Purveyors of the Heartland Hegemony of Iowa can breathe easier now. The state GOP Straw Poll in Ames was not made irrelevant via a victory by Ron Paul, who cannot be nominated thanks to his foreign policy views (his fringe economic and fiscal doctrines, alas, have become almost entirely acceptable in today’s GOP). The event succeeded in elevating a candidate, Michele Bachmann, to the top tier, and “winnowed the field” by disposing of the one-time smart money favorite for the nomination, Tim Pawlenty. And even the new candidate who skipped Ames and vaulted to the top tier even before his Saturday announcement, Rick Perry, bent his knee to Iowa by racing there the next day, and promising to spend plenty of time catching up in his consumption of potluck dinners.
Yes, aside from Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich will hang around the campaign trail as formal candidates though not serious contenders, helping keep rightward pressure on the field just in case anyone starts thinking about the general electorate a bit early. But barring some highly irrational last-minute bid by Sarah Palin, the GOP field is down to three candidates. And with no “bankable” events between now and the actual Iowa Caucuses (currently scheduled for February, but quite likely to slip back to early January if not earlier), it’s likely to stay that way, with the polls and fundraising numbers offering the only grounds for objective comparison.
You can expect a big, big boom for Perry over the next few weeks, accompanied by the sort of scrutiny his long record of erratic and sometimes outrageous statements and positions invites. Some political observers are already predicting he will brush aside Bachmann to create a one-on-one battle with Mitt Romney, mainly on grounds that he will be able to contrast his record as governor with her brief career in congressional bloviating in a way that T-Paw tried but failed to do.
Many Republicans and chattering-class denizens seem mesmerized by Texas’ alleged sensational economic success story under Perry (which Paul Krugman nicely punctured in a column yesterday). Many southerners of a certain age will shake their heads in wonder that Perry’s version of the ancient race-to-the-bottom prescription for EZ economic growth in the region is being treated like a new, cool, “substantive” path ahead for the country. And many students of political communications will examine Perry’s stump speech closely to assess the earthy appeal of the man who Texan Paul Begala called “a good candidate if you thought George Bush was just a little too cerebral for you.”
If Perry attracts a quasi-unanimous rush of Christian Right and Tea Party endorsements, and starts badly beating Bachmann in polls of likely Iowa Caucus-goers, then maybe it will be time to call this essentially a two-candidate race. But until then, there are three viable candidates, two representing some of the more extreme forces in conservative ideology and another being pulled constantly in the same direction on pain of defeat.

Charles Dameron, a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Wall St. Journal, has a provocative article, “Rick Perry’s Crony Capitalism Problem” which douses a little rain on the Texas Governor’s parade. Dameron lays bare the GOP presidential hopeful’s raw favoritism toward his large contributors in dispensing funds from “one of his signature development initiatives.”
Despite Perry’s crowing about job creation in Texas under his governorship, Dameron reports that “the Texas Emerging Technology Fund–has lately raised serious questions among some conservatives,” and explains further:

The Emerging Technology Fund was created at Mr. Perry’s behest in 2005 to act as a kind of public-sector venture capital firm, largely to provide funding for tech start-ups in Texas. Since then, the fund has committed nearly $200 million of taxpayer money to fund 133 companies. Mr. Perry told a group of CEOs in May that the fund’s “strategic investments are what’s helping us keep groundbreaking innovations in the state.” The governor, together with the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the Texas House, enjoys ultimate decision-making power over the fund’s investments.
Among the companies that the Emerging Technology Fund has invested in is Convergen LifeSciences, Inc. It received a $4.5 million grant last year–the second largest grant in the history of the fund. The founder and executive chairman of Convergen is David G. Nance.
In 2009, when Mr. Nance submitted his application for a $4.5 million Emerging Technology Fund grant for Convergen, he and his partners had invested only $1,000 of their own money into their new company, according to documentation prepared by the governor’s office in February 2010. But over the years, Mr. Nance managed to invest a lot more than $1,000 in Mr. Perry. Texas Ethics Commission records show that Mr. Nance donated $75,000 to Mr. Perry’s campaigns between 2001 and 2006.
The regional panel that reviewed Convergen’s application turned down the company’s $4.5 million request when it presented its proposal on Oct. 7, 2009. But Mr. Nance appealed that decision directly to a statewide advisory committee (of which Mr. Nance was once a member) appointed by Mr. Perry. Just eight days later, on Oct. 15, a subcommittee unanimously recommended approval by the full statewide committee. On Oct. 29, the full advisory committee unanimously recommended the approval of Convergen’s application…”

Nance wasn’t the only contributor to benefit from Perry’s generosity with taxpayer dollars, according to Dameron:

ThromboVision, Inc., a medical imaging company, was also the recipient of an award from the Emerging Technology Fund: It received $1.5 million in 2007. Charles Tate, a major Perry contributor, served as the chairman of a state committee that reviewed ThromboVision’s application for state funding, and Mr. Tate voted to give ThromboVision the public money. One month after ThromboVision received notification that it would receive a $1.5 million state grant in April 2007, Mr. Tate invested his own money in ThromboVision, according to the Dallas Morning News. The Texas paper later found that by 2010 Mr. Tate owned a total of 200,000 preferred shares in ThromboVision.
According to a Texas state auditor’s report, ThromboVision failed to submit required annual reports to the fund from 2008 through 2010, when the company went bankrupt. The report noted the tech fund’s managers were “unaware of ThromboVision, Inc.’s bankruptcy until after the bankruptcy had been reported in a newspaper.” ThromboVision’s bankruptcy filing revealed not only that Mr. Tate had been a preferred shareholder in ThromboVision, but so had prominent Perry supporter Charles Miller, who owned 250,000 preferred shares in the company and has donated $125,000 to the governor’s campaigns…
All told, the Dallas Morning News has found that some $16 million from the tech fund has gone to firms in which major Perry contributors were either investors or officers, and $27 million from the fund has gone to companies founded or advised by six advisory board members. The tangle of interests surrounding the fund has raised eyebrows throughout the state, especially among conservatives who think the fund is a misplaced use of taxpayer dollars to start with.

And it wasn’t just the ETF that Perry has tapped to reward his supporters:

Starting in 2008, Mr. Perry also appropriated approximately $2 million in federal taxpayer money through the auspices of the Wagner-Peyser Act–a federal works program founded during the New Deal and overseen in Texas by Mr. Perry’s office–to a nonprofit launched by Mr. Nance called Innovate Texas. The nonprofit was meant to help entrepreneurs by linking them to investors. It began receiving funding on Dec. 31, 2008, soon after Mr. Nance’s previous company, Introgen Therapeutics, declared bankruptcy on Dec. 3. According to state records, Mr. Nance paid himself $250,000 for the two years he ran Innovate Texas. Innovate Texas, whose listed phone number is not a working number, could not be reached for comment…

Dameron quotes tea party state rep David Simpson, who says of Perry’s exploitation of the Emerging Techonology Fund “It is fundamentally immoral and arrogant,” and it “opened the door to the appearance of impropriety, if not actual impropriety.” Dameron adds that Simpson filed a motion in the Texas House in May “to shutter the fund and redirect the money to other portions of the budget. That measure passed 89-37 to cheers from the chamber.” However, the fund was kept operational by a legislative conference committee and still has has $140 million for Perry to dole out.
It’s hard to cite an example of a Republican being denied the GOP’s presidential nomination because of excessive ‘crony capitalism.’ GOP primary voters — and to some extent the public at large — have a disturbingly high tolerance for it. If Perry is successful at spinning his track record for job-creation in a favorable light, it won”t be surprising if voters give him a pass on his lavish rewarding of campaign contributors.
But Dameron’s report does broaden avenues for investigative reporters to mine in search of damaging details. Meanwhile Perry’s hope to become a ‘unity candidate’ for the GOP faces a hurdle in that segment of the tea party which frowns on use of taxpayer funds to reward political contributors.

Jeanne Mirer, president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. and Marjorie Cohn, immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild, have a post up at Op-Ed News, “Lost in the Debt Ceiling Debate: The Legal Duty to Create Jobs” addressing the federal government’s failure to comply with existing job-creation legislation.
Mirer and Cohn focuse primarily on The Employment Act of 1946 and the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978, noting also mandates for job-creation in 1977 reforms requiring the Federal Reserve to leverage monetary policy to promote maximum employment. They add that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets a global standard of employment as an important right, which, not incidentally, some major industrialized nations have actually tried to honor.
The authors’ review of the two jobs acts provides a timely reminder of the moral imperative that faces every great democracy, the responsibility to take action to help insure that every family has at least one breadwinner who earns a living wage:

The first full employment law in the United States was passed in 1946. It required the country to make its goal one of full employment…With the Keynesian consensus that government spending was necessary to stimulate the economy and the depression still fresh in the nation’s mind, this legislation contained a firm statement that full employment was the policy of the country.
As originally written, the bill required the federal government do everything in its authority to achieve full employment, which was established as a right guaranteed to the American people. Pushback by conservative business interests, however, watered down the bill. While it created the Council of Economic Advisers to the President and the Joint Economic Committee as a Congressional standing committee to advise the government on economic policy, the guarantee of full employment was removed from the bill.
In the aftermath of the rise in unemployment which followed the “oil crisis” of 1975, Congress addressed the weaknesses of the 1946 act through the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978. The purpose of this bill as described in its title is:
“An Act to translate into practical reality the right of all Americans who are able, willing, and seeking to work to full opportunity for useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation; to assert the responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable programs and policies to promote full employment, production, and real income, balanced growth, adequate productivity growth, proper attention to national priorities.”
The Act sets goals for the President. By 1983, unemployment rates should be not more than 3% for persons age 20 or over and not more than 4% for persons age 16 or over, and inflation rates should not be over 4%. By 1988, inflation rates should be 0%. The Act allows Congress to revise these goals over time.
If private enterprise appears not to be meeting these goals, the Act expressly calls for the government to create a “reservoir of public employment.” These jobs are required to be in the lower ranges of skill and pay to minimize competition with the private sector.
The Act directly prohibits discrimination on account of gender, religion, race, age or national origin in any program created under the Act. Humphey-Hawkins has not been repealed. Both the language and the spirit of this law require the government to bring unemployment down to 3% from over 9%…

This legislation only requires the federal government to take action. The private sector, which employs 85+ percent of the labor force, would be indirectly influenced by monetary policy, but would not be required to do any hiring. Still, full enforcement of existing legislation could substantially reduce unemployment by putting millions of jobless Americans to work in public service projects rebuilding our tattered infrastructure.
The ’46 and ’78 full employment laws have been winked at and shrugged off by elected officials for decades as merely symbolic statutes, despite the fact that they actually do require the President, Congress and the Fed to do specific things to create jobs.
Mirer and Cohn point out that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has introduced “The Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act” (HR 870), to fund job-training and job-creation programs, funded by taxes on financial transactions. But the bill has no chance as long as Republicans control the House.
The authors urge President Obama to demand that the Fed “…use all the tools relating to controlling the money supply…to create the funds called for by HR 870, and to start putting people back to work through direct funding of a reservoir of public jobs as Humphrey-Hawkins mandates.” Imagine the political donnybrook that would ensue following such action, legal though it apparently would be. It’s an interesting scenario that needs some fleshing out.
The best hope for full employment remains electing strong Democratic majorities to both houses of congress, while retaining the presidency. Under this scenario, full enforcement of the ’46 and ’78 employment acts is certainly doable. But it’s a very tough challenge, given the Republican edge in Senate races next year.
There are signs that the public is tiring of the tea party obstruction of government, and therefore hope that at least some Republicans may have to move toward the center to survive. It’s possible they could be influenced by energetic protest and lobbying campaigns by their constituents.
Like other groups across the political spectrum, we progressives are very good at blaming elected officials when they don’t follow through on their reform promises. But too many progressive Dems fail to realize that finger-pointing, while necessary, is only part of our responsibility. If we really want to see significant progressive change, especially full employment, we simply must escalate our protest activities to compel our elected and government officials to act.
At a white house meeting, FDR reportedly told the great African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph “Make me do it” in response to Randolph’s appeal for racial justice and economic reform. Roosevelt was not being a smart ass; He was underscoring an important law of politics, that elected officials need protest to galvanize them to act, and progressive politicians welcome it because it provides cover, as well as encouragement.
Regarding protest leadership, we have a great role model, whose 30+ foot stone image will be unveiled not far from the Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR Memorials on the National Mall in the capitol August 28th. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial will not only honor the historic contributions of a great African American leader; It will also inspire — and challenge — coming generations of all races to emulate his strategy of militant but dignified nonviolent protest to achieve social and economic justice.
Let’s not forget that the Great March on Washington MLK and Randolph lead in 1963 was not only about racial justice. The twin goals were “Jobs and Freedom,” a challenge that echoes with prophetic relevance for our times. It was FDR who said “make me do it,” and MLK showed us the way, not only with one demonstration, but with a sustained commitment to mass protest. Now let’s make them do it.

Like a lot of political observers, I watched last night’s Fox News/Washington Examiner candidates’ debate mainly with an eye to its impact on the Republican presidential nominating contest (and even more specifically, tomorrow’s Iowa State GOP Straw Poll). By that standard, it made sense to focus on Ron Paul’s outlier views on foreign policy, the dynamics of the Pawlenty/Bachmann tussle, Mitt Romney’s continued ability to avoid conservative flak, and even Rick Santorum’s effort to lift himself past Herman Cain into the hanging-on-by-a-fingernail tier of the field.
But it’s worth paying regular attention to how the entire field is positioning itself for a general election. And by that standard, here are some moments from last night that look different from a different point of view:
1) Tim Pawlenty got good reviews for his little joke about offering to cook dinner or mow the lawn for anyone who could “find” the president’s plans for “reforming” Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That’s quite a knee-slapper for conservative activists. But significant majorities of the electorate at large don’t want these programs to be “reformed” in any respect other than making their benefits more, not less, adequate (which is obviously not what any Republican in the country is talking about).
2) The candidates jockeyed for the anti-choice vote, with Santorum and Pawlenty supporting a ban on abortions even in the case of rape and incest, and Bachmann going so far as to defend a vote for a tax increase in the Minnesota legislature because it was bundled with an anti-abortion measure. Every time Republican candidates talk about this subject, it reinforces the reality that every one of them wants to eliminate the right to choose in all but a tiny percentage of situations.
3) Similarly, Mitt Romney solidified his conservative credentials by defending a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. Nobody on the stage (even the heretic Jon Huntsman, who favors civil unions) was willing to say same-sex marriage is not a problem requiring some sort of immediate action. This is a position where public opinion is moving very rapidly in the opposite direction from the GOP.
4) Michele Bachmann responded to a question about her past statements of wifely “submission” to her husband with some serious prevarication about the meaning of the word “submit.” She probably won’t get away with brushing it off in the future. But more importantly, this whole line of discussion sounds like crazy-talk to the majority of Americans who do not subscribe to strict conservative evangelical views.
And most of all:
5) The defining moment of the debate was when every single candidate raised a hand in opposition to a hypothetical deficit reduction deal composed of a 10-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. As Ezra Klein pointed out today, this is a position virtually guaranteed to thwart the GOP’s own deficit reduction goals of securing “entitlement reform” and avoiding large defense cuts. It’s also wildly at variance with public opinion favoring bipartisan compromise and a “balanced” approach that includes tax as well as spending measures.
I’m sure I’ve missed some other moments in the debate that illustrated how far afield this field has traveled from mainstream public opinion in its hunger and thirst for “base” support. This dynamic is likely to become even more intense as actual ballots begin to be cast in the nominating process.

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
Thursday night’s Fox News/Washington Examiner GOP candidate debate featured more combative exchanges between conservative journalists and candidates than we’d seen thus far, and some fireworks between the contenders themselves. The debate-point winner was probably Newt Gingrich, who bashed his media tormenters effectively and was generally smooth and fluid, and the strategic winner was probably Mitt Romney, who had some good moments and again escaped any serious damage from his rivals. But in terms of the immediate impact on Saturday’s Iowa Straw Poll, it’s a bit harder to tell, since neither of the debate “winners” are competing in Ames.
Indeed, though we won’t know until Saturday night’s balloting closes at 7 pm CDT how it all turns out, much of the results have probably already been predetermined by the number of voters who have received pre-paid tickets ($30 a pop) from campaigns that have reason to think they’ll “vote right,” having decided to drive to Ames or hop a ride on a campaign van or bus, and can therefore be trusted to stay committed–or as the cynical might put it, “bought”–until their ballot is cast and their finger is dipped in indelible ink.
Before the Thursday night debate, virtually every observer expected the top three finishers in Ames to be, in some order, Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, and Ron Paul. All three of them have distinct strengths and weaknesses.
Bachmann has the buzz, the momentum, and at least a decent angle (if not a corner) on the highly motivated and pre-organized conservative evangelicals who gave the cash-strapped Mike Huckabee an improbable second-place finish in Ames in 2007, and a caucus victory in 2008. Her main weakness is in organization (she reportedly has only four field staffers in the state), compounded by a relatively late start and the Washington responsibilities that have made her largely a weekend warrior in Iowa. Bachmann’s straw poll campaign has been largely confined to central Iowa, and has largely consisted of paid media and robocalls (though there’s some buzz that her supporters are doing well in self-organizing through social media).
T-Paw, for his part, has a world-class statewide Iowa organization, full of straw poll and caucus veterans, who have been preparing for this weekend for many months. Free from day-job responsibilities, he’s spent more days in the state than anyone other than Rick Santorum (who moved his family here a few weeks ago). In Iowa, as elsewhere, he is acceptable to every party faction, and is especially warm-and-cozy with the state’s powerful anti-abortion movement, which views his wife, a former Minnesota judge, as a staunch ally. But his problem in Iowa, as it is nationally, is that he just doesn’t seem to enthuse voters. His “Results, Not Rhetoric” slogan may offer a sly dig at his fellow-Minnesotan, while pointing to his governing record in Minnesota, but it seems ill-fitted to a campaign cycle where Republicans want fire from every podium.
Paul, finally, is sort of the Goldilocks candidate of the field: He’s got a good organization–not as good as Pawlenty’s, but far better than he had in 2007–and he’s certainly got intensely loyal supporters famed for their willingness to show up at straw polls–though not as many as Bachmann might command if she could reach and turn out conservative evangelicals en masse. So it’s hardly surprising some handicappers think he could well sneak past the favorites and pull off a win.
As for how the debate might have shaken up the calculus among the three contenders, Tim Pawlenty got off some good prefab lines at the expense of Barack Obama (and, to some extent, Romney), but his attacks on his main straw poll rival, Michelle Bachmann, were shrill and complicated, and the general impression is that Bachmann–who otherwise did not dazzle as she did in the last big debate in New Hampshire–got the better of their exchanges.
The biggest question is how much damage Ron Paul did to himself, right when he seemed to be breaking into a more mainstream Republican electorate, with his fiery remarks on foreign policy. The visual image of Mitt Romney, standing next to Paul and looking at him like a lab specimen as he defended Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear program, was striking. The loud hooting and cheering of Paul’s supporters in response to his most controversial (to conservatives) statements reinforced the idea that his is not a candidacy that’s ready, by any stretch, for the GOP primetime.
One thing that is relatively clear are the expectations against which each candidate will have to compete. Paul, of course, could care less about expectations; he will campaign to the bitter end no matter what, and even a victory in Ames will not gain him credibility as a potential nominee. Both Bachmann and Pawlenty, however, need a first-place finish: Bachmann in order to maintain her momentum and establish herself, once and for all, as a top-tier candidate, and T-Paw, more likely than not, in order to convince donors to keep his campaign afloat. And both are under the long shadow of Perry, who could quickly displace both Bachmann as the favorite of Tea Party and Christian Right activists, and Pawlenty as the electable-conservative-alternative-to-Romney. Ames, for all its nonsense, will likely begin the inevitable process of culling the wheat from the chaff.

The latest Gallup Poll conducted Aug 4-7, after the S&P credit rating downgrade, affirms a favorable trend for Democratic House candidates, as well as recent polls indicating a big downer for tea party Republicans. According to Lydia Saad’s Gallup post,

Gallup’s first measure of the 2012 congressional elections shows Democrats leading Republicans, 51% to 44%, in registered voters’ preferences for which party’s candidate they would support in their district “if the elections for Congress were being held today.”

Saad notes that the Dem advantage is not quite as large as in ’06 and ’08, when Democrats enjoyed double digit leads in Gallup polls leading up to the election. But the trend line nonetheless appears favorable for Dems.
The poll also brings some unwelcome news for Republicans who have linked their election hopes to the tea party:

Gallup also asked registered voters how a Tea Party endorsement would affect their likelihood of voting for a congressional candidate. The effect is nearly 2-to-1 negative, with 42% saying they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate versus 23% saying they would be more likely. About a third say it would make no difference or are unsure.
Among registered voters, most Republicans say a Tea Party endorsement would either make them more likely to vote for a candidate (44%) or make no difference (42%), while most Democrats say it would make them less likely to vote for a candidate (66%). Independents’ reactions are similar to the national average, with 25% more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by the Tea Party and 38% less likely…These results echo those of a separate question in the new survey showing that, by 20% to 14%, more Americans strongly oppose the Tea Party movement than strongly support it.

Evidently, ‘tea party downgrade’ applies to electoral politics, along with America’s credit rating. Maybe a good bumper sticker for Dems in the months ahead should say “Had Enough Tea?…Vote Democratic.”

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
As they have with the Great Depression, economic historians will argue for decades about the origins of our current crisis. But, surely, we can agree that the failure of international economic cooperation in the early 1930s–and worse, the sequential adoption of beggar-thy-neighbor domestic policies–made matters worse at a time when enlightened statesmanship could have made them better for everyone. Similarly, the current crisis is not just a U.S. problem or a European problem; it is a global problem that requires a coordinated global response. “We’re all in this together” is not a moral bromide, in this instance, but a simple statement of fact.
Since the crash of 2008, the entire world has relied on a shared, if tacit, plan to avert all-out catastrophe and a second Great Depression. The United States would do what was necessary to prevent its financial system from collapsing and stem the economic decline with massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. Europe would cauterize its debt crisis, which threatened the integrity of its common currency, by bailing out its small, insolvent countries (Ireland, Portugal, Greece) while relying on German growth and Franco-German leadership to pull it through. Brazil and India would continue to grow briskly, and China would shore up global demand with a huge investment in public sector spending. And the world would muddle through, albeit with below-normal growth and above-normal unemployment for an uncomfortably long time. In the interim, social safety nets of varying strength would shield the hardest-hit workers and families from destitution, maintaining social stability.
Events of recent days, however, have made it clear that this plan has failed. Growth in output and employment in the United States had slowed well before the inconclusive outcome of the debt ceiling debate gave Standard & Poor the occasion to downgrade U.S. public debt. The European debt crisis has morphed beyond its previous bounds to include Spain and Italy, whose obligations far exceed what the European Central Bank can backstop, and even German growth is now showing signs of flagging. The most rapidly growing emerging economies are slowing and, in most cases, they are experiencing rising rates of inflation. In important respects, the Chinese stimulus was misconceived, with massive sums poured into unproductive infrastructure projects and loans that local authorities cannot repay.
Not only has the post-2008 arrangement fallen short; it has left the world economy less able to meet the current challenge. There is a limit to what central banks can do, and they may be uncomfortably close to it. (The Fed’s portfolio has swollen dramatically since the crisis began more than three years ago.) The indebtedness of most major countries has soared relative to their GDP, increasing market and political pressures for long-term fiscal stabilization. Some countries–most notably the United States–have failed to respond adequately, while others–most notably the UK–have implemented austerity programs, only to be met with social disruption. The famous European social model, which stabilized the continent for two generations, is now in danger (or, perhaps, in the early stages) of being rolled back, with political consequences that are unlikely to be benign.
So what’s to be done? Some elements of the response we need are pretty clear:

1. In the United States, large amounts of household debt (especially mortgages) incurred during the past two decades cannot be repaid, while in Europe large amounts of sovereign debt could be repaid only on terms that would prove ruinous (see Keynes’ sadly prescient 1919 book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace). We need new mechanisms for lightening these debt burdens and allocating losses so that demand-led growth can resume and social stability can be preserved. If institutional creditors take a hit, as they should and will, governments should ensure that they remain adequately capitalized and on track to resume necessary lending when demand recovers.
2. The European Union cannot remain where it is. If its members cannot agree to move forward to more centralized institutions of economic management, then it must move backward by loosening the restraints on member-nations and permitting (or even requiring) individual nations under stress to suspend or terminate their participation in the euro. Argentina, which ceased pegging its currency to the dollar at the height of a debt crisis, may be a better model for Greece than is the IMF-style austerity program its government has been forced to adopt.

Read more…

Let me begin with a confession. When I wrote the piece under discussion I knew that people would tend to interpret it entirely in relation to Obama and that they would fiercely argue that he has done an absolutely miserable job of exploiting such actual opportunities as the “bully pulpit” does indeed provide – thinking that they were thereby refuting my argument.
But that’s simply and very emphatically not what my argument was really about. In fact, I completely agree with the generally critical view of Obama’s communications strategy. Since the spring and fall of 2009, Obama’s messaging and rhetoric has repeatedly (and unnecessarily) demoralized the Democratic base while failing to win the support of the moderate voters he hoped to bring to his side.
There is, in fact, an absolutely extraordinary consensus within the Democratic community today – one that stretches from “inside the beltway” tacticians like Jon Chait and Greg Sargent and opinion poll experts like Stan Greenberg to grass-roots leaders like Bob Borosage and progressive stalwarts like Paul Krugman, Robert Reich and a host of others. Virtually every major sector of the Democratic coalition has now come to the conclusion that Obama’s attempts to communicate with the American people and win their support since spring 2009 have been profoundly inadequate and ineffective.
There are probably a hundred different specific criticisms one can make, the large majority of them quite plausible. Here are several entirely sensible ones noted in the reply to my post by Tom Phillips:

“…The GOP mentioned jobs and the economy, too, and I couldn’t tell them (D’s and R’s) apart.”
“… [Obama’s] jobs proposals got completely drowned out in the debt/government-spending debacle”.
… [Obama’s] 19 trips to 22 projects [were] mostly in daytime, mostly in the Midwest, mostly in businesses…
… [Obama’s advocacy of clean energy jobs were] “boring and removed from our day-to-day concerns”

The truth is that it is not hard to dissect every single specific aspect of Obama’s communications and find a multitude of things that were done wrong.
But Obama’s particular use (or non-use) of the bully pulpit was emphatically not the issue I was raising in my strategy memo. The examples I noted involving Obama were all designed for the sole purpose of illustrating the defensive, after-the-fact rationalization style of argument that pro-Bully Pulpit advocates use when challenged, not that Obama’s strategy itself was sound or correct.
Quite the contrary, precisely because of the near-universal agreement among Democrats (including myself) that Obama’s use of the “bully pulpit” has been essentially a failure, a very sloppy and superficial alternative notion has increasingly gained very widespread currency – the notion that “if Obama (or any other future president) would just use the bully pulpit he could transform the national debate.” It’s an incredibly appealing argument because it dramatically expresses the frustration Democrats are now feeling about Obama and one that seems to offer a clear and coherent alternative.
But this “the bully pulpit can transform the national debate” idea is one that I think is both fundamentally wrong and profoundly dangerous.

Read more…

This item is a guest post by Tom Phillips, a retired corporate attorney who contributes to Daily Kos as TRPChicago.
I usually enjoy your Strategy Memos for content, logic and style, but I wholeheartedly disagree with James Vega’s latest piece, “The bully pulpit is not a magic wand.”
President Obama (my wife and I vigorously supported him as contributors and as volunteers in 2008) usually gives memorable speeches, head and shoulders better than anyone else on the political scene today. Yes, he’s mentioned jobs and the economy. And yes, he’s made a lot of appearances this year that focus on how some businesses are doing being innovative. So therefore…we shouldn’t think the bully pulpit has been or can be effective? He has a bully pulpit, all right, but he hasn’t used it.
James Vega’s memo makes several points.
1. The President has been mentioning jobs. But he got mired down in the faux debt crisis and bought the view that government spending was getting out of control. Both he and the GOP mentioned jobs and the economy. I couldn’t tell them apart. But I did hear from him that the deficit was the major thing to attend to now, next year and in the long run. And as for jobs proposals, they got completely drowned out by the debt/government-spending debacle–and I’m worried, very worried, that’s where they’ll stay. As for now, all we’ve heard from the President’s pulpit is a much-criticized, teleprompter-controlled pap-pallid statement to the press proposing patent reform and extending the payroll tax holiday. The former won’t produce one discernible job in my lifetime and the latter is good, but it’s a whisper in the wind, effective next year.
2. He’s made speeches, everywhere: 19 trips to 22 projects. Yes, but mostly in daytime, mostly in the Midwest, mostly to businesses where he tours and talks about how great their efforts are. But most of us are not great. America’s unemployment is at a durable high, in the double digits when you consider how many people have had to take part-time, low-wage jobs. Those aren’t success stories, they’re a frickin’ ongoing crises amidst a moribund economy! President Obama’s proofs of successes on the road are in no way directed to an audience that needs to be moved to action.
3. As for energy, Vega writes: “It is difficult to imagine a much more consistent and continued use of the ‘bully pulpit’ and yet there has been virtually no visible change in the national discussion of clean energy.” The only thing more boring and removed than energy issues right now are climate issues. Energy policy is an area where the Obama administration is making progress, with the new fuel standards and their ringing endorsement by – wait for it! – the auto industry! We will do very well for the American economy if we can innovate in this profoundly important area with technology, new materials and manufacturing techniques. That is a huge victory, but it’s largely behind-the-scenes and in the future. To conclude that the President’s advocacy on energy matters hasn’t affected the “national discussion” seems beside the point.
So, what is my point?
(1) A bully pulpit must sound a call to action, an aggressive and persuasive case for urgent change. A bang! A big bang, several bangs in fact, using the Presidency’s formidable power to persuade (thank you, Richard Neustadt!) and move the American people.
(2) The president needs to put forth a set or sets of proposals — specific, bold, significant and likely to be effective within months after adoption (“shovel ready”). These could include an infrastructure bank, with private and public money, to fund investment in American jobs now and in America’s near and longer-term future, and putting into practice Board-certified Keynesian/Krugman/Friedman populism. Consumer spending will energize the economy, not to mention American households and business opportunities.
(3) Obama must also provide vocal, prominent leadership for his party and the public. (Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting doing a Hillary-on-health-care bill where she presented an 1100 page draft to Congress; that’s too specific.) I am suggesting that President Obama give legislators something to move, and supply specifics for the believers to accomplish … and for non-believers to explain why they can’t be done– something the American people and editorial boards and state and local officials can relate to. Let the nay-sayers vent; we all know who stands taller than they do.
Two times this President recently asked us all to write or call our Congressmen. But what, specifically, did he ask? “Tell them, ‘take a balanced approach’ to the debt debate.” What in the [deleted] is that? The newest Hill intern answering phones in the busiest Hill office could turn that message into a checkmark to support any position, even a Tea Partyist’s! Talk about depreciating the currency from the pulpit.
A presidential call to Congress – and a strategized roll-out to yea-sayers to keep the ball rolling – would energize public discourse. I don’t understand why this White House can’t be as good as Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin at getting and keeping the attention of the mainstream media–and energizing responsible institutions like TDS in the process.

As progressive frustration with Obama has mounted, the plaintive assertion that “If Obama had just used the “bully pulpit” of the presidency he could have transformed the national debate” has become one of the most widely repeated criticisms of his administration. In hundreds of op-ed pieces, articles, blog posts, comment threads and e-mail letters to the editor his failure to use the bully pulpit to dominate the airwaves with a full-throated progressive position on issue after issue is cited as the major and indeed single most important reason for the increased influence of Republican views.
The issue goes far beyond Obama or 2010 or 2012. If the bully pulpit view is correct, an uncompromising progressive should be able to dramatically shift the national debate once he or she is elected. If it is not, he or she will find that the bully pulpit is a relatively limited tool that cannot dramatically shift public attitudes. The issue is whether the bully pulpit actually “works” as described or if it doesn’t. This is just as critical a question for a future president Krugman or Olbermann as it is for the present occupant of the oval office.
What is particularly striking about the “the bully pulpit can transform the national debate” notion is the way it is stated as if it were an entirely self-evident truth, one whose validity is so obvious that it does not need any empirical support or confirmation. In virtually every case, it is presented as a proposition whose certainty is simply beyond any serious question.
In fact, however, there is actually very little evidence in either the historical record or public opinion research to support this view. Even such famous examples of presidential rhetoric as Lyndon Johnson’s “We shall overcome” speech supporting the Civil Rights Bill or Ronald Reagan’s often quoted speech asserting that “government is the problem not the solution” did not produce any major epiphany-like transformations of attitudes that opinion polls could detect. Observation suggests that the bully pulpit has a real and to some degree quantifiable but very clearly limited influence on public opinion. It cannot, by itself, produce major attitude change.
The tremendous appeal of the “bully pulpit” notion is rooted in the fact that it provides an all-purpose, entirely irrefutable argument against Obama’s (or any politician’s) political strategy and tactics without requiring any evidence.
To be sure, presidential rhetoric does indeed have a specific, identifiable degree of influence on public opinion. In recent months there have been two relatively clear examples of this – Obama’s speech criticizing Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal and his call last week for public pressure on Congress in support of a compromise on the debt ceiling. In the first case Obama’s remarks clearly served as a focal point that helped crystallized public opposition to the Ryan plan and his call for pressure on congress last week produced a wave of phone calls that overloaded the congressional switchboard.
But these same two examples also suggest the very clear limitations that exist on the influence of presidential rhetoric. Such rhetoric can help to focus and rally public opinion around a position that already commands strong and widespread popular support or it can mobilize action among dedicated partisans. But there are no solid examples – either recently or in the last several decades — of presidential speeches ever actually producing major transformations of deeply held public attitudes.
When this is suggested to proponents of the “If only Obama had used the bully pulpit he could have transformed the national debate” view, however, they will emphatically deny that it is true. On the contrary, proponents generally launch into what a skeptical listener cannot help but perceive as a series of ex-post-facto rationalizations designed to protect the notion that any Democratic president who genuinely wants to can indeed use the bully pulpit to dominate and control the national debate on any issue.

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