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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Month: July 2013

Lux: Build a Movement that Fights for Working Families

The following article, by Democratic strategist Mike Lux, author of “The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be,” is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Those big headlines about the bankruptcy of Detroit were like a punch in the gut to those of us who grew up in working class in the Midwest, and they should sober anyone who cares about working families all across America. But the headlines alone don’t tell the whole story. When you look at the details about who will benefit, you notice that the bondholders will probably come out just fine, while the folks who will lose by far the most are the city’s pensioners and workers. Shocking, right? That is the kind of country we are living in right now, and you see it every time you look around. Here are two headlines from the Washington Post business pages the other day, lined up side by side on the page:
“Strong Earnings Send Stocks To New High”
and
“US Middle Class Still Suffering Amid Economic Recovery”
Detroit’s bondholder-friendly, worker/retiree-unfriendly bankruptcy, and the two headlines above tell the story of an economy — and a society — where the priorities are completely screwed up. This is not how you build a healthy sustainable economy. And remember, this is an economy that is officially four years into recovery, with a Democratic president who ran on a platform of fighting for the middle class. The fact that this economy is so lopsidedly in favor of the top 1 percent is not the result of a short term glitch in the economy; it is not something we will grow our way out of. Tinkering will not make the changes we need. Having success in electing a few more Democrats alone will not fundamentally alter these realities. We are going to have to build a movement that can be sustained for the long haul, and we are going to have to recognize that the short term legislative and electoral fights we need to fight are not going to be able to make the big changes that have to be made. Short term tactical wins are great, but it is not nearly enough, not even close. We are going to have to recognize the big things going on in the economy that must be addressed, the things that are foundational to the economic situation we find ourselves in.
The first foundational thing we have to understand is that we are living in an era where not only is wealth concentrated, but entire industries are becoming so concentrated as to be near-monopolies. The pioneering work of Barry Lynn in his book Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, and in numerous other articles written as a fellow at the New America Foundation, documents this trend — and its terrible impact on our entire economy and society — in industry after industry. Everyone knows that Wal-Mart has become the dominant retailer in the country, that Amazon dominates the book industry and other forms of online commerce, that a few banks have become Too Big To Fail, that there are fewer and fewer airlines. But what Lynn’s work has documented is how this trend toward consolidation, concentration, and near-monopoly power has taken over industry after industry, and how this fact has been crushing entrepreneurialism and has warped our economy in a hundred different ways. The DOJ stopped enforcing most of the anti-trust laws during the Reagan administration, and no administration since has picked up the task since. We are all paying the price, and it is an incredibly steep one.
The second foundational thing we need to understand is how the financialization of the economy is weakening the entire middle class. The Too Big To Fail banks are 30 percent bigger than they were in 2008, and the industry takes a higher and higher share of both total corporate profits and the entire economy all the time. Financial services as a share of the economy has tripled since 1950. Compensation in the financial industry used to be about the same as that of other industries, but since 1980, it has skyrocketed and is now 70 percent more on average. Financial services now make up more than 40 percent of all corporate profits in this country. What all this means is that a very small number of bankers is now hoarding more and more of the money circulating in the economy. And it’s not like they are investing in mom-and-pop start-ups, either: more and more of the money is going into speculative trades and overseas investment, and less and less into entrepreneurs trying to start a new business.
The third foundational thing is that we are stuck in a low wage economy, and the “recovery” isn’t doing anything to make that better. After steady and consistent growth in the 40 years after the New Deal, average wages compared with inflation have been pretty flat in the 40 years since. This recovery is the worst we have ever seen in terms of wage growth, because the new jobs that are being created are mostly low wage jobs. Median earnings have actually fallen 4 percent since the recession ended (since it ended!) Labor unions no longer have the bargaining clout to make wage gains; the minimum wage hasn’t gone up in six years; decent paying manufacturing and construction jobs are very rare. And in the meantime, inflation in college tuition, health costs, groceries, and utility rates doesn’t seem to be slowing much at all. You want to know the worst insult of all? It is government contractors that are creating more low-wage jobs than any other company in America — just what we need, our own government tax dollars driving down wages.
These three factors are killing the 99 percent. They explain why even in the midst of a four-year economic recovery, we still have way too many people unemployed and even more on the edge hanging on for their dear lives. The fact is that neither political party seems to want to do much about any of this. There are more Democrats who are willing to speak out, and the number is growing, but it is nowhere near enough — most politicians are stuck in short term tactical battles on issues that rarely get to the main point. President Obama is planning on doing a series of speeches, and the rumor is that they will take a populist tack. I hope so, but whatever he says isn’t coming soon enough, and is unlikely to do anything on these big topics that matter.
There are a few political leaders who are saying what needs to be said, thank goodness. Elizabeth Warren is so good that TV networks are taking down their own video feeds because she so embarrassed their reporters, and she keeps fighting for the middle class and against the wealthy special interests trying to rip them off. And there are some other fighters as well. But more Democrats need to be willing to take on the powers that be.
Mostly, it is going be those of us outside of government. We are going to have to build a movement that keeps fighting for a better economy for working families. It has happened before in American history, and will have to happen again. A friend of mine notes that when we look back on the 1960s, where people stood on civil rights is what people in politics were judged by. That was their seminal struggle, and they risked their lives to win the battle. 50 years from now, he notes, it will be where people stood on issues about breaking up the power of concentrated wealth. That is our generation’s ultimate struggle, and we’d better get to the barricades.


Political Strategy Notes

This is really great news for Democrats. the highly-regarded and well-connected Michelle Nunn is running for the Senate seat now held by Republican Saxby Chambliss, giving Dems their best hope for a 2014 pick-up — likely a marquee Senate race.
A new USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center poll has some interesting findings beyond the headline, including that 22% of men, but just 8% of women have considered running for office, as have 17% of whites, but just 8% of African Americans. But the survey indicates that the main reasons most don’t end up running for office include money, time and the nastiness of it all. The poll also cites “a close split, 42%-38%, on whether they see the government as an advocate or an adversary for them and their families. (The partisan divide: Republicans and independents view the federal government as an adversary while Democrats see it as an advocate.)”
Little Cheney is apparently flunking the carpetbagger test big time. I guess it was too much to hope she would get traction and divide the state GOP.
Dems face a very tough challenge in terms of holding their U.S. Senate majority in 2014, but there are some grounds for hope, as Jessica Taylor writes at MSNBC: “Republicans inherited a very friendly map, but they have failed to put any blue or purple states into play. Even in the red states, Republicans are mired in divisive primaries that pit Tea Party conservatives against establishment Republicans favored by the Washington elite. The party has failed to unite behind a candidate in any of the most competitive states they cite,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee communications director Matt Canter. “Democrats have had tremendous recruiting success in Iowa and Michigan, where Democrats now are the undisputed favorites. Grimes’ candidacy fundamentally changes the map, forcing Republicans to spend millions playing defense, and Democrats are confident that she can defeat McConnell. Democrats also believe that a Todd Akin conservative will emerge in Georgia and provide a pick up opportunity for the right moderate Democrat with an independent Georgia brand.”
Chris Matthews asks a good question: “Forty-one states had voter suppression bills introduced by Republicans last year. Do you think people are going to forget which party wanted them to be shut out from their democratic rights?”
This Pew Research Center study presents a number of important findings for Democrats, including: “Our research has also found a correlation between the amount of time Hispanic immigrants (regardless of legal status) spend in the United States and the share that identifies with a political party. While nearly two-thirds (63%) of Hispanic immigrants who have been in the U.S. at least 15 years identify with one of the two major parties, that share falls to 38% among those who have been in the U.S. for fewer than 15 years.”
Give it up for NC progressives, who are writing a new book on how to raise consciousness and fight Republican suppression. Partricia Murphy reports at the Daily Beast, and the photo accompanying her article reflects the growing spirit of resistance taking root in this key swing state.
Here’s one theory about why Nate Silver is leaving the New York Times for ESPN: “His entire probability-based way of looking at politics ran against the kind of political journalism that The Times specializes in: polling, the horse race, campaign coverage, analysis based on campaign-trail observation, and opinion writing, or “punditry,” as he put it, famously describing it as “fundamentally useless.” Of course, The Times is equally known for its in-depth and investigative reporting on politics.”
Tamara Keith’s “How Floor Charts Became Stars Of Congress” provides an interesting take on the increasing use of a new tool for political education: “Watch C-SPAN long enough, and you’ll see members of Congress using visual aids: big, brightly colored poster boards, known on Capitol Hill as floor charts…When you are in the minority, you have to find ways to get your message across because there’s no other way. You don’t have a bill that they’re going to hear. There’s no committee that will receive your suggestions,” [Florida Democrat Frederica] Wilson says.”
Well-intentioned that it is “middle-out” doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of excitement as a Democratic catch-phrase heading towards 2014.


It’s so sad it’s almost funny: Jennifer Rubin inadvertently provides the clearest possible illustration of the fact that the difference between GOP “Moderates” and “Conservatives” on basic electoral strategy is still 90 percent cynical PR.

More masochistic progressive readers of the Washington Post will have noticed that Jennifer Rubin has become a little less predictable lately. Her columns, instead of sounding like verbatim transcripts of press releases from the RNC, have more recently taken the side of the “moderates” in the GOP on issues like immigration and have presented various polemics against the self-destructive nature of the “extremist” current within the Republican world.
Ironically, however, Rubin’s attacks on GOP extremism actually provide a uniquely dramatic illustration of the fact that – in regard to basic electoral strategy — the difference between the moderates and conservatives in the GOP remains 90 percent cynical PR.
Back last December Ed Kilgore, J.P. Green and I wrote a TDS Strategy Memo where we emphatically argued the following:

The current split within the GOP isn’t between Tea Party extremists and “Establishment” moderates. It’s between one group of GOP extremists that wants to restore the Bush strategy of running parallel covert and overt agendas versus another group of GOP extremists that wants to openly assert a radical right-wing agenda.

Here’s what we said:

In the period leading up to and including the administration of George W. Bush, sophisticated conservative strategists (preeminently Karl Rove) perfected a “dual track” strategy of running two parallel political agendas. One track was an overt, “moderate” agenda designed for the press and general electorate It included slogans like “compassionate conservatism” aimed at softening media and public perceptions of “movement conservatism…
…At the same time, however, there was also a parallel covert agenda aimed at the religious and social conservatives who comprised a large section of the Republican base. This second agenda was executed by providing special high-level access for conservative base leaders, “below the radar” administrative and executive actions supporting conservative issues and policies and continual “dog whistles”–the use of coded words and phrases to assure the conservative base that deep down Bush and other Republican leaders were really “one of us.”
This strategy was successfully deployed first in 2000, when Bush managed to secure the universal support of the conservative movement during the presidential primaries, yet still competed aggressively with Al Gore for swing voters during the general election, without changing his policy positions at all.

Now here’s Jennifer Rubin in today’s Post criticizing Ted Cruz’s proud and defiant brand of extremism and explaining the alternative “moderate” approach.

In numerous Senate races over the last two cycles, conservatives like Cruz have backed the most extreme conservatives in primaries, only to see them crash and burn and/or exhibit views entirely out of step with their voters. Unfortunately, being forthright about extreme views is not a path to victory in most states.
In fact the Republicans who win are those who take the edge off the GOP stereotype, showing themselves to be reasonable, congenial and concerned about average Americans. They talk about conservative ideas but don’t necessarily label them conservative. They are forward-looking and optimistic, engendering support from young people. And they appeal to non-ideological voters who turn out only in presidential elections. And yes, they exude concern and camaraderie with non-rich voters by connecting their biography in some way with voters (e.g. a broken home, a self-made man, a personal struggle).
Those are the sorts of Republicans who win presidential races – in other words, pols unlike Ted Cruz.

Now Rubin’s great value as a conservative columnist is that, because of her uniquely superficial and self-absorbed perspective, she frequently offers an extraordinarily clear and direct view of the darker recesses of the conservative id.
The quote above is a perfect example. It offers such a proud and unapologetically manipulative strategy for essentially “conning” voters into voting Republican – a strategy completely untainted by any concern about actually adjusting conservative policies to help the young, the non-ideological and non-affluent with their real-world problems — that it cannot properly even be called cynical. It essentially asserts “Well of course winning elections is all about hiding “extreme” views, “taking the edge off” them, being “congenial”, “exuding concern and camaraderie”, with seeking sympathy with a hard-luck story or two. My goodness, what else could winning elections possibly be about?”
In a certain perverse way it is almost refreshing to see the “moderate” Republican strategy for winning elections expressed so clearly. Usually one has to hide a videocamera in a coatroom or wait for a confidential memo to be accidently made public to observe this kind of naked honesty.
But, while one can appreciate Rubin’s utter lack of discretion or guile, as we said in our December strategy memo, “It is simply a perversion of the English language to describe this strategy as “moderate” in any meaningful sense of the word.”


The Women’s Economic Agenda: Unmarried Women Focused on Critical Economic Issues

The following is cross-posted from an e-blast by DCorps and Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund:
Last week, House Democrats released a new policy agenda called “When Women Succeed, America Succeeds.” Their agenda is divided into three broad policy areas–pay, work and family balance, and childcare–with policies in each category aimed at addressing fundamental challenges in women’s economic lives.
While the ways in which American families earn income has changed dramatically over the last 30 years, the laws, assumptions, institutions, and structures that govern the economy have not. This has left many women on the edge–or struggling to keep up with demands at work and costs at home.
A new survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps and Women’s Voices. Women Vote Action Fund confirms that a women’s economic agenda could not be more timely or necessary. In this survey, we find that an agenda specifically focused on women’s economic issues is not only the right thing to do for American women; it is also good politics for Democrats.
The Democrats’ policy agenda is stronger and more motivating when it includes women’s economic policies. We tested a range of policies on pay equity, childcare, education, worker protections, and family leave. Those who heard the women’s policies are more likely than those who did not to say that Democrats are better on the economy, looking out for the middle class and looking out for women. This is especially true among key subgroups, including all women, unmarried women, and college-educated women.
Read about the policies that voters care about now in a new memo by Stan Greenberg, Erica Seifert, and Page Gardner.
Read about our survey results.
See the graphs of the survey results.
See the topline questionnaire.


John Kasich Can Win Ohio Again – if Dems Don’t Make an All Out Effort To Stop Him

The following article by John Russo, is cross-posted from Working Class Perspectives:
In November 2011, I published a New York Times op-ed entitled “How Obama Can Win Ohio Again.” Now, with my pundit credentials firmly established (sic), I am opining that Ohio Governor John Kasich will win reelection in 2014. This could play havoc with Democrats’ hopes for the 2016 Presidential election.
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are usually thought of as swing states that are gradually but decisively getting bluer. But the 2010 midterm elections were a watershed for Republican governorships in those states. Four right-wing Republicans came to power and immediately mounted formidable attacks on traditional Democratic supporters, including unions, blacks, and women. Major political struggles ensued in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, but with very different results. Following the 2012 Presidential election, where all four states went for Obama, those attacks continued, especially on issues of immigration, abortion, and same-sex marriage.
In Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio in 2011, rust belt Democrats counterattacked. Particularly important were mass mobilizations around collective bargaining changes and recall elections for state officials. While receiving most of the media attention, the Wisconsin actions did little but slow the state’s draconian labor law changes, though they did put Republican legislators on notice for the dangers of overreach. The same was true in Michigan, where changes occurred on a piecemeal legislative basis. The mobilization in Ohio was more successful, resulting in a stunning repeal of anti-union legislation, SB5. Since then, Governor John Kasich and Ohio Republican legislators have scaled back direct attacks on unions and collective bargaining.
This year, Republicans legislatures have once again gone on the offensive in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, while Kasich is playing a somewhat different game in Ohio. For example, after the 2012 Presidential election, Michigan Governor Richard Snyder extended the attack on organized labor and broke his promise not to enact a right-to-work law. Republican legislatures in all four states want to push their political advantage in hopes of turning at least two of these four rust belt states red in the 2016 elections. They are doing this by securing their base support on social issues such as abortion, immigration, and same-sex marriage while continuing their attack on unions and voting rights.
Kasich has taken a more arms length approach than fellow governors on wedge issues and stayed away from anti-union legislation. Several conservative Ohio legislators have attempted to push right-to-work legislation, but taking a cue from Kasich, Republican legislators did not provide legislative support for the initiative, and it died in Committee. No doubt, the last thing that Ohio Republicans want in 2014 is a repeat of the 2011 mobilization that brought together labor and community groups and defeated SB5.
While attacks on labor have decreased, Kasich is touting Ohio’s improving economy. At the 2012 Republican Convention, where Obama’s economic policies were being trashed, Kasich gave a speech touting all the economic improvements, tax cuts, and job creation in Ohio and bragging that Ohio was a great place to do business. Party leaders didn’t much like the speech, but Kasich’s “enterprise” approach made sense. Ohio has seen a substantial but uneven economic recovery, in part due, ironically, to the continuing benefits of the stimulus package and auto bailout and the growth of the oil and natural gas industry. The result has been that Ohio’s economy grew faster than the national average, and since 2011 the unemployment rate has fallen below the national average.
Even though that economic growth has primarily benefited whites, and minorities continue to lag in the current economic recovery, Kasich might have race on his side in 2014. In Ohio and elsewhere, Republican have pinned their 2014 election hopes on attracting white working-class voters who didn’t participate in the 2012 Presidential elections. Washington Post exit polls showed that about half of Ohio voters fall into this category, and 42% voted for the President. Nationally, only 36% of white working-class voters supported Obama. If Obama brought black and Latino voters to the polls in 2012, Republicans like Kasich hope that they can prevail in 2014 because minority voters won’t show up. Obama won’t be on the ticket, Ohio urban centers are being depopulated, and the Supreme Court has largely gutted the Voting Rights Act. All of that could depress minority turnout, making the white working-class vote statistically more important to Ohio Republicans.
Overall, Kasich’s strategy of avoiding major mobilizing issues and following traditional Republican fiscal conservatism has resulted dramatic increase in his approval ratings. So solid does Kasich appear that some potentially strong Democratic candidates, such as Richard Cordray, former governor Ted Strickland, and Representative Tim Ryan, have decided not to run against him. The Ohio Democratic Party has been left with a weak gubernatorial candidate, Ed Fitzgerald, a one-term Cuyahoga County Commissioner who some see as a position jumper. To make matters worse, the ODP is being led by the same apparatchiks whom many blame for the 2010 Republican sweep. That, in turn, led to redistricting that will make it impossible for Ohio Democrats to gain control the legislature in this decade.
So what could go wrong for Kasich? He must keep the most conservative elements of his party under control. Already this year, conservatives nationally and in Ohio have pushed laws that attack poor whites, seniors, and women. Cuts to food stamps and Medicaid primarily hurt whites, for example. In Ohio, 65% of households receiving food stamps and 61% of those on Medicaid are white. Also, despite widespread public support for same-sex marriage and less restrictive abortion policy, new Ohio Republican legislation dramatically restricts abortions. Republicans are also fending off challenges to Ohio’s Constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. Changes in voter registration, which would primarily affect minorities and seniors, could work against Kasich by sparking another round of organizing and resistance. Finally, a political scandal like the one that dogged Ohio Republican candidates in 2006 could help Democrats campaign on a clean up government message. One may be brewing over the lack of transparency in Kasich’s privatization of Ohio’s job development agency.
Taken together, these conservative attacks, potential scandals, and union fears of right-to-work legislation following a successful reelection could make Kasich vulnerable to a broad mobilizing effort. But only if Ohio Democrats can develop a strong economic and legislative message and tap into Ohio’s organizing culture. Absent this, it seems likely that Kasich will win Ohio again. And if other rust belt governors follow suit and take a more moderate approach in the short term, this could mean problems for Democrats in 2014 and make the 2016 Presidential election much more competitive in these crucial states.


Chait: GOP Morphs from Advocates of Obstruction, Gridlock to Party of Anarchism and Sabotage

From Jonathan Chait’s “Anarchists of the House: The Republican Congress is testing a new frontier of radicalism–governmental sabotage.” at New York Magazine:

The Republican Party has spent 30 years careering ever more deeply into ideological extremism, but one of the novel developments of the Obama years is its embrace of procedural extremism. The Republican fringe has evolved from being politically shrewd proponents of radical policy changes to a gang of saboteurs who would rather stop government from functioning at all. In this sense, their historical precedents are not so much the Gingrich revolutionaries, or even their tea-party selves of a few years ago; the movement is more like the radical left of the sixties, had it occupied a position of power in Congress. And so the terms we traditionally use to scold bad Congresses–partisanship, obstruction, gridlock–don’t come close to describing this situation. The hard right’s extremism has bent back upon itself, leaving an inscrutable void of paranoia and formless rage and twisting the Republican Party into a band of anarchists.
…The Republican strategy has transmogrified from a particularly ruthless version of legislative opposition into one in which incidents of reckless behavior–tactics like hostage-taking, say, or economic or political sabotage–become more frequent each passing month. After they won the midterms, giddy Republicans took their victory not just as a check on Obama but as a full abrogation of his presidency.
…The rational way to view these events is that Republicans have marginalized themselves. But the hard-liners see it differently. In their minds, every bill that passes is a betrayal by their leaders. They know that letting Democrats carry bills through the House has been the leadership’s desperate recourse to avoid total chaos, and since chaos is their leverage, they are now working feverishly to seal off that escape route. This year, an increasing proportion of conservative media is given over to conservative activists’ extracting pledges from Republican leaders not to negotiate with Democrats….Conservatives have increasingly come to see the entire process as a morally unacceptable compromise of their ideals. “The idea of Boehner’s negotiating with Pelosi over how to proceed is implausible,” a recent story by Jonathan Strong, a National Review reporter, noted as an aside. “It would telegraph weakness.”
…In the actual world, the economy is recovering and the deficit, currently projected at half the level Obama inherited, is falling like a rock. Yet messianic Republican suicide threats in the face of an imagined debt crisis have not subsided at all. The swelling grievance within the party base may actually be giving the threats more fervor. The reign of the Republican House has not yet inflicted any deep or permanent disaster on the country, but it looks like it is just a matter of time.

In short, there is no realistic possibility of congressional Republicans negotiating in good faith on anything of substance. Given that regrettable reality, It should be clear to all thinking swing voters that the only way out of the approaching disaster is a resounding defeat for the GOP and it’s embrace of anarchy and sabotage.


Creamer: GOP Entrapped in ‘Box Canyon’ by Its Own Ideologues

The following article,by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” is cross-posted from HuffPo.

Despite warnings of some of its wisest strategists, the GOP is racing headlong into a political box canyon — and potential political marginality.
On issue after issue, the GOP has veered far from the mainstream of the American electorate. Worse, they are swimming upstream against a tide of changing demographics — and an electorate with ever-increasing numbers of young voters from the “millennial generation” that polls show is the most progressive generation in half a century.
So far, at least, efforts to “rebrand” the GOP have simply collapsed. And even though most Americans are primarily concerned with jobs and the future of the economy, the GOP leadership in Congress insists on focusing on cultural issues that pander to a narrow segment of the electorate — and are downright unpopular.
They seem to be practicing the politics of “subtraction” — which is not a good plan if you want to achieve an electoral majority.
A quick look at the issue landscape tells the tale.
Women’s Reproductive Rights. Women constitute more than a majority of the voting electorate and poll after poll shows that women want the right to make their own reproductive choices without interference from predominantly white, male lawmakers. But the GOP has made its campaign to ban abortion job one. And for many GOP lawmakers and activists it’s not just reproductive choice — it’s banning contraception. Really — in 2013.
Whether in state legislatures like Texas, or the House of Representatives in Washington, instead of jobs, the GOP focuses on passing laws that require doctors to insert unwelcome, medically unnecessary ultra-sound devices into women’s vaginas.
Recently, a GOP consultant advised Republicans to never utter the word “rape” — but they can’t help themselves. You’d think the spectacular collapses of the Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock Senate campaigns in 2012 would have made the point. But just this week, the sponsor of Texas’ restrictive abortion law, Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, explained that after being raped, that “rape kits” are used “clean out” a woman and help protect her from pregnancy. No, Jodie, “rape kits” are used by police to collect evidence to prosecute rapists — not as a primitive form of Plan B — which you presumably oppose.
Immigration Reform. The fall elections sent an unmistakable message that the GOP will be unable to compete for votes from Hispanics and Asian Americans — two fast-growing components of the new American electorate — if they continue to oppose immigration reform.
Some in the Senate got the message. But there is every bit of evidence that many House Republicans will continue to worry more about their narrow Tea Party base than the long-term ability of the GOP to compete.
Earlier this week, Public Policy Polling (PPP) published a poll of voters in the districts of seven GOP lawmakers who represent competitive districts with sizable Hispanic or Asian American populations. The poll found that, by almost two to one, voters said they would be less likely to vote for the GOP incumbent if they voted against immigration reform.
Just as importantly, by equal numbers, they said that if the GOP blocked immigration reform, they would be less likely to vote for Republicans generally.
That means that if Republicans in the House block immigration reform with a path to citizenship for immigrants, they could likely lose seven of the 17 seats the Democrats need to take over the House. And there are many additional districts where the poll results would likely be the same.
Blocking immigration reform could cost the GOP its House majority, but still — notwithstanding the political cover provided them by pro-immigration evangelical and business groups, and many GOP senators — you see large numbers of House Republicans who are dead set against it.
Climate Change and the Environment. Polling shows that very few issues move “Millennials” more than the threat of climate change. But many in the GOP are oblivious, or down-right anti-science — or they are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Big Oil. The result: they are driving away millennial voters in droves.
Millennials and the public at large support legislation to cut down on greenhouse gases, both because they are concerned with public health and because they correctly understand that renewable energy development underpins the economy of the future.
Gun Violence. As if reproductive choice wasn’t enough to drive away women voters, most GOP lawmakers have sold their souls to the NRA and oppose commonsense legislation to limit gun violence.
Of course there are big exceptions, like Senator Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania who noticed his state includes massive numbers of suburban women and decided to co-sponsor the Toomey-Manchin bill to create universal background checks.


Silver: Don’t Bet on the ‘Metronome’ Theory of Presidential Elections

From Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight post, “The White House is Not a Metronome“:

In a series of articles last week, the writer Megan McArdle asserted that Republicans have about a 75 percent chance of winning the White House in 2016. “Mostly, the White House flips back and forth like a metronome,” she wrote. “Voters just get tired after eight years.”
As other commentators, like Henry Farrell, have pointed out, one can find almost any pattern in presidential results if one looks hard enough. By manipulating the definition of incumbency, the time frame that one examines or the measure of success (e.g., the popular vote or the Electoral College), or by selectively excluding “outliers” or exceptional cases, the potential for cherry-picking and overfitting is high. (In layman’s terms, an overfit statistical model is one that is engineered to match idiosyncratic circumstances in past data, but which is not an accurate picture and makes poor predictions as a result.)
…as Jonathan Bernstein writes, looking at wins and losses in such a binary way is probably not the best way to evaluate the evidence. Many United States elections, as in 2000 and 1960, have essentially been ties, where the most minor variations in the flow of the campaign might have changed the winner of the Electoral College or popular vote. With this in mind, it is better to examine margins of victory.
Incidentally, this is close to a universal principle of statistical analysis. It’s almost always more robust to evaluate the margin by which a given outcome occurs than to look at the variable as black or white, win or loss, hit or miss, on or off.

In conclusion, says Silver, after much wonky analysis:

…Popular presidents might seek and win another nomination, while unpopular ones might retire or be rejected by their party. It could be that voters react differently to parties seeking third terms in the era of the 22nd Amendment than they did in the years before it, and that the incumbent party’s batting average will wind up being meaningfully higher or lower than 50 percent in the long run. But we have little empirical evidence for this yet.
Instead, some humility is called for when interpreting the evidence. On the eve of an election — when the polls have become very reliable, and we know the identities of the candidates and something about the state of the economy and the mood of the country — it is possible to make relatively bold and precise forecasts about the outcome. But none of this applies three and a half years in advance.

Add to all that the fact that we have entered an uncharted reality, in which one party is increasingly defined by unhinged political nihilism, and it becomes even more clear that all bets should be off — until a couple of days before election day.


Political Strategy Notes

At Bloomberg, Michael C. Bender reports on what may be a crack the the GOP’s wall of voter suppression. GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner criticizes the high court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the majority ignored the Act’s provision exempting state and local jurisdictions from oversight if they comply with anti-discrimination rules. The fact that jurisdictions covered by the Act failed to qualify for that provision “is evidence that the VRA’s extraordinary measures are still necessary,” said Sensenbrenner, 70, who was House Judiciary Committee chairman in 2006, when Congress reauthorized the law.
Michael Tomasky has the skinny on the tanking of the phony I.R.S. “scandal,” which got bumped off the headlines by the Trayvon Martin verdict. But the really big implosion of the GOP’s manufactured scandal starts today, when Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general who produced the original report at Darrell Issa’s request returns for a proper grilling by Rep. Elijah Cummings, who has new evidence. Expect evasive sputtering.
The Fix’s Chris Cillizza notes that “the 112th Congress passed just 561 bills, the lowest number since they began keeping these stats way back in 1947,” with the usual false equivalency explanation for gridlock. How about an comparison showing which party’s members vote with the other party more in the house and senate votes? Don’t hold your breath waiting for those numbers.
It’s not just the Liz Cheney thing, notes John Whitesides in his Reuters.com post “Analysis: Republicans could see more bruising Senate primaries.”
Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley have a fun post up at The Crystal Ball, “Rinse and Repeat: 10 classic political ads that 2014 candidates should (or shouldn’t) copy.”
Also at The Crystal Ball, Sean Trende, Senior Elections Analyst for RealClearPolitics, responds to a post by TDS co-founding editor Ruy Teixeira and Crystal Ball senior columnist Alan Abramowitz criticizing Trende’s argument that Republicans can offset demographic trends favoring Democrats by appealing to white voters who are increasingly disenchanted with Dems.
The presidents of three unions, the Teamsters, UFCW and UNITE-HERE have written to Senate Majority Leaders Reid and House Minority Leader Pelosi calling for specific fixes to the Affordable Care Act. They want to eliminate the provision that “creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week” and the provision that makes employees enrolled in non-profit health care plans ineligible for the subsidies grated those in for-profit company health plans. Of course the Republicans are spinning the letter to suggest unions want to repeal Obamacare. But the letter calls for “common-sense corrections that can be made within the existing statute.”
Don’t miss Wonkblog’s Ezra klein and Sarah Kliff excellent report on “Obama’s last campaign: Inside the White House plan to sell Obamacare.” Among the observations: “…the effort will have to go far beyond engineering turnout among key demographics. The administration needs to build more insurance marketplaces than they ever expected, and create an unprecedented IT infrastructure that lets the federal government’s computers seamlessly talk to the (often ancient) systems used in state Medicaid offices. They need to fend off repeal efforts from congressional Republicans — like Wednesday’s vote to delay the individual mandate — and somehow work with red-state bureaucracies that want to see Obamacare fail…”
Meanwhile, David Callahan writes at Demos ‘Policy Shop’ that “Freedom From 9-to-5: Obamacare a Boon to Entrepreneurs.”
Just what the U.S. Senate needs another arrogant theocrat.


Dionne: Deal on Presidential Nominees a Big Win Vs. GOP Obstructionism

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr. disagrees with those who say the deal Dems cut to avoid major filibuster reform amounts to a cave to Republicans.
At the National Journal, for example, Jill Lawrence argues that the deal is flawed because “Senate Republicans are letting President Obama fill a few important slots in his administration, but they haven’t given an inch where it really counts–on the federal judges who could define his legacy for generations.” But Dionne takes a look at the larger picture and observes:

For all the railing against dysfunction in the nation’s capital, very little actually happened to overcome it — until this week. That’s why the agreement to begin putting an end to Senate filibusters of presidential nominees is a very big deal. It is an acknowledgment that the only way to stop political bullying is to confront the bully.
On its face, the accord allowing seven of President Obama’s executive-branch nominees to gain confirmation without having to reach 60 votes would seem to be a climb-down by Democrats. They shelved plans to change the Senate rules and to bar filibusters of the president’s appointments to agency and Cabinet jobs.
But this understates the magnitude of the victory. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell would have let the nominees through only if the Democrats promised not to alter the rules for the rest of this Congress. Yet such a capitulation would have opened the way for future filibusters….Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stoutly refused to sheath the sword of a subsequent rules battle…

Dionne notes that Republicans blocked confirmation of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “because they were still mad that the agency, which expands consumer power over financial institutions, had been created in the first place.” Dionne quotes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who candidly observed in a rare display of humilty “Cordray was being filibustered because we don’t like the law…That’s not a reason to deny someone their appointment. We were wrong.”
Cordray’s confirmation with 66 votes represents “a genuine shift in the balance in Washington toward consumers and away from banking interests,” says Dionne. He credits Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Tom Udall of New Mexico for pressing their colleagues and energizing progressives.
Dionne sees the deal as a “major advance for those who want government to do its job.” He warns, however, that “it will take continuing pressure to keep the obstructionists at bay.”