In his New York Times opinion piece, “Let’s Not Talk About Inequality,” Thomas B. Edsall does a good job of tracing the change in public attitudes toward Republican economic policies in the wake of the 2008 meltdown.
Edsall quotes Gingrich’s and Romney’s pious pronouncements about workers needing to “become more employable” (Newt) and achieving “success and rewards through hard work” (Mitch), which is a little hard to digest, coming from a guy who gets six figures for a speech and another who made his fortune in hedge funds. This in “an American economy sharply skewed towards the affluent, with rising inequality, a dwindling middle class and the persistence of long-term unemployment.”
Not all Republicans are quite so clueless. Edsall quotes GOP framing guru Frank Luntz, “I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort” because “they’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.” Edsalll also quotes Democratic strategist Geoff Garin, who explains “…The Republican/Tea Party narrative about the economy has been superseded by a different narrative – one that emphasizes the need to address the growing gap between those at the very top of the economic ladder and the rest of the country.”
Garin cites poll data indicating stronger support for “a set of policies generally favored by Democrats calling for the elimination of tax breaks for the rich and tougher regulation of major banks and corporations” and that the public believes the federal government should “pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less well-off Americans.” He also cites polling data spelling big trouble for the GOP:

The job ratings of Republicans in Congress have tanked at 74 percent negative to 19 percent favorable, dropping more steeply than Obama’s, which are 51 negative-44 positive. But the Post survey also found that congressional Republicans run neck and neck with the president when respondents are asked “who would you trust to do a better job” on handling the economy (42-42) and creating jobs (40-40). On an issue on which the public traditionally favors Democrats by wide margins, “protecting the middle class,” Obama held only a 45-41 advantage over congressional Republicans.

Republicans are scrambling to figure out how to blame Democrats for worsening inequality, explains Edsall. But “The issue of inequality is inherently dangerous for Republicans who are viewed by many as the party of the upper class.” Further,

An Oct. 19-24 CBS/New York Times poll asked respondents whether the policies of the Obama administration and the policies of Republicans in Congress favor the rich, the middle class, the poor or treat everyone equally. Just 12 percent said Obama favors the rich, while 69 percent said Republicans in Congress favor the rich.

And when Ryan’s budget scheme is explained to voters, they “are horrified by it,” according to Garin. Edsall marvels at the GOP’s blindness in making it possible for their two front runners to get bogged down in arguments about how much more to give the wealthy while weakening Medicare benefits for the middle class — “in a climate of stark economic adversity for millions of unemployed Americans.”
Edsall is right. Democrats could not have hoped for a more self-destructive scenario in the Republican camp. If Democrats can project a credible message that offers hope for a better future for middle class voters in the months ahead, the optimism that has begun to emerge in Democratic circles will be justified.

The Third way has a provocative memo addressed to “interested parties” making a poll-driven case that the tea party has become like kryptonite to the GOP’s superman pretensions. The memo opens with a Karl Rove quote that puts things in perspective: “The GOP is better off if it forgoes any attempt to merge with the Tea Party movement…[it] will hurt Republicans if the party is formally associated with Tea Party groups.” The memo continues:

A September Gallup poll gave the Republican Party a 43-53% favorability rating, or minus ten percent. Not terrific, but not awful. But an August AP poll gave the Tea Party a minus18% rating, and a New York Times poll of the same month pegged Tea Party favorability slightly worse at 20-40%. And in a recent Third Way survey of swing voters, we found the Tea Party to be strikingly unpopular with this key demographic…We agree with Karl Rove and argue that the most effective Democratic message against Republicans is to tie the GOP to the Tea Party.

The memo uses a continuum analysis to explain the Lincoln Park Strategies/Third Way survey to show how swing voters relate to the two parties, and the numbers indicate they are closer to Republicans. However, the survey also indicated that the same poll, swing voters by 56% to19% said that the Tea Party “is going too far in jeopardizing important safety net programs.” Further,

In the space of four months, the Tea Party’s popularity dropped 17 points, plunging from a net minus 3 points to a net minus 20 points, according to the New York Times. In April 2011, a poll by the outlet placed Tea Party favorability at 26%. By August, the same poll had Tea Party favorability down to 20%, with its unfavorables up to 40%.
The Associated Press found the same trend in their polling: Tea Party favorability
declined from 33% in June 2010 to 28% in August 2011; unfavorability spiked from
30% in June 2010 to 46% in August 2011. One-third of voters had “very unfavorable”
views of the Tea Party in the August AP poll.

Noting that “the Republicans are now taking direction in almost every meaningful way from the Tea Party, the memo explains:

The public is beginning to catch on to this connection, and there is a growing concern that Republicans and the Tea Party are becoming one and the same. In February 2010, only 14% of voters felt that the Tea Party had too much influence on the Republican Party.
By August, 43% of voters felt that the Tea Party had too much influence. This trend is helpful, but it is not sufficient. The full magnitude of Tea Party control over the GOP has not yet penetrated voter consciousness. Democrats must ensure that the public knows that Speaker Boehner, candidate Romney and others embrace these positions in obeisance to the Tea Party.

Then the memo makes a bold recommendation:

Voters see the Tea Party as something to fear. That should signal to Democrats that Republicans should not be characterized as “Wall Street Republicans,” “Corporatist Republicans,” “Extremist Republicans,” or “in-the-pocket of millionaires and billionaires Republicans.” They are “Tea Party Republicans.”
Democrats must show that the Tea Party and the Republican Party are joined at the hip and that Republicans are both in league with the Tea Party and beholden to them. Democrats must use every opportunity to define radical Republican ideas and the legion of Republican candidate flip-flops as the consequences of strict adherence to Tea Party dogma.

The memo concludes, “Next November, as voters head into the voting booth, the question that must go through their minds is this: Do I really want to put the Tea Party in charge of everything–Congress and the White House? If that is the question they ask, it could be a long night for Republicans.”

On the roller-coaster ride to next year’s elections, Carl Hulse’s “House Democrats Bullish on 2012 Prospects” at the New York Times Caucus should lift a few spirits. According to Hulse, Dems have done better than expected in terms of redistricting, retiring the Party’s debt and how Dems are viewed in comparison to the opposition — adding up to a “real shot’ at winning the 25 seats needed to retake the House. Says Steve Israel, head of the DCCC:

“I cannot guarantee anybody that we are going to win 25 or more seats at this point,” Mr. Israel said in an interview with New York Times reporters and editors. “I will sign an affidavit that it is going to be razor close – razor close. And the razor is going to be sharpened or dulled based on the resources, the recruits and the message we have. The House is absolutely, clearly, unequivocally in play, which is a quantum leap from where we were a year ago.”
Mr. Israel and other Democrats say they have benefitted less from anything Democrats have done and more from Republican stewardship of the House in the ongoing conflict with the Democratic Senate and President Obama. He believes that the fight that almost led to a government shutdown in the spring, the extended debt limit standoff and now the payroll tax dispute have produced buyer’s remorse among independent voters and caused Republican poll numbers to plummet.

Further, according to Hulse,

Like the Democrats in 2010 after knocking off so many Republicans in the previous election, Mr. Israel said, Republicans are too deep in Democratic territory and are going to give back many of those seats in a presidential year, when the electorate is much different from the midterm voters who handed Republicans the majority.
He counts nearly 20 districts held by Republicans that were won by John Kerry in the 2004 elections and slightly more than 40 that were won by President Obama in 2008. Mr. Israel said he doesn’t expect to take all of those back. But even winning a substantial number of them would put Democrats within reach of the majority given the likelihood that some current Democratic incumbents will fall.

The clincher for Dems, writes Hulse, may be the Republicans’ support of Rep. Paul Ryan’s highly unpopular plans to “reform” Medicare. The “buyer’s remorse” Republicans rode to victory in 2010 now defines their biggest problem — apart from the likelihood of a “tough sell” presidential nominee.

TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira has an interesting post on the politics of the payroll tax cut up at the Center for American Progress web pages. In “Earth to Conservatives: Don’t Raise Taxes on the Poor and Middle Class,” Teixeira notes the “blase attitude” of conservatives toward the approaching tax hike for workers, absent an extension of the payroll tax cut in stark contrast with conservatives’ “fanatic concern that taxes for the rich must never, ever go up in any circumstances.” Teixeira adds:

The public is unlikely to be pleased by conservatives’ lack of interest in their economic welfare. A just-released United Technologies/National Journal poll finds that 58 percent of the public thinks Congress should act now to extend the payroll tax cut, compared to just 32 percent who think Congress should not.
But the public does believe taxes should be raised on the rich. The latest example of this sentiment comes from a CNN/ORC poll on the super committee’s plans for reducing the deficit. The survey found by 2-to-1 (67-32) that the public approved of increases in taxes on “businesses and higher-income Americans” to help bring down the deficit.

As Teixeira concludes: “…Conservatives cannot–or just don’t want to–understand the public’s crystal-clear views in this area…Hard-pressed voters do not think their taxes should be raised but do think the affluent can afford to lend their country a helping hand.”

The latest Democracy Corps survey of the Republican House battleground shows the incumbents out of touch with their districts, a climate less favorable to Republicans, weakening support and vulnerability to attack. With numbers virtually identical to those of Democratic incumbents leading into the 2010 disaster, the House is surely in play in 2012.[1] The president is now dead even in these districts, while the image of everything Republican has fallen, above all, ‘the Republican Congress.’ These ‘no-tax’ Republicans are out of touch with their districts, polling below 50 percent, and losing ground, particularly with independents where Democrats trail by only 6 points.
This is a unique survey conducted in the battleground of the most competitive House seats for 2012: 48 of the 60 were carried by Obama in 2008. These are swing districts and are where control of Congress will likely be decided in 2012.
Key Findings:
These Republicans are weakening. They have lost half of their vote margin since September, falling to 47 percent, well below their vote in 2010 election. Just 37 percent believe they deserve re-election and their approval hovers around 40 percent. Their lead evaporates after hearing balanced attacks, falling to 44 percent.
These incumbents are crashing with independents. Since September, incumbents have lost 13 points from their margin here, and Democrats trail among independents by only 6 points.
These incumbents are weakened by a Republican Party and Republican Congress that are intensely unpopular. Only 31 percent now give the Republican Party a warm rating; more than half (52 percent) give the Republican Congress a cool rating – leading the brand crash for the party. And very important, President Obama is now running even with both potential challengers – a marked improvement since September. As he improves, the Democratic challengers in these districts have an opportunity to gain among the new progressive base that elected Obama in 2008.
These incumbents are profoundly out of touch with voters’ budget priorities, particularly on taxes and entitlements.
A press briefing will be held on Monday, December 12th at 11am EST. Join Stanley Greenberg, co-founder, along with James Carville, of Democracy Corps and CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and Page Gardner, Founder and President of the Voter Participation Center and Women’s Voices. Women Vote Action Fund to discuss the results of this poll. Please call 800.672.3665 and visit our WebEx presentation. Due to anticipated high call volume, please call in 10-15 minutes before the start time to ensure you are placed on the call promptly.

The must-read of the day has to be “Pssst … Wanna Buy a Law?: When a company needs a state bill passed, the American Legislative Exchange Council can get it done” by Brendan Greely and Alison Fitzgerald at Businessweek. Much of the article focuses on the organization’s conniving to control internet access for it’s member’s benefit in LaFayette, LA. But the article also reveals quite a lot about ALEC’s power, pro-corporate and pro-Republican biases, secrecy and unsavory influence on legislators, including:

The American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit based in Washington, brings together state legislators, companies, and advocacy groups to shape “model legislation.” The legislators then take these models back to their own states. About 1,000 times a year, according to ALEC, a state legislator introduces a bill from its library of more than 800 models. About 200 times a year, one of them becomes law. The council, in essence, makes national policy, state by state.
ALEC’s online library contains model bills that tighten voter identification requirements, making it harder for students, the elderly, and the poor to vote. Such bills have shown up in 34 states. According to NPR, the Arizona bill that permits police to detain suspected illegal immigrants started as ALEC model legislation. Similar bills have passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and Utah, and have been introduced in 17 other states. Legislators in Oregon, Washington, Montana, New Hampshire, and New Mexico have sponsored bills with identical ALEC language requiring states to withdraw from regional agreements on CO2 emissions. Sound a national trend among state legislators, and often you will find at the bottom of your plumb line a bill that looks like something that has passed through the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Paul Weyrich started the council in 1973 with a group of Republican state legislators. Weyrich also founded the Heritage Foundation and coined the phrase “moral majority.” More than 2,000 state lawmakers belong to ALEC; each pays $50 in yearly dues. A look at former members now on the national stage suggests the organization is a farm team for Republicans with ambition. There are 92 ALEC alumni serving in the U.S. House, 87 of them Republicans. In the Senate, eight Republicans and one Democrat are ALEC alumni, according to information found on ALEC’s website in April that has since been removed. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, a Madison (Wis.) research group, four sitting governors were members, including John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin…ALEC is open and helpful about some parts of its work and quiet and evasive about others. It tends to withhold information that might shed light on its corporate members, the ones that pay almost 99 percent of the council’s $7 million budget.

In addition to the aforementioned voter suppression and anti-pollution control legislation, ALEC champions a range of bills to protect corporations from regulations, as the authors explain:

The broader ALEC library includes bills that limit how much a parent company might have to pay for asbestos-related injuries or illness caused by a company it acquired, another that bans cities and counties from requiring restaurants to post nutrition information or food ingredients, and a bill that would shift the tobacco tax burden from big cigarette makers such as Altria Group (MO) to smaller chewing tobacco companies…
None of this is illegal. And it’s effective. It allows companies to work directly with legislators from many states, rather than having to lobby in each state individually to get language into a bill. ALEC says its mission is to help state legislators collaborate around the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty. It does this, and something else, too. It offers companies substantial benefits that seem to have little to do with ideology. Corporations drop bills off at one end, and they come out the other, stamped with the imprimatur of a nonprofit, “nonpartisan” group of state legislators. Among other things, ALEC is a bill laundry.

Until recently, ALEC has largely escaped public scrutiny, partly because the MSM generally does a lousy job of reporting on state legislation. But ALEC’s influence is more potent than ever, especially after the 2010 elections:

…Republicans didn’t just flip the House in November 2010. They also won from Democrats 675 state legislative seats and now control both chambers in 26 states, up from 14 before the election. ALEC membership has grown by 25 percent this year. Sitting out there are new state legislators, and they’re looking for something to do in the fall.
…Membership in ALEC, among both legislators and companies, has increased. In its member brochure for the 2011 annual meeting, ALEC listed 82 companies as sponsors, almost double the 42 sponsors from 2010. Those companies included Altria, BlueCross and BlueShield, and BP America (BP), all $50,000 chairman-level sponsors, according to ALEC’s website.

Equally disturbing is the lack of transparency for such an influential organization. As Fitzgerald and Greely note,

…When bloggers from a liberal website, ThinkProgress, tried to photograph the panels, they were hustled out of the conference by security guards. Another blogger from the website AlterNet was denied credentials and then kicked out of the hotel’s public lobby two days in a row for tweeting the names of ALEC members who passed by him.

There is a lot more worth reading in their article. Democrats are understandably focused on the GOP primary circus and the doings in congress and the white house, which is where nearly all the political media coverage is trained. But it’s clearly time for Democrats to pay more attention to what is happening in America’s state legislatures under the lengthening shadow of ALEC’s manipulation.

There are always good reasons to be skeptical about articles arguing that current presidents should emulate the examples of previous presidents. Such articles have no doubt been appearing since the first Adams administration. Often, there is some merit in the argument, but the adequacy of the suggested template for addressing current struggles is almost always exaggerated.
A good example of the phenomenon is Joseph Califano, Jr.’s WaPo op-ed “What Obama Can Learn from LBJ,” in which LBJ’s chief assistant for domestic affairs(1965-69) and President Carter’s HEW Secretary (1977-79) makes the case:

…As political and private-sector leaders nationwide realize that an engaged president is key to progress, many wish that Barack Obama was more like Lyndon B. Johnson. The refrain of many Democrats — and some Republicans — is that at least with LBJ, Washington worked and we got something done….Obama will never be like Johnson, but LBJ’s presidency offers lessons that could help him win a second term…

Califano reviews the impressive legislative accomplishments of LBJ’s Administration, which were truly extraordinary, a litany which includes landmark civil rights bills, Medicare, Medicaid, anti-poverty initiatives and other historic reforms. Arguably, no other president achieved so much without being elected to a second term.
But Califano complains that “LBJ spent enough time in the House and Senate and working with presidents to understand that Washington functions best with strong and involved presidential leadership. Obama does not seem to get that.” What Califano doesn’t seem to get here is that Obama simply didn’t have the time to forge the productive relationships that LBJ developed over many years. It’s crazy to suggest that he has the same leverage as did LBJ, who certainly earned the sobriquet “Master of the Senate” long before he assumed the Presidency.
I think there is an even bigger blind spot in Califano’s argument — his assumption, against all evidence, that today’s Republicans are as amenable to compromise as were the GOP leaders of Johnson’s time. Califano points out that Republicans could be pretty hard-assed back then. But there are no Dirksens or Javitzes or Margaret Chase Smiths around today. Gypsy Moths and even reasonable Republican leaders in congress have been hounded into near-extinction. The few that are left are still cringing in dark corners, until the tea party finds its rightful place on the dung heap of history. Only then will we again see Republicans who are willing to negotiate in good faith. Only then will real bipartisanship become possible again.
Moreover, President Obama has bent over backwards to compromise with Republicans to no avail whatsoever. I agree with those who argue that he has already given away too much of the store. But I’m glad that he now seems ready to do battle.
Despite Califano’s blind spot, I think he has a good point that President Obama could channel a little of LBJ’s hard-ball negotiation style, as well as FDR’s fighting spirit. But every president has had their strengths and weaknesses, LBJ included (Vietnam, ‘domino theory’). The challenge is to emulate the strengths when possible, but not buy into the whole template.

In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot,’ TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira takes a look at the monthly Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, and finds that, “despite Americans’ contradictory feelings about the Affordable Care Act, conservative attempts to repeal it are likely to be met with resistance from the public.” Teixeira adds:

On the one hand, more Americans are not in favor (44 percent) than in favor (37 percent) of the new law. But on the other, by majorities ranging from 57 percent to 84 percent, they are approve of almost all provisions included in the law. The sole exception is the individual mandate to purchase insurance, where just 35 percent are in favor.

As far as the GOP campaign to repeal the legislation, Teixeira explains:

….50 percent of respondents in the same poll say they would like Congress to either expand the Affordable Care Act or keep it as-is rather than repeal or replace it with a Republican-sponsored alternative (39 percent). It is also worth noting that since February, the number wanting to keep or expand the law has never dropped below 50 percent, while the number wanting to repeal or replace has never exceeded 39 percent.

The Supreme Court will have its say about the ACA, but the majority’s preference is clear.

Raven Clabough has a round-up at the right-wing rag, The New American arguing that Dem leaders are almost giddy at the prospect of Newt getting the GOP nod. Sen. Harkin says a Newt nomination would be “heaven-sent.” Rep. Barney Frank: “I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican Party.” Clabough also has an interesting report on Newt’s unhinged self-image, e.g.: “I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it” and “I am now a famous person. I represent real power.” According to Clabough, he has also described himself as an “advocate of civilization, definer of civilization, teacher of the rules of civilization, leader of the civilizing sources.”
Jordan Michael Smith mulls over Newt’s foreign policy at Salon, and concludes it is characterized by “violent grandiosity, faux intellectualism and missionary zeal,” which sounds a lot like Bush II’s eight years of disaster.
At Bloomberg.com Seth Stern and Heidi Przybyla have a refresher course “Gingrich House Ethics Complaint Echoes in Criticism Lodged Today.” Contrary to Newt’s assertion that he was a victim of partisanship, the authors note “the House voted 395-28 to approve a settlement that concluded Gingrich twice misled the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct’s investigative subcommittee and required a $300,000 payment to recover some of the probe’s costs…In the final tally, 196 Republicans supported the rebuke of their own speaker, while 198 Democrats backed it. Twenty-six Republicans and two Democrats opposed it.”
Sure looks like Mitch is scared of the peeps.
Steven Rosenfeld makes the case at Alternet that the “GOP Can’t Erase Dems From Political Map,” despite their big wins in 2010. “Regardless of how miserable the 2010 election was for Democrats – losing a US House majority and the GOP gaining 63 seats, as well as winning majorities in 20 state legislative chambers and 16 governor’s races – it does not appear that the GOP will be able to draw enough new political lines to lock down Democrats for a decade, as many party activist had hoped.”
“Caitlan Halligan Lost, and So Did You” is the title of a post at The Atlantic by award-winning legal commentator Andrew Cohen, concerning the GOP’s obstruction of President Obama’s nomination of a legal “superstar,” Caitlan Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Says Cohen: “…Republican senators now have lowered the standard for what constitutes “extraordinary circumstances”…that would warrant rejection. In Halligan’s case, The Washington Post reported, it was her participation in a lawsuit against gun manufacturers that evidently did her in. Either that or it was her position on detainee rights, which is consistent with Supreme Court precedent (but not current Senate politics).”
Lest Dems get too giddy, Rhodes Cook cautions at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball that “2012 Republican Race: The Field May Not Be Closed,” since the GOP primary calendar is not as front-loaded as in years past.
Elizabeth Warren is up 7 points, 49-42, over Sen. Scott Brown in a new University of Massachusetts at Lowell/Boston Herald poll — “a 10-point swing in Warren’s favor in less than two months,” according to Joe Battenfeld’s Boston Herald report on the poll.
Do not bet the ranch on any of this making much of a difference.
In his Common Dreams post, “Words That Don’t Work,” George Lakoff warns progressives to avoid getting hustled by a Frank Luntz’s bait. Says Lakoff: “There is a basic truth about framing. If you accept the other guy’s frame, you lose…To attack “capitalism” in this [Luntz’s] frame is to accept “socialism.” Conservatives are trying to cast Progressives, who mostly have businesses or work for businesses or are looking for good business jobs, as socialists. If you take the Luntz bait, you will be sucked into sounding like a socialist. Whatever one thinks of socialism, most Americans falsely identify it with communism, and will reject it out of hand.”
Steven Shepard reports at Hotline on Call that “Gallup Poll Shows Narrowing Enthusiasm Gap.” As Shepard explains: “Forty-nine percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared to 44 percent who say they are less enthusiastic. In a mid-September survey, 58 percent of Republicans were more enthusiastic, while just 30 percent said they were less enthusiastic.”

This item, written by Ed Kilgore, is cross-posted from The New Republic.
In the lead up to voting in the presidential nominating contest, the only thing that reliably rivals the scrutiny received by Iowa is the disparagement expressed against the tyranny of the Great Corn Idol. With its unrepresentative electorate, its peculiar demands on candidates, and its odd procedures for making its preferences manifest, the Iowa caucuses have been singled out by many as an ill-conceived ritual whose time is long past. Back in June, Daily Beast columnist Peter Beinart celebrated Mitt Romney’s apparent decision (apparently now reversed) to shirk the state, arguing “the Iowa caucuses bear only a faint resemblance to democracy.”
And beyond Romney’s initial strategy of making only minimal effort in the state, there have been other cheerful signs for Iowa-haters that the first-in-the-nation caucus was losing its storied influence. The candidates most married to a slavish Iowa-first approach–Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum–have not fared well, even in Iowa itself, with local polls instead closely mirroring the rapid attention swings in the national media. The quadrennial ritual of candidates violating their principles to embrace ethanol subsidies has all but expired. And the wacky band of Christian Right activists who draw their oxygen from an outsized role in the caucuses is now in danger of irrelevance due to an inability to agree on a presidential vehicle.
But ironically, the very volatility of the GOP race that has threatened Iowa’s power could revive it in a big way once the caucuses actually happen. In an election cycle where Republican voters everywhere seem to shift their shallow allegiances every time a candidate shines or stumbles in any of an endless parade of debates, the massive hype and media attention that will shower the eventual Iowa winner could prove decisive in the other early states.
Lost in the confusion of wildly oscillating polling numbers among Republicans during 2011 has been the fact that, with the arguable exception of New Hampshire, all the states have been oscillating in synch. When Michelle Bachmann narrowly won the arcane Iowa GOP Straw Poll in August (helped by a good debate performance in New Hampshire), she got a strong bounce everywhere and moved into double-digits nationally. Rick Perry’s big surge after entering the race happened everywhere, as have the Cain and Gingrich surges since then. And while southern states have shown something of a bias for the more conservative candidates, a comparison of polling trends for all the candidates in Iowa and South Carolina (two states with a lot of available polls) shows extraordinary similarity over time.
Perhaps the apparent lack of significant regional variations signifies the conquest of the GOP everywhere by the conservative movement. But the alternative explanation is that Republican voters this year are so irresolute about their presidential field–aside from the negative judgments they’ve made about Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, and, most recently, Herman Cain–that the last impression they take into the voting booth could be decisive. If that’s the case, the prospect of a candidate getting on a roll after Iowa is especially strong.
Moreover, the idea that Iowa will provide one lucky candidate with a big boost is all the more probable now that nearly all of them are staking just about everything on a good performance in the caucuses. Bachmann and Santorum have been in that position all along, focusing almost entirely on Iowa. Perry will inevitably be depicted as the successor to Texas’ long line of lavishly funded but feckless presidential candidates (John Connolly, Lloyd Bentsen, and Phil Gramm) if he can’t do well in the caucuses. And if Romney is indeed “all in” for Iowa, a loss could have the very 2008-style deflationary impact his campaign has long feared. Indeed, the only outcome that might vindicate the hopes of Iowa-haters would be a Ron Paul win. But now that Paul has done the other candidates the supreme favor of throwing the first boulder at Newt Gingrich, he is in serious danger of suffering from Iowans’ famous antipathy to negative campaigning.
Of course, thanks to changes in the nominating calendar, there will be a significant lull in contests after Florida votes on January 31, so a candidacy like Romney’s with strong financial and organizational advantages could well survive early setbacks in Iowa and elsewhere and still go on to ultimate victory, particularly since all his rivals have weaknesses in their backgrounds or a tendency to commit gaffes that could produce yet another self-destruction in a cycle littered with them. But make no mistake: When Iowans trudge through the frigid night to their caucus sites on January 3, the odds are high their decision will have the kind of powerful impact on the race that Peter Beinart fears.