No matter how many times the sharpest political scientists present data proving that the “Independent voter” category is largely a myth, some reporter will come out with an article somewhere larded up with quotes saying this or that candidate is toast because they can’t win ‘Independents.’ They are the myth that will not die, the elusive unicorns of politics, prancing around in sparkly woodlands in the easily-distracted heads of lazy reporters and academics.
So, one more time. There is no Santa Clause, no Easter Bunny, no tooth-fairy and there are no ‘independent voters.’ There are swing voters. There are political moderates. There are Reagan Democrats and other voters who sometimes vote for different parties. But over 90 percent of self-identified ‘independents’ lean Democratic or Republican, according to Alan I. Abramowitz, author of “The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy.” The term has little useful meaning, other than serving as a feel-good, catch-all category for Democratic and Republican voters who can’t bear to identify themselves as such.
Jamelle Bouie sheds light on the phenomenon in his American Prospect post, “New Name, Same Old Thing.”:

Among political scientists, it’s well known that the “independent voter” is a myth. When pressed, the large majority of voters lean Democratic or Republican and tend to vote like partisans, consistently supporting their party of choice. The only difference between a strong partisan and a “weak partisan leaner” is that the latter are reluctant–for whatever reason–to place themselves in one camp or the other…Over the last few years, this myth of the independent voter has taken hold among political journalists and others outside of academia.

Bouie provides a painful example of the delusion, which you can read if you want to at his link above, then has this to say about the so-called “Obama independents”:

“Obama Independents” fit the profile of a Democratic-leaning voter, who might defect from the party in GOP wave years, but for the most part chooses the name with “D” next to it when in the voting booth…There’s no need to hype Obama Independents as some new segment of the electorate, and indeed, the entire exercise is a little banal. Of course the Democratic presidential candidate needs to win a large majority of Democratic voters to win the presidency. That’s just how it goes.

The overwhelming majority of ‘independents’ are Republican and Democratic “leaners,” while swing voters and moderates will remain the more relevant categories for political analysis.

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
Some time ago, I suggested that the 2012 election would hinge on three variables: the identity of the Republican nominee, the thrust of the Obama campaign’s reelection strategy, and the progress of the economy. While the first two have come into focus, the third presents a puzzle, because recent economic reports are not consistent with the forecasts for 2012. This is an analytical distinction that makes a political difference: If the forecasts are right, history suggests that the president’s reelection prospects are dicey at best. But if recent economic progress is sustained through the remainder of 2012, he’s an odds-on favorite to win a second term.
The January 2012 employment report highlighted this contradiction. Just last week, the Federal Reserve Board lowered its estimate of real GDP growth for 2012 to a range of 2.2 to 2.7 percent, and it raised its estimate of unemployment to a range of 8.2 to 8.5 percent. But according to the January BLS report, the economy generated 243,000 jobs last month alone, lowering the official unemployment rate to 8.3 percent.
A single month can be an aberration, of course. But the pace of job generation over the past few months is not consistent with the tepid growth the Fed is predicting. If the Fed turns out to be right, monthly job growth should fall below 150,000 and stay there, and unemployment will be no lower at the end of the year than it is today.
From one perspective, it’s not hard to understand the trend. As often happens, productivity rose sharply as soon as the Great Recession bottomed out–from 0.6 percent in 2008 to 2.3 percent in 2009 and 4.1 percent in 2010. But in the year just ended, productivity fell sharply, to only 0.7 percent. At that pace, even modest growth will generate substantial increases in total hours worked and net job creation. Still, productivity would have to fall even farther for the recent pace of employment growth to be sustained–that it, unless the Fed, the IMF, and the OECD are all too pessimistic about the next twelve months.
There’s something else going on: The labor force participation rate, which stood at 66.2 percent as the recession began four years ago, has declined by two and one half percentage points, to only 63.7 percent in the most recent report. If Americans were still working or looking for work at the rate of four years ago, 6 million more would be in the labor force, and unemployment would be much higher. Even a year ago, the rate was a point higher, suggesting that today’s labor force is about 750 thousand persons smaller than it would be if last year’s modest participation rate had remained unchanged.
Politically, though, these analytical details probably don’t make much difference. If the labor market continues to move forward at anything close to last month’s pace, the fourth quarter of 2011 may go down as the key inflection point of Obama’s presidency. If the Fed is right–if headwinds from housing, high debt, a weakened Europe, and slowdowns in the developing world restrain U.S. growth–it will turn out to be yet another false dawn. Either way, if the time you can devote to political news between now and November is limited, focus more on economic reports than on public opinion surveys.

It’s beginning to look like the naysayers predicting the demise of the coalition that elected President Obama in 2008 were wrong, reports Ronald Brownstein in the National Journal. Brownstein notes a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, which indicates that Obama now leads Romney 51-45 percent, with top-line data indicating that the electorate is “dividing along lines almost identical to the actual results in 2008.” Brownstein adds:

In 2008, Obama carried a combined 80 percent of minority voters; the ABC/Washington Post survey shows him drawing 81 percent of non-white voters against Romney (who attracts just 14 percent).
In 2008, Obama carried 43 percent of whites, while McCain won 55 percent of them. The new survey shows Romney leading Obama among whites 53 percent to 42 percent. The ABC/Post poll shows Obama holding his ground both among whites with and without a college education. In 2008, Obama won 40 percent of non-college whites, while 58 percent of them voted for McCain. In the new survey, those working-class whites-the toughest audience for Obama throughout his national career-break in virtually identical proportions: 56 percent for Romney, 39 percent for the president.”

Brownstein describes it as “a modest, but important, rebound for Obama’s job approval rating among those non-college whites,” and he quotes Greg Sargent: “Obama’s approval rating among these [blue-collar] voters is 43-54. While those numbers don’t appear too good at first glance…This is his best level among non-college whites since early last year (excluding the post-Bin Laden bump), and they are far better than they were at their lowest point in 2010, when Democrats suffered massive desertions among this constituency.” Obama also matches and slightly improves on his ’08 percentage of college-educated whites. Further, adds Brownstein:

Viewed through a partisan lens, the ABC/Post survey shows Obama winning 85 percent of Democrats (compared to 89 percent in 2008), 8 percent of Republicans (compared to 9 percent) and 48 percent of independents (up from 44 percent). One other convergence is worth noting. In the ABC/Post poll, Obama has essentially restored the advantage among moderates that he enjoyed against McCain. In 2008, Obama carried 60 percent of moderates; the new survey puts him at 59 percent against Romney. (In the new poll, Obama runs slightly ahead of his 2008 number among conservatives and slightly behind it among liberals, two trends that might not last in the heat of an ideologically-polarized campaign.)

Brownstein concedes that “The gains might be temporary, driven by the confluence of good economic news and a highly bruising period in the Republican presidential primary that has sent Romney’s unfavorable ratings soaring in recent weeks.” Yet Brownstein also argues that Obama “could win a national majority with as little as 40 percent of the white vote…he can give back some of the terrain he’s recaptured in this latest survey – and still hold the high ground in November.”

Looks like the Republicans aren’t totally paranoid about voter fraud, after all. An Indiana jury just convicted Republican Secretary of State Charlie White of three counts of voter fraud, two counts of perjury and one count of theft, according to this Indy Star report.
Ronald Brownstein has a sobering analysis for those who think President Obama will have a cakewalk election in November: “Political strategists used to believe that incumbents were unlikely to win elections (or carry states) where their approval rating lagged below 50 percent; but given the widespread cynicism about politicians many strategists on both sides believe the tipping point is now around 47 percent. Below that number, incumbents are a distinct underdog; above it, they are favored, with the ground tilting much more toward them once they cross 50 percent…the number of states Obama can plausibly contest to reach 270 Electoral College votes is narrowing.” On the upside, Brownstein notes that Obama is “generally polling above his approval ratings in head-to-head match-ups against the leading Republican contenders-who have seen their favorability ratings decline amid their fierce primary struggle.”
Punditty at Allvoices.com has a somewhat sunnier take on Obama’s prospects: “According to poll figures available Feb. 3, 2012, at Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, President Obama leads in 20 states when the three most recent polls for that state are averaged, giving him 259 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win re-election. The unnamed GOP opponent is ahead in 15 states for 106 electoral votes, with 136 electoral votes rated as tossups and 37 electoral votes lack enough data to reach a conclusion.”
AP’s Ken Thomas assesses prospects for a long GOP campaign, and also sees a tough struggle for Dems: “A Gallup survey showed Obama’s approval ratings dropping in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, all critical to his re-election. In New Hampshire, which Obama carried in 2008, he had an approval rating of about 38 percent…Adding to the concerns, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this week that the economy would grow only 2 percent this year. It also predicted an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent on Election Day.”
In his post on “The 50 Percent Problem” at The Hill, Democratic consultant Mark Mellman takes an instructive look at the relationship between presidential approval ratings and reelection prospects, and notes “Professor Alan Abramowitz’s statistical model suggests that a 1-point increase in the president’s net approval rating leads to a 0.1 percent increase in vote — meaningful, but hardly the perfect correlation implied by the 50 percent rule…So based on all the data, what can we say about approval ratings and presidential votes? In short, presidents with approval ratings below 43 percent are quite likely to lose, while those over 55 percent are very likely to win. In between, where President Obama now stands, is the zone of uncertainty…
Charlie Cook sees a significant uptick in President Obama’s prospects: “My feeling for much of the past year was that Obama’s reelection chances were distinctly uphill. Today, I am not so sure. I see it as more of an evenly matched fight, something borne out by a USA Today/Gallup survey of the key battleground states showing essentially a tie.”
As if the GOP doesn’t have enough internecine conflict, Karl Rove picks a fight with Clint Eastwood for doing a patriotic “Yea America” ad cheering on Big Auto’s comeback — just because it indirectly calls attention to the fact that President Obama’s initiative — which Romney opposed — saved America’s most pivotal industry. Hard to see any political upside for Rove’s whine, which has undoubtedly increased the ad’s hittage, now at over 2.7 million and counting.
Republicans shot themselves in the other foot with a different Super Bowl ad deploying a demeaning racial stereotype to defeat Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow (MI). The denunciations are rolling in. As Republican consultant Mike Murphy swiftly tweeted his verdict Sunday night: “Pete Hoekstra Superbowl TV ad in MI Senate race really, really dumb. I mean really.” Hoekstra still supports the ad, which was produced by the same wizard who did the ‘Demon Sheep’ ad for Carly Fiorina in her losing Senate campaign in CA. and Christine O’Donnell’s “I’m You” spot in her losing U.S. senate campaign in DE.
The buzz is increasing, even in conservative circles, that Dems may indeed retake the House, mostly because of the growing perception that Republicans are responsible for Washington gridlock, reports WaPo’s Aaron Blake.
Big shift in Obama campaign fund-raising strategy, as Michael O’Brien reports at MSNBC First Read: “Obama campaign manager Jim Messina emailed supporters to formally endorse contributions to Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC founded by Bill Burton, a former White House deputy press secretary. “With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm,” Messina wrote on the campaign’s blog. “Therefore, the campaign has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PAC.”
Lest you thought that the GOP voter suppression campaign was finally flagging, the Virginia News Leader reports that “there are at least 17 bills flowing through the Virginia General Assembly that make voting more difficult…Those “Voter Integrity” bills are generally the work of Republicans.”
George Wagner’s op-ed in the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel, “Today’s GOP Vacates the Center,” presents some interesting data about the primary source of current political polarization and paralysis: “…Over the last generation, the Republican Party has drifted much farther to the right than Democrats have moved to the left. Political scientists Howard Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole cite legislative voting records over the past 35 years. By creating a widely used measurement that reveals the ideology of congressional members, U.S. Senate Republicans moved twice as far to the right as Senate Democrats moved to the left; and House Republicans moved six times farther to the right than their Democratic colleagues move to the left…It’s really been a one-sided shift. The polarization that the electorate decries has been caused mostly by the GOP.

By now, most Democrats are well aware of the GOP’s unprecedented voter suppression campaign. But there is another very troubling aspect of the Republicans’ project to obstruct voters they identify as pro-Democratic, distilled in the title of Ari Berman’s Nation article, “How the GOP Is Resegregating the South.” Berman explains:

…The redistricting process has changed the political complexion of North Carolina, as Republicans attempt to turn this racially integrated swing state into a GOP bastion, with white Republicans in the majority and black Democrats in the minority for the next decade…Before this year, for example, there were no Senate districts with a BVAP [black voting age population] of 50 percent or higher. Now there are nine. A lawsuit filed by the NAACP and other advocacy groups calls the redistricting maps “an intentional and cynical use of race that exceeds what is required to ensure fairness to previously disenfranchised racial minority voters.”
…The consequences of redistricting in North Carolina–one of the most important swing states in the country–could determine who controls Congress and the presidency in 2012. Democrats hold seven of the state’s thirteen Congressional seats, but after redistricting they could control only three–the largest shift for Republicans at the Congressional level in any state this year…”GOP candidates could win just over half of the statewide vote for Congress and end up with 62 percent to 77 percent of the seats,” found John Hood, president of the conservative John Locke Foundation.
…And it’s not just happening in North Carolina. In virtually every state in the South, at the Congressional and state level, Republicans–to protect and expand their gains in 2010–have increased the number of minority voters in majority-minority districts represented overwhelmingly by black Democrats while diluting the minority vote in swing or crossover districts held by white Democrats. “What’s uniform across the South is that Republicans are using race as a central basis in drawing districts for partisan advantage,” says Anita Earls, a prominent civil rights lawyer and executive director of the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice…. Four years after the election of Barack Obama, which offered the promise of a new day of postracial politics in states like North Carolina, Republicans are once again employing a Southern Strategy that would make Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater proud.
…Though public dissatisfaction with GOP members of Congress is at an all-time high, Republican dominance of the redistricting process could prove an insurmountable impediment to Democratic hopes of retaking the House, where the GOP now has a fifty-one-seat edge. Speaker of the House John Boehner predicts that the GOP’s redistricting advantage will allow the party to retain control of the House, perhaps for the next decade.

Read more…

The following article by Democratic political strategist Robert Creamer, author of “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” is cross posted from HuffPo:
Last Friday the GOP had a really bad day. It didn’t come in the form of new polling results — or some new political scandal. It was delivered to them by the economic statistics:
Private sector jobs up 243,000 — almost 100,000 more than expected.
Unemployment rate down to 8.3 percent.
Twenty-three straight months of private sector jobs growth.
But you say, this is not bad news — this is good news. Not for the GOP and its chances of ousting President Obama, seizing control of the Senate or maintaining its majority in the House.
As Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell made ever so clear early last year, the Republican Leadership — and their backers on Wall Street — have one and only one goal: to defeat President Obama next fall. To do that, the GOP is betting against the American economy.
For the last two years they have done everything in their power to slow America’s recovery from the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression.
They have opposed virtually every element of the president’s American Jobs Act.
They brought the economy to the brink by threatening that they wouldn’t allow America to pay its bills during the debt ceiling standoff last year.
They tried their best to prevent extension of the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits that are so critical to maintaining buying power momentum as the economy begins to pick up speed.
And, of course, they advocate returning to the regulatory and fiscal policies that caused the Great Recession in the first place.
But the most significant thing they have done to stall the economic recovery has been their refusal to continue federal aid to state and local government.
In the last 23 months, the economy has created 3.7 million new private sector jobs. But during the same period, it has created only 3.165 net total jobs. That is because government — mainly state and local government — laid off a net of about 535,000 people.
If the Republicans in Congress had not refused to continue providing aid to state and local governments, it is likely that unemployment would be in the mid 7 percent range and the economy as a whole would have at least another half million jobs.

Read more…

In her new York Review of Books article, “Can We Have a Democratic Election?,” Elizabeth Drew addresses what is arguably the major problem of the 2012 election, one which is usually overshadowed by horse race reportage:

Beneath the turbulent political spectacle that has captured so much of the nation’s attention lies a more important question than who will get the Republican nomination, or even who will win in November: Will we have a democratic election this year? Will the presidential election reflect the will of the people? Will it be seen as doing so–and if not, what happens?…

Drew goes on with a disturbing account of the ramifications of the Citizens United decision, noting that,

The 2012 election has been virtually taken over by Super PACs; the amounts they are spending are far outstripping expenditures by the candidates’ campaigns….Though unions will play a part in campaign financing, they simply don’t have the resources that thousands of corporations have. A billionaire with a strong affection for a specific candidate no longer has to go through a party organization or a group organized around an issue to offer financial support–the women’s advocacy group Emily’s List, for instance, or the pro-business Club for Growth. The candidates and the Super PACs formed for the purpose of supporting them are ostensibly barred from collaboration; the candidates must not “request, suggest, or assent” to an ad taken by a Super PAC on his behalf, which leaves a lot of possibilities for means of communication between them, and this year’s Super PACs are noteworthy for the extent of the interlocking relationships between the candidates and those who run the Super PACs on their behalf. The election of 2012 has introduced a new kind of politics into American life.
…Numerous people and organizations have tried to figure out how to get rid of them, and though there is no ready solution, there are numerous efforts to find ways to overcome the inestimable damage done by Citizens United. Responsible and irresponsible solutions have been proposed.
…Citizens are now faced with evidence of the growing power of organized moneyed interests in the electoral system at the same time that the nation is more aware than ever that the inequality among income groups has grown dramatically and economic difficulties are persistent. This is a dangerous brew. Political power is shifting to the very moneyed interests that four decades of reform effort have tried to contain. The election system is being reshaped by the Super PACs and the greatly increased power of those who contribute to them to choose the candidates who best suit their purposes. But little attention is being paid to the fact that our system of electing a president is under siege. While the political press is excitedly telling us how the polls on Friday compare with the ones on Tuesday, little notice is taken of the danger to the democratic system itself.

Drew’s article includes a capsule history of soft money and campaign finance regulation, and the lack of it. She is rightly skeptical about proposals to tweak the first amendment to the Constitution to correct the harm done by Citizens United and acknowledges that “It’s too late to rescue this election from the appalling imposition of Super PACs.”
In addition to the Super PAC’s, Drew pinpoints the GOP’s voter suppression campaign as a parallel threat to the integrity of elections in the U.S.:

Ever since the controversial recount in Florida in 2000, through their political control of numerous states, Republicans have mounted a nationwide and organized effort to rig state election laws in order to tip the outcome in November. (This is not to say that Democrats are innocents, but there is scant evidence of a parallel effort.) The goal of this pernicious effort is to deny the right to vote to minorities, the poor, the elderly, and students–all groups inclined to vote Democratic.

“Can an election that’s being subjected to such seriously self-interested contortions be accepted by the public as having been arrived at in a fair manner?,” asks Drew.” And what will happen if it can’t?”

If you know anyone who is both reasonably sane and still entertaining the delusion that Romney will move “to the center” once elected, compel them somehow to read Theda Skocpols’ WaPo op-ed “Mitt Romney, the stealth tea party candidate.” Skocpol, co-author, with Vanessa Williamson of “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, shreds the delusion and makes Romney’s stated intentions crystal clear, and then provides a realistic evaluation of the likelihood of his commitment to implement them:

“Many tea party folks are going to find me, I believe, to be the ideal candidate,” the Republican presidential contender said in a news conference in December. “I sure hope so.”
These words were uttered not by Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul or Rick Perry — but by Mitt Romney. Yes, the same Romney who has been pegged as too moderate to attract tea party voters and hard-core conservatives.

Skocpol predicts that Romney’s nomination will be followed by numerous “media obituaries for the tea party explaining how the movement that won so much in 2010 fell short in 2012 and is left saddled with an elite, middle-of-the-road candidate it doesn’t want.” In reality, however, Skocpol explains:

…Romney — Swiss bank accounts, establishment support and all — has maneuvered with ruthless precision and impeccable timing to position himself as a champion of the tea party agenda. During the primary campaign, he’s repeatedly pledged fealty to key tea party priorities: cracking down on illegal immigration, repealing “ObamaCare,” slashing taxes and drastically scaling back government spending. It’s working: Half of the primary voters in Florida who say they support the tea party went for Romney.
Romney has become the stealth tea party candidate, endorsing the essence of the movement while remaining unburdened by its public label. This makes him the ideal tea party candidate for the general-election battle against President Obama.

Noting that illegal immigrants are a top source of anger for the tea party, Scokpol explains that Romney has declared “himself unalterably opposed to the Dream Act and any other benefits “rewarding” illegal immigrants,” including the big fence and draconian crack-downs on hiring and government benefits, with no amnesty for illegal immigrants, who should all “self-deport.”. As for health care reform:

…Romney has constantly declared his determination to get rid of ObamaCare the minute he moves into the White House. Of course, Romney’s health-care overhaul in Massachusetts, which he continues to defend, is essentially the same thing as Obama’s Affordable Care Act does: Both feature rules to curb private insurance abuses, state “exchanges” for people to buy private health plans and subsidiesfor Americans who cannot afford insurance. No matter; Romney just loudly promises to get rid of ObamaCare and assumes, probably correctly, that many in the tea party accept his pledge.

Romney has also hitched his star to the most draconian right-wing economic “reforms” that have been proposed, including:

When Gingrich surged in GOP primary polls, Romney endorsed Ryan’s budget plan, which promises to continue the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy, add new tax breaks for corporations and wealthy estate owners, and slash public spending on Medicaid, Medicare, welfare and college tuition assistance. In fact, Romney has gone well beyond Ryan’s proposals, issuing campaign documents that promise to slash non-defense spending to 20 percent of gross domestic product, or even as low as 16 percent. This would pull the federal government out of much of what it does to promote education and health, and to care for an aging population. No wonder the Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity and other ultra-right elite groups are falling in line behind Romney.

Romney will make centrist noises once he is nominated, warns Skocpol, but there are no reasons for believing he would govern with moderation:

…If he ends up in the general-election race, Romney’s campaign will rarely mention the tea party. While throwing occasional red meat to the conservative faithful, he will generally repackage himself as a centrist who knows how to grow the economy and create jobs. Some voters and commentators may even conclude that the “true Romney,” the moderate Romney, is reemerging and that he simply pandered to the right during the primaries.
Don’t count on it. Research shows that presidents strive to carry out the promises they make during campaigns. If Romney defeats Obama, he could take office backed by a Republican-led House and Senate, which would quickly send radical-right bills to his desk. A President Romney would sign them all — the Ryan budget eviscerating Medicare and Medicaid, a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts, harsh immigration crackdowns, the gutting of ObamaCare. Whatever his deep-down beliefs, he would be determined to overcome any lingering conservative skepticism.

“In Romney,” concludes Skocpol, “the tea party has found the ultimate prize: a candidate loyal to the movement’s agenda, but able to fool enough pundits and moderate voters to win the White House at a time when the tea party has lost broad appeal. Pushing the Republican Party to the hard right and denying Obama a second term have always been top tea party goals. In Romney, the movement has just the man it needs.”

Abby Rappaport’s “In Case You Were Underestimating ALEC’s Role” at The American Prospect provides a disturbing example of the far-reaching influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council on Republican state legislators, who eagerly do the bidding of big business.

Florida Representative Rachel Burgin recently filed a pretty typical bill for a conservative Republican, asking the federal government to lower corporate taxes. But there was one thing that made Burgin’s measure a little unusual: It began by stating the mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). That’s likely because Burgin’s bill had its origins with the corporate-funded nonprofit.
…The next day, Rep. Burgin quickly withdrew the bill hoping that no one had noticed and then re-introduced it 24-hours later, with a new bill number (HM 717), but now without the problematic paragraph. Nobody seems to have noticed until now.

The incident is instructive about ALEC’s ability to turn Republican elected officials into corporate puppets. For a more in-depth expose of ALEC’s adverse impact on state legislatures, check out The Nation’s excellent series, beginning with John Nichols’ “ALEC Exposed.”