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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Month: July 2013

Tomasky: White Voters Likely to Bail Out of GOP

At The Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky comments on the “new consensus among most Republicans and conservatives” that they need not fear the rapidly growing Latino vote because they’ll have even more white voters in the bag. As Tomasky explains:

…There’s an assumption embedded in the argument that no one disputes: namely, that whites will always be as conservative as they are now and will always vote Republican in the same numbers they do now. This assumption is wrong. White people–yep, even working-class white people–are going to get less conservative in coming years, so the Republicans’ hopes of building a white-nationalist party will likely be dashed in the future even by white people themselves.

Tomasky notes that Republicans are counting on the “less-educated white vote,” and notes of a Brookings Institution/Public Religion Research Institute poll on immigration attitudes:

…It’s the first poll I’ve seen that breaks the white working class into four distinct age groups (65-plus, 50 to 64, 30 to 49, 18 to 29) and asks respondents attitudes about a broad range of social issues. And guess what? White working-class millennials are fairly liberal!…Click on the above link, scroll down to page 44, and look at the charts. On most questions, white working-class respondents in all three other age groups yielded results that were pretty similar to one another’s, but the youngest cohort was well to their left.
White working-class young people back gay marriage to the tune of about 74 percent. Another 60 percent say immigrants strengthen the United States (the totals for all three other age groups are below 40 percent). About 56 percent agree that changes immigrants have brought to their communities are a good thing. Nearly 40 percent agree that gays and lesbians are changing America for the better (more than double the percentages in the other three age groups).

Tomasky adds that “only 22 percent of white working-class millennials are evangelical, compared with 32 percent as a whole and 42 percent of seniors. And an amazing 38 percent of the group call themselves religiously unaffiliated.” Further,

All in all, not your father’s white working class. Sure, their views will become a bit more conservative as they age and have kids and own property. More will start attending church, undoubtedly. But the striking differences between their views and those of the three older groups are consistent, they are uniform, and they are pretty vast. (The poll did not ask about their attitudes toward African-Americans, about which I’m curious; I would expect less though still meaningful departure from the older cohorts.)
…These young people grew up in the America of Will and Grace and the relentlessly multi-culti Sesame Street just as surely as children in Berkeley and Takoma Park did. They won’t vote like their counterparts who grew up in Berkeley and Takoma Park, but they–and certainly their kids–just aren’t going to be carrying around a lot of the racial resentments that their grandparents shoulder every day.

By the time the 2020s roll around, concludes Tomasky, “Finally, the Republican Party will be the party of true equality, having equally alienated every racial and ethnic group in America.” And if Dems smartly court these young white voters, that day could come even sooner.


DCorps: What Swing Voters Are Saying About Republicans in Congress

The following article is by Erica Seifert
As Congress returns from recess this week, we would like to believe that it will finally get down to the business of governing — but that would be too optimistic, even for us. Instead, the Republican Congress remains unprepared to address the real issues facing students, working women, and underemployed families. Most likely, the GOP’s top priority will be grinding government to a halt.
Republican leaders may believe that American voters don’t notice, or hope that their constituents will blame President Obama and the Democrats for the dysfunction in Washington. But if they do, the GOP will have severely underestimated the electorate.
Our recent battleground survey in the most vulnerable Republican districts and focus groups in two Republican-controlled states find that the GOP’s approach to “un-governing” has marginalized the party, even in red states.
Take these examples:

–In our recent battleground survey, 69 percent of voters in the most vulnerable Republican districts said that they wanted their representative to work with President Obama to address our problems. Just a quarter (26 percent) of voters in these districts would prefer that their representative try to stop the president from advancing his agenda.
–In the same survey, two of the top concerns among voters in the most vulnerable Republican-held districts were that the Republican Party is “so uncompromising that Washington is gridlocked,” and that the GOP is “only focused on blocking Obama’s agenda.”

In our focus groups, voters in Ohio and Florida were clear about their displeasure with the status quo. Here are some of the terms they used to describe the Republican Party and its leaders:

“Corrupted.”
“Con show.”
“Inflexibility.”
“Argumentative.”
“Too concerned about fighting with the Democrats.”

And when it comes to the Republican Party’s approach to the economy, they say:

“Not willing to work together.”
“Unwilling to compromise.”
“Being inflexible.”

Looking to the future, Republicans are going to have a very difficult time with young people. Here is what young voters in Florida think about the GOP:

“I think they’re just so far off the path that most Americans or people who generally identify themselves as Republicans look beyond.”
“They’re just so stuck.”
“I think it also goes back again to they’re just so… they have to do the opposite of what the Democrats are doing like it doesn’t matter like what it is, like they have to fight so they have to do the opposite. So if they want this then they’re going to want this.”
“This is a prime example of Republicans fighting just to fight, in my opinion.”

Clearly, the GOP is in need of a course correction. With even red-state voters expressing frustration at the nonstop obstruction, Republicans will continue their inflexible approach at their own peril.


Boycotts, Protests Needed to Energize Progressive Politics

At Daily Kos Meteor Blades flags an interesting Alternet post by Robert Becker. The title and subtitle alone merits a “hell, yeah!”: “Whatever Happened to Using Boycotts and Constant Protests in the People’s Fight Against Govt. and Corporate Power?: Never before have so many activists commanded so many technological tools to corral like-minded millions into cohesive action.” As Becker explains,

Where are the momentous, consciousness-raising boycotts of yesteryear that rose up against injustice, bigotry, or plain stupidity, to advance legal, civil and workers’ rights? Once upon a time high-profile uproars, some lasting years, brought down presidents, ended major wars, and remade national American priorities and values. Is such spirited activism, vs. the more legalistic modes now notching gains for marriage equality, as obsolete as quill pens?
With few exceptions, say Monsanto, the paucity here of policy-changing anti-corporate uprisings is all the more astonishing considering the moneyed octopus swells. And this dominance seems undeterred by challengers having, at our very fingertips, a limitless, low-cost communication network. Never before have so many activists commanded so many technological tools to corral like-minded millions into cohesive action. And yet, while trivial, celebrity inanities go viral, serious class and economic “viruses” endure uncontested.
What calamities remain that could trigger direct protests, by American consumers or street insurgents alike? Did tactical repression of Occupy scare off activists? Is corporate media ownership a reform death knell? Are we held captive, isolated, equating online petitions with defiant action?

Becker has a lot more to say and he may have hit on the missing ingredient in progressive politics, the long-neglected strategy and tactics that have become limp from disuse, but which are still powerful levers for compelling political change. Becker flags a nifty website, “Boycott Owl,” which lists dozens of boycotts, and adds,

Why not boycott obnoxious zealots who worship at the Citizens United altar, like rightwing casino magnet Sheldon Adelson (Las Vegas Sands or Venetian Macau Ltd.)? Why not singe the villainous Koch Bros. by not consuming Brawny towels or Angel Soft paper goods, Lycra clothing or Stainmaster rugs? When does Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy get stung for condemning gay rights as unnatural and immoral, inviting fire and brimstone from an angry God? How long would BP’s Arco stations thrive (or its Castrol, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, or Wild Bean Café brands) were enough consumers to drive, bike, or walk another block – and just say no?

Good questions all. Becker also notes an excellent how-to post at Community Tool Box on “Organizing a Boycott.” Of course, boycotts should always be coordinated with the appropriate labor unions to insure that workers’ concerns are properly addressed. But Becker is clearly right that, in this post-Citizens United era, the Koch brothers and other powerful corporate interests which are lavishing money on right-wing causes and candidates need to pay a price — and organized progressive consumers are in a position to make it happen.


Political Strategy Notes

At last some action to at least weaken Mitch McConnell’s abusive veto power. In his NYT article, “Democrats Plan Challenge to G.O.P.’s Filibuster Use,” Jeremy T. Peters reports that “The rule change they would seek is intended to be limited. It would allow senators to continue to filibuster legislation and judges, but not appointments to federal agencies or cabinet posts.”
And McConnell’s re-election is by no means a sure thing, as Micah Cohen explains at FiveThirtyEight.com.
At The Fix Chris Cillizza explains why Dems are in serious need of young congressional candidates: “In 2011, the average age for a Democrat in the House/Senate was 60.8 years old while the average Republican was 56 years old.Compare that to ten years ago — the 107th Congress — when the average age was 55.7 for Democrats and 54.7 percent for Republicans.”
While Cillizza’s article sheds no light on which states are doing better or worse at recruiting younger congressional candidates, there are indications that some Democratic parties are in crisis. In Georgia, where Obama got 46.9 percent in 2012, for example, Jim Galloway reports in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the state Democratic party had only $15K banked at the end of May, which “won’t quite buy you a new Hyundai Elantra.”
Also writing in the new York Times, Cornell University economics professor Robert H. Frank reports on the success the Germany has had with their no-nonsense commitment to infrastructure investment and the folly in postponing needed infrastructure repairs in the U.S.: “The Germans are investing in infrastructure not to provide short-term economic stimulus, but because those investments promise high returns. Yet their undeniable side effect has been to bolster employment substantially in the short run…The Germans didn’t become bogged down in debate over stimulus policy, and they didn’t explicitly portray their infrastructure push as stimulus. But that didn’t hamper their strategy’s remarkable effectiveness at putting people to work. The unemployment rate in Germany, at 5.3 percent and falling, is now substantially lower than in the United States, where it ticked up to 7.6 percent last month. (By contrast, in March 2007, before the financial crisis, the rate in Germany was 9.2 percent, about five percentage points higher than in the United States.).”
The GOP’s filibuster dictatorship in the Senate notwithstanding, Greg Sargent says it well at the Plum Line: “The problem isn’t generic “Washington gridlock.” It’s the House GOP.”
The Crystal Ball’s Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley see a GOP net gain in the Senate in 2014, but a takeover is a little more problematic. At this juncture they see Dems with 48 safe seats, vs. 47 for the GOP, with 5 toss-ups. If Brian Schweitzer runs in MT and Michelle Nunn runs in GA, the picture brightens considerably for Dems.
Texas Governor Rick Perry’s decision not to run for re-election in 2014 has kick-started buzz excitement for Democratic rising star Sen. Wendy Davis as a possible replacement. But Davis faces the possibility of stiff competition from San Antonio’s Democratic Mayor Julian Castro. Either way, The extremely well-financed Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott seems to have the GOP field all to himself, which gives any Democratic candidate a hard way to go, reports Sean Sullivan at The Fix.
TNR’s Nate Cohn explains why “Winning More White Voters Won’t Save the GOP.” Says Cohn: “Reversing the anti-GOP trend among non-southern white voters will probably require changes in messaging or policy, probably by moderating on both economic and cultural issues. The Electoral College encourages the GOP to make gains across a diverse swath of swing states, and they need to push back against the equally diverse Democratic attacks that have hobbled the GOP: the attacks on cultural issues that hurt Republicans around Denver, Washington, and Columbus; the depiction of the GOP as the party of the elite, which has hurt the GOP just about everywhere; and yes, the challenges immigration reform poses in Las Vegas, Denver, Orlando-Kissimmee, and Miami.”
Michael Tomasky flags a clever new Koch brothers television ad designed to whip up opposition to Obamacare. At the Daily Beast Tomasky argues that Dems need to get equally-creative to confront the GOP’s latest assaault on the Affordable Care Act. “The pro-reform side isn’t going to get very far with statistics. They need their own army of sympathetic mothers.” He cites the impassioned pro-ACA presentation of Stacy Lihn, mother of a toddler with congenital heart disease at the Democratic convention last year as an excellent template.


Students Face Lifetime of Debt

The following article is by Erica Siefert, Senior Associate, GQRR and Democracy Corps
On Monday, federally subsidized student loan rates doubled because Congress failed to pass a permanent solution to relieve our debt-stricken students (or even to extend the current rates until they could agree on a plan). There are very few policy issues more deserving of our representatives’ attention.
As we hear in our Democracy Corps focus groups and surveys, middle-class and working people desperately want Congress to address the cost of higher education. Students who can afford the high and rising costs of board, tuition, and fees — which now average $22,261 at public schools and $43,289 at private schools — do not need to worry about student loan interest rates doubling. This is only about those families who cannot afford to pay for the rising cost of higher education.
At one point or another in our careers, James, Stan, and I have all taught at colleges or universities, so this is a topic about which we feel strongly. As James recalled in It’s the Middle Class, Stupid!, he was able to pay his law school tuition out of pocket in the 1970s, even though he was not wealthy. The result, James noted, was that state colleges and universities “functioned as a kind of equalizer.”
That is no longer true. The average all-in cost of private colleges in the U.S. is almost equal to the median household income (which hovers around $50,000). But as James noted, it was not always this way. Our very smart friends at the Economic Policy Institute note that while median household income increased 10.9 percent from 1983 to 2013, the average cost of public school tuition rose 130 percent — leaving many families in the dust, and very much reliant on student loans.
Add to this the ongoing economic stagnation for middle class and working Americans, and we are looking at a crisis that could be crippling. We all know that young people face diminished job prospects out of school. But this crisis is not limited to 20-somethings. It also hits those in their 30s and 40s — who pay their student loans from stagnant or diminishing incomes — and those in their 50s and 60s who struggle to pay mortgages, save for retirement, and put their children through school.
Next week, Democracy Corps will release a serious report on recent focus groups we conducted in Orlando and Columbus for the Economic Media Project. One of the things that struck us in these groups was how much we heard about the student loan crisis — and participants did call it a crisis:

“People coming out of college are getting off on the wrong foot. My husband has $58,000 worth of student loans and isn’t making even close to what he needs to be making to pay it off. They’re saying that you need all this education to get these jobs to make more money but yet you come out of college with all this debt and you can’t ever catch up.”
“I have plenty of student loans that I’m paying. I have a degree. I’m working as a bartender not by choice; not saying I love it but I make more money doing that than any position I could get with my degree so I pay my student loans as a bartender.”
“I can’t go to school because my credit is bad because of my previous school loans but I can’t afford to pay them. There’s not really anything I can do to better my education because I can’t afford it and I can’t get a loan.”
“It’s important to have an education but the cost …I wonder is it worth it?”
“When you come out of school you’re $50,000 or $100,000 in debt. You’re lucky if you’re making, you know, $30,000 or $40,000 a year. That’s paying your bills. That’s paying your rent. You’re not paying off your debt so you’re never getting ahead.”
“It’s more for the financial reasons where, you know, we have a student loan crisis basically where you’re getting into so much debt to get that degree, to get that better job, that that is becoming cyclical where you are working just to pay off your student loans so it’s almost, it’s a double-edged sword.”

When Congress returns after the holiday week, I hope they commit themselves to the students who would like to return to school next fall, but are having a hard time budgeting for it.


And here’s an interesting response to the problem: Oregon’s creative approach to college student debt

(CNN) – A bill currently awaiting Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s signature could radically change the way in-state public university students pay their way through college.
Passed unanimously by the Democrat-controlled state Senate Monday after it had already cleared the also Democrat-controlled House, the bill would create a program called “Pay Forward, Pay Back” by which students wouldn’t pay a dime at the time of study at any public institution for higher education in Oregon. Instead, students who qualify as Oregon residents would sign a binding contract that would require they pay a percentage of their post-college income back to the state every year for up to 24 years…
The percentage of income paid back would vary based on the type of institution attended but would be in the neighborhood of three percent.


Memo From Third Way: The Four Fiscal Fantasies

Editor’s note: We are pleased to present this memo from Third Way.
An earlier post in TDS criticized the characterization of The Center for American Progress in a Washington Post op-ed that was written by the authors of this memo. In response, Third Way requested that we publish the full memo on which the op-ed was based and which they feel presents their argument in a more substantive and nuanced way. We are happy to comply.

Memo from Third Way: The Four Fiscal Fantasies
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Jon Cowan, President; and
Jim Kessler, Senior Vice President for Policy
RE: The Four Fiscal Fantasies

Democrats are at a crossroads. There is growing pressure on the party from many
liberal advocates to curtail further efforts at long-term U.S. fiscal reform. They argue that any real entitlement changes should be shelved for at least the remainder of Obama’s presidency, thus relegating a grand bargain to the J.C. Penney sales bin.
They note correctly that our short-term fiscal situation has improved, that there
has been a welcome pause in health care cost inflation, and that our economy still has far too many un- or under-employed. Thus, their alternative: a return to the agenda of Obama’s early first term when the economy was in free-fall–another round of massive spending on job-creating investments, new and expanded entitlements, continued high deficits, and a substantial tax increase.
A portion of this argument is now moot: a large-scale grand bargain died with the
fiscal cliff deal, which eliminated the main forcing mechanism–we won’t soon again
see trillions of dollars of tax breaks expire and automatic spending cuts to
discretionary defense and domestic programs occur on the same day. Without these hammers, a grand bargain has about as much life as the Monty Python parrot.
But just because we aren’t likely to see one large fiscal deal does not mean that
Democrats should stop pursuing fixes to our safety net programs. In fact, the liberal case is built on four fiscal fantasies that we describe below. If Democrats heed this policy advice and walk away from fixing entitlements, it will be a catastrophic policy and political mistake–for the party, the middle class, and the country’s future.
Read the full memo HERE:
Below are two interesting critical responses to the Third Way memo:
Dean Baker
Jon Chait


Kathleen Geier: Wendy Davis shows why progressives need to nurture the grassroots

Those of us who want to build a more progressive America would be well-advised to pay relatively less attention to presidential races and more attention to politics at the state and local level. Here are a few reasons why:
1. Because state and local races tend to have lower turnout, you get more bang for your activist buck. A relatively small but well-organized and committed group of activists can make a big difference in a low-turnout election. And because local campaigns are cheaper than national ones, your donations can be more powerful. Think about it: to whom was your marginal political dollar worth more in 2012, Barack Obama in his campaign for president, or Wendy Davis in her campaign for the Texas state senate?
2. Mass political movements with the most staying power and popular support often are enacted first at the grassroots level. Only later do they work their way up the political food chain. Case in point: the modern American conservative movement. In the 50s and 60s, conservative activists tended to focus on local issues, such as school board elections, as this and other histories of that movement document. Only after over 20 years of intense activism did the conservatives finally get their dream president, Ronald Reagan.
3. One way to ensure you’ll have strong progressive candidates for national office (the presidency and the U.S. House and Senate) is by electing strong progressive candidates at the state and local level. That’s where those national candidates are recruited from, after all.
4. Lots of really bad stuff is happening at the state level these days, and progressives should be doing everything they can to prevent it
5. Believe it or not, there are some good things happening in the states, too! The Obamacare state exchanges, for example — when Democrats control the statehouse, these exchanges can potentially work out very well indeed (in California, for example, insurance premiums are surprisngly affordable).
6. Building a strong progressive movement on the state and local level is particularly important during times like the present, when we have divided government and GOP obstructionism runs amok….One reason for the gridlock is that partisan gerrymandering has caused the GOP to punch above its weight in the House. In many states, the state legislatures are responsible for drawing up the Congressional map….
If you’re a progressive and you aren’t doing so already, I strongly urge you to start reading local political blogs and to get involved in issues you care about at the local level. You may be able to make far more of a difference than you realize.


Jamelle Bouie: What explains the Republican Party’s intransigence?

even if you could explain GOP extremism through gerrymandering, there’s nothing about a highly ideological approach to politics that requires intransigence. You can have a strong attachment to your beliefs and show a willingness to compromise for the sake of advancing them.
What’s missing in the Republican Party is that willingness to compromise for anything, even if it benefits the particular interests of individual lawmakers or the interests of the party writ large. And this seems to stem from an attitude that emerged during the 1994 elections and has only grown since–the idea that conservatives aren’t just opposed to liberals but that they’re at war with liberalism. It’s why Republicans have dismantled key norms governing Congress and other institutions (see: the filibuster and the 60-vote Senate), and have taken to opposing everything associated with the Democratic White House. If immigration has a chance, it’s because it isn’t identified with President Obama. And insofar that individual Republicans see it as such, they tend to be opposed.
Changing the method of election won’t fix this problem. Indeed, it’s hard to say what will. The losses in 2008 and 2012 have only strengthened conservatives and deepened the conviction that compromise is verboten. The real question is whether the GOP is sustainable in this form. If it isn’t, then something will have to give. If it is, then we’ll be waiting on reform for a long time.