herman Cain, with the latter narrowly winning among more than 18,000 ballots cast.
Now I don’t mean to suggest this result means a whole lot in itself, as is made obvious by the stellar showing of Cain, who is not that well known outside Georgia (significantly, Erickson’s home state). But this is a pretty good indicator that serious activists are still looking around for a champion, and may not agree on one before the actual contest gets underway.

This item is by TDS contributor Lee Drutman, senior fellow and managing editor at the Progressive Policy Institute. It is cross-posted from ProgressiveFix.
As Democrats shift from licking their wounds to figuring out how to win back the House in 2012, the obvious question is: what will it take? Or at least, what will it take besides the obvious triumvirate of a solidly recovering economy, a healthy dose of Republican overreach, and a bit of luck?
Over the next several weeks, I’m going to be taking a closer look at the 66 seats (net 63) that Democrats lost, asking some questions about the character of these lost districts with the goal of putting a finer point on what Democrats need to pay attention to in order to get those seats back. In this post, I’m going to focus on the role of manufacturing, race, and education.
But first a quick look at the map: Democrats lost seats all over the country: 23 in the South, 20 in the Midwest, 15 in the Northeast, and eight in the West.
The bulk of post-election commentary has blamed the losses on the fact that the incumbent party almost always loses seats in a mid-term election and the fact that Democrats were being blamed for a bad economy.
But yet California, where unemployment is 12.4 percent, did not yield a single Republican pick-up (though California is famous for having very safe districts, so this may not be a fair test.). In Oregon, where unemployment is 10.5 percent, Democrats held the five (out of six) seats they maintain.
Manufacturing
One industry that has been hit particularly hard in the recession is manufacturing. Of course, the decline in manufacturing has been going on for a long time. In 1950, roughly three in ten U.S. employees worked in manufacturing. Today manufacturing jobs account for just 8.9 percent of U.S. nonfarm jobs. In the 2000s, manufacturing lost roughly one-third of its jobs, falling from 17.3 million people to 11.6 million people.
In most cases, these are jobs that are not coming back, leaving communities that depended on them demoralized and angry. How much of a factor was this in the 2010 elections?
Across the 66 Republican pick-up districts, manufacturing accounts for, on average, 11.9 percent of the jobs. That’s three full percentage points higher than the national average of 8.9 percent. In roughly three quarters (73 percent) of the districts Democrats lost, manufacturing accounted for more than the national average of 8.9 percent of the jobs.
Not surprisingly, this was most pronounced in the Midwest, where the 21 districts Republicans picked up averaged 14.4 percent of manufacturing jobs as a share of total non-farm employment. But it was also pronounced in the Northeast and the South. In both regions, manufacturing accounted for 11 percent of the jobs in the districts Democrats lost, two points above the national average. Only in the West did the districts the Democrats lost have less manufacturing than the national average, averaging only 6.9 percent of the economy. This was the region in which Democrats lost fewest seats – only nine.
To understand the potential importance of declining manufacturing as a key to the Democrats’ losses, consider Pennsylvania’s 11th District, which includes Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Democrat Paul Kanjorski had held the seat since 1985, but was ousted by Lou Barletta by a 55-to-45 percent margin. The district gave Obama 57 percent of its vote, and was one of only nine Republican pick-up districts that voted for Kerry. Manufacturing accounts for 16.9 percent of jobs in the district.
Or Wisconsin’s 7th District (northwest and Central Wisconsin), where Republicans picked up a seat formerly held by long-time incumbent David Obey, and a district both Obama and Kerry carried as well. Manufacturing accounts for 17 percent of the jobs in the district. Likewise with the 17st District of Illinois (northwest Illinois) – held by a Democrat since 1983, went for both Kerry and Obama, and 14.3 percent of its jobs come from manufacturing.
Education and Race
Democrats also have a problem with non-college educated whites. This has been a long-standing challenge for Democrats. Many of these voters feel frustrated and left behind by economic changes related to the loss of manufacturing jobs and global competition. They don’t see Democrats as helping them out. They wonder why they can’t seem to get ahead, and they want answers and somebody to blame.

Read more…

Those who would like to see a little more fighting spirit from Democratic leaders should find ample encouragement from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has just made it quite clear that he’s not in a mood to take any unnecessary guff from Republicans.
Reid had raised the possibility of calling the Senate back for a short session after Christmas to deal with START and other unfinished business. Here’s Reid, via Talking Points Memo, responding to comments from Sen John Kyl (R-AZ), who accused Reid of “disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians.” and Jim DeMint (R-SC), who whined that it would be “sacrilegious” for the Senate to vote on the START treaty so close to Christmas:

As a Christian, no one has to remind me of the importance of Christmas for all of the Christian faith, for all their families, all across America,” he said. “I don’t need to hear the sanctimonious lectures of Sen. Kyl and [Sen. Jim] DeMint to remind me of what Christmas means.

Reid notes that their concerns about the timing are somewhat inconsistent, asking “Where were their concerns about Christmas [when they were posing] filibuster after filibuster of every piece of legislation during this entire Congress?”
Reid didn’t need any help to make his point. But if he did, quite a few readers had barbed zingers to add to the fray in the comments following the post, like this from ‘Spider Pig’:

So if the Senate can’t work before or after Christmas, can I call in lazy, too? And my wife, the Federal employee, what about her? Is it too holy for her to work next week, too? When’s the freaking cut-off for when it’s appropriate to work before or after Christmas? What about the 13 Jewish Senators currently serving? How about they hold court while everyone else goes home for Christmas? Oh, wait, they’re ALL Dems. PERFECT!

…And this from IndyLinda:

Yes, and it’s sacrilegious to expect anyone to work for several days before and after Christmas. Horrors! Just ask all the cops, teachers, firemen, nurses, doctors, and anyone else with a real job who isn’t guaranteed two weeks off at Christmas time…

…And this gem from mJJ:

While I would not has said it exactly that way, the gist of what you said is absolutely correct. I am LDS and I do not appreciate Kyl acting like Harry Reid knows nothing about Christian behavior. But alas, my party held up legislation so often during this last session of the Senate that it serves them right for their unpatriotic stalling. Last I heard, Democrats still have the majority in the Senate and that is why Reid has the right to schedule as he pleases. But Kyl’s whine is so disgusting. Thousands of people work even on Christmas. I am a retired RN and for years until I became a Nursing Supervisor, I often had to work during the Christmas holiday. Obviously Kyl, even after our party obstructed all they could, is now whining about working AFTER the Christmas holiday and before New Years. We will think twice before re-electing this dolt who cares less for common folks and the horrible Christmas they will have.

This is not just a feel-good lashing out against Republicans. It’s important, make that essential, not to let any form of disparagement of religious commitment of Dems pass unchallenged. If the situation was reversed the Republicans would be screaming for blood. Reid responded perfectly.

The speed with which the Obama-McConnell tax cut deal swept away the prior Beltway discussion of deficit reduction remains a vastly under-discussed topic. Here’s Matt Yglesias’ summary of the development and its implications for progressives:

The deficit is a problem only in the sense that the short-term deficit is currently too small. But this is one reason I’m surprised so many liberals are being so stinty in their praise of the recent tax deal. We’d just all been spending 12 months arguing that contrary to the conventional wisdom, short-term deficits should be smaller. We also spent a lot of time observing that conservative deficit-talk is fraudulent and all they care about is tax cuts for the rich. Then the Obama administration, after a year of fruitless austerity gambits, finally called their bluff. “Fine, you can have your deficit-increasing tax cut extension, but give me some other deficit-increasing stuff that my economists say has a higher multiplier than your tax cuts for the rich.” Now the deal is done, and for all the panels and commissions and all the money Pete Peterson’s spent the parties are coming together to make the deficit bigger.

I’d add to Matt’s analysis the point that conservative critics of the tax cut deal by and large aren’t opposing it on deficit-reduction grounds, but in fact are demanding permanent tax cuts that will increase deficits still more.
This is going to be worth remembering when Republicans engineer a big phony display over the deficit in connection with current-year appropriations and/or the debt limit.

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
Republicans are poised to take over the U.S. Senate in 2012. This isn’t contingent on a GOP presidential win, or even a particularly good campaign year, but rather on the extremely tilted Senate playing field created by the 2006 Democratic landslide. Yet, oddly, that is no comfort for many sitting Republican senators, who may face savage primary challenges if they are even perceived to slight the conservative base. Those with bulls-eyes on their backs presently include Dick Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, and John Ensign of Nevada–exactly half of the Republicans going before voters in 2012.
As we saw with the Tea Party revolt of 2010, this is hardly an idle concern. Conservatives successfully pushed Bob Bennett, Mike Castle, Lisa Murkowski, Arlen Specter, and Charlie Crist out of the party or out of the running–and forced “moderates” such as John McCain and Mark Kirk to flip-flop on issues like climate change and tack hard-right.
This year, the group of endangered senators is quite heterodox. Each can be said to represent a different grievance held by “true conservatives” against the Republican establishment:
The RINO: Olympia Snowe is the only genuine ideological turncoat here. She’s pro-choice, and at least somewhat supportive of gay-rights. She also broke with conservatives to bargain with the Obama administration on the economic stimulus legislation and then voted for it. There is zero question that conservatives, nationally and in her own state, would love to take her out. But do they have the power to do so? A September 2010 Public Policy Polling survey showed Maine Republicans would prefer a more conservative senator by a 63-29 margin, yet no one has yet identified a viable challenger. Snowe has also gained some protection on her right flank, by picking up an early re-election endorsement from Governor Paul LePage, who is close to Maine’s Tea Partiers but is also an old friend of Snowe’s family.
The Mandarin: Richard Lugar of Indiana has never been a favorite of conservatives, but in recent months, he’s really gone out of his way to invite a 2012 primary challenge–by refusing to sign onto an earmark ban; supporting the DREAM Act; and publicly suggesting that the GOP is moving too far to the right. The main reason conservatives would like his head on a pike, though, is that he is the last of the Republican foreign policy mandarins in the Senate. His championing of the new START treaty makes him a major enabler of the Obama administration in the eyes of both the neoconservative and Tea Party factions; and it may well be that the ghost of Jesse Helms returns to torment him. Already, Lugar has almost certainly drawn a 2012 primary opponent in State Senator Mike Delph. This year, conservatives understand they must unite around a single right-wing challenger, since divided opposition allowed another Indiana candidate–Senator Dan Coats–to sail past Tea Party opposition in 2010.
The Democrat-Lover: Utah’s Orrin Hatch was considered a right-wing zealot when he came to the Senate in 1976. Six terms later, conservatives tend to think of Hatch as a Fifth Columnist always ready to sell out “The Cause” if it means a chance to co-sponsor legislation with leading Democrats (his history of collaboration with Ted Kennedy remains a major sore point). Since it’s a taste for bipartisanship that sank Hatch’s Utah colleague Bob Bennett earlier this year, he has reason to worry, particularly given his state’s convention-based nominating process, which gives conservative activists extraordinary power (a poll of delegates to the April 2010 state convention that dumped Bennett showed only 19 percent favoring a seventh term for Hatch). Hatch is also pushing 80 years old, and could face an especially tough challenge from Congressman Jason Chaffetz. But unlike the rest of the names on the bulls-eye list, Hatch may still be able to defend himself by drawing upon his old, semi-dormant relationship with Utah’s hard right.
The Tea Party Crasher: Texas’s Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has been twisting in the political wind since the end of her disastrous primary challenge to Governor Rick Perry. Never popular with serious conservatives, and an outright enemy to the social conservatives who deplore her stubborn defense of legalized abortion, Hutchison chose the worst year imaginable to take on Perry, who fit easily into the mold of a Tea Party hero. She vacillated on whether she would give up her Senate seat to enter the gubernatorial race, which endeared her to no one, and then ran a bad campaign and lost. The biggest question is whether she decides to run again after a two-year hiatus; one possible challenger, Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, is a conservative favorite and–incidentally–African American.
The Sinner: John Ensign seemed well on his way to national conservative stardom, and possibly a presidential bid, when his world blew up with disclosure of a lurid and tangled series of misdeeds including an extramarital affair with a staff member, the payment of hush money, and potential violations of ethics rules and criminal statutes. Now that it appears Ensign will escape a trip to the hoosegow, he’s making noises about running for another term. But he doesn’t have the kind of standing–or for that matter, the money–to chase off primary challengers, who might include Congressman Dean Heller.

Read more…